To Do With Blue Trivia Quiz

Answer: sky

There are actually a surprising amount of nouns which can be used as an adjective to describe a type of blue - some of them are more obvious, such as navy. I had to keep meticulously checking my answer for this question as words such as ground or night would also qualify here (originally chosen to contrast sky) - though they're perhaps not heard as much! Other nouns that would qualify include baby, light, powder and cornflower.

Sky blue is a relatively light shade of blue, so named as it emulates the colour of a blue, cloudless sky.

Answer: Smurfs

The Smurfs were first created in 1958 by Peyo (a pseudonym for Pierre Culliford), although they were originally called "Les Schtroumpfs", with "The Smurfs" being the chosen English translation for that. Originally all of the smurfs were male; the female additions came later on.

Largely popularised by the American 1981 TV series simply titled "The Smurfs", this series won awards and created a large awareness of the franchise, which is reported to have earned billions since its genesis, with new Smurfs projects still being made and released, including "The Smurfs: Dreams", which is a videogame released in late 2024.

Answer: Cyanosis

Cyanosis is generally caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood. Where blood doesn't have enough oxygen in it, it is a dark blue-ish red hue compared to the bright red we would normally associate with it. This is what causes the blueish skin colouring compared to pink, as this blood travels around our bodies in red blood cells. Cyanosis can make you feel breathless, but it isn't the medical term relating to the blue colouring. It can also occur in single parts of the body due to certain medical conditions, for instance Raynaud's disease, which mainly affects fingers and toes and is often caused by cold temperatures, although stress can also cause it to flare up.

Cyan is also a shade of blue, hence the name.

Answer: blue whale

Although people may think of other animals such as giraffes before thinking of animals in the ocean, blue whales are surprisingly huge - they can grow to over 30 metres in length. As you might expect from this, they can also be very, very heavy, weighing well over 130,000kg. In fact, the top ten animals categorised by weight are all whales, with the blue whale the heaviest of them all and with a considerable weight gap to the next on the list, which is the bowhead whale.

The blue whale has not quite been dethroned yet, however in 2023 this narrative has been re-examined as some fossils were found in Southern Peru for a creature that they decided to name the Perucetus Colossus (which appears to be another type of whale). Some researchers believed that this whale could actually have been even larger than the blue whale, although others disagree, arguing that their bodies were actually lighter than it appears.

Answer: TARDIS

TARDIS stands for "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space". The TARDIS is supposed to have a chameleon circuit that lets it easily blend into surroundings so that it doesn't stand out as much, however this ceases functioning and so the TARDIS remains appearing as the iconic blue police box. Police boxes would house a phone so that members of the public - or, if need be, the police themselves - could use it to contact the police.

Originally, it was canonical that the name TARDIS was actually decided upon by Susan, the Doctor's grand-daughter: other Gallifreyans have referred to them as "time travel capsules" at times in the show's history. However, the word "TARDIS" is far more widely used now by everyone and seems to be the agreed term.

Bessie is the Doctor's car from the Jon Pertwee era, and UNIT previously stood for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, before being retconned to Unified Intelligence Taskforce - this is the organisation that helped out with alien threats, again most prominently throughout the Jon Pertwee era but have also appeared in the modern day iteration of "Doctor Who". K9 is the canine robot who features in Tom Baker's series predominantly.

Answer: Trails to Azure

All of the Trails games take place on the continent of Zemuria.

"Trails in the Sky" takes place in Liberl, and is a coming of age story for Estelle and Joshua Bright, as they begin their journey looking for their missing father, make friends and fall afoul of a mysterious society's plan, and have to stop it (some of them for more personal reasons than others).

The Crossbell games (consisting of "Trails From Zero" and "Trails to Azure") take place in Crossbell, and follows Lloyd Bannings, who leads the police's Special Support Section. The country is between two large superpowers who are hostile to eachother, and struggling to keep the balance in a power struggle. The West Zemurian trade conference occurring here also exemplifies this theme - a neutral ground for two much bigger powers to struggle within.

"Trails of Cold Steel" takes place in Erebonia, a state known for being very aggressive, and follows Rean Schwarzer as he embarks on life at Thors Military Academy in a country that is very focused on class.

"Trails Through Daybreak" takes place in Calvard, and centres on Van Arkride, who is a spriggan (meaning he accepts work from all over - police, criminals, citizens) who will follow his own morals.

Answer: blew / blue

In this quiz on the colour blue, where the word has been used a lot, you'll notice that the spelling "blue" is specifically referencing the colour. "Blew" on the other hand is the past tense version of "blow"; this is an irregular verb as we don't say "blowed". Young children or people learning English as an additional language may make this mistake as they try to follow the usually established rules of just adding "ed", needing to learn exceptions to this one by one with correct modelling.

Answer: Rarely

"Once in a blue moon" is an expression which means that it is something that happens rarely. It comes from the infrequency of the occurrence of blue moons, which surprisingly don't actually relate to the colour of the moon at all. It refers to where there are 13 full moons within a calendar year, which is a rare occurrence that happens due to the moon phases taking roughly 29.5 days to complete rather than the 30/31 of the majority of our calendar months. This gradual shift means that blue moons typically occur every two or three years to give an idea of frequency.

There is now also considered to be a second acceptable definition of "blue moon", but it originated from a misunderstanding of the original term. This is where there are two full moons in a month; the second is then a "blue moon".

Answer: Seas

In the UK, they are referred to as the "Royal Navy" as it is a monarchy, whereas for instance in the US it's simply called the "US Navy". A navy protects the sea (and the economy based there, for countries that can be reliant on ship trade) - particularly important for countries that are islands.

The UK's Royal Navy goals can be described broadly as follows: ensuring security at sea, deterring conflict from happening in the first place, making positive partnerships with other countries, being prepared in case of a fight, ensuring the economy on the sea is not at risk, and also for humanitarian reasons, such as providing aid.

Interestingly, some landlocked countries maintain a navy even though they don't border a sea - Paraguay, Serbia and Rwanda for example. In these cases, they may be focused on the country's rivers instead.

Answer: The Moody Blues

Despite the number one single that year, The Moody Blues actually only formed in 1964. Their first UK number one album took them until 1969, with "On the Threshold of a Dream". They took a brief hiatus in 1974, only to reform in 1977 and carry on in one way or another all the way until 2018.

Over the years, due to the incredibly longevity of their activity, there have been various changes to the lineup. Most noteably, Graeme Edge remained with the band throughout, while Justin Hayward and John Lodge both joined in 1966 and were also still operating as part of the band in 2018.

In 2018, they were recognised by being added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.