A 30 Mixed Bag set made for Joy Quiz Enjoy Quiz on 25th August 2021 and 17th October 2021.

1. lazy compilation
one + two
for our friends at JQEQ
25 august & 17 october 2021 | 30 qns
arun t p
clues in yellow | questions in orange
means image in the next slide
heartfelt thanks to our Gobinda

2. Q1
• The La Mamounia Literary Prize was a Moroccan literary prize
given every year to promote Moroccan literature written in
French. It lasted from 2010 to 2015, post which financial
troubles stopped it.
• The trophy on the next slide was made by British-Moroccan
artist Yahya Rouach, who hit news in the middle of the 2010s,
as he built the case holding a controversial project, sold to an
even more controversial smirking business-man.
• What was resold by the US Government in July 2021, that
was housed in this case, to recover the fine on the business-
man?

3. Q1

4. A1
• The Wu-Once Upon a Time in Shaolin Album bought by Martin
Shkreli of Retrophin and Turing Pharma. It was sold on July 27th
by the US Government.

5. Q2
• Considered to be as prestigious as
a Nobel, and more rewarding as it
gives a $3 MM prize vs. $1.2 MM
with a Nobel, by what name is
this award called, which might
remind you of a sudden and
dramatic discovery?
• After what natural shape is the
award modelled?

6. A2
• Breakthrough Prize
• Founded by Yuri Milner, Zuckerberg, Chan,
Wojcicki
• The shape is a toroid

7. Q3
• When Jocelyn was doing her PhD thesis under Tony Hewish, she
noticed pulses in her daily reading. She informed her mentor
Hewish, who initially discarded this as interference. After
multiple such observations, Hewish confirmed it was
something entirely new. What did Jocelyn discover?
• Hewish received the Nobel Prize for it, while Jocelyn was
cheated of any appreciation till the 21st century. Which
scientist known to all of us for coining a very popular cosmic
term on BBC radio, fought for Jocelyn’s sake and was
absolutely angry at Hewish for stealing the show, literally
lambasting him in National Press?

8. Q3

9. A3
• Pulsars – PULSAting Radio Source
• Fred Hoyle (coined Big Bang)

10. Q4
The lady on the left was the first of a list. Her selection was
vetoed.
This caused the lady on the right to be the first and last one of
this list.
What list am I talking about?

11. Q4

12. A4
• Women to be drafted into
the NBA (Men’s league)
• Denise Long Rife (San
Fransisco Warriors, vetoed
by the NBA Commissioner)
• Lusia Harris (New Orleans
Jazz)

13. Q5
• Really tall players in basketball
perform bad in foul shots from the
foul line, because they are naturally
stronger and in most cases they
over-exert, causing the ball to hit
the board or the rim and cascade
off.
• What is the name of this shot,
popularized by Rick Barry, in which
one throws the ball underhand?
• The answer is a variation of the
sexist insult “throw like a girl”. Here
you throw like a really old girl.

14. A5
• Granny shot

15. Q6
• In 1825, Benjamin Gompertz suggested that as age increased the
chance of this phenomenon also increased. Here in the below
function, μ(x) denotes the ________ rate at age x, and α and β
are constants.
• Makeham after 55 years, added a constant to this above equation,
to include some rare and special considerations.
• These equations are very important for the insurance industry.
• FITB and tell me what the constant was for.

16. A6
• Law of Mortality.
• The rate of death exponentially
increases as age increases, or as
you grow older, the chance of
death increases.
• Makeham added a constant to
add a component of accidental
death.

17. Q7
• In the next slide are pictures of a room in an Asian embassy,
celebrating an Indian gentleman. This was a recent
development, trying to reinitiate conversation and friendship
between this country and India.
• Our relationship was strong till it soured in the 1960s.
• Who is the politician and why did our relationships turn sour
with them in 1960s?

18. Q7

19. A7
• Biju Patnaik, Indonesian Embassy
• Indonesia didn’t support India during the 1962 China War

20. Q8
• “Yoor in toun” is a satirical play about a
town facing extreme water shortages. This
leads to a ban on a specific kind of private
facilities. All public facilities are controlled
by a company named “Yoo R in Good
Company”, which charges folks for using
their facilities. Those breaking the law, are
sent to jail. It is something very common in
India.
• What are these lawbreakers trying to do?
• What does the company in question
provide?

21. A8
• The play is Urinetown.
• A 20 year drought had depleted the
town’s water resources, and nobody
could afford private bathrooms.
• The Urine Good Company provided
public urinals which charged a hefty
fee for usage.
• The jailbreakers were urinating in
public on the roads.

22. Q9
• These hi-tech devices have cost the Indian Railways about
1500 crores for 100% installation.
• For this cost, they are expected to save the Railways about
400 Crore INR a year from track corrosion and repair. They
have a vacuum based system, and a compartmentalized
system, for different processes.
• What are these devices?

23. Q9

24. A9
• Bio-toilets

25. Q10
• In 1914, when this train started, it had 12 compartments and a
capacity of 300 passengers. One stretch of the journey was on
metre gauge and then the other stretch was on broad gauge.
• The ticket had three languages on it, one being English and the
other two native languages of the regions it was connecting.
• While the First-Class compartment was reserved for English whites,
there was a special wagon reserved for Buddhist pilgrims.
• What is the name of this train?
• Name the other 2 native languages.
• Why did the service abruptly stop in 1964?

26. A10
• Boat Mail Express
• Tamil and Sinhalese
• Dhanushkodi Cyclone of 1964

27. Q11
Kyoto University professors claim that wood is a better material
for construction of these objects, as it produces less harmful
substances through oxidation and doesn’t block electro-
magnetic waves. It is light-weight and durable (to an extent)
as well.
Ash is a lesser evil as compared to tiny alumina particles.
They don’t have any substantiative proof that this will solve the
current problem being exacerbated by ageing technology and
rapid increase in human activity.
What am I talking about?

28. Q11

29. A11
• Wooden Satellites to reduce
space junk. Sumitomo
Forestry is working on an R&D
Project for the same.

30. Q12
• This is a special kind of luggage, which
opens into two separate parts, one which
holds clothes on a hanger and other
assortments, while the other side can hold
other stuff.
• Charles Dodgson is famously associated
with the popularization and possible
coinage of the said word, which he
describes as something again made of two
elements.
• Take a look at the picture and come up
with the good word.

31. A12
• Portmanteau,
made of porter
and manteau
(mantle)

32. Q13
The violent destruction of this mega building in the late 18th century in
Europe brought about a new problem. City planners and administrators were
unsure as what to do with the rubble. Much of the rubble was used to build
a bridge nearby. Some of it was sold off as souveniors.
A new iconoclast in the next century wanted to celebrate his achievements
and thought that the empty space could be better decorated with the
monument in the next slide. Although work started on it in 1813, it stopped
abruptly in 1815 and finally was completely demolished in 1846.
What mega buulding’s erasure lent space to this monstrosity?
What happened in 1815, that caused the abrupt stoppage in
construction?

33. Q13

34. A13
• Storming of the Bastille, The Elephant of Bastille, Battle of
Waterloo

35. Q14
• In the Black Swan, Taleb mentions about a story on Umberto Eco, who
judges his guests basis their reaction to his massive collections of
certain items.
• A majority of these guests ask the irritating question, “How many done?”,
while the small minority understand the point to this obsession and
appreciate the profundity of the situation.
• Taleb says everyone should have such a big collection of these items left
to be done. This keeps them intellectually curious and humble.
• What items are he talking about, and by what Japanese term is the
obsession commonly known?

36. A14
• Books
• Anti-library
• Tsundoku : Collecting more books than you can possibly read

37. Q15
• Give me a cinematic idea. Explain.

38. A15
• Kuleshov Effect.
Editing is what gives
cinema meaning. It
is a mental
phenomenon by
which viewers derive
more meaning from
the interaction of
two sequential shots
than from a single
shot in isolation

39. A15

40. Q16
• The English translation of this mosque’s name is the “Mother of
all Battles”. It was built to celebrate the victory of this Middle-
Eastern country against a strong coalition in a 1990s War.
• Four of the minarets are 43 metres long to mark the 43 days of
enemy aggression. They are also in the shape of an important
weapon that was used in the war.
• Beneath the mosque in a secret vault was kept a Holy Book
written using a red ink colloid, which was procured from the
then-leader of the country.
• What do the minarets look like?
• What is so special about this Holy Book?

41. Q16

42. A16
• The minarets look like the Iraqi Al-
Hussein Missiles, which are versions
of the Scud Missiles from Soviet
Union.
• Saddam thought he won the Gulf War

43. A16
• The Blood Q’uran was supposedly written
using 27 litres of Saddam’s own blood.

44. Q17
• In an interview to the Indian Express in January 2021, Hamid
Siddiqui fondly remembers his father who returned from Saudi
Arabia after the Hajj and spending a month, with his other son
in Jeddah for a month.
• Other than the fact that the father was the Qazi of the
Kalaburagi Mosque, why was he in news in 2020?

45. Q17

46. A17
• India’s first Covid-19 casualty

47. Q18
• Sorry to Bother You is an award winning 2018 American dark comedy by
Boots Riley. The plot involves a black telemarketer, by the name of Cassius
Green who tries everything to succeed in life and be rich. He rises up the
ladder pretty fast to become a Power Caller and ends up getting
associated with Worry Free, a company that sells slave labour to
industrialists.
• What nod to the motivation of the character, can you figure out from
the character’s name?
• What auditory tactic does the main character use to sell more when
talking to potential clients?
• You can draw a parallel with BlacKkKlansman.

48. A18
• Cassius Green
sounds like ‘Cash
is Green’
• He uses a ‘white
voice’. In
Blackkklansman,
Andy Driver is the
white voice of
Ron Stallman

49. Q19
• Connect these three individuals to a seminal event of 1987 involving an
Indian

50. A19
• The first bowler to take a World Cup Hat-trick (v New Zealand
at Nagpur in 1987).
• Ken Rutherford b Chetan Sharma 26 (54) Ian Smith b Chetan
Sharma 0 (1) Ewen Chatfield b Chetan Sharma 0 (1)

51. Q20
• Single wicket cricket used to be a special type of cricket that was played
between two individuals, both take turns to bat and bowl against each
other. The fielders change. The one who scores the most runs wins.
• In 1755, Lumpy Stevens almost got the wicket of John Smalls thrice in the
second innings. Much to the dismay of Lumpy, he was not out as per the
rules of that time, even though the ball went through the wickets.
• This caused much disquiet, and 2 years later the first match with changed
rules were played.
• What was the super major change that happened with this match?
• John Smalls is also credited with standardizing and mastering the use of
which other equipment in cricket?

52. A20
• The middle stump. Previously
there were only 2 stumps, and in
all three balls Lumpy managed
to get the ball to go through the
left and right wickets, without
hitting them.
• The straight bat

53. Q21
• Thomas Edison revealed these details about a very secret experiment he
did in the 1920s.
• “A very thin and strong beam of light from a powerful source struck
through the boring darkness and hit the active surface of this cell. This
generated a very feeble electric current, which was very reactive to
any object however thin, transparent or small, that cut the beam of
light.”
• He spent an extreme amount of time trying to determine the slightest
fluctuation or change, but met with no success.
• What was the device trying to detect?

54. A21
• Edison was trying to make a spirit phone, to communicate with
dead spirits.

55. Q22
• What in the world of games, are these asymmetrical heavy objects?

56. A22
• Bowling Ball cores

57. Q23
• Vincent Vickers who was the Chief Economist of the Bank of England
indulged in authoring some illustrative books for kids. One of his works
was about an ogrish creature that hangs around a pond waiting at night for
birds to come along.
• We are aware of this as a naming suggestion given by a nephew to his
uncle.
• A slight alteration was registered in 1997 by two founders to build their
massive data-indexer.
• The story comes full circle, because if sources are correct, the first book
to be part of the company’s library was Vincent’ book.
• Weave a story. How does it come full circle?

58. Q23

59. A23
• The Google Book by Vincent Vickers was the first time the word
Google was used.
• Google was the name of the beast mentioned in the book.
• This apparently was the inspiration for young Milton Sirrota to
tell his uncle about a BIG word.
• Google became Googol.
• Googol was wrongly transcribed as Google by Sean Anderson,
who was Larry and Brin’s friend.
• The Google Book became the first book scanned by Larry for
the Google Books catalogue. Things coming full circle

60. A23

61. Q24
• The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song
competition organized annually by the European Broadcasting
Union, and it’s participants are all members primarily from the
European nations.
• Take a look at the latest logo and tell me what is the
inspiration behind it.

62. Q24

63. A24

64. Q25
• Precautions to take while riding on this.
1. Inspect the surface you are going to use. If it is shiny, something has been
using it, and you might eventually lose out to the other one.
2. Get permissions to use the surface.
3. Inform someone that you are doing this.
4. Keep a set of tools to make sure your vehicle can be repaired, especially your
outrigger wheel.
5. Be ready to clear the obstacles if need be.
• What unique and special method of transportation involving a bicycle am I
talking about?
• Why do you need to consider if the surface is shiny?

65. A25
• Railbiking.
• If other trains have been using it, the tracks will be shiny. You
might need to carry tools to remove obstacles and repair your
bike, as this is an extremely lonely hobby.

66. Q26
• Of the many reasons cited for this weird phenomenon, this one
seems most plausible.
• There are specific chemical receptors in your body, which
sometimes need time to bind with various outside chemicals to
do their job. Some chemicals need more time than others, i.e.
are stickier, so the body has to figure out a way to give the
time-takers more time.
• The body therefore speeds one up while slows the other. This
maintains the optimal working climate for the unit as well.
• What special and weird bodily phenomenon am I talking
about?

67. A26
• Why one side of your nose feels more congested than the other,
and why it’s not always the same side.

68. Q27
• There is always a worry about its misuse. The mental state of the
user is very important.
• The first time this was publicly worried about was with Nixon who
had turned to frequent alcoholism to fight his depression.
• In 2017, the Democrats drafted a bill for a double review
mechanism, but with lack of bipartisan support, it didn’t see the
light of the day.
• It started with Truman in the initial days, and was very much in
news in the start of 2021.
• What am I talking about?

69. A27
• The Nuclear Football, Donald Trump exiting

70. Q28
• The Majestic is supposed to open in 2024.
• The project was initially planned in 2013, but shelved.
• Work has again started during the Corona period.
• It will have 6 free standing restaurants, about 250000 square
feet of suites and a great medical spa.
• Unlike other hotels in this location, this hotel will not provide
what facilities?

71. Q28

72. A28
• No Gambling
• No Smoking

73. Q29
• Quite often you see this architectural feature around pulpits in
old churches. One often wonders what purpose, other than a
visual sight these offer.
• They do have a very practical purpose for existing, when it
comes to addressing audiences.
• This phrase is used in the business world, when people discuss
ideas with others to gather their opinions.
• What is the name of this feature or gimme the phrase?

74. Q29

75. Q29
• Sounding board/sound board

76. Q30
• This has occurred only 4 times in Independent India’s history.
• 1952, 1953, 1966 and 2020
• If the 2020 reason was the fear of Coronavirus, 1966 was
caused to 2 untoward demises.
• Identify the 2 demises of 1966, which caused a lull in the
annual festivities of that year.

77. A30
• No heads of state as chief guests in Republic Day
• 1966 : Lal Bahadur Shastri (11 January), Homi J Bhabha (24
January)
• 2020 : Boris Johnson calls off due to UK Covid Strain