The Maltby Massie-esque New Year 2015/16 Quiz

For the last five years, Alex Massie’s Christmas Quiz has been the essence of the Maltby Family Christmas. 

So when Alex announced on Christmas Eve that he wouldn’t be producing his quiz this year, some tears were shed. As our monarch tells us, however, it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, so in my best Massie style, here’s a quickly whipped-up Maltby version of the traditional Massie 20 Questions. Here it is for the friends and fellow Massie-devotees who’ve asked to see it – full credit to the fellow members of the Maltby clan who helped construct it.

In best Massie tradition, it’s as ungoogleable as possible, and to solve each question you’ll need to find the link between several clues. (Google might help you once you get the link). Hints on Twitter, answers in a week and feel free to send responses through this website’s email.

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1) How did a white-haired giant, a statue mocking men with art, and a song we might request of Clint Eastwood mark a step forward?

2) Where would we find: two sons of Albinia, a sailor’s wife, a potter’s in-law, a lunar crater named for a Scottish astronomer, the last to be royally dismissed, and, in fiction at least, the abode of a virgin fair.

3) Where this year could we have found Biggie’s 10 Commandments, the repudiation of a Westchester agriculturist and a father’s resignation letter?

4) Why were Shakespeare’s fair-sworn black night, Simonides’ obedient band and the death of Lecter’s favourite philosopher-king all perfect achievements?

5) Similarly, who can take pride in 1153 a.u.c, 3 World Trade Center and a landing at Messina?

6) How did a prickly Texan and a Native of Kansas succeed a Nobel prize-winner?

7) Ghent and Antwerp were two; a third briefly graced the earth at Cecil’s field. Ever in the middle, one rested neuter, but still managed to father kings. One met his end at Calais, two Windsors and a Duke of Cornwall make up the rest.  Who were these eight, and for bonus points, how did their most famous chronicler render them seven?

8) One supposedly raped his bride in front of her parents, before he married into purple. Another abandoned seven wives before abducting a nun. One strangled his son for insulting a stepmother, and the stout one gouged out Odin’s last remaining eyes. But what do they all have in common with Stephen’s right paw?

9) What links a metallurgist’s early business school, an uxoricidal postman, Defoe’s second favourite city and a penned-up rabbit hutch?

10) Why were Sir Humphry’s efficiency, a printmaker’s model for Ionesco and Sarah Brown’s vocation all unsung in 2015?

11) What shared experience unites an apostolic Felix Leiter, Velvet Dorothy and a thespian chrysanthemum?

12) What was the common fate of the Red Sea’s basilisk, Peleus’ sprig of Sweet Bay, Widener’s nemesis, a Genoese censor, Petrarch’s profane pupil and a Catalan town celebrated for its ghetto? For bonus points (or a clue), which Booker-winning author surveyed the first three, but not the latter three?

13) Similarly, where did an American Presidential candidate, Ganymede’s abductor, Althaea’s ardent son and a boycott of Britain all go down together?

14) How did Chicago (Princeton); Brooklyn (Columbia); Evansville (Harvard) and Cleveland (Yale) fail to make the cut?

15) What singular success unites the crow of Rotterdam, Ivan’s wild son, an Australian down payment and one in time?

16) With which number should we associate a Corsican consul, a Tokugawa apostate, Arcadia’s piper, Henry Wallace, the Swan King’s favourite and Woglinde’s lair? For bonus points, whose is better credited to a biblical murder victim?

17) Which Dunfermline native took his inspiration from an Austro-Hungarian tragedy, a Balinese mythscape, a Yorkshire parsonage and the swamps of Louisiana?

18) How might we confuse an eponymous chronicler of the American dream, a true naval hero, a fictional counterpart and a one-eyed Roman defender?

19) Who gave life to Irving’s fiendish but less than august co-star, Gilbert’s one-eared foe, the fifth book and Brummel’s highly clubbable successor?

20) How did Taurus, St Peter’s key and a blood banner with a sinister cross all come together on the shores of a body of water named for their fourth?