Let's Talk About Rejects Trivia Quiz

Answer: Platypus

The platypus has a beak like a duck, feet like an otter and a tail like a beaver. The European scientists concluded that it was a mammal, but, never having seen anything like it previously, thought that it was a hoax made from parts of several different creatures. Although, not surprisingly, they failed to find the seams where it would have been joined together.

The platypus is a monotreme, a mammal which lays eggs rather than giving birth to live young, although the baby feeds on its mother's milk after birth. The animal has no teats, so the milk oozes through pores on the skin and is lapped up by the youngster. Any description of the animal's behaviour would probably have added to the hoax theory, rather than dispelled it.

Answer: Rejects

The word initially means that the first letters of the following seven words will lead to the seven-letter answer - rejects, a word for discarded things.

If you're new to cryptic clues, there are several quizzes in the BrainTeasers section of FunTrivia which help explain how they work.

Answer: The Beatles

The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, arranged the audition, and the group travelled from Liverpool to London. The audition appeared to go well, with fifteen songs being recorded; the session extended into the afternoon to achieve that. However about a month later they received news of their rejection by Decca; apparently guitar groups were on the way out, and the Beatles had no future in show business.

Answer: Sleeveless top and shorts

The same, or a similar, dress code will apply when visiting any Buddhist temple in the country. It is important to show respect to the royal family, and to the monks. With average temperatures of 25°C to 30°C, many visiting tourists try to keep cool by wearing as little as possible. But an outfit that is suitable for the beach, or for the market, may not be appropriate elsewhere.

Men will always need long trousers. Ladies can wear a skirt that is below the knee. Both sexes may be able to wear a short sleeved T-shirt. Nobody should wear a garment that reveals a bare midriff, uncovered shoulders, or too much bare leg. All clothes should be in a good state of repair (no tears or rips), and the cloth should not be too transparent. However, if you arrive unprepared, there will almost certainly be a stall selling or renting suitable cover-up clothing for the occasion.

Answer: Corduroy

Corduroy is a bear on a shelf in the toy department of a big store. A little girl called Lisa sees him, and wants to buy him, but her mother won't let her. When the store is closed at night, Corduroy decides to go and look for his missing button. While trying to pull a button off a mattress he knocks over a lamp. The night watchman hears the noise, finds the bear, and takes him back to the toy department. On the following day Lisa returns with all the money from her piggy bank to buy Corduroy. She takes him home and sews a button onto his overalls. Then they hug each other, both pleased to have found a friend.

The award winning book was written in 1968 by Don Freeman. After being rejected by Viking Press, who already published books with Freeman's illustrations, it was rejected by various other publishers, too. Then Viking Press looked at it again, and accepted it for publication. It has been adapted for film, television, and the stage.

Answer: Acceptance

Desertion, refusal and spurning are three of many synonyms for rejection Acceptance sounds so much more positive. However, the American singer and entertainer, Henry Rollins, said, 'We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success.', which could be a useful maxim to take with when writing FunTrivia quizzes.

Answer: United Nations

The United Nations flag has a pale blue field with a white design. Two olive branches encompass a map of the world. The map is an azimuthal equidistant projection, which is centred on the North Pole. It was adopted in December 1946, and shows all the sovereign states of the world, but the distance between, and the size of, the states becomes increasingly distorted with their distance from the North Pole. However it does display the world as a flat disc, and some supporters of the flat earth theory think that the disk is surrounded by a large wall of ice, which is Antarctica.

The flag of the African Union shows the continent of Africa in green superimposed on a white sun, surrounded by gold stars, all on a green background. The European Union flag is a circle of gold stars on a dark blue field. The flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has a symbol of a white compass rose, with radiating lines going north, east, south, and west, on a dark blue background.

Answer: Charles I

Charles I believed in the divine right of kings, and refused to accept any demands for a constitutional monarchy, leading to the English Civil War. The Roundheads, led by Oliver Cromwell, fought the king's Cavaliers. Charles was captured, tried, and executed for high treason.

Richard I, known as the Lionheart, ruled nearly five hundred years earlier; he died after being shot by a crossbow in battle. James I was the father of Charles I, and died from natural causes before being succeeded by his son. George I, the first of the Hanoverian kings, reigned from 1714 to 1727; he also died from natural causes and was succeeded by his son.

Answer: They are made into KitKat filling

Throwing the rejected bars out would be a waste of money. Instead the manufacturer has devised the ultimate re-cycling scheme. Sub-standard KitKat bars are mashed into a paste which is used as the filling for the wafers in another batch of the bars.

The employees have probably seen enough KitKat bars, and wouldn't want to eat them. The broken, or otherwise defective bars, probably could be sold cheaply in a factory shop, but the manufacturer has found a better use for the imperfect confectionery.

Answer: Throw back

Reicere combines 're' meaning back with 'iacere' meaning to throw; so the whole word means to throw back, which is what happens when something is rejected. Reject is also used as a noun, and another one, rejection, is derived from the same word. When used as a noun, a throwback is quite different; it is defined as 'a reversion to an earlier ancestral type or characteristic'.

Answer: J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling is possibly best known for the Harry Potter series, which won her both fame and fortune. The first novel, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was rejected twelve times before being accepted and published by Bloomsbury in 1997. She went on to write six more best-selling books in that series. When she wrote a detective novel under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, "Cuckoo's Calling" was also rejected more than once, including the suggestion that constructive criticism could be gained from a writers' group or a writing course. The first book of the new series was published in 2013.

"The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway was rejected for being 'tedious and offensive' before being published in 1926. Described as 'dull, obvious and boring', "Animal Farm", by George Orwell, was rejected four times before being published in 1946. After being told that 'his protagonist wasn't very well presented', J.D. Salinger edited the manuscript of "The Catcher in the Rye" before it was serialised, and then published as a book in 1951.

Answer: Billy Flynn in "Chicago"

Richard Gere won a Golden Globe for his role in "Chicago", a 2002 musical film based on a play about scandal and corruption during the jazz age in Chicago.

Tom Hanks played the other three roles listed which were turned down by John Travolta. The 1984 film "Splash" is a romantic comedy, with Allen Bauer falling in love with a mermaid. He won an Oscar for his role in the 1994 film, "Forrest Gump", which tells the life story of an intellectually challenged man from Alabama. "The Green Mile" is a 1999 film based on Stephen King's book with the same title; Paul Edgecomb remembers his life as an officer on 'death row' in a penitentiary in the 1930s.

John Travolta did have success in other places. He starred in the movies "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), "Grease" (1978), "Look Who's Talking" (1989), "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "Primary Colors" (1998), amongst others, as well as having a role in the 1970s US television series "Welcome Back Kotter".

Answer: Violin

Johan Julius Christian Sibelius was born on 8 December 1865 in Hämeenlinna in the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was then a part of the Russian empire. His father died before he was three years old, but his uncle encouraged his musical interests. The boy was given piano lessons for three years; when he was ten years old, his uncle gave him a violin, which he much preferred playing. He dabbled with composition in his teens, but commented on the results, 'They are rather poor, but it is nice to have something to do on rainy days'.

On leaving school, Sibelius began studying law in Turku. However he was more interested in music, so he moved to Helsinki, where he had formal lessons in composition as well as pursuing his dream of becoming a violinist. He went on to study in Berlin and Vienna. After returning to Finland, Sibelius married the sister of a friend from the Helsinki music school. They lived in a house in the countryside near Lake Tuusula. Sibelius was able to make a living composing and conducting. He died from a brain haemorrhage on 20 September 1957.

As well as the well-known tone poem, "Finlandia", and the popular "Karelia" suite, Sibelius wrote eight symphonies, and numerous other shorter orchestral pieces and songs.

Answer: Edward VIII

Edward VIII succeeded his father, George V, on the latter's death at the beginning of 1936. However, Edward was in love with an American divorcee, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. At that time, it was deemed completely unacceptable for royalty to marry someone who was divorced, and Edward abdicated in favour of his brother, since he said he couldn't perform his duties without the help and support of the woman he loved. George VI was the brother who took over from Edward VIII.

Some four hundred years earlier, Henry VIII had a different way around the problem. He divorced or beheaded wives who were in his way, when he wanted a new lover. Less than seventy years after the abdication crisis of 1936, Edward VIII's great-nephew, Charles, Prince of Wales married a divorcee, Mrs. Camilla Parker-Bowles. When Elizabeth II died in 2022, and Charles succeeded to the throne, Camilla was crowned as queen consort alongside him.

Answer: Peter

According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, on the occasion of the Last Supper, Jesus told Peter that before the cock had crowed Peter would deny all suggestions of being a friend of Jesus, three times. Peter rejected the idea, insisting that he would die with Jesus if he had to.

However, after Jesus was arrested, Peter followed with the crowd, as told in all four Gospels. First a maid, and later two other people saw him there, and asked if Peter was a friend of Jesus, but Peter said he knew nothing about Jesus.

As he finished speaking to the last man, Peter heard the cock crowing, and was struck with remorse for what he had said.

Answer: Spleen

The spleen is part of the body's immune system. However the liver can take over some of its functions in the event of damage to the spleen, so there is no need to consider a transplant. The kidneys, liver and heart are all essential parts of the body.

The first successful kidney transplant took place in 1950 in Illinois. There were no anti-rejection drugs at that point, and it was rejected ten months later. But the patient, who had polycystic kidney disease, lived for another five years, because her own kidneys had had time to recover.

It was not until 1967 that a successful liver transplant occurred; the young patient lived for over a year. Liver transplants continued to take place, but the survival rate was not great until anti-rejection drugs became available.

The first successful heart transplant was also in 1967. It took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Unfortunately the patient died eighteen days later from pneumonia.

Ciclosporin was introduced into medicine in 1983. It comes from a fungus and can be used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs. It has resulted in greatly increased survival rates for transplant patients.

Answer: Rugby Union

Archery was first seen at the Paris games in 1900. St. Louis in 1904, London in 1908 and Antwerp in 1920 also hosted archery competitions, but not Stockholm in 1912. It was not seen again until Munich in 1972; it was contested in each subsequent games up to and including the Covid-delayed Tokyo competition in 2021.

Golf also made its debut in 1900, and was played at the next competition. There were plans for it to be played in 1908, but it was cancelled. This appears to have been because of some dispute about whether it was a suitable sport for the Olympics, and some incomplete entry forms from almost all of the competitors. The sport made a comeback at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and was also played in 2021 in the Covid-delayed games in Tokyo.

Tennis was played at the first of the modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896, and at every subsequent event until Paris in 1924, after which it was dropped from the list. It was re-instated as a competition for the games in Seoul in 1988, after being a demonstration sport in Mexico in 1968, and also in Los Angeles in 1984.

Rugby Union, with fifteen players on each team, was played at the Olympic games in Paris in 1900, London in 1908, Antwerp in 1920, and Paris in 1924. It did not attract a lot of support, and the final match in 1924 resulted in a pitch invasion and the winning team from the USA being attacked by the crowd. The sport was dropped after that. However, there were requests for it to be reinstated towards the end of the twentieth century. A shorter version of the game, with seven players on each side, made its debut at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Answer: The Apprentice

"The Apprentice" was first shown in the UK in 2005, with Sir Alan Sugar undertaking to host one series. The format proved so successful, that he agreed to carry on. Two teams of young hopefuls undertook a series of business-related tasks over a period of several weeks. Each week one team would be declared the winner, and Sugar would analyse the performance of the losing team, before rejecting one of them from the rest of the series with the classic statement, 'You're fired'. The prize at stake was originally a job with Sugar's company. Later this was changed to an investment from Sugar, who would be a partner to the winner in a business venture.

"Dragons' Den" also started in 2005. The aspiring entrepreneurs would pitch their business propositions to five multi-millionaires ('the dragons'). After explaining the service or product, and possibly demonstrating a prototype, the contestants would ask the dragons to make an investment. The dragons would take turns to comment on the proposals, and either offer to help, or reject the business opportunity, using the phrase, 'I'm out'.

Answer: Disney

George Lucas created the" Star Wars" universe with the production of the first film in 1977. It proved successful, and two sequels followed in 1980 and 1983. Three prequels were produced in 1999, 2002 and 2005. All were produced under the umbrella of Lucas' company, LucasFilms. The first officially licensed video game appeared in 1978. Many others followed, either based on the films, or the expanded universe which encompassed them.

In 1993, George Lucas set up a company called LucasArts to develop video games for the franchise. "Star Wars 1313" was one of the last games being developed by the company. It was intended to be an action-adventure with Bobba Fett navigating the subterranean underworld of Coruscant.

When George Lucas decided to retire from making blockbuster films, he sold LucasFilms, including the LucasArts subsidiary, to the Disney corporation in 2012. Disney, apparently, was not interested in producing video games, and all work stopped on the development of the new game.

Answer: The National Gallery

In a speech made in 1984 at a dinner celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institution of British Architects, the Prince of Wales (later King Charles III) described a proposed extension to The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in London as being like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend.

A carbuncle is an infected boil or abscess on the skin, so a monstrous one would be a particularly unpleasant addition to anything. The proposed design for the extension was later rejected.