The questions
1 Who scripted the first royal Christmas broadcast in 1932?
2 What landmark stands on Mount Lee in Griffith Park?
3 What bird has two species, common and ocellated?
4 What were targeted in the Baedeker Blitz?
5 In horse racing, what result comes between a dead heat and short head?
6 What Washington’s army crossed on 25 December 1776?
7 Who was tied to the underworld for eating pomegranate seeds?
8 Whose Christmas Rappin’ was one of hip-hop’s first hits?
What links:
9 Bascinet; cuirass; cuisse; gorget; greave; pauldron; sabaton?
10 Sophie Germain; Mersenne; Eisenstein; strong; twin; emirp?
11 Bossy (1); Naughty (2); Sunshine (4); Scatterbrain (12); Inventor (38)?
12 Christina Rossetti; yesterday; Gustav Holst and Harold Darke?
13 Bothnia; Riga; Finland?
14 Alien hand; Alice in Wonderland; Jerusalem; Stendhal; Stockholm?
15 Bryan Adams; Smashing Pumpkins; Taylor Swift; Prince?
The answers
1 Rudyard Kipling (for George V).
2 Hollywood sign.
3 Turkey.
4 Historic English cities (Exeter, York, Norwich, Bath, Canterbury).
5 Nose.
6 Delaware River.
7 Persephone (Greek myth).
8 Kurtis Blow.
9 Parts of a suit of armour.
10 Types of prime number.
11 Little Miss characters (Roger and Adam Hargreaves).
12 In the Bleak Midwinter: wrote poem; midwinter (winter solstice) 2018; set to music.
13 Gulfs of the Baltic Sea.
14 Names given to psychological syndromes.
15 Adding a decade: Summer Of 69 song; 1979 song; 1989 album; 1999 song/album.
• Eaton’s Modern Ready Reckoner: Essential Everyday Trivia, by Thomas Eaton, is published by Blink at £9.99. To order a copy for £8.79, go to guardianbookshop.com.
