Here’s this week’s devilishly fiendish Round Blogworld Quiz question (see the previous ones and their solutions here). As usual, find the link between these cryptic clues. A point for each item you get, and an imaginary cream bun of regal proportions if you get them all. If you get the link straight off, please don’t give it away too early!
What links a former Prime Minister to a Dickens tale, a Lancashire tourist attraction, Gracie Fields, the actresses Scarlett Johansson and Diana Dors, and something a sperm whale is good at avoiding?
Clues will be given as necessary, and the solution will appear later.
Diana Dors and Scarlett J both have an hourglass figure? Is that a fifth of a virtual cream bun?
I think they’ve got more than a fifth of a cream bun between them…
Hmmm, well they’ve both got a high IQ – Diana Dors was 149 and Scarlett’s been accused of boasting about hers
Not that, Susan
apart from the fact that gracie fileds came from lancashire, Im feeling quite stuck
Have they all had a go at singing? Apart from the sperm whale who obviously had more sense.
gracie fields came from lancashire? Im feeling quite stuck
Not singing, though there is a song involved in one of the answers, and not Lancashire.
What else can a sperm whale be good at avoiding? Parked cars? Comic Relief Day at the office?
How about the bends?
hmm, this is what i’ve got so far – may be totally wrong!
a dicken’s tale linked to a former prime minister is A Tale of Two Cities, dedicated to Lord John Russell.
The two cities are london and paris
in paris is the eiffel tower, and in lancashire is the blackpool tower which is a copy of the eiffel tower
The Dickens is right… but why? The rest is clever but wrong.
Is the PM Winston Churchill then?
Not Churchill. More recent.
What a sperm whale is mostly good at avoiding is breathing? They can stay under water for well over an hour at a time.
You’re swimming in the right direction there, JL.
Sperm whales avoid getting their genitals wet when mating by jumping out of the water, don’t they? (The salt in the water is quite spermicidal, I believe.)
Am intrigued as to how you’d link that with Scarlett Johansson and Diana Dors, Gadjo…
Not the answer on the card, alas.
Is it something to do with the sun? James Callaghan known as Sunny Jim? Gracie Fields – Always look on the Bright Side. Whale avoids the sun.Tale of Two cities opening ‘it was the season of light’ Scarlett Johansson and Diana Dors are both ‘sunshine coast’ actresses – though coasts of two different cities – One south coast UK other LA/San Fran??
Clever Susan, but alas not right.
A Gracie Field’s song is involved, but not that one.
sperm whales are good at avoiding swallowing water??
No – JL was on the right track with that one
PS James Callaghan also Lancs politican and Diana Dors and Scarlett both have sunny blonde hair and sunny smiles?!
Now, would I really be linking Lancashire and sunshine? Have you ever been up there?
Blackpool ‘illuminations’
The link is light? Sunlight?
No, sorry Susan. Completely the wrong tree….
Is Macmillan the prime minister? Did Macmillan publish Dickens ‘Hard Times’, set in a northern industrial town like Rochdale, home town of Gracie Fields, who often did a summer season at Blackpool, where oil slicks were commonplace in the 1930s; but sperm whales were clever enough to go round them? When Diana Dors and Scarlet lay on their backs on Blackpool pleasure beach, from ground level it was like looking at two large slag heaps which disfigured the northern landscape when Hard Times was read by anyone who was anyone.
As ever, someone comes up with an answer much better than the real one…
Going from dark to light. As in hair colour (the blonde ladies). Water (the whale) Blackpool illuminations. Callaghan’s botanical project. Always look on the bright side…
Bipolar?
Ok, first clues:
– It’s not Blackpool or even the seaside, but water is involved in the Lancashire tourist attraction.
The Prime Minister is a man and his surname is the key.
Wigan Pier?
Blair. Aspidistra.
Think Gracie was in a Tales of Two Cities?
Scarlett must be, what, 36 or 37 years old?
I mean 26 or 27.
Well done – looks like JL’s got it!
It is the Manchester Ship Canal where prime minister Edward Heath often sailed his boat ‘Black Heart’, named affectionately after Mrs Thatcher. On those trips, Ted was often accompanied by Diana and Scarlet, during which he would read to them from Dickens ‘It’s Grim Oop North’. After an evening meal of sperm whale and chips, Ted would lead the girls in a boisterous rendition of Gracie’s ‘Wish Me Look As You Wave Me Goodbye’. This was rather poignant and it brought tears to the eyes of canal-side observers who watched in horror as a 30,000 ton tanker bore down on the Black Heart.
come on JL and post your answers!
Hello? Everyone on their way home?
Even sperm whales sometimes have to come up for air.
Two cities, down and out in them.
Guessing the last bit has something to do with Swindon.
So close to the cream bun, JL. No Swindon is involved though. Scarlett and Diana are deliberately grouped together…
Diana Dors died the year that Scarlett Johansson was born.
Sperm whales are good at avoiding coming up for air… And Gracie fields sang about the biggest aspidistra in the world… And the two cities in dicken’s tale are paris and London…
Oh it isn’t George Orwell, is it?
Eric Blair – it is!