"...you're the top" - You're the Top IV Quiz

Answer: Germany

In a bicameral legislature, although the two chambers are usually ranked as the "Upper" and "Lower" houses, especially in parliamentary systems (as opposed to presidential) it is often the Lower house that wields the majority of political power, which stems from a number of factors, including the fact that it is usually directly elected, whereas the membership of many Upper houses is by appointment; or they have the power to institute financial legislation; or that the head of government is usually drawn from its ranks, and can thus be removed by its membership.

The lower house of the German parliament is the Bundestag. As with many other lower houses around the world, its membership primarily consists of individual geographical constituencies, each representing a specific area of the country. There are a total of 299 constituencies, each of which is represented by a single member who is elected using the "First Past the Post" system, where the candidate with the highest number of votes wins. However, in elections to the Bundestag voters also cast a second vote, in which additional seats are allocated on a proportional basis. Legally, the Bundestag must have a minimum of 598 members, with 299 additional members combined with the 299 constituency members. However, due to the way that the election is held in Germany, more additional seats than the 598 minimum are portioned out, leading to significantly more members than the legal requirement. Following the 2021 German federal election, the number of seats in the Bundestag increased from 709 to 736.

Answer: Walnut

The Waldorf salad is a primarily fruit and nut dish, generally consisting of apples, grapes, celery and walnuts, dressed in mayonnaise and served on a bed of lettuce. Thanks to the nature of its ingredients, it is generally served as an appetizer or a light main meal. Since it was first devised, additional ingredients have been added to it, including dried fruits, such as dates or raisins, and poultry. Some modern variations of the Waldorf salad also include the zest of citrus fruits, or replace the simple mayonnaise dressing for a seasoned mayonnaise or yoghurt.

The Waldorf salad was first served on 14 March 1896, when it was created for a charity ball given in honour of St Mary's Children's Hospital at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The dish is believed to have been devised by Oscar Tschirky, the hotel's maître d', who was responsible for developing many of the hotel's signature dishes. The recipe first appeared in print the same year in "Oscar of the Waldorf's Cook Book", a recipe book by Tschirsky. The original version did not contain walnuts, although these had been added by the time it appeared in George Rector's 1928 volume "The Rector Cook Book".

Answer: Gold Diggers of 1935

In 1934, Irving Berlin was approached by Pandro S. Berman of RKO Pictures with a view to the composer producing a new original film score for the upcoming film "Top Hat", starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Berlin agreed, having negotiated a lucrative contract for the task, which allowed him to retain the copyright to the songs he produced for the film, while also giving him a 10% profit share if "Top Hat" earned more than $1.25m at the box office. Berlin eventually produced thirteen songs for the film, of which eight were discarded as they were felt not to advance the plot. This left five that ended up being used in the film, one of which was the ballad "Cheek to Cheek", which was used for the film's partnered dance routine between the two stars.

A version of "Cheek to Cheek" was produced by Leo Reisman's Orchestra, with Fred Astaire on vocals, for release as a single record. "Cheek to Cheek" was released as a single at the beginning of August 1935, and went straight to number one in the chart, remaining there for eleven weeks and ending the year as the biggest selling single. At the 8th Academy Awards, the song was one of three nominated in the Best Original Song category, alongside one from another Astaire-Rogers film, "Roberta". However, both lost out to the Harry Warren and Al Dubin song "Lullaby of Broadway", which had featured in the Warner Brothers musical "Gold Diggers of 1935".

Answer: Steinway & Sons

Grand pianos come in a range of different sizes, with the so-called "baby grand" around 1.5m long, and often used as a piano for domestic use, or in smaller teaching studios or concert venues, as they take up significantly less space than a full-size concert grand piano, which can be up to twice as long. The first piano to be marketed as a baby grand was the Model A, an instrument that was approximately 1.8m long produced by Steinway & Sons and released in 1905.

Steinway continued development of its reduced size grand pianos, releasing the Model O in 1916, which reduced the size of the cabinet to 1.77m; this became the company's baby grand, and saw the original Model A renamed as the company's "parlour grand" piano. In 1927, the Model O was replaced by the Model M, before in 1935 the Model S became Steinway's standard baby grand model.

Answer: The Laughing Cavalier

The "Laughing Cavalier" is a portrait by Dutch artist Frans Hals. The identity of the painting's subject is unknown; his dress and countenance had led to a belief that he may be a military man, or possibly an officer in one of the Dutch militias, but modern critics have suggested that he was at least as likely to have simply been a wealthy civilian, with cloth merchant Tieleman Roosterman, who appeared in another portrait by Hals, suggested as the man in the painting. Despite its name, the subject is not in fact laughing, but instead is wearing what is described as an "enigmatic smile", enhanced by his moustache.

Although painted around 1624, the provenance of the painting dates from a sale in 1770 in The Hague. Further sales led to its being purchased in 1822 by the Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, a Franco-Swiss collector, before being sold again after his death as part of the Comte's collection to the Marquess of Hertford who, after initially displaying it in his Paris home, brought it to London where it was displayed in the newly opened Bethnal Green Museum from 1872. After Hertford's death, his art collection was left to Sir Richard Wallace, believed to be the Marquess's illegitimate son. Wallace in turn left the collection to his wife, who donated both it and Hertford House in Manchester Square to the nation, where it became the Wallace Collection. Today, the "Laughing Cavalier" is on display in Hertford House's Great Gallery.

Answer: Plymouth

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, was born in Danville, Virginia in May 1879. At the age of 18, having travelled to New York City to attend a finishing school, she met and married socialite Robert Gould Shaw II. Although they had a son, also named Robert Gould Shaw, their marriage lasted just four years, with Nancy leaving numerous times before being granted a divorce in 1903.

Having undertaken a tour of England following her divorce, she moved permanently in 1905, where she became well known in society. While there, she met Waldorf Astor, the eldest son of the Anglo-American businessman William Waldorf Astor. Well matched, with similar temperaments and sharing a date of birth, they were married in 1906 and moved into a new estate at Cliveden, which was a wedding gift from the groom's father.

Waldorf Astor had been elected as Unionist MP for Plymouth in 1910. In 1918, this constituency was abolished and he was then elected for the new constituency of Plymouth Sutton. However, less than a year after his election to this new seat, Astor's father, who had been made Viscount Astor in 1917, died, with Waldorf succeeding him as the 2nd Viscount Astor. This meant he had to relinquish his seat in the House of Commons for one in the House of Lords. In the subsequent by-election, the new Viscountess Astor decided to stand as the Unionist candidate; held on 28 November 1919, she won with a majority of 5,203. Although not the first woman elected to the House of Commons - Constance Markievicz of Sinn Féin was elected as the MP for Dublin St Patrick's in 1918 but did not take her seat - on 1 December 1919 she did become the first to sit as an MP.

Answer: Bob Hope

In September 1938, a new entertainment show began on NBC Radio. Sponsored by the Pepsodent toothpaste company, "The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope" featured Bob Hope as the host alongside his regular sidekick Jerry Colonna, and was a comedy sketch programme designed to showcase Hope's talents as a comic and actor. The show usually started with an opening monologue from Hope, then a number of scripted skits featuring the other members of the show's cast, plus the guest stars that week. Hope's opening monologue rapidly became the show's highlight, with Hope personally employing a team of writers to craft the jokes he used each week.

"The Pepsodent Show" garnered its highest ratings during World War II, with it being the United States' highest rated show two years running from 1942 to 1944. Despite his efforts to enlist, Hope was told that he could be of most use as an entertainer, which led to "The Pepsodent Show" going on the road to be broadcast from bases around the country. However, after the war, the show's ratings began to decline, to the extent that, in 1948, Pepsodent pulled its sponsorship and the show ended in June 1948. However, two months later, the format was resurrected as "The Bob Hope Show", which ran on NBC until 1955.

Answer: Danube

A steppe is an ecosystem characterised by grassland plains lacking trees. Depending on either the season or the latitude, the system can either covered with grasses or shrubs (or both), or alternatively semi-arid, potentially with temperatures ranging from 45 degrees celsius in high summer to -55 degrees in winter, with high fluctuations during the day. Steppes are located in many regions around the world, with the largest of these being the Eurasian Steppe, also known as the Great Steppe, which runs for 8000km from Central Europe to the Pacific coast. Although the majority of the Great Steppe is a continuous system, it also has an exclave, the Pannonian Steppe, which is located across a number of countries of Central Europe.

The contiguous Eurasian Steppe begins with a region called the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which originates around the mouth of the River Danube in Romania. It stretches around the northern shore of the Black Sea, before terminating in the region to the north of the Caspian Sea. As a result, it can be found in areas of Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova to the west, as far as western Kazakhstan to the east. After passing through the Ural Mountains, it becomes the Kazakh steppe, which continues another 200km eastwards. After passing the Dzungarian Narrowing, it then becomes the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe, where it ends in areas of Mongolia and China.

Answer: Fox

The Roxy Theatre was built as a movie theatre with a seating capacity of almost 6000 on West 50th Street in New York City, in the block between 6th and 7th Avenues. The theatre, planned as the first of as many as six, was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin, who sought to build the largest and finest movie palace in the world. In an effort to realise his vision, Lubin teamed with the theatre operator Samuel Rothafel, who was generally known by the nickname "Roxy", with the offer of a big salary, a profit share and having the theatre named for him. It was Rothafel who brought in the architects and designers, which caused costs to spiral, leading to Lubin, who was close to bankruptcy, selling his controlling interest in the theatre to William Fox, the owner of the Fox Film Corporation, as well as the Fox West Coast Theatres movie chain.

The Roxy opened in March 1927, with the first film shown being "The Love of Sunya" starring Gloria Swanson. As part of the theatre's courteous brand of customer service, they employed a corps of male ushers, famed for their efficiency and military bearing. Overseen by a retired United States Marine, the users had daily inspections and drills, and underwent a rigorous programme of training. As part of their programme, the theatre also had a 110 member orchestra, a solo pipe organist, a male chorus, a ballet company and the "Roxyettes", a troupe of female dancers. Although the Roxy was a success, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the Fox Film Corporation suffering financial difficulties. By 1932, Rothafel had departed to establish a new theatre at Rockefeller Center. While the Roxy never regained its initial prestige, it remained a major venue until its closure and demolition in 1960.

Answer: Michael Heseltine

As early as 1993, Boris Johnson had expressed a desire for a political career. Having attempted to stand as an MEP, and been rejected as the candidate for the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras, he was selected to stand as the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour Party seat of Clwyd South in 1997, where he came second. Although he had made a promise to the owner of "The Daily Telegraph", where he was employed as a political columnist, that he would not seek to become an MP, four years later, following the decision of former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine to step down as MP for Henley, a safe Conservative seat, Johnson was selected as the candidate to replace him, being elected at the 2001 General Election.

Johnson went on to serve as the constituency's MP until 2008, when he stepped down following his election as Mayor of London. During his initial term, he stated he would not seek to return to the House of Commons while serving as Mayor. However, before the end of his second term he returned to the Commons at the 2015 General Election as the MP for Uxbridge & South Ruislip, subsequently serving as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. He served as Prime Minister between 2019 and 2022, when he resigned following a number of scandals.