Mike’s Maverick Missing Link Mindbender

This mind-boggling quiz was specially created for Daily Maverick.

Mike’s Maverick Missing Link Mindbender is meant to involve torturous, co-operative thinking. 

It is pointless if you simply Google everything. And, anyhow, key parts of it are deliberately unGoogleable (I think I have invented a new word there) or as unGoogleable as I could make them. The idea is to take your time and work together with your lockdown partners (if you have them) over several days. Maybe go old school and print it out. 

The structure is loosely based on a similar quiz in The Economist last December. Here’s how it works. There are 10 sets of five questions. The answers to each set of questions form a common theme or Missing Link. Some of those Missing Links are straightforward, some are more obscure (Sets One, Three, Six and 10 for example). One trick is that, if you have three or four answers, you might be able to spot the Missing Link which will then give you a clue about the question/s you haven’t yet answered.

There are no prizes, simply the inestimable rewards of brain exercise. 

Answers will be posted on DM on *Thursday.

SET ONE 

1. English county symbolised by the red rose.


2. The study of how people live in societies and how they make their lives meaningful.


3. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley before moving to Transvaal.  


4. A Zulu word meaning a body of warriors.


5. The highest single free-standing mountain in the world. 

1. Grand Parade Investments recently sold its stake in the SA operations of this fast food chain.   


2. What you will find at 1 Hospital Street, Braamfontein. 


3. Electric guitar brand famous for the Les Paul model. 


4. A word which means to turn (an eyelid, the intestines, or some other bodily part) outwards or inside out.


5. Only Formula One Grand Prix team currently run by a woman. 

1. Oprah Winfrey’s semi-palindromic production company. 


2. A clown name and popular Spur ice cream treat.


3. The name for a one-piece novelty mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, a large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and a moustache. 


4. In the Middle of a popular American sitcom which won seven Emmys in the 2000s.


5. A German word for Charles. 

1. 1998 Jim Carrey movie, directed by Peter Weir, which, surprisingly, did not receive a single Academy Award. 


2. Founder of the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899.


3. The brand name which became synonymous with vacuuming. 


4. Babooshka singer. 


5. Popularly, but probably inaccurately, credited with the discovery of the main Witwatersrand gold reef in 1886 on the farm Langlaagte. 

1. Victor Matfield, Sho Madjozi and Mamphela Ramphele were all born in this province.  


2. Largest freshwater predator in Africa which can weigh over 1,000kg.  


3. Defoliant notorious for its use in chemical warfare by the US military during the Vietnam War (or The American War of Aggression as the Vietnamese government calls it).


4. Niamey is the capital of this country.


5. Was a Free State before it became Belgian.  

1. Author of The Madonna of Excelsior and The Heart of Redness.  


2. The unofficial name of the phenomenon of shared false memory.  


3. The name of the world cup football stadium in Polokwane. 


4. The only South African to be 0resident of Interpol.


5. American state in New England famous for lobsters.  

1. Delilah and Sex Bomb singer.   


2. Controversial American World War II general nicknamed “Blood and Guts”. 


3. A lawyer trained at the Inner Temple in London assassinated by Nathuram Godse. 


4. American sporting home of Cubs, Bears and Bulls.  


5. Jason’s ship as he searched for the Golden Fleece. 

1. Musical based on a pioneering Charles Dickens social novel about an orphan in a workhouse.


2. Welsh footballer who plays for Juventus. 


3. Actor who portrayed Muhammad Ali in 2001 Oscar-nominated movie


4. Ummagumma was an album by this band.  


5. Popular 2013 movie set in Edinburgh with music by The Proclaimers. 

1. The duke who rode Stagecoach to major acting fame, mainly in Westerns. 


2. Quechua (a Peruvian language) word meaning “royal”. 


3. Mythically continued his game of bowls as the Spanish Armada approached the English coast in 1588. 


4. The direction opposite that of the Earth’s rotation on its axis.


5. Shorthand for an alternative name. 

1. Iconic sewing brand which sold two million machines by 1876. 


2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.


3. Legend of the SA real estate business who died in April 2018.


4. The current Australian prime minister.


5. First name of a South African, born in 1964, who is widely famous for his sculptures of wildlife.