Quiz #5 - From Captain Kirk to Captain McCaw
Number 5 is alive! This is the fifth quiz in our series. We think you'll find it tougher than others but also more rewarding.
Click on each question to reveal the answer, or click on the 'Show all the answers' link to see how you went and to learn more. Let us know any suggestions you have for improving the quiz by emailing quizmaster@radionz.co.nz.
Contest Results
We were so impressed with the responses to last week's competition we have chosen five winners. The challenge was to make a sentence with the following words - enormity, bigamy, largesse, capacious and grandiose.
First prize goes to:
Dazzled by her new husband's largesse - the capacious Louis Vuitton luggage set, the grandiose hotel honeymoon suite, and the simply enormous emerald ring - Mrs Smith the second chose to overlook the enormity of his bigamy. (Kate, Wellington)
And three runners up:
Although he was aware of the enormity of bigamy, Mr. Jones lived with his five wives in a capacious, grandiose home in the centre of town and was known for his largesse. (Anne, Invercargill)
The capacious wallet and grandiose largesse of the king did nothing to diminish the enormity of his bigamy. (Oliver, Wellington)
The enormity of his bigamy was compounded by his largesse; as a grandiose gesture he installed his second wife in an extremely capacious penthouse. (Laura, Christchurch)
And, finally, the award for managing to weave a current event into the answer (TPP negotiations) goes to Hamish of Wellington:
The enormity of the grandiose negotiating positions during discussions for a key trade agreement being conducted in a capacious hotel room in Atlanta has led to accusations of largesse and bigamy.
The Quiz
Q 1 How many Star Trek movies were made based on the original series and cast?
A 6
The films were:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1981)
III and IV were directed by Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock), while V was directed by William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk). Hard-core fans are frequently heard debating the merits of each of the films. Should you come across such a conversation, in the interests of personal safety you are advised to steer clear.
NB: A good example of why you should avoid such conversations is the debate that raged in the office over whether the two J.J. Abrams reboots should have been on this list. Hence why I specified 'the original cast' in the question.
Q 2 Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How much is a peck?
A 1/4 of a bushel.
The bushel and the peck are both used to measure bulk dry commodities such as apples. Farmers once used number of bushels of produce per acre as measure of return.
Q 3 Samuel Langhorne Clemens was commonly know as?
A Mark Twain
The name is a riverboat slang for two (twain) measures (mark), or two fathoms. Generally speaking it is the shallowest a boat can operate without running aground.
Clemens was one of seven children. He apprenticed as a printer, and later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. When he began writing he chose the pen name Mark Twain.
He did well as an author, but lost most of his money through poor investments. He lost $300,000 in the Paige typesetting machine when it was made obsolete by linotype.
Q 4 When did construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa end?
A 1372
The tower took 199 years to complete. Construction began in 1173, and stopped when the second level had been completed in 1178. Even at this early stage the tower had started to lean, and work did not start again until 1272. It stopped again in 1284 due to the war with Genoa. The seventh floor was added in 1319, and the bell chamber in 1372.
Work to stop the tower toppling began in 1990 - it was righted by about 1.5° - and it was reopened to the public in 2001.
Q 5 Agathis Australis is the botanical name for which New Zealand tree?
A Kauri
The largest known Kauri today is Tāne Mahuta (Lord of the Forest). According to the NZ Tree Register its height is 45m and its girth is 15.4m. Nearby Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest) is not as tall, but has a girth of 16m.
The largest recorded Kauri, Te Atuararahi (The Great Ghost), had a girth of 27 metres and was destroyed by fire around 1890.
Q 6 Which is shorter a picometre or a nanometre?
A Picometre
A picometre is 1×10−12 metres, or one trillionth of a metre, while a nanometre is 1×10−9 metres. The atomic radius of a carbon atom is about 70 picometres, so you are not likely to have much use for this measure in day-to-day life.
Q 7 What is the most popular street name in New Zealand?
A And the winner is … George Street.
Probably. Hamish Campbell got all the data from Land Information New Zealand and crunched it, but he does note that there may be duplicates in the list because the data is used for electoral addressing. We are happy to be corrected.
Q 8 What is Dr Watson's first name (from Sherlock Holmes)?
A John
Dr John H. Watson was Sherlock Holmes' friend and assistant. His first name is only mentioned in four of the Holmes stories. There have been suggestions that his middle name was Hamish because his own wife called him James - an English version of the name Hamish. In the TV series Elementary, the role was cast as Dr Joan Watson, played by Lucy Liu.
Q 9 How many All Blacks have captained the side so far during this World Cup?
A Four
Richie McCaw, Kieran Read and Sam Cane have been named captains, while Conrad Smith took over the captaincy during a game when Read was sin-binned.
Q 10 How many World Cups has Steve Hansen coached at?
A Four
In 2003 he was head coach of Wales, while in 2007 and 2011 he was the All Blacks assistant coach. In 2015 he is the All Blacks head coach.
