1. BCQC March Open Quiz
Elims
24 March 2012

2. _______ is a comic strip created by Johnny
Hart. The strip is generally criticised for
running jokes and storylines that are unrelated
to its theme and setting, which is treated as an
afterthought. The strip is also controversial
because of the right-wing and Christian
fundamentalist viewpoint of Hart, which he
frequently pushes on the strip. Pictured is an
example of the strip, which was slammed by
Islamic groups as containing an anti-Muslim
message. Name the strip.

4. Answer: BC

5. Mirza Abu Taleb was a Mughal noble of Persian
descent who backed the winning side in the succession
struggle after Shah Jehan’s death and as a reward was
given an important viceroyalty. Although he began his
viceroyalty successfully, it ended with his defeat,
retreat and a small but very significant injury. The
Emperor transferred him to the East, where he was
more succesful, winning a great victory over the
Burmese Kingdom, capturing Chittagong and greatly
enlarging the regional capital of Dhaka. However, his
first viceroyalty cast a long shadow over his legacy
and it is that for which he is best remembered. How do
we better know Mirza Abu Taleb?

6. Answer: Shaista Khan

7. What commonly used word in English means
“somewhere else” in Latin?

8. Answer: Alibi

9. In 1978, members of the Jonestown based
People’s Temple committed mass suicide by
imbibing cyanide mixed with a food grade
product. This gave rise to a phrase referring to
a person or group’s unquestioning belief in an
idea (although, unfortunately, the exact brand
referred to in the phrase was not the one used
by the Jonestown suicides). What is the
phrase?

10. Answer: Drinking the Kool-Aid

11. ________, which literally means “standing dialect”
was the original language of Delhi and the Ganga-
Yamuna doab. As such, it is the ancestor of the
modern languages Hindi and Urdu, which are
grammatically identical to it. What is the name of
this language, which is also known as Kauravi?

12. Answer: Khariboli

13. It is located in Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey and
contains among other, Gambon, Wilson, Chicago,
Hammerhead and Bentley. What am I talking
about?

14. Answer: Top Gear Test Track

15. What is the Tamil name for the island of Sri Lanka?

16. Answer: Eelam

17. *Julius _____ founded this company in Switzerland
in 1872 where the company’s most eponymous
product is a seasoning sauce that tastes close to
soy sauce without containing soy. It is known in
the Baltic states for its instant soups and in the
USA for its bouillon cubes. Indians know it
primarily for its take on an instant food invented
in 1958 by Momofuku Ando in Japan. Which
company?

18. Answer: Maggi

19. Matthew Paul Miller is an American Jewish
musician, who converted to Hasidic Judaism in
2001. Upon adopting the stricter form of the
Jewish faith, he decided to change his act’s name
from MC Truth to his Hebrew name.
Unfortunately, records from his circumcision
ceremony were lost, and he took the Hebrew
version of his secular first name as the name of his
act. This proved to be fortunate, as his actual
Hebrew name was later discovered to be Feivish
Hershel. How do we better know Matthew Paul
Miller?

20. Answer: Matisyahu

21. James, Charles and Vyner Brooke ruled the
state of Sarawak in north Borneo from 1841
to 1946. By what colloquial name was this
dynasty of monarchs known?

22. Answer: Rajah

23. One of this US politician's grandfathers was
named Abraham Shippe ______ and the other
was named Solomon Young. Because his
parents did not want to offend either
grandfather by naming the boy after the other,
they gave him the middle name "S", which
makes him one of the few people whose
middle initial is commonly written without a
full-stop following it. Who?

24. Answer: Harry S Truman

25. In 1988, a Cabinet Office civil servant found a
stray cat, and decided to have the Cabinet
adopt him as a rat-catcher. The cat was named
after a character from Margaret Thatcher’s
favorite TV show who was also an iconic
Cabinet Office figure. The cat served as the
Cabinet Office’s chief mouser until Tony Blair
became Prime Minister when he retired,
allegedly forced out by cat-hater Cherie Blair.
What was the name of this cat?

27. Answer: Humphrey

28. In House Season 4, episode 8 (You don’t want to
know), House and his team investigate a magician
who loses consciousness in the middle of a magic
trick. At the end of the episode, an event occurs
which the character Gregory House has repeatedly
stated never happens. What event?

29. Answer: Lupus

30. ________ is a genre of fan fiction that originated
within the Star Trek fan community. The genre
takes its name from the punctuation mark used to
separate the names of the two characters involved
in any particular story. While many creators of the
original media sources disapprove of this type of
fanfic, many of these franchises are friendly
towards the genre and series such as Angel and
Supernatural have dealt with the genre on-screen.
Name this genre, which perhaps strangely given
its content, is made an consumed primarily by
heterosexual women.

31. Answer: Slash Fiction

32. The 1985 release of Iron Maiden’s live
album Live After Death featured one track
that was not recorded live and not voiced
by frontman Bruce Dickinson. The person
who voiced this track (who was also its
writer), was a winner of the Nobel Prize
in Literature, among other things. Name
the track.

33. Answer: Churchill’s speech

34. In the Age of Sail, Royal Navy squadrons had
three flag officers: a commander who led
the ships in the center of the squadron, a
second-in-command who led the vanguard
of the squadron and the junior most flag
officer who led the ships that came last. The
position of the junior-most flag officer led
to his being given a particular rank, which
survives today even today in the Royal
Navy and navies influenced by it. Name the
rank.

35. Answer: Rear Admiral

36. _____ is the southernmost of the Scottish
Inner Hebrides, and is also the smallest
Scottish Whiskey region. There are eight
distilleries currently functioning on the
island, with a ninth scheduled to open
shortly. What is name of this island, also
known as the Queen of the Hebrides?

37. Answer: Islay

38. **The word X was first used by the Greeks to
mean Anatolia. When the Roman Republic
first acquired a province in Western Anatolia
after the kingdom of Pergamum was willed to
them, they named it X Province. The word Y
comes from a tribe of people living in modern
Tunisia, and when Rome finally conquered
Carthage in 146 BC, they organized the newly
conquered territories into Y Province. X and Y
now refer to something else. What are they?

39. Answer: X – Asia, Y – Africa

40. The US entertainment industry uses the
concept of the “Studio Zone”, or a zone of
thirty miles radius from the intersection of
West Beverly Boulevard and North La
Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles to
determine work rates for union workers. This
area has given its name to a tabloid website
and TV show owned by Time Warner. What
is the name of the tabloid?

41. Answer: TMZ

42. X is a military cantonment in India that was founded
as a rest station for British troops in India. Local
legend suggests that it was named when a British
regiment destined for another city named X was
temporarily diverted to the cantonment. A series of
delays in arranging their transport by ships heading
East failed, however, and the regiment ended up
staying for several years. In response, the British army
brass are said to have named the cantonment X. In
reality, the cantonment is likely to have been named
after a British general and later Prime Minister who
served in the area in the 18th Century, commanding
the Siege of Srirangapatnam, among other actions.

43. Answer: Wellington

44. *This course originally consisted of a salad or
a small dish that preceded a main course.
However, as the concept of a roast or other
large communal main course faded away in
American dining, this course became the
main course in modern American meals,
despite its now outdated name. What
course?

45. Answer: Entrée

46. *This group of people, descended mainly from
the from the Yousufzai tribe, form the major
portion of the Pashtun Diaspora in India. They
originally formed a large state in northeastern
Uttar Pradesh, although constant warfare against
the Marathas (who sought revenge for these
people opposing them in the Battle of Panipat),
the Nawab of Oudh and the East India Company
left it a small rump state ruled by the Nawab of
Rampur. What is the name of this group, which
literally means mountain person in Pashto?

47. Answer: Rohilla

48. She was born in London in 1975, and worked
as an investment banker between 1996 and
2000 with Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan. In
2000, she moved to another country to get
married and she and her husband, a former eye
surgeon have three children. In March 2011,
she was the subject of a widely criticized
profile in Vogue magazine that described her as
“a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed
beauty with a trained analytic mind who
dresses with cunning understatement.” Name
this very controversial lady.

49. Answer: Asma al-Assad

50. In 1972, Bob Seger was touring with Teegarden and
Van Winkle in the Midwestern US. On an overnight
drive through a snowstorm to the Dakotas, the band
stopped at a truck stop to refuel the tour bus. When
Seger walked into the truck stop’s restaurant, he was
confronted by a group of truckers who commented
loudly on the band members’ long hair, one of them
asking whether the person he saw was a man or a
woman. Seger was spurred by this experience to
write a song about his touring experiences, which
was covered by many musicians including
Metallica. Name the song.

51. Answer: Turn the Page

52. **X is a speculative fiction novel published in 2008,set on a
fictional planet. The novel contains many made-up words
and phrases, which are only infrequently explained in the
text. The title of the novel itself is a made up word,
explained in an explanatory note as either (a) a poetic or
musical invocation or (b) a ceremony by which incorrigible
scholars are ejected from their scholarly communities and
their work sequestered. The explanatory note also points
out that the two meanings of the word have given rise to
two words in the speech of people who are not scholars, the
first of which means a song of great emotional significance,
while the second means an intolerable statement or idea.
These later two words echo English words with similar
meanings, of which X can be understood to be a
portmanteau. What is X?

53. Answer: Anathem

54. What iconic retail company uses the tagline “Screw Yourself”
in advertising?

55. Answer: IKEA