麻豆约拍

The rankings in the 2023 series so far, going into today's contest, are as follows:

1聽 North of England聽 聽 Played 3聽 Won 2聽 Drawn 0聽 Lost 1聽 Total points 51
2聽 Northern Ireland聽 聽P2聽 W2聽 D0聽 L0聽 Pts 43
3=聽 Scotland聽 聽 聽P3聽 W1聽 D1 L1聽 Pts 54
3=聽 South of England聽 聽 聽P3聽 W1聽 D1聽 L1聽 Pts 54
5聽 The Midlands聽 聽P3聽 W1聽 D0聽 L2聽 Pts 59
6聽 Wales聽 聽 P3聽 W0聽 D0聽 L3聽 Pts 53

At the end of last week's show Kirsty asked which is the odd one out from: a racing driver's card game, Mrs Routledge's flowers, a noisy sporting implement, some geometric flooring and an assumed name?
The card game is piquet (as in the F1 driver Nelson Piquet); Patricia Routledge played the florally-named Hyacinth Bouquet; a noisy sporting implement might be a racquet (racket); geometric flooring is parquet; and another word for an assumed name is a sobriquet.
They all end in the letters -quet, but the racquet is the odd one out because the word is not derived from French and is pronounced differently from the others.聽

Q1聽 Why, and by whom, might a winged reptile, a game bird and a Classical astronomer be initially welcomed to the circus?
Q2聽 Why might a scoundrel, a guider of horses, a cinnabar pigment, a number with four dozen noughts and the singing of Welsh folk songs with harp accompaniment, all lead us to the king of beasts in the end?
Q3 (from Simon Meara)聽 Music: Which 'balletic' tune would come next in this sequence?
Q4聽 What might be measured by a green engine, a composer who provided Breakfast for Audrey Hepburn, an American writer of short stories and the alleged original for Dracula?
Q5聽 Why wouldn't it be surprising to find, one after the other, a teenager styled by Tim Burton, a mouse from the same pen as Paddington, and Crusoe's companion?
Q6聽 Music: What have you got to be afraid of?
Q7 (from Tim Riley)聽 In what way do the following pairs resemble Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels: Judy Garland and Lord Deben; Winnie-the-Pooh's particular musical invention and a heavy-duty vehicle; champagne and a traditional player; Jeeves's creator and Maria's admirer?
Q8 (from Andrew Connell)聽 How might William Golding, J.R.R. Tolkien, Iris Murdoch and Joanna Trollope all be said to contribute to Victor Hugo (although not in translation)?

Can you join up Professor Harold Hill's opening number with an American TV detective series of the 60s, a shellac disc, and the Cameron Highlanders leaving Gibraltar?
Puzzle over this until next week, and Kirsty will provide the solution at the opening of next week's quiz.