Holy Water

 Venice Quiz 

Fortunately for Pope Benedict, his job description as the Vicar of Rome doesn't include emulating any of the water based greatest hits of his employers. But while the Pontiff isn't required to walk, part or even turn it into wine, this weekend his duties require him to glide across some water in a gondola during his visit on Sunday to Venice. Obviously Papa B 16 is no ordinary tourist, so that members of the Bancali Society of Oarmasters, the trade union of Venice's 425 gondoliers, has announced it will be waving its members' normal ninety euros fee. This is just as well for Vatican coffers as the Pope will be ferried in a large dogaressa gondola which requires the muscle of four gondoliers to propel. What remains unclear is whether the four strong crew will include Giorgia Boscolo, who last year became the first ever female licenced Venetian gondolier. Delighted by the prospect, Highly questionable has taken Venice as the theme of today's quiz.

 Venice Themed Quiz Questions 

 1  What is the name of the title character in Shakespeare's play 'The Merchant Of Venice'?

 2  After which famous traveller is Venice's airport named?

 3  What was the title given to the most senior elected official in Venice during the period of more than a thousand years in which the city was a powerful independent state?

 4  Which English actor starred as the lead protagonist in the film 'Death in Venice', which was based on the novella of the same name by Thomas Mann? 

 5  Who wrote the opera 'The Gondoliers'?

The answers to our Venice themed quiz will be published along with the next Highly Questionable blog post.

 Colour Green Quiz Answers 

The answers to the Highly Questionable colour green themed quiz are:-

 1  The US Masters is the prestigious annual golf tournament which culminates in the presentation of a green jacket to the winner of the event.

 2  Denmark was the country from which the United States offered to buy Greenland following World War II. 

 3  Science & nature is the name of the category for which a player secures a green wedge after successfully answering a question in the board game Trivial Pursuit.

 4  Libya is the country whose current national flag consists purely of the colour green.

 5  Copper objects turn green over time. 

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Barack XXII

 Colour Green Quiz 

Barack Obama, who joins JFK and twenty other US presidents in boasting Irish roots, is set to visit the Emerald Isle in under three weeks. Quite handy to be in a position to point to such ancestry when 12% of the electorate in the United States identify themselves in census returns as being Irish-American. Handier still to embark on a high profile visit to the Irish family homestead in the run up to the 2012 elections that will decide if Obama will be returned to the White House for a second term. The current President will visit both Dublin and the village of Moneygall in County Offaly from where his great, great, great grandfather, on his mother's side, Falmouth Kearney emigrated in the 1780s. Given that the Highly Questionable blog emanates from County Down in Ireland, we're looking forward to the sheer theatre of the occasion when Obama arrives with a security entourage that will surely outnumber Moneygall's population of three hundred souls. Meanwhile in anticipation of the shenanigans to come, today's Highly Questionable quiz takes green, that most Irish of colours, as the theme of today's quiz.

 Colour Green Quiz Questions 

 1  Which prestigious annual golf tournament culminates in the presentation of a green jacket to the winner of the event?

 2  After World War II the United States offered to buy Greenland from which country?

 3  In the board game Trivial Pursuit, a player secures a green wedge after successfully answering a question from which category?

 4  Which country's national flag consists purely of the colour green? 

 5  Objects made from which commonly used element turn green over time?

The answers to our colour green quiz will be published along with the next Highly Questionable blog post.

 Colour Black Quiz Answers 

 1  Amy Winehouse was the singer who recorded the multi Grammy award winning album 'Back To Black'.

 2  Anna Sewell wrote 'Black Beauty'. 

 3  Seven is the points value attached to successfully potting the black ball in a game of snooker.

 4  Theophile Steinlen was the artist who created the iconic 'Black Cat' Parisian poster of 1896 (pictured in yesterday's post) that is often mistakenly attributed to Toulouse Lautrec.

 5  Twenty-one is the maximum permissible score in the card game blackjack. 

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Curse Of The Sequel

 Colour Black Quiz 

As cinemas near you prepare to be boarded later this month by Johnny Depp swashing and buckling for the fourth time as Captain Jack Sparrow in the latest offering from the 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' franchise, Highly Questionable offers you a quiz whose theme is the colour black. The reasoning for this is simple enough - we enjoyed setting the red themed quiz yesterday and were looking around for a vaguely topical platform to follow up in similar fashion with a different colour, when an advert for 'On Stranger Tides' (the title of the upcoming Pirates IV) caught our eye. With the Black Pearl being the name of Sparrow's ship, we recognised destiny when it was staring us in the face and pounced!            

 Colour Black Quiz Questions 

 1  Which singer recorded the multi Grammy award winning album 'Back To Black'?

 2  Who is the author of 'Black Beauty'?

 3  What is the points value attached to successfully potting the black ball in a game of snooker?

 4  Which artist created the iconic 'Black Cat' Parisian poster of 1896 (pictured above) that is often mistakenly thought to be the work of Toulouse Lautrec? 

 5  In the card game blackjack, what is the maximum permissible score?

The answers to this quiz will be published along with the next Highly Questionable blog post.

 Colour Red Quiz Answers 

 1  Warren Beatty was the male lead in the 1981 film 'Reds'.

 2  Nine countries border onto the Red Sea. 

 3  Mick Hucknall was the lead singer in the British band Simply Red.

 4  Delhi is the Indian city in which the Red Fort is located.

 5  Boston is the US city where baseball team the Red Sox play their home games.
Colour Red Quiz Answers Trivia Extra
 1  'Reds' didn't only star Warren Beatty, he also co-wrote it and won the 1981 Best Director Oscar for that aspect of his multi involvement in the film. In it, he portrayed American journalist John Reed who had chronicled and commented on events surrounding the Russian revolution in his book 'Ten Days That Shook The World'.
 2  In alphabetical order the countries bordering on the Red Sea are Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan &  Yemen.
 3   British soul band Simply Red's frontman Nick Hucknall has in recent years followed his twenty five year music career with a range of food and drink ventures that have included his co-ownership with Johnny Depp of the Man Ray restaurant in Paris and the cultivation in Scilly of wine marketied under his Il Cantante label.
 4  The Red Fort, in what is now Delhi, was the official home of Mughal emperors until the middle of the nineteenth century.
 5   Fenway Park, home stadium of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, will celebrate its centenary in 2012.   

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Seeing Red

 Colour Red Quiz 

May Day once more witnessed the traditional rallies held in cities around the world to celebrate the international labour movement. These events, designed to evoke the spirit of workers' rights, are historically rooted in commemorations to mark the Haymarket massacre in Chicago, which in 1886 saw police kill demonstrators pressing for an eight hour working day. To mark the occasion, Highly Questionable is drawing on the association between organised labour and the colour red as the inspiration for the theme of today's quiz. Interesting as the Olympic stories recently featured on the blog are, we're taking a break from them to return to our five question themed quiz format.            

 Colour Red Quiz Questions 

 1  Which American actor took the male lead in the 1981 film 'Reds'?
 2  How many countries border onto the Red Sea?
 3  Who was the lead singer of the British band Simply Red?
 4  World heritage site the Red Fort is located in which Indian city? 
 5  The Red Sox baseball team play their home games in which US city?

The answers to this quiz will be published along with the next Highly Questionable blog post.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 13 Answer 

Munich, became the second German city to host the Olympics when it held the 1972 Games, so following in the footsteps of Berlin where the 1936 Olympic Games were staged.

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Bringer Of Olympic Darkness

Hitler & Spiridon Louis

 Olympics Photo Quiz 13 

 Background 

Berlin had been due to hold the 1916 Olympics before World War I forced their cancellation. By 1931 Germany once more found itself within the bosom of the international community so that in that year Berlin was awarded the 1936 Games ahead of Barcelona's bid. Dark forces lurked, then strutted, as they planned dismal futures for both cities. By 1933 Hitler was in power in Germany, but despite unease in some quarters about the Nazis' racial policies, whispers of a boycott of the Berlin Games came to nothing. Spain would be absent from the event as it's civil war cranked into deadly gear and the people of Barcelona in particular would come to feel the full punitive force of the Franco led victors of that conflict. It was Hitler who declared the official start of the Berlin Games at the 1936 opening ceremony, before receiving, in what to the modern eye looks like excruciating irony, an olive branch from Spiridon Louis, the Greek winner of the first Olympic marathon at the 1896 Games in Athens.            

 Olympics Photo Quiz 13 

Aside from Berlin, which is the other German city to have hosted an Olympic Games? 

The Answer will be published along with the next Highly Questionable quiz and associated blog post.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 12 Answer 

Muhammad Ali was the iconic sportsman who lit the Olympic flame at the start of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Ali, fighting under his previous name of Cassius Clay, had won a gold medal for boxing at the 1960 Rome Games, before embarking on a tempestuous career, that at it's peak, was to see him become probably the most famous human being on the planet.

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Bringer Of Olympic Light

Yoshinori Saki

 Olympics Photo Quiz 12 

 Background 

Arguably the most poignant of Olympic moments took place when the nineteen year old runner Yoshinori Sakai lit the flame at the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Games. Born in Hiroshima on the day the city was devastated by an atomic bomb, he stood as both a universal symbol of hope and an emblem for Japan's reemergence into the international community.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 12 

Which iconic sportsman, himself a gold medal winner in 1960, lit the Olympic flame at the start of the 1996 Atlanta Games? 

The Answer will be published along with the next Highly Questionable quiz and associated blog post.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 11 Answer 

Natalie Du Toit was the South African swimmer who, having lost a leg in a 2001 motor cycle accident, participated in both the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics in 2008.

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com

Olympic Golden Girls

Gertrude Ederle

 Olympics Photo Quiz 11 

 Background 
Women were banned from participating at the first Olympics of the modern era held in Athens in 1896, and a key strand to the story of the Games since then has been their long battle for equality as competitors. Slowly female involvement increased as more women's events became part of the Olympic programme at each Games, but even by the 1948 London Olympics only ten per cent of the athletes competing were female. One of the main forces in their progress to gain increasing Olympic recognition were the athletic performances of a wave of women each of whose achievements helped challenge and overcome prevailing stereotypes as to what was right and proper for members of 'the fairer sex.' One such was the American swimmer Gertrude Ederle. Having won three medals at the 1924 Paris Olympics she was on the public radar but what made the sporting and wider world really sit up was her swim across the English Channel two years later. At that time only five people - all men - had successfully completed this feat, which was regarded as the swimming equivalent of climbing Mount Everest and viewed as simply beyond women. At nineteen years old she confounded the nay sayers by not only swimming the Channel but by doing so in a time that was more than two hours faster than the fastest of her male predecessors.              

Olympic Swimming

Early editions of the Olympics saw open water used for swimming competitions, with the sea in the Bay of Zea and the River Seine respectively providing the venues at the 1896 Athens and 1900 Games.
London 2012 Olympic Swimming

Swimming is a sport were women have achieved equality with their male counterparts at the Olympics, with the total of 34 available swimming gold medals at London 2012 divided on the basis of 17 apiece for men and women.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 11 

What is the name of the South African swimmer who, having lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, participated in both the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics in 2008? 

The Answer will be published along with the next Highly Questionable quiz and associated blog post.

 Olympics Photo Quiz 10 Answer 

Iranian Hossein Rezazadeh was the athlete who at the 2004 Athens Games lifted the heaviest weight ever made at the Olympics when he clean and jerked 265.5kgs.

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com