Long Tall Sally

(PRELIMS)
1. In a lecture on September 18, 2007, X
revealed that one of his childhood dreams
was to write an article in the World Book
Encyclopedia. Later in life, he was asked to
write the world book entry for “Virtual
Reality”, but when he submitted his entry, it
was published verbatim, with no
verifications.
In his lecture he said ‘I now believe that
Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your
information, because I know what quality
control is for real encyclopedias.’
Who’s X?
2. The _____ programming language was conceived
by Walter Bright of Digital Mars, as a natural
evolutionary successor to C++.
It is designed with lessons learned from practical
C++ usage rather than from a theoretical
perspective.
_____ has redesigned some C++ features and has
been influenced by concepts used in other
programming languages, such as Java, C# and
Eiffel. A stable version, 1.0, was released on
January 2, 2007.
What’s the blank? Believe me, you can work this
out.
3. In 2005, graphic artist Kentaro Nagai was struck
by the play on words between peace and piece in
relation to global politics.
He created this art exhibit called “Piece Together
For Peace”, a series of 12 such images, using the
continents as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
What are the 12 images collectively depicting?
Animals of the Chinese zodiac recreated from continents
4. X narrowly escaped being shot by Stalin's special
police after his family was denounced as Kulaks in
1932, and exiled to Siberia.
He later fought in WW2 in 1941. When battling
the Germans on the Eastern Front, a Panzer shell
blew him from his tank, yet he survived.
He was later awarded the Hero of Socialist Labor
medal for one of his inventions, of which about a
100 million are circulating around the world
today, yet he never profited from, as the USSR
had no patent system.
X and his invention.
5. ____ Sings the Blues is an flash animated film by
Nina Paley. It's a retelling of Y, featuring the
1920s jazz recordings of singer Annette Hanshaw,
interspersed with the story of Nina's own troubled
marriage.
Paley wanted to envision what Y would look like
told through the eyes of its much loved and much
maligned female character, _____, and previous
adaptations from this perspective have caused a lot
of controversy, particularly in India.
Until recently it's been languishing due to
copyright issues surrounding the 80-year-old
Hanshaw songs, but is now finally available
online.
What’s the blank?
• Sita sings the blues.
1. ________ syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which
the affected person exaggerates or creates symptoms of
illnesses in themselves or their child/children in order to
gain investigation, treatment, attention, sympathy, and
comfort from medical personnel.
In some extremes, people suffering from _________
Syndrome are highly knowledgeable about the practice
of medicine, and are able to produce symptoms that
result in multiple unnecessary operations.
It is named after _________, a German who served in
the Russian army in the 18th century, known for telling
tall tales about himself, such as, riding cannonballs,
travelling to the Moon, and escaping from a swamp by
pulling himself up by his own hair
Munchausen
7. A _______ weighs 22.5 kg and has always-on lighting, a
lock and a basket.

The rates for using a ______

time 30 min 1 h 1 h 30 2 h 5 h 10 h 20 h
rate free 1€ 3€ 7€ 31 € 71 € 151 €

Number of deaths associated with ______ = 3

Fill in the blank. Really specific answer required.

Velib’ – the rent-a-bicycle scheme in Paris.
8.The official description of the Harry Potter
edition of _____ reads :
Dark magic has been performed at Hogwarts™! A fellow
student has vanished from the famous School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry…Play as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny,
Luna or Neville…Move around Hogwarts™ making
suggestions- but watch out!… Wheels actually move to
reveal secret passages, hidden staircases, and even the
Dark Mark!…Go to Dumbledore’s office to make your
final move and win!
Priced at $26.99. Ages 9+.
1. Stats about much hyped musical Y –
Director – Julie Traynor
Budget – 40 million USD
Opening – Feb 28, 2010, Broadway.
at the Hilton Theater.
Music and Lyrics – Paul Hewson and
David Howell
Evans.
1. Some of the sources of inspiration for this song’s
lyrics include –
Hugh Mearns' nursery rhyme "The Psycho-ed" ("as I was going
up the stair/I met a man who was not there,/he wasn't there again
today,/I wish that man would go away")
The artist’s well-documented concerns with splintered or
multiple personalities,
a science fiction novella by Robert A. Heinlein written in 1949
that follows the machinations of Delos D. Harriman, "the first of
the new robber barons," who is determined to reach and control
the Moon.
Which song?
11.
In the first film he appeared in [1980], X looked like

Who’s X?

In the tenth film [2002] X looked like 

Jason Voorhees,
Friday the 13th.
12. X was a DC comics character,
originally appearing in 1983, as
an alien bounty hunter /
mercenary.
He languished in obscurity until
his revival as an anti-hero biker
in the early 1990s. This version
of X was intended to be an over-
the-top parody of Marvel Comics
superhero Y.
During the DC vs. Marvel
crossover series, X fought Y and
lost due to popular vote by real-
life fans.
X and Y
Y X
• The term _________ from the French,
first appeared in the 16th century and
referred specifically to a rich, highly
flavored soup that was advertised as an
antidote to physical exhaustion and
restorer of vitality. This soup was sold by
street vendors.
The term acquired it’s modern meaning
when in 1765, a Parisian soup-seller
named Boulanger, opened a shop to sell
his soup.
What’s the blank?
14. X was recently offered one million dollars
and health insurance by Vivid Entertainment
to star in a pornographic film.
However, rival adult film company Pink
Visual, has offered X a years’ supply of
diapers if the offer is turned down, fearing X
“will become the subject of endless ridicule
and scorn”.
Who’s X?
Nadia Suleman aka OctoMom.
15.“He was giving voice in a rock 'n' roll
setting to the Oedipus complex, at the time
a widely discussed tendency in Freudian
psychology. He wasn't saying he wanted to
do that to his own mom and dad. He was re-
enacting a bit of Greek drama. It was
theatre!”

Which iconic event in rock ’n’ roll folklore

is being defended thus?
‘the killer awoke before
dawn’ spoken word middle
section of The End by The
Doors.
16. What is this?
Top gear racetrack
1. The Coronado naval amphibious base, San Diego
consists of 6 buildings constructed between 1967-
70. The original plans submitted to the Navy for the
project included the two central buildings which
were intended to contain a boiler plant and a
recreation room; and a single "L"-shaped 3-story
barracks. The revised plan called for the "L" shaped
building to be repeated three times more.
It wasn't until after the construction was almost
completed that Navy officials realized the blunder in
their building layout plan, but they managed to hide
it, pending more than $600,000 in the process.
But the blunder became known to the public with
the help of Google Earth.
What was the architectural blunder?
• The _____ _____ is a paperback by journalist
Michael Leigh that reports on sexual paraphilia
in the USA, published in September, 1963.
Leigh investigates aberrant sexual practices
between consenting adults such as husband and
wife swapping, group sex, sex orgy parties,
homosexual activities, sado-masochism.
Experimental filmmaker Tony Conrad found a
copy lying in the street, and gave it his friend, an
English student at Syracuse University, who
liked the name, considering it evocative of
“avant garde cinema”, and named his band after
it. Book/band?
1. X said to Peter Woodthorpe that he
regretted calling the character ‘_____’,
because of all the theories involving God
to which this had given rise.
“I also told [Ralph] Richardson that if by
_____ I had meant God I would [have]
said God, and not ______. This seemed to
disappoint him greatly.”
X claimed that the name _____ suggested
itself to him by the slang word for boot,
because “feet play such a prominent role”.
All blanks are the same. Fill it.
20. When X first became an actor, he adopted the
stage name “_____ Scott”. His agent soon
informed him, however, that another actor was
already using the same name, and that he had to
come up with a new name immediately. Speaking
to his agent from a telephone box in Leicester
Square in London, X looked around for
inspiration, noted that The X Mutiny was being
shown at the Odeon Cinema, and decided to
change his name to " ______ X". He has joked in
interviews that had he looked the other way, he
would have ended up as "______ – One Hundred
and One Dalmatians".
Which actor?
His actual given name was Maurice….WTF?
21. At least two founding myths have been proposed for this
city by romantic historians since the fifteenth century.
One attributes the foundation of the city to Hercules before
the foundation of Rome. During the fourth of his Labors,
Hercules joins up with Jason and the Argonauts in search
of the Golden Fleece, traveling across the Mediterranean in
nine ships. One of the ships is lost in a storm off this coast,
and Hercules sets out locate it. He finds it wrecked off the
Iberian coastline, by a small hill, but with the crew saved.
The crew were so taken by the beauty of the location that
they founded a city with the name _____ _____("Ninth
Ship").
Another credits the Carthaginian general Hamilcar, father
of Hannibal, with the foundation of the city around 230
BC, who named it after his surname.
What’s the modern name of this city?
22. A _____ is a figure of speech in which –
- a term denoting a part of something is used to
refer to the whole thing
- a term denoting a thing (a "whole") is used to
refer to part of it
- a term denoting a specific class of thing is used
to refer to a larger, more general class, or vice
versa
- a term denoting a material is used to refer to an
object composed of that material.

The word ______ came back into prominence thanks

to the world of entertainment in 2008. What’s this
weird word?
23. _____ ___ ____ ______ ___ by Maurice Sendak
is a children's picture book, first published 1963.
The book is about the imaginary adventures of a
young boy named Max, who is punished for
"making mischief" by being sent to his room
without supper. Max wears a distinctive wolf suit
during his adventures and encounters various
mythical creatures, who make him their king.
The book is regarded as one of the greatest
children’s books, and has inspired a series of US
postage stamps, a Metallica song, and a 2009 live-
action-cum-CGI film adaptation is in the works.
Which book?
 Book

Film
24. The process starts with a dip in levels of
an enzyme called catalase. That catalase
shortfall means that naturally occurring
hydrogen peroxide can't be broken down.
No other enzymes exist that would repair
the damage caused by unbroken hydrogen
peroxide.
What process is this?
25. ____ ____ is one of X’s most famous songs. Despite
the fact that the studio recording of the song lasted
only 2:40, it was known for its lengthy live
performances, in most cases running at around 22
minutes.
In 1994 X approached music collage artist John
Oswald to do a project with ____ ____. Using over a
hundred different performances of the song between
1968 and 1993, Oswald built, layered, and "folded" all
of them to produce one large, recomposed version
spanning 103 minutes, as the definitive live version of
the song. The project was called ‘Grayfolded’.
It is the only record that features participation by
every person who was ever in X between 1965 and
1995.
blanks, and X. Work it out – arbit style.
26. The earliest origins of this concept traces
back to the year 10, in China.
The modern version of the concept was first
implemented in Britain by William Pitt the
Younger to pay for weapons and equipment
in preparation for the Napoleonic wars. He
hoped to raise £10 million from wealthy
Londoners but could only manage £6
million.
Easy. What?
27. This woman was
awarded an MBE on
the Queen’s New Year
Honors 2009, for her
services to healthcare.
Also on the same
Honors list, this man,
her son, received a
knighthood.
id the guy.
28. Pachygnatha _____ is a species of spider discovered
around Mount Cameroon in 1983 by two Belgian
biologists.
They named it after ______ as “…not only are we huge
fans of X, but we believe the dark gray mark on the
ventral side of the abdomen of the female of this species
strikingly resembles _____’s moustache.” Who?
You don’t mess with the Zappa
29. In 1858, the University of Pennsylvania
published the first complete English translation of
_____ ______. Three undergraduate members,
Charles R Hale, S Huntington Jones, and Henry
Morton, made the translation. The translation
quickly sold out two editions and was
internationally hailed as a monumental work of
scholarship.
The term ______ _____has become idiomatic as
something that is a critical key to decryption or
translation of a difficult problem.
Fill in the blanks.
Rosetta stone
30. ______ was first observed by Giovanni Cassini
in 1672.
During 1761, it was seen a total of 18 times by
five observers, including Joseph LaGrange. In
1766, the University of Vienna, declared that all
observations of _____ were bogus.
William Herschel searched for it 3 times in 1768
but failed to find it.
But it was observed again by M. Hozeau, a
Belgian, who named it, after the Egyptian goddess
of War, and the Mother of Ra.
It was observed only once more, On August 13,
1892, by Edward Emerson Barnard.
What? Funda will do.
Neith, the hypothesized satellite
of Venus.
31. Connect
32. Recently, the BBC announced that the band X is recording
new material for the first time since 1992.
They last reunited in 2007, playing the Live Earth concert at
London's Wembley Stadium, where they played a new
composition “Warmer than hell”
A friend of the band reported that at the time of the Live Earth
gig, the 3 members were respectively –
a) raising miniature racing horses.
b) recovering from an internet addiction.
c) had become a hip-hop producer.
33.The ______ is rectangular in shape and
red in colour (to symbolize labour)
with three equidistant white
vertical strips of equal width (stand
for the three districts) next to the
staff and a white plough in the
middle with handle facing the
strips.
What am I talking about?
Because of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status
accorded to it by the Constitution, Jammu and
Kashmir the only Indian state that has its own
official flag. This is the only state flag recognized
by the Constitution.
34. Disneyland and the Death Penalty is an article written by
X as the cover story of Wired magazine in
September/October 1993. It was his first major work of
non-fiction.
It chronicles X’s horror at the strictly guarded sterility of
Singapore, and his futile search at trying to find remnants
of Victorian Singapore, of which few remained.
“Singaporean society is a relentlessly G-rated experience,
controlled by a Government akin to a megacorporation,
fixated on conformity and behavioural constraint.”
He concluded the article by calling Singapore a a single-
party state and capitalist technocracy.
The Republic of Singapore responded to the publication of
the article by banning Wired from the country.
Who’s X?
35. John C. Odom was a minor league baseball
player, who was in the centre of a news frenzy in
June 2008, when he joined the Laredo Broncos.
His new teammates took to calling him Bat-man,
and considered what happened to him in June as
‘an embarrassment and a slap in the face’.
But his former club, the Calgary Vipers saw it as
‘a bit of harmless fun’.
Sadly, Odom committed suicide earlier this
month, over the incident in question, and the
baseball fraternity blame the Vipers for it.
What was the frenzy all about?
36. This is the opening sequence used by the
British run of a famous TV “game show” A.
The US version of the show started when the British
show ended, in 1998. The host for the American
version was B.

C is a Canadian-American, who is the most prolific

performer on the UK show, having appeared in 76
of the series' 136 episodes. C also appeared on
every episode of the US version.

B also starred in a sitcom that ran from 1995 to

2004, which was named after him. C also co-
starred in the show.
The only other person to appear in every
episode of the US version was Scottish-
Canadian D.

D went on to host the Canadian version of the

game show ‘Are you smarter than a 5th
grader?’

B took over as host of the game show E, after

long-serving host Bob Barker retired in
2007. Entertainment Weekly rates E as the
greatest game show of all time.
A – Whose Line is it Anyway?
B – Drew Carey
C – Ryan Stiles
D – Colin Mochrie
E – The Price is Right