People Rhymes 5 - Updated Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spears tears

American singer Britney Spears was born in December 1981. Having performed on the TV show "The All-New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1993-94, she went on to release her first album, "...Baby One More Time", in January 1999 at the age of 17. It was a huge success, and while her career since then has had its ups and downs, she remains (in 2022) a global megastar.

She has burst into tears during interviews on more than one occasion.

Answer: Fonda Honda

American actress and activist Jane Fonda was born in December 1937, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda. She gained the unflattering nickname "Hanoi Jane" in 1972 when she was photographed sitting smiling on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun during a "fact-finding" visit, at a time when America was still at war in Vietnam. The publication of the photograph caused considerable outrage at the time.

Honda is a Japanese motor manufacturing company, founded in 1946. It is not known if Jane Fonda has ever owned one of their vehicles.

Answer: Dickens chickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of the most popular and acclaimed novelists of the Victorian era, and his books remain both critically acclaimed and widely read 150 years after his death. As well as writing novels such as "Oliver Twist", "David Copperfield", "A Tale Of Two Cities" and "Bleak House", he edited the weekly magazines "Household Words" and "All the Year Round" and was a tireless campaigner on numerous social reform issues.

What with all this work, he probably didn't find much time to keep poultry of any sort, although a large turkey does play an incidental role in his short novel "A Christmas Carol".

Answer: King bling

American writer Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947. His first novel to be published was "Carrie" (1974), which was made into an equally successful film by Brian de Palma two years later. Since then, King has written over 60 novels and short story collections, mostly of which can be categorised as horror, fantasy, or science fiction. Over 350 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, making him among the world's bestselling living authors.

Bling is a slang word for excessively showy and vulgar jewellery, which was first used in the 1990s. Given Stephen King's success, he could probably afford to buy as much bling as he wanted, if he felt inclined to do so.

Answer: Marx sharks

Groucho Marx (1890-1977) was the third of the five performing Marx Brothers, being younger than Chico and Harpo, but older than Gummo and Zeppo. He became famous for his quick-fire patter and comic songs, as well as his trademark glasses and fake moustache and eyebrows. The 13 films that he made with Chico and Harpo (plus Zeppo in the first five) are regarded as classics of madcap comedy and are still popular today.

His final screen appearance was in a bizarre 1976 Bob Hope TV special named "Joys!", a very loose parody of the film "Jaws", thus providing a tenuous link with the sharks in the question.

Answer: Pound hound

Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was born in Hailey, Idaho, but moved to London in 1908. Here he met and encouraged the young T.S. Eliot, providing notable editorial input to that writer's famous poem "The Waste Land", published in 1922. In 1924 he moved to Italy, where he became a supporter of Mussolini's fascist regime. After the Second World War he was accused of treason by the USA but judged to be insane and incarcerated in a lunatic asylum until 1958. Following his release he returned to Italy, where he died in 1972. His greatest work was his series of "Cantos", published between 1917 and 1962.

A hound is a type of dog originally bred for hunting, such as the foxhound, otterhound, and bloodhound.

Answer: Murray curry

Andy Murray was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1987. He won his first Grand Slam title in 2012 at the US Open, beating Novak Djokovic, and the following year became the first British player to win the Wimbledon men's singles title since Fred Perry in 1986. He won a second Wimbledon title in 2016, but since then became dogged with injury problems. Between 2017 and 2021 he failed to get beyond the 3rd round at any of the four Grand Slam tournaments, missing several completely.

In London, the name "Ruby Murray" is Cockney rhyming slang for a curry, after another famous Murray - the popular 1950s singer of that name. Ruby Murray's "annus mirabilis" was probably 1955, when she had five songs in the UK Top Twenty charts in a single week, and her name lives on in the phrase "fancy a ruby tonight?".

Answer: Blair lair

The Labour politician Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair was born in 1953 and was UK Prime Minister between 1997 and 2007. At the time of his first General Election victory, he was aged just 44, making him the youngest UK Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. By abandoning many of the Labour Party's more left-leaning policies, he widened its appeal among the voting public, but alienated some of its traditional supporters. His eagerness to involve the UK in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tarnished his reputation further, and he remains a controversial figure.

At the time of writing (2022) Tony Blair and his wife Cherie are believed to own at least eight residences, including one in London's prestigious Connaught Square, where individual flats sell for several million pounds each. He is therefore unlikely to be familiar with an animal's lair, even if some people think he should be in the doghouse.

Answer: Potter trotter

The fictional character of Harry Potter, pupil at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was created by the author J. K. Rowling. His first appearance was in the 1997 book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". This was followed by six further novels between 1998 and 2007, all of which became the subject of successful films. In 2016 a play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", had its premiere in London's West End, picking up the story some years later, when Harry's own son was studying at Hogwarts.

The most obviously porcine feature of the stories is the name of the school itself - Hogwarts - which suggests an unsightly skin condition contracted from pigs. Pig's feet can be cooked and eaten, so may well have featured on the Hogwarts menu.

Answer: Ford sword

The American Henry Ford (1863-1947) founded the company that bears his name in 1903. In 1908 he introduced the "Model T" vehicle, which remained in production until 1927. Ford's "assembly-line" manufacturing process revolutionised factories around the world, enabling them to produce items both cheaply and in large quantities. The "Model T" car was soon affordable by most middle-class families in the USA and became an aspirational symbol of early twentieth century American society.

Henry Ford died a wealthy man at the age of 83, having lived through both World Wars. If he did own a sword, it would presumably have been one mass-produced in large quantities, rather than one hand-made by an expert swordsmith.