The MSE Towers Christmas Quiz – the ANSWERS

The MSE Towers Christmas Quiz – the ANSWERS

On Tuesday I published the questions I put to the MSE Towers team at our annual Christmas party quiz. If you’ve not read it, then try your luck there before reading the answers below.

Round 1: What year did it happen in the 90s

There is one answer for each year 1990-1999, no year is duplicated.

1. The Channel Tunnel opens
2. Princess Diana dies in Paris
3. The Summer Olympics are held in Atlanta, Georgia
4. Nelson Mandela is released from jail
5. John Major leads the Conservatives to a General Election victory over Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party
6. Blur beats Oasis in the battle of the bands when Country House reaches number 1 in the charts ahead of Roll With It
7. Google is founded
8. Freddie Mercury and Robert Maxwell die
9. The Grand National is cancelled after a false start
10. Britney Spears hits number 1 with Baby, One More Time

Answers to Round 1: What year did it happen in the 90s:

1. 1994
2. 1997
3. 1996
4. 1990
5. 1992
6. 1995
7. 1998
8. 1991
9. 1993
10. 1999

Round 2: The Martin Round

This round has a proud tradition. All are questions I set without needing to reference research. You can probably tell a lot about me because of it!

1. What is Picard’s Borg name?
2. Who is on the back of a £50 note? NB: this is the question I got wrong on CBBC show ‘Hacker Time’ – luckily I got the rest right and ‘escaped’!
3. What is the current year… in the Jewish calendar?
4. Which is the only letter in scrabble all SIX vowels can be put after to form an allowed (SOWPODS) two letter word?
5. Who were the three Kings who reigned in England in 1066 after Edward the Confessor?
6. What is the Kobayashi Maru?
7. What do you call the second in command of a Roman Century?
8. How many months of the year are allowed at Scrabble (SOWPODS)?
9. Who died first: Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun or Peter the Great?
10. Which of the following words is derived from the Greek for Pebble Worm

A) Anaconda B) Crocodile C) Conger Eel D) Iguana

NB. This was the £250,000 question on Who wants to Be a Millionaire that Angela Rippon and I decided to ‘take the money’ instead of answering.

Answers to Round 2: Martin’s Round

1. Locutus
2. Matthew Boulton or James Watt
3. 5775
4. M
5. William, Harold and Edgar Atheling
6. The Star Trek academy test which was deemed unwinnable until Kirk won (by changing the programme, ie, cheating)
7. Optio
8. Three – March, May, August,
9. Attila the Hun died 428 (Genghis Khan died 1223, Peter the Great in 1725)
10. B. Crocodile

Round 3: News and Sport Round

1. What is the shortest individual race in the Summer Olympics?
2. What was the exact offence Oscar Pistorius was found guilty of?
3. What is the men’s 100m running world record?
4. Name the consumer minister and the shadow consumer minister?
5. What group were England in for the men’s football World Cup round robin?
6. Which country became the 18th to join the Eurozone in 2014?
7. What’s the difference between running SPECIFICALLY the 400m at an outdoor track to an indoor track?
8. In which city did George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin get married?
9. What’s the maximum possible break at snooker?
10. And we’d done news and sport, so what better way to finish than with weather… at what temperature does water freeze… in fahrenheit?

Answers to Round 3: News and Sport Round

1. 50m freestyle swimming
2. Culpable homicide (1 point) – if you said manslaughter, half a point
3. 9.58 seconds
4. Jo Swinson and Stella Creasy
5. Group D
6. Latvia
7. Outdoors is run strictly in lanes, indoors you break after the first bend and then run together
8. Venice
9. 155 after a free ball and potting the black to start. It’s never been done in tournament play but has in an exhibition match
10. 32

Round 4: the Movie Round


Answers to Round 4: the Movie Round

1. Superman
2. Jarhead
3. 127 Hours
4. Borat
5. Rambo
6. Scarface
7. Karate Kid
8. Napoleon Dynamite
9. Sherlock Holmes

Let me know how you got on below.