May 2, 2013

CHURCHILL QUIZ: FINEST HOUR 148, AUTUMN 2010

BY JAMES LANCASTER

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Each quiz includes four questions in six categories: contemporaries (C), literary (L), miscellaneous (M), personal (P), statesmanship (S) and war (W), easy questions first. Can you reach Level 1?

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Level 4

1. Which of WSC’s books begins, “All along the north and north-west frontiers of India lie the Himalayas”? (L)

2. In The Complete Plain Words, by Sir Ernest Gowers, whose use of English receives highest praise? (L)

3. “Weary and worn, impoverished but undaunted and now triumphant, we had a moment that was sublime.” What was this moment? (W)

4. Churchill wrote: “We may, I am sure, rate this tremendous year as the most splendid, as it was the most deadly, year in our long English and British story.” Which year? (S)

5. What major memorial to Churchill was opened in his lifetime? (M)

6. What was the title of the British edition of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, published in 1941? (L)

Level 3

7. “…he had appeared to the tortured and toiling combatants like a messenger from another planet sent to the rescue of freedom and justice here below.” To whom (in The World Crisis) was Churchill referring? (S)

8. Churchill once said, “foreign names were made for —, not Englishmen for foreign names.” Fill in the blank. (L)

9. “On any day, if they thought the people wanted it, the House of Commons could by a simple vote remove me from my office.” Where did WSC say this, in December 1941? (S)

10. When did WSC wed Clementine? (P)

11. At the Oxford Union in the Hilary term of 1934, who was charged in a mock trial for constituting a menace to the world? (P)

12. Which event did Rosebery refer to when he wrote Churchill on 2 October 1900: “‘MP’ will now distinguish you from your American twin!”? (P)

Level 2

13. In the Commons on 23 March 1943, whom did WSC describe as “presenting…a much larger target than I do, as he has no fewer than four sons serving, whereas I have only one”? (C)

14. On which occasion did Churchill tell Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, to “Set Europe ablaze”? (W)

15. “We must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls.” In which broadcast did Churchill say this? (W)

16. On 26 October 1899 WSC wrote in a despatch: “Yet all earthly evils have their compensations, and even monotony is not without its secret joy.” Where was he? (M)

17. “Good God, you can’t declare war on a radio announcement.” Who said this to Churchill after hearing about Pearl Harbour on a portable radio set belonging to Harry Hopkins? (C)

18. August 1942: “Strategically the raid…did something to take the weight off Russia. Honour to the brave who fell. Their sacrifice was not in vain.” Which raid? (W)

Level 1

19. A 1908 postcard ditty read: “Poor Winston C, he lost the seat/The one he’d set his heart on/So as they wouldn’t have him there/He tried the land of Tartan.” Which seat did he lose, and where did he wind up? (S)

20. On 30 May 1927 WSC said: “A hopeful disposition is not the sole qualification to be a [what]”? (M)

21. “The handsomest man who ever cut a throat.” Who was Churchill describing in a letter to Stalin? (C)

22. On which occasion in 1926 was WSC, on the seating plan at a celebratory luncheon, given the name, “Commissar Winston representing the X-Cheka”? (M)

23. While First Lord of the Admiralty in World War II, Churchill sometimes asked in the war room “Where’s the oil?” What or whom did he mean? (C)

24. Name Churchill’s distant relative who was Chief of Intelligence of the U.S. Army in the 1920s. (P) 

 

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