Solutions for the 1999 quotations quiz
1. "Ouchi!" yelled the umpire with great gusto.
Clue: By someone who went to a Gilbertian island, but not Utopia.
Solution: Arthur Grimble (A pattern of islands). They were the Gilbert
and Ellice islands. Colin Bell was the first to get it. Other guesses
included Peter Tinniswood, Macdonald Frazer, Gerald Durrell and
(after the clue) Robert Louis Stevenson.
2. "Saunders, do you know what Dr Aberford means by the lower classes?"
Clue: His only famous novel is historical. This is not it.
Solution: Charles Reade (Christie Johnstone). The famous novel is "The
Cloister and the Hearth". A toughie this.
Katy Edgcombe got it after the hint.
Kazuo Ishiguro and Bulwer Lytton were also offered.
3. 'Our beloved sister, Diana... her unfinished work which she now can never
finish...'
Clue: For once, the plants were not really to blame.
Solution: John Wyndham (Trouble with lichen). This is not about hordes
of aggressive lichen attacking humans. Martin Hardcastle got there
first, but many others also identified it. Meredith was the sole
wrong guess, unless you count a semi-frivolous Orwellian "Keep the
aspidistra flying" in response to the clue.
4. Sweet poet, hired for birthday rhymes.
Clue: This often describes a type of Motion.
Solution: Jonathan Swift (Directions for a birthday song).
Before the clue, the wrong guesses included Byron, Pope
and Dryden.
Tom Körner interpreted the clue (swift motion, ho ho)
correctly, whereas
others thought it suggested Browning or T.E. Brown motion, or maybe
Betjeman.
5. "Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum: hasn't he got lovely
legs?"
Clue: All gas and gaiters.
Solution: Anthony Trollope (Barchester Towers). All about clergymen,
like the television series. Alan Davies was the first to get it. Dickens
(several times) and Dorothy Parker were the wrong guesses.
6. Do you realise the magnitude of the fixed stars?
Clue: A tale of politics, revolt and cannibalism.
Solution: Evelyn Waugh (Black Mischief). Virginia Knight was
the first of several to spot it. Wodehouse was also offered.
7. In the meantime the Pyrot case, having been presented to the
Supreme Court...
Clue: French birds are involved.
Solution: Anatole France (Penguin Island). Tom Körner
got it, and pointed out that the TQA (Teaching Quality Assessment)
exercise operated on similar principles. Jules Verne and Balzac
were other possibilities.
8. THE DOME.
Clue: Somewhere between Yorkshire and Belgium.
Solution: Charlotte Bronte (Villette).
Gregory Sankaran was the first to get it, once the clue was released.
It might also have been by Wells (a very popular guess) or Poe.
9. Disappointingly, no-one knows why it is called the Devil's Dyke.
Clue: There's a chiel among ye taking notes.
Solution: Bill Bryson, Notes from a small island. Gareth McCaughan
was the first to identify this. It was also blamed on
Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and Graham Swift.
10. ...the pure mathematicians are perhaps the guiltiest of the lot...
Clue: The author later became Master of a Cambridge college.
Solution: H. Bondi, Assumption and myth in physical theory.
This was the only one that defeated everyone. Before the clue,
it was wished on G.H. Hardy, Peter Medawar and W.W. Sawyer. After it,
various masters and non-masters such as J.I.M. Stewart, Peter Swinnerton-Dyer,
C.P. Snow, Hodge and Atiyah were suggested.
11. There is to be a twenty-year ban on novels set in Oxford or Cambridge...
Clue: More French birds, but these ones are dead.
Solution: Julian Barnes (Flaubert's parrot). The parrots in the novel
are definitely deceased. Gareth McCaughan got this without the clue,
others with it. It was also attributed to one of the Amises, or Lodge.
12. 'No,' said Professor Finniston. 'All our departments got daggers.'
Clue: A now-retired academic.
Solution: Malcolm Bradbury, Cuts. Alan Davies got it. Everyone else
seemed to think it was by David Lodge (who is isomorphic), or Kingsley Amis,
Tom Sharpe, C.S. Lewis, ...
The overall winner was Alan Davies, who was last seen in Burma having
his teeth done (yes, really). Apparently he was impressed by the
bridge-work available on the river Kwai, or maybe he just likes
Burmah filling stations.
J.R.P.
17/8/99