a quiz

[calimac]

Here's Jon Carroll's annual Christmas quiz and his equally annual answers. Comments below the

At least I didn't spot any goofs this year, like the time he asked what was Frodo's relationship to Bilbo in The Hobbit (Frodo isn't in The Hobbit; he hadn't been born yet, or, more relevantly, been invented by Tolkien yet) or mucked up the reason why George VI wasn't crowned under his first given name of Albert.

Question 1 slew me. I've driven through at least 12 of those 13 automobile tunnels, yet I could only think of 2 or 3 of them offhand.

I couldn't put the 4 items of question 3 in the right order, but I knew what a right order would consist of, as I recognized two of the words and knew that there were four of the items in question. amy_thomson should have been able to get this one.

I got question 5, but wondered if it qualified, as Lear is fictional.

Question 6. "How many states are there in the United States?" Bah. I know the trick in this one, but I also wondered, "United States of what?" A couple other countries, Mexico and Brazil as I recall, are or have been known by names fairly translatable as United States of X.

12, 14, 16, and 17 I was able to make stabs in the right direction. Total blank on everything else.

Comments

[rootlesscosmo.livejournal.com]

I got the parts of a locomotive (I spent enough years on one) but not the other sections of that question. The Point Richmond tunnel leads from "downtown," near the Natatorium (or Municipal Plunge), out towards the Bay, an area where there used to be a brickworks--I think some of it's still standing--but that's been getting a lot of development lately--condos and so forth.

I also rejected Lear but blanked on Cymbeline and chose John.