Scores - Quiz 18 : Motley

Venkatesh - 1 (Cambridge Footlights)

Saravanan - 2 (Bofors, Cambridge Footlights)

Answers - Quiz 18 : Motley

1. Undesirable positions in battle or warfare.

Pic 1 shows the route of King Pyrrhus of Epirus (an ancient Greek state), a strong opponent of early Rome, during the Pyrrhic war (280-275 BC). Inspite of defeating Rome at Heraclea (280 BC) and Asculum (279 BC), the Epirean casualties amounted to vast numbers. This is an extract from Plutarch's report -

"The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him."

The report is often quoted as "Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone," or "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.", thus the term Pyrrhic Victory.

Pic 2 shows a Mexican Standoff from Reservoir Dogs. It is used as a popular substitute for a stalemate or a confrontation where neither side can win and is portrayed as two or more opponents with guns drawn and ready, creating a very tense situation.

Pic 3 shows Cadmus of Phoenicia who, according to legend, founded Thebes. The phrase Cadmean Victory is attributed to his decision to send his companions to slay a dragon snake guarding a spring from which he needed water for the city. He lost them all and eventually had to venture the task himself. Although Cadmus eventually proved victorious, the victory was at the cost of lives of those who were to benefit from the new settlement.

2. Bofors

Pic 1 shows Alfred Nobel who while heading Bofors, helped transform it from an iron and steel firm to an international arms manufacturer.

Pic 2 shows Ottavio Quattrocchi who is the middleman associated with the Bofors Scandal of India during Rajiv Gandhi's tenure.

3. Bajaj Discover's The Power of One Litre Ad series

The map points to a. Magnetic Hill or Gravity Hill, Leh, b. Jamboor, Gujarat and c. Mattur, Karnataka. These are the three places (among the many on their website) shown in the '100 kms from here ...' ad series for Bajaj Discover. The person in the picture is Rahul Bajaj.

4. Winning hands down

According to phrases.org.uk, jockeys need to keep a tight rein in order to encourage their horse to run. Anyone who is so far ahead that he can afford to slacken off and still win can drop his hands and loosen the reins - hence winning 'hands down'.

5. Cambridge Footlights

Pic 1 shows John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle of Monty Python.

Pic 2 shows Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.

Pic 3 shows Emma Thompson.

They were all members (at different times) of this theatre group in the early part of their careers.

Quiz 18 : Motley

Here's the next set. 5 questions.

1. The first pic depicts the proceedings of a war. The pic below is a still from Reservoir Dogs. The third pic is a painting depicting a Phoenician prince. Identify the commonality.

2. How are these two figures connected ?

3. Connect

4. What phrase is said to owe its origin to a practice similar to Aamir's pose in Rang De Basanti followed by some jockeys in horse racing ?

5. What institution / group is common to the six people (the three highlighted in the first pic and the other three) ?

Have fun !
Zed

Scores - Quiz 17 : Name The Film

Venkatesh - 4
Gokul- 5

Answers - Quiz 17 : Name The Film

1. Bronyenosyets Potyomkin (The Battleship Potemkin). A 1925 silent film by the Russian Sergei Eisenstein. The still shows the ground-breaking 'Odessa Staircase' sequence where Czarist soldiers massacre Odessans. Many films pay homage to the scene - The Godfather and The Untouchables to name two.

2. Rear Window. A 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. The still shows the view from Jeffries' (Stewart) window.

3. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. A 1988 animation-cum-live action film by Robert Zemeckis. Bob Hoskins as the private eye and Roger Rabbit can be seen in the still.

4. The Score. This 2001 film featured the first (and only) joint appearance of Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro on screen. Edward Norton co-starred and the trio can be seen in the still.

5. Persona. A 1966 Ingmar Bergman film featuring Liv Ullmann (his perennial favourite) and Bibi Andersson.

6. Yellow Submarine. This 1968 animated film was based on the album of the same name by the Beatles and their animated personae can be seen in the still.

7. North by Northwest. A 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The film has its climax set on Mount Rushmore (Jefferson and Roosevelt can be seen in the background) .

8. Blade Runner. This 1981 film by Ridley Scott starred Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer. A commerical failure on release, it has since become a cult favourite and is especially noted for the dystopian environs of Los Angeles set in 2019.

9. Bonnie and Clyde. This 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the bank robbing, gun touting couple who operated during the Great Depression. Bonnie and Clyde is considered a landmark film in that it broke many of the prevalent taboos and was popular with the younger generation. Among the films it inspired was Natural Born Killers.

10. The Misfits. This 1961 John Huston film is now memorable for having been the last completed film of two icons of cinema - Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Gable died 10 days after filming (he suffered a heart attack attributed to the harsh conditions while filming). Within a year and a half, Monroe died of a drug overdose. The film features another matinee idol, Montgomery Clift and the trio can be seen in the picture.

Quiz 17 : Name The Film

Hi,

Here's the next set. Identify the movie from the still.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Have fun !

Zed

Answers : Quiz 16 - Borrowing

1. Murder resulting from notions of superiority

Row 1 - Friedrich Nietzsche postulated his concept of a 'superman' or 'overman' (Übermensch) in his Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Row 2 - Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb, known as Leopold and Loeb, believed themselves to be Nietzschean Supermen who could commit a "perfect crime". They kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks. Before the murder, Leopold had written to Loeb: "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."

Row 3 - Still from the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Rope' where John Dall and Farley Granger kill a fellow student out of notions of superiority and also, to commit the perfect crime. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky has a principal protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov plots to kill a pawnbroker believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.

2. The Periodic Table

Column 1 - Solitaire, Octave on a keyboard and Pāṇini

Column 2 - Dmitri Mendeleev was inspired to create the Periodic Table from the three influences mentioned above. Solitaire provided the visual basis upon which he would construct his Periodic Table. The recurrence of properties for every eight elements (Periods) was an idea he borrowed from the John Newlands' Law of Octaves which in turn was inspired by the musical concept of Octaves. The structuring of elements was a tribute to Pāṇini's (Sanskrit Grammarian from Vedic times) work Ashtadhyayi (Eight Chapters), a treatise on Sanskrit Grammar.

3. Virtual Celebrity

Row 1 - William Gibson, the famous cyberpunk writer and the cover of his novel Idoru where he theorizes the concept of a virtual celebrity or idol. The book's narrative, set in a dystopian future, features a rockstar Rez who expresses interest in marrying a synthetic personality named Rei Toei.

Row 2 - nVidia and model Adrianne Curry have teamed up to create the world's first real-time, virtual celebrity.

Row 3 - Adrianne Curry's likeness used to generate the virtual celebrity.

Quiz 16 : Borrowing

Hi !

This quiz is on the borrowing of concepts or ideas or notions or acts from something or someone and their translation into art or reality. They are basically connect questions and the level separators (double black lines) are only there to indicate the direction of borrowing. For the first and third sets, there are 2 level separators and the direction of borrowing is from top to bottom. For the second set, there is 1 level separator and the direction of borrowing is from left to right. The answer I'm looking for is the concept being borrowed (sets 1 & 3) or what resulted out of it (set 2).

1.



2.



3.

Have fun !

Zed

Answers : Quiz 15 - Historical Paintings

1. The Great Fire of London, 1666
2. Tipu Sultan, 1799
3. Destruction of Pompeii due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, 72 AD
4. Guy Fawkes caught in the cellar while attempting to execute the Gunpowder plot, 1605
5. Vasco-da-Gama landing on the shores of Calicut, 1498

Scores : Quiz 15 - Historical Paintings

Prithvi - 2

Scores : Quiz 14 - Food Etymologies

Ajay - 4
Vasanth - 2

Quiz 15 - Historical Paintings

Hi,

This one's on paintings depicting famous events.

1. Name the event.



2. Identify the personage being stabbed by an employ of the British army.




3. Which cataclysmic event is depicted in this painting ?




4. Sometimes things don't go to plan. What is shown in this painting ?




5. Name the occasion.




Have fun !

Zed

Answers : Quiz 14 - Food Etymologies

1. Blood Mary
The cocktail is supposedly named for either of two women :

a) Queen Mary I of England (pic 1) who succeeded in restoring England to Roman Catholicism but in doing so, had 300 heretics burned at the stake. This gave her the moniker 'Bloody Mary'.

b) Mary Pickford (pic 3), influential Canadian born Hollywood Actress who founded United Artists along with D W Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. She was also one of the founding 36 of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which awards the Oscars.

The 2nd pic shows the ghost or witch from folklore, Bloody Mary who was believed to appear in the mirror when called three times.

2. Tandoor

The cuisine 'Tandoori' (pertaining to the Tandoor) gets its name from Tandoor, which is a cylindrical oven used in cooking and baking.

3. Dom Perignon

The préstige cuvée of Moet et Chandon (now under LVMH), the brand got its name from the 17th century monk of the same name. He made invaluable contributions to the quality of Champagne wine and over the years, the invention of sparkling Champagne has been attributed to him.

4. Marie / Maria Biscuit

Marie is actually a generic type of sweet biscuit made of wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla flouring. It was created by the bakery Peek Freans in London in 1874 to commemorate the marriage of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia to the Duke of Edinburgh. Peek Freans had a controlling interest in Britannia Industries in the 19th century and Britannia have continued to use the name Marie.

5. Pizza Margherita

Rafael Esposito, considered to be the inventor of the modern pizza - the Margherita, named it in honour of Queen Margherita of Savoy, Queen of Italy between 1878 and 1900. He baked three different pizzas for the King and the Queen during their visit to Naples. Today it is one of the three official variants of the Neapolitan Pizza variety, the other two being Pizza Marinara and Pizza Margherita Extra.

Scores : Quiz 13 - Sculptures

Mahesh - 5
Vasanth - 6

Answers : Quiz 13 - Sculptures

1. Piccadilly Circus, London
It's a statue of Anteros, the Greek God of requited love and its presence was meant to symbolize the selfless philanthropic love of the Earl of Shaftesbury for the poor. It's often mistaken for Eros.

2. Shoah / Holocaust
Located at the foot of Mount Herzl on the mount of remembrance in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Memorial is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off."

3. The Thinker by Auguste Rodin
Placed in the Musée Rodin in Paris, this sculpture was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the gates of Hell. It has since come to represent the intellectual in repose.

4. Nike, the Greek Goddess of Strength, Speed and Victory

5. Pietà
Michelangelo's work found in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome is also the only one signed by him. It represents the Virgin Mary cradling a dead Jesus. Any representation of this (in any art form) is referred to as Pietà.

6. Karl Marx and Matthew Engels
Found in Szoborpark aka Statue Park in Budapest.

7. Reclining Figure by Henry Moore

Quiz 14 - Food Etymologies

Hi,

1. These three images give the possible origins of the name of which drink ?




2. What device does this illustration depict ?



3. Whose statue is shown in the picture ?




4. What was created to honour the occasion when these two personages got married ?

5. Which culinary invention was named after this person ?

Have fun !

Zed

Scores : Quiz 12 - Oscars

Venkatesh - 5
Gokul - 7
Saravanan - 5

Quiz 13 - Sculptures

Hi !

Oscars. Now Sculptures. It isn't the shape of things to come ! Noticed it only now. Anyways, it's 7 questions this time on famous statues and sculptures.

1. At which famous landmark would one see this winged archer ?


2. Of what is this sculpture intended to serve as a reminder?


3. Identify the sculpture and name the sculptor.

4. Which figure from Greek mythology does this sculpture depict ?

5. Identify the sculpture.

6. Who are the two comrades depicted in sculpture ?

7. Name the sculpture and the sculptor.

Have fun !

Zed

Answers : Quiz 12 - Oscars

1. Bob Hope
Hosted the Academy Awards 18 times from the 40s upto the 70s.

2. She was the first Indian to receive an Academy Award.
Bhanu Athaiya, Best Costume Design for 'Gandhi'

3. Louise Fletcher's acceptance speech for receiving the Academy Award for Best
Actress for 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' (1975) was in sign language as both her parents were deaf from birth. She thanked them for teaching her to dream and that this was a dream coming true in front of her eyes.

4. Charlie Chaplin
Chaplin won one competitive Oscar for Best Music Score for 'Limelight'. This photo is from the 1972 ceremony where he was given an honorary Oscar for 'his incalculable effect in making motion pictures, the art form of the 20th century'.

5. Laurence Olivier, for 'Hamlet' (1948). He's also the only actor to have won an Oscar for playing a Shakesperean character.

6. Hattie McDaniel was the first Afro-American to win an Oscar.
She won Best Supporting Actress for playing Mammy in 'Gone With The Wind' (1939).

7. Sylvester Stallone
The other person is Muhammad Ali. They jointly presented the award for Best Supporting Actress in 1977, the ceremony in which 'Rocky' was nominated in 10 categories (2 for Stallone - Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay) and won 3. They staged a mock fight during their act, among the memorable Oscar moments.

8. Sacheen Littlefeather , who was sent by Marlon Brando to read a long speech written by him as a mark of protest against the United States' treatment of native Indians. This was the ceremony in which he won Best Actor for 'The Godfather' but refused to collect it.

9. 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' (1975)
The other two are 'It Happened One Night' (1934) and 'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991) . They are the only 3 films to win the top 5 Oscars - Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

10. Peter Finch (played Howard Beale in the 1976 film 'Network')
He was the first actor be awarded an Oscar posthumously. Heath Ledger, in 2009, became the second.

Quiz 12 - Oscars

Hi !

Sorry about the hiatus. Wanted a break after Biz Wizards.
Time for a theme now. This one's from the Oscars - 10 visuals.

1. For the early part of its history, the man in the picture below was associated with the Academy Awards. Identify.


2. What distinction does this woman hold at the Academy Awards ?


3. This was very unique as far as acceptance speeches are concerned. Name the actor.


4. Identify.

5. Roberto Benigni (seen below) was the second person to direct himself to an Academy Award for Best Actor for 'Life is Beautiful'. Who was the first ?

6. What distinction does this actor hold in the history of the Academy Awards ?

7. Identify the person whose face has been edited out of the picture.

8. What is this actor's claim to fame in the history of Academy Awards?

9. Name the missing film.

10. Identify the actor.

(His was the first instance of this happening that took place in this year's ceremony too)

Have fun !

Zed

Biz Wizards - Quark 2009 : Prelims (Non-Visual Answers)

1. The company is 23AndMe (a personal genomics and biotechnology company) and it enables consumers to understand their own genetic information.

2. Starbuck (passage from Moby Dick)


3. Patent Pool

4. 1. Lee (not Levi's)

2. flixter.com

3. Reddy Laboratories

4. UPS


5. Made in Japan (Akio Morita)


6. Volvo

7. The verb "gazump" means to refuse to formalise a property sale agreement at the last minute in order to accept a higher offer.

8. Harley Davidson

9. Samsung

10. Universal Pictures

11. Fictional companies (Tyrell - Blade Runner, Morley Cigarettes - QT films & X-Files, InGen - Jurassic Park, Milliways - the restaurant at the end of the universe in the Hitchhikers' novels, Universal Exports - the company OO7 claims to represent when undercover)


12. id Software

13. Camay

14. Zyklon-B

15. Hang Seng

16. Reva

17. Arthur Charles Nielsen (AC Nielsen)


18. Berkshire Hathaway

Biz Wizards - Quark 2009 : Prelims (Non-Visual)

1. Sergey Brin along with Larry Page started Google Inc. Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki along with Linda Avey founded a company X in which Google has invested 3.9 billion dollars. “If Google wants to really organize world information, it needs to consider what X is purporting to sell” was how a business analyst explained the investment. What product / service does X offer?

2. "I will have no man in my boat," said _______, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Fill in the blank.

3. Isaac Merritt Singer has been popularly associated with the sewing machine. He didn’t invent it though. By the time he’d perfected a prototype in 1850, it had been invented 4 times. In 1856, manufacturers Grover, Baker, Wheeler, Wilson and Singer, each accusing the other of patent infringement met in New York, to pursue their suits. Something unique came out of this meeting and for the first time too. What was it?

4. Taglines. Give the names of the corporates with whom the following slogans / taglines are associated.

1. The Jeans That Built America –
2. Stop watching bad movies. –
3. Life. Research. Hope. –
4. What can Brown do for you? –

5. This entrepreneur wrote two books. One was 'Never Mind School Records', in which he stressed that school records were not important in one's success or ability to do business. Name the other book.

6. This yacht race founded as the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1972 is held once in three years. The 10th edition of the race is being held between October 4, 2008 and June 27, 2009. Currently, who is the owner and official sponsor of this race?

7. In property sale jargon, what does ‘gazumping’ mean?

8. Which company’s NYSE ticker symbol is HOG?

9. Which company’s engineering and construction wing has to its credit, the Taipei 101, Taipei and the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lampur, and is currently working on the Burj-al-Arab, Dubai?

10. A history of M & As.
· 1912 – Formed when Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture Company merged with eight other smaller companies.
· Independent until 1946 – It merged with International Pictures.
· 1952 – Purchased by Decca Records.
· 1962 – Decca Records purchased by MCA (Music Corporation of America)
· 1990 – Matsuhita (now Panasonic) acquires MCA.
· 1995 – Seagram buys it from Matsuhita.
· 2000 – Vivendi acquires Seagram.
· 2004 – General Electric acquires it from Vivendi and merges it with NBC.
Which company’s history is being summed up above?

11. What is common to Tyrell Corporation, Morley Cigarettes, InGen, Milliways and Universal Exports?

12. Which company has to its credit the creation of the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake game franchises?

13. Which of the following is not a Unilever brand?
a) Brut
b) Camay
c) Lipton
d) Dove

14. Bayer is the 3rd largest pharmaceutical company in the world owing entirely to the sales of aspirin, a drug it has patented. For a brief period in its history, it was part of a larger conglomerate called IG Farben, formed from a merger of 6 companies (which included Bayer). What was the most famous (or should we say infamous) product made by IG Farben?

15. If it’s Nikkei for Tokyo and KOSPI for Seoul, what is it for Hong Kong?

16. In the United Kingdom, it is marketed as the ‘G-Wiz I’. How do we know it in India?

17. Of Danish origin, this American founded his eponymous company in 1923. He inaugurated a National Radio Index for broadcasters and advertisers in 1942. He was a member of the Sigma-Phi Society and won the U.S. Father and Son Doubles title in Tennis in 1946 and 1948. He was inducted into the International Hall of Tennis fame in 1971. He was an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to which he later made a donation to create a full-time MBA specializing in marketing research. This happens to be the only full-time marketing research program in the United States. During his lifetime, he was at the forefront of the advance of this field. Who is the person in question?

18. Which company’s annual shareholder’s meetings have been dubbed as ‘Woodstock for Capitalists’?

Zed

Long Visual Connect

This round had 16 sets of visuals related to the answer in different ways. The sets got easier from the 1st to the 16th visual.

The connect was APPLE.

Gil Amileo & John Sculley - Jobs departure from and return to Apple

Steve Jobs replaced Amileo when he returned to Apple in the 90s. Sculley ousted him in the power struggle of the 80s which caused Jobs to leave and start NeXT.

John Wiley & Sons have been banned from Apple Stores for publishing an unauthorized biography of Jobs called iCon. The Humane Interface was penned by Jef Raskin, the man behind the Macintosh. It discusses topics like Cognetics, Human-Computer Interfaces etc.

Kane Kramer & Tony Fadell - iPod

Kramer invented the digital audio player in 1979 from which the Apple iPod drew a lot. Fadell headed the team that invented the iPod.

Neil Aspinall and The Beatles

Aspinall was the manager of Apple Records, the records company of the Beatles after they split with EMI. There is a yet-to-be-resolved trademark dispute between Apple Inc. & Apple Records.

Ronald Wayne & Paul Rand - logo designers

Wayne is often referred to as the 'third founder' of Apple and designed the original logo featuring Newton. Paul Rand designed the NeXT logo.

Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Seinfeld & Richard Dreyfuss - Apple Ads

Lisa Jobs, Carl Sagan & Charles Darwin - People after whom Apple products are named

Lisa was the first Apple PC. Carl Sagan is the name of one of their processors (Sagan detested this and fought a case in court). Darwin is the name of the iPhone processor.

Eric Schmidt & Al Gore - Apple Board of Directors

Schmidt, in addition to being CEO of Google Inc. is also on the board of Apple. So is Gore.

Big Cats - Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Cheetah - Codenames of MAC OSes


Ridley Scott & '1984' movie - Apple Ad in 1984
Scott directed the famous 1984 Apple ad based on Orwell's 1984. IBM was supposed to be 'Big Brother' in the ad.

Logos of Apple software - Safari broswer, XSAN (file storage system), Aperture (photo editor)

Nolan Bushnell & Breakout

Bushnell started Atari. Before founding Apple, Jobs & Wozniak used to make games for Atari. Wozniak created 'Breakout' (now Pinball) during the period.

2001 : A Space Odyssey & Mighty Mouse - Sources of Apple product names

iPod comes from the line in the '2001 ...' - "Open the pod bay doors, HAL'. Mighty Mouse (the name of the Apple mouse) is licensed from the popular cartoon character.

Isaac Newton & Alan Turing

The Apple logos make reference to these two. The first one features Newton. The second one has a chunk bitten out in reference to Turing who committed suicide by eating a poisoned Apple.

NeXT & Pixar - The two companies Jobs was CEO of other than Apple Inc.

Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs - the founders

Zed