Answers to Ian’s Trivialus 2 March 2025

Hydra
Inside Out 2 – the two musicals are Wicked and Emilia Pérez.
False – it is actually the letter “B” – 26 capitals begin with this letter.
East Germany
a) An 18-carat gold toilet which weighed 98kg and had a gold content valued at £2.8m. The work was never
recovered since the robbers broke the toilet up into smaller amounts of gold. The Economist, in its report,
speculated that the men might have told the police that they had nothing to go on.
François Mitterrand
Elvis Presley
Overseas aid. With the US already putting a halt on aid, things are not looking good for the world’s poor.
Bacon and eggs
a) Sperm whale – capable of sounds up to 230 decibels. A jet engine by comparison is about 150 decibels.
The Billie Jean King Cup or BJK Cup in honour of the former World No.1
They are protesting the UK government’s planned changes to copyright law which will allow AI companies to
train models to use copyrighted work without paying a licence. The album is entitled Is This What We Want?
b) Lego
Yemen
Gene Hackman – he won his first Oscar for his role in The French Connection (1971), the second for his role in the
western, Unforgiven (1992).
False – the concept had already been proposed by the Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 BCE). Between
Aristarchus and Copernicus the view of Aristotle and Ptolemy (that the Earth was the centre of the Universe) was
the accepted position. Copernicus’s theory was only made public after his death.
Sleeping sickness
An ostrich – in the context of a person it would refer to someone who attempts to ignore unpleasant facts.
Nuuk – the capital of Greenland has a population of about 20 000. Technically one might argue that it should be
Reykjavik since Greenland is a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark – so Nuuk is not a national
capital. But it is still the capital of Greenland and at 64°11’ it is the world’s northernmost capital. Half a point if
you said Reykjavik.
King Lear

Cyril Ramaphosa: The Audio Biography