1. Which musician released an album called The Prodigal Son in 2018 - possibly his last, as he was born in 1947? He wrote three of the eleven songs.Garry Gillard > quizzes > Magus 1
9 March 2019
1. Which musician released an album called The Prodigal Son in 2018 - possibly his last, as he was born in 1947? He wrote three of the eleven songs.
Ry Cooder. >
2. Which prominent French intellectual was born a Sephardic Jew in Algeria in 1930?
< Jacques Derrida. Who knew his original name was Jackie?
3. Who has his own personal entrance to Fremantle Cemetery?
He's dead, so he doesn't actually use the entrance himself. The Cemetery Board didn't like Bon Scott fans going through the cemetery to get to his memorial (it's just a plaque) so they actually built a gate in the wall of the cemetery in Carrington Street just a few metres from it, and the staff direct the fans to go outside and along the street to get to it. >
4. Tim Winton has published a dozen novels. What is the title of the first (1982)?
< An Open Swimmer. There's a chapter about it in my book.
5. What Australian film begins with Noni Hazlehurst emerging from a swim to reveal that she is not only naked but also apparently in the last stages of pregnancy? And she really was.
Waiting (Jackie McKimmie, 1991). Hazlehurst gave birth at some point during the making of the film. >
6. Which street in Perth WA was named for the man who wrote the sentence, 'It was a dark and stormy night.'?
Edward Bulwer-Lytton was Secretary of State for the Colonies 1858-59. Bulwer Street is named after him. He also wrote a novel called Paul Clifford (1830). My question was slightly incorrect. That's only the beginning of the first sentence of the novel, which in full is splendiferous: 'It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.'
7. The title of Paul Greengrass's 2018 film, 22 July, doesn't give much away about its subject. Who is it?
Anders Behring Breivik, the alt-right psychopath who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011. I just watched the film last night. >
8. BWV 1079 is J.S. Bach's 'Musical Offering'. To whom was it offered?
Frederick II of Prussia. The King gave Bach a very difficult theme on which to improvise a three-part fugue on the spot. When Bach was able to do that, the King asked him to do it again in six parts. Even JS couldn't do that and said he would have to send it to him in writing. It took him a couple of months.
9. Where is the original headquarters of the Open University, one of the UK's biggest? It was established in 1969.
Milton Keynes, Bucks, a 'new town' so designated 23 January 1967.
10. What is the name of the country that has a total land area of only 261 square kilometres and a capital called Alofi?
Niue. I was there in 1984.
Garry Gillard | New: 10 March, 2019 | Now: 15 March, 2019