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Programme 5, 2024

Kirsty Lang chairs the cryptic contest of wordplay and obscure connections, today featuring the South of England against the Midlands.

(5/12)

Kirsty Lang chairs another closely-contested battle of wits between Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha for the South of England, and Frankie Fanko and Stephen Maddock for the Midlands.

Today's questions are:

Q1 Explain why you might be spellbound by a group of male strippers, the Beatles' parasitic friend and one of the all-time NBA greats?

Q2 What do the Maid of Buttermere, William Bloke and (doubly so) the recipients of the 1915 Nobel Prize for Physics have to boast about?

Q3 Music: Which titular Oscar Wilde character might you add to this collection?

Q4 How might you help a day in Spain to become a baker from Llareggub, a Gilbertian Princess, a German cobbler and an airport in Washington?

Q5 By adding nothing, turn an Arsenal manager into a Long Day's Journeyman, two World Snooker champions into a liberator of South America, the father and murderer of twins in a classic horror film into Lily Savage, and one half of a Trollope novel into the other half.

Q6 Music: Why are we playing you these in this order?

Q7 (from Simon Meara) If an ornithological orb scores 50,000, Highlands headwear 300,000 and a Charleston cropper two million, which social media site out-performs them all?

Q8 A board game in Japan, a device for moving fluids in Wales, a guinea-pig in the Balkans and the capital of Peru in the Pacific: is this the right number of clues?

Producer: Paul Bajoria

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Sat 13 Apr 2024 23:30

The RBQ League Table

Going into today's contest, the rankings of the teams in the current series so far are:

1  Northern Ireland      Played 2  Won 2  Drawn 0  Lost 0  Total points 41
2  Wales           P2  W1  D0  L1   Pts 35
3  The Midlands        P1  W1  D0  L0  Pts 24
4  North of England     P1  W0  D0  L1  Pts 19
5  Scotland     P1  W0  D0  L1  Pts 18
6  South of England     P1  W0  D0  L1  Pts 15

Last week's teaser question

Last week Kirsty asked why Sheila Escovedo might be bothered by a hawthorn fly in the drawing room of Europe?

'The drawing-room of Europe' was a phrase attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, describing St Mark's Square in Venice - and St Mark is the common link. The hawthorn fly, Bibio marci, is also known as St Mark's fly because it appears in large numbers in and around British hedgerows at roughly the time of the feast of St Mark, in April. And Sheila Escovedo is the percussionist and singer who, billed as Sheila E, had a worldwide hit in 1986 with the Prince song 'The Belle of St Mark'.

This week's teaser question

A book by Madonna, a play by Mae West and a shop run by Vivienne Westwood: what did they all share?

Don't write to us if you know the answer: just listen to the next edition and Kirsty will reveal whether or not your solution matches ours!

Broadcasts

  • Sun 7 Apr 2024 16:30
  • Sat 13 Apr 2024 23:30

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