Beach Party with Australians! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris was born in Perth on 30th March 1930. His move to England in 1952 bought a host of opportunities his way, including television shows and chart success with his songs "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", "Jake the Peg" and "Sun Arise". He bought us the wobble board, a piece of hardboard with enough flexibility that would make it "whoop-whoop" when flicked with both hands.

Answer: Baz Luhrmann

Baz Luhrmann was born in Sydney in 1962. His father was on the land, and his mother taught ballroom dancing. Such was his love of this form of dance, that Baz incorporated it in his work when he directed the excellent 1992 film "Strictly Ballroom". This features a love story intertwined with exquisite dance routines. "Moulin Rouge" and all its many dance numbers and songs also reflects this love.

Though born in Sydney, Baz was raised at a tiny country settlement of Heron's Creek. His father, who was a farmer, also ran a movie theatre and a petrol station there. Baz's love of the land is reflected in the movie "Australia", which is set on a cattle station in the far north of Australia, during world war two. Baz Luhrmann was born with the given names of Mark Anthony, but was given the nickname Baz by his classmates because they said he looked like the children's hand puppet, Basil Brush.

Answer: Errol Flynn

Set in the West Indies and the Caribbean, "Captain Blood" (1935) was Flynn's first of more than 60 films. Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Flynn's father was a professor of biology at the University of Tassie. He was expelled from a posh boys boarding school in Sydney, where he had been sent to gain a good education. The reason? Fighting constantly with the other lads - and having sex with a laundress. And that just about sums up what his life would be from then on. He was wild, he was untamed, he was rebellious - and he drank like a fish.

He rose to fame in America when he moved there in 1942. There he went through the ladies as fast as he churned out the films. He took self-medicated hard drugs for chronic and ongoing back pain, he had a bad heart (preventing his fighting in the war, and which would kill him when he was fifty), malaria, the after effects of tuberculosis - and several venereal diseases. Because of his success with the ladies, Flynn's boudoir activities gave rise to the saying "In like Flynn". In short, he sounds like the average Australian male.

Answer: Banjo Paterson

Banjo Paterson (1864-1941) was born at Orange in New South Wales. Over the course of his life, he was a jockey, solicitor, song writer, poet, journalist, author, farmer, horse vet, and World War I soldier and ambulance driver in France. He lived with his parents on an isolated sheep station for the first five years of this life until, following a huge flood which destroyed most of the property's livestock and wool clip, the family moved a little closer to civilisation. From the family's house there at Yass, he witnessed all the colorful characters from early Australia passing by the door. These included bullock drivers with their teams of animals, coaches filled with settlers going to and from distant destinations, horsemen from the Murrumbidgee and Snowy mountains areas, drovers, farmers, hobos, and families going to church, shopping, polo matches and bush picnics - everything that symbolised colonial life in Australia at that time.

All this found echo in his writings and his books, and "The Man From Snowy River" his most famous poem, along with "Clancy of the Overflow" are works that ring with the essence and flavour of those long ago days in this new country. Such is his fame that his image appears on the Australian $10 dollar note, along with an illustration from that great piece of poetry.

Answer: Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie comes from a father of Italian descent and a mother of Anglo-Celtic descent. No wonder she's so musical! As a child, she studied tap, ballet and highland dancing, hoping to make her career out of dance, but her singing genes simply could not be denied. Her single "Torn" was an outstanding success, and by early 2012 she had four albums of her work to her credit as well, with her fifth album due to be released later the same year.

Also an actress, Natalie was a regular on the Aussie television series "Neighbours" for two years until she left to further her singing career. It seems anyone who's anybody these days has worked on that particular soapie. In 2003, Natalie married Daniel Johns, the frontman for the band Silverchair. They were married in a ceremony on the beach up at Port Douglas in Queensland.

Answer: Edmund Barton

Barton (1849-1920) was a judge, Australia's first PM, and a founding Justice of High Court. It was in this latter position that he served most of his time, but his fame rests on the historical fact that he was the first Prime Minister of the federated states of Australia. This came into being in 1901. Prior to this date, all states were actually separate colonies. Barton only stayed in this position from 1 January 1901 until 24 September 1903 and resigned of his own accord to pursue his legal career further.

Barton was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was good looking, went to the top schools in the country in his youth, and then attended the University of Sydney (a beautiful and gracious set of buildings) where he graduated as a barrister in 1871. He was an early supporter of federation and was instrumental in helping draft the first constitution. His government was responsible for the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act which would lead to the later White Australia Policy. He did introduce one excellent reform however in 1902 when Australian women were given the right to vote. Barton liked a drink or twenty as well - he'll be perfect for our beach party as long as his throat isn't slit for his policies - and was known by the nickname of Toby Tosspot.

Answer: Cathy Freeman

Though the other three women listed above were brilliant Australian athletes during their sporting careers, it was Cathy I was after. Born in Mackay up in Queensland in 1973, Cathy began racing at a very young age. By the time she reached early teens, she'd already scooped up a pile of regional and national titles. In 1987, a professional coach took over her training. During this period, she attended an exclusive college for girls in Toowoomba, another Queensland town. By 1990, she was representing Australia in the 4 x 100 metre relay at the Commonwealth Games held in New Zealand, making her the first ever indigenous gold medalist at a Commonwealth Games. She was her team's youngest member at this time as well, at the grand old age of sixteen. She continued to win race after race in the following years - and then came her 400 metre race in the 2000 Olympics.

I was working for the public service at that time and we all watched that race on the big TV screen in the conference room. It was incredibly exciting. Not only were we cheering for an Australian - we were cheering for an indigenous Australian, a wonderful stout-hearted representative of our nation. And as the racers turned into the straight, Kathy suddenly took off. Her speed was astonishing. She left the other contestants blinking as she sprinted across the line that day. And I have never been able to make up my mind ever since which was the most exciting event on this occasion. Cathy's race - or the sight of a bunch of Australian public servants suddenly becoming animated and alive and cheering their bureaucratic heads off - without putting in a later claim for overtime to do so.

Answer: Queen Mary of Denmark

Mary's father was a professor of the Department of science, and Dean of that establishment, at the university of Tasmania, until his retirement in 2003. Mary's mother was executive assistant to the Vice Chancellor at the same university. Following the death of his first wife in 1997, Professor Donaldson married the novelist Susan Moody in 2001. As a girl, Mary excelled at many sports and, as a teenager, rode professionally in equestrian events as well. She also studied flute, clarinet and piano, attended various schools, and eventually graduated from Hobart College. From there she attended the University of Tasmania, and graduated from there with a combined degree in commerce and law in 1994.

Mary then moved to Melbourne and worked in advertising as an accounts executive. She met her prince, Frederik, the Crown Prince of Denmark, during the 2000 Olympics, which were held in Sydney. They met at a pub of all places. It was really a high class inn in disguise. They kept their courtship quiet and hidden from the public at this stage. In 2002 Mary moved to Denmark to take up work there, and the courtship progressed. They were married in May 2004.

The marriage ceremony, which was televised in Australia as well, was just lovely. As he saw her walking down the aisle towards him, Prince Frederik was overcome with emotion and shed a few tears. When she reached his side, Mary laughed at him. Since then, the couple have had four children - boy, girl, and twins (boy and girl). She became the Queen consort when her husband ascended to the throne in January 2024, as King Frederik X.

Answer: Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson is a world famous model, actress, TV hostess, producer and businesswoman, and by 2012 her accumulated wealth from all that hard work was over sixty million dollars. She was born with the name Eleanor Nancy Gow. Her parents divorced when Elle was ten years old, and her mother took the three children and moved to another area to live, where she later remarried. When Elle was enrolled at another new school, a clerical error in recording her details resulted in Elle's surname being registered as Macpherson, the name of her stepfather.

Elle enrolled at university to study law, but prior to beginning her studies, went to the USA for a year, to earn enough money from modelling to pay for the university fees. She became so much in demand there that she never did get to go to that institute of higher learning after all. Elle's hair is a natural light brown, her eyes are also brown, her measurements are 36C-25-35 and she's six foot tall.

Answer: Ned Kelly

Thomas Keneally is a famous Australian author. His is the pen that gave us works such as "Schindler's Ark" and "The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith." Patrick White is another famous Australian writer with works such as "The Tree of Man", "Voss" and "The Vivisector". The magnificent Henry Lawson is one of Australia's most famous early short story writers. His writing can make you laugh or cry, with his magnificent descriptions of life during the goldrush and outback days of the young country of Australia.

While much has been written about Ned Kelly, he wasn't an author himself. He was an Irish Australian bushranger, and the country can't make up its mind, whether he was a heartless killer or a folk hero. Born in 1855, he was hanged for his crimes when finally captured in 1880. Ned's father was an Irish convict and there was incredible animosity between the Irish convicts (most of whom were political prisoners) and the English-led police force of this country at that time. If you had a convict for a parent, and an Irish one at that, you were therefore doubly disadvantaged, and the police well and truly hounded the Kelly family. Ned made this victimisation worse by commencing an early career as a cattle and horse rustler, a bank robber, and an assault and robbery of a Chinese pig farmer called Ah Fook. Ned later shot and killed a police constable who tried to arrest him for drunkenness. And on it went until it all came to head in the following fashion:

A police constable who had a wound to his wrist claimed Ned had shot him when he went to the Kelly house to enquire about cattle rustling. While at the house, however, he had actually made a pass at Ned's sister, and Mrs Kelly picked up a shovel and hit the constable on his wrist to protect her pretty daughter. The other boys in the family then flattened the constable. No guns were involved, and Ned in fact, wasn't even in the state at the time. By the time the constable reported back to the station, however, he claimed that Ned had shot him. The full force of the law was after Ned from that time.

Ned, one of his brothers, and two friends subsequently went into hiding. Several months later, following a series of bank robberies, they were finally cornered, Ned by now had manufactured a suit of armour for himself, and in the shootout that followed, Ned advanced towards the police, wearing his armour, in a blaze of gunfire. The police downed Ned because his legs were unprotected, captured him - and he was hanged. A perfect bouncer for our party. The only trouble is that Kelly's body was later dissected by medical students, and they gave his head to a phrenologist to study any lumps and bumps thereon. So while Ned's body had finally been located, his head never has.