Another Common Bond by JanIQ Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Spy

John Le Carré (pen name of David John Moore Cornwell) published "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" in 1963 and won the Edgar Award for best novel with it. The story is about a British spy who pretends to defect to East Germany, and there spreads the rumour that the chief of the East German Stasi is in fact a British double-agent.

Father Brown is an amateur sleuth created by G.K. Chesterton. He appeared only in some short stories, not in a full novel. Samuel Colt invented the six-shooter named after him. Adam Opel founded a factory in Germany in 1862. Initially his firm produced sewing machines, but after Adam's death his sons changed to automobile manufacturing.

Answer: Scout Movement

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857-1941) entered a military career in 1876, which centered upon South Africa and Rhodesia (nowadays Zambia and Zimbabwe). During his army career, he published a book about scouting techniques - including survival in an unknown environment. As he saw young boys fascinated by this book, he decided in 1907 to set up a youth organization focused on scouting techniques. The movement started with a camp with only twenty boys, but soon it spread worldwide.

Baden-Powell was knighted in 1909 and finally promoted to Baron of Gilwell in 1929. The Swiss doctor Henri Dunant founded the Red Cross in 1863, with the assistance of the Swiss lawyer Gustave Moynier. Colonel William Church and General George Wingate founded the National Rifle Association in the USA in 1871. Daniel Barenboim, an international musician, and the American literature professor Edward Said, founded the West Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999. This orchestra assembles Israeli, Palestine and Arab musicians.

Answer: Ore miners

The "Command and Conquer" games are various real-time strategy games. As an army commander, you have the objective to destroy enemy forces. But in order to do so, you need to set up a base camp with defensive structures, train infantry units, assemble tanks and other vehicles, and so on. All this costs a lot, so you have to harvest precious metals in order to finance all these operations.
So one of the basic units is an ore miner, which searches nearby precious metals, and takes them home to an ore refinery, where the metals are converted into cash.

Computer enemies are aware of the vital importance of the ore miners and of their tendency to roam freely, usually unprotected by tanks. So the computer enemies will strike at ore miners first.

Answer: Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band

Do I need to introduce The Beatles? It was one of the most popular bands in the sixties, and it scored dozens of gold and platinum records. The studio album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released in 1967. It was a platinum record in Germany, eight times platinum in Canada and eleven times platinum in the USA. "The White Album" (officially known as "The Beatles") was released in 1968. "Revolver" was a Beatles album released in 1966. "Hey Jude" was a Beatles compilation album released in 1970.

Answer: The French Lieutenant's Woman

"The French Lieutenant's Woman" tells the story of a movie production starring Anna (Meryl Streep) and Mike (Jeremy Irons). When Mike and Anna re-enact the love affair between a nineteenth-century biologist and a female outcast, they experience similar patterns in their present life.

The movie "The French Lieutenant's Woman" was directed by Karel Reisz. The screenplay written by Harold Pinter was based upon a novel by John Fowles.

"Rebecca" was a Hitchcock movie from 1940 with Lawrence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. "Pretty in Pink" (1986) starred Molly Ringwald and Harry Dean Stanton. "Blade Runner" (1982) was a sci-fi movie with Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer. The first credited actress was Daryl Hannah.

Answer: Captain Crunch

Wendel Clark (born 1966) played ice hockey in the NHL from 1985 until 2000, most of the time with the Toronto Maple Leafs. His frequent furious body checks did earn him the nickname "Captain Crunch".

All the red herrings are nicknames of other NHL players. Gordon Berenson was nicknamed "The Red Baron", Martin Brodeur was known as "Satan's Wallpaper" and Carl Gunnarson had the nickname "Gunner" or "Uzi".

Answer: Major Tom

"Ground control to Major Tom (2x) / Take your protein pills and put your helmet on". With these lines starts Bowie's song "Space Oddity". The song describes the launch of a manned spacecraft. When the astronaut goes out for a space walk, ground control notices something is the matter...

David Bowie created the song "Space Oddity" in 1969 for an album that was released in the UK and in the US (but with different instrumentation). The title is a wordplay on Stanley Kubrick's movie and the subject was inspired by the first moon landing.

The Green Giant is a brand of canned or frozen vegetables. Avram Rabinowitz is a minor character from Herman Wouk's novels "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance". Machete Cortez is the lead character in the movie "Machete" (2010) by Robert Rodriguez.

Answer: Colonel Kurt von Strohm

"Allo Allo" was a British sitcom situated in the north of France during WW II. The German army officers befriend the local pub owner René, and convince him to hide some valuable paintings. But at the same time, René hides some British pilots for the local resistance. On top of all this, René tries to conceal from his wife the flirts with his servant girls.

Richard Marner plays in this series the role of Colonel von Strohm, the chief officer occupying the (fictitious) town of Nouvion.

In another British sitcom ("Keeping Up Appearances"), the protagonist Hyacinth Bucket brags all the time about her sister Violet - "the one with the Mercedes, the sauna and room for a pony". On the few episodes that we actually see Violet, her character is portrayed by Anna Dawson.

Mr. Lucas (a role by Trevor Bannister) is a character from the British sitcom "Are You Being Served?"

Thomas Magnum is the private detective in the eponymous American detective series "Magnum, P.I.". Tom Selleck plays the title role.

Answer: General Charles de Gaulle

France has had different types of government since the Eighteenth Century. When in 1792 the revolutionary forces convicted King Louis XVI to the death penalty, they instituted the First Republic (1792-1804). Napoleon was head of state during the First Empire (1804-1815), and after his defeat at Waterloo France reverted to a kingdom. In 1848 started the Second Republic (1848-1852), followed by the Second Empire (1852-1870). The Third Republic was from 1871 until 1940, and after a provisional government during WW II the Fourth Republic was proclaimed in 1947. In 1959, Charles De Gaulle forced a new constitution, thus founding the Fifth Republic.

Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) entered military service in 1907, at first as an ordinary soldier. He went to the cadet school in 1908 and climbed the officer's ranks, ending up a Brigadier General during WW II. General de Gaulle held office as Prime Minister immediately after the war (1944-1946).

From 1946 until 1958, De Gaulle wrote his memoirs and closely scrutinized French political matters. The Fourth Republic was crumbling as a result of the loss of various colonies. De Gaulle wanted to seize power, but only after a new constitution would have been proclaimed. Thus happened, and De Gaulle took office as the first President of the Fifth French Republic.

Anton Mauve was a Dutch painter. Joseph Guillotin was a French doctor who improved the instrument to behead criminals - an instrument that still bears his name. Paul Ramadier (1888-1961) was briefly head of state of France in 1947, at the start of the Fourth Republic.

Answer: Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands are a group of atolls in the Pacific Ocean. In total the 34 atolls have a land mass of 181 km², about the size of a large city.
The Marshall islands were a Spanish colony up till 1884, when these were sold to Germany. The islands then served as a protectorate for Germany, for Japan and for the USA. In 1986, they reached the status of an independent country.

For those who wonder: Enewetok is the official spelling (as used in Google Maps and in Wikipedia), although many write Eniwetok.

If you have read carefully the first nine questions of the present quiz, you may have identified four possible common bonds: biblical names, colours, weapons or military ranks. But in the introduction I've stated that the correct common bond would be related to something in the Hobbies category on Fun Trivia. The correct answers are the movable units in the board game Stratego, in ascending rank:

1. The SPY who, according to John Le Carré, "Came In From the Cold"
2. The SCOUTS association founded by Baden Powell
3. MINERS, more notably ore miners in a series of video games
4. A SERGEANT, in the title of a Beatles' album
5. A LIEUTENANT, in the movie starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons
6. A CAPTAIN from the National Hockey League
7. A MAJOR, the one launched into space according to a David Bowie song
8. COLONEL von Strohm, a TV character
9. GENERAL De Gaulle, first president of the Fifth French Republic
10. The MARSHALL Islands