In keeping with the theme of the issue, a quiz about quick singles and solo performances.

1 Reinhold Messner’s probably the greatest climber alive and renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mt Everest without oxygen. He has also conquered all fourteen 8,000-plus metre peaks. Why did Messner start climbing solo in the early ’70s?

2 Before he moved to an extremely successful solo career, Phil Collins was the drummer and vocalist for which British group, known for albums like Abacab and Duke?

3 In the world of classic 19th-century literature, by what sobriquet would you better know Chingachgook. If it helps, he was the sidekick of a hero named Nathaniel Bumppo?

4 Who won a ticker tape parade in New York in 1927 for winning something called the Orteig prize? Since this is a quiz on singles, the parade and year should give it away.

5 Shakti was the last film in which the great script-writing duo Salim-Javed worked together. Javed, however, did not have to wait long for his first solo hit, striking gold with his next release, with a newcomer as hero in 1983. What was Javed Akhtar’s first solo hit as story and screenplay writer?

6 Which US State is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its status as a former independent republic and as a reminder of the State’s struggle for independence from Mexico?

7 Which is the first Asterix book that featured Uderzo both as writer and artist. Hint, Uderzo intended it to be a metaphor and condemnation of the Berlin Wall?

8 Only four Sherlock Holmes stories are not narrated by Doctor Watson. Two, ‘His Last Bow’ and ‘The Mazarin Stone’ are in the third person. Of the two narrated by Holmes, one is the ‘Blanched Soldier.’ Which is the other solo effort, which features a creature with the scientific name Cyanea capillata?

9 Piano virtuoso John Mikali’s flair as a musician is matched only by his skill as an assassin. But when he kills a young woman while fleeing from a murder scene, the woman’s father, a special forces soldier in the British military, vows to avenge his daughter’s death. Plot for Solo , a thriller written by which well-known writer?

10 Sneaking in the last singles question on a favourite topic. Which single malt is described in its ad as “The single malt that started it all” and is the highest-selling single malt whiskey in the US and the second highest-selling single malt brand globally?

ANSWERS

1. Reinhold lost his brother Gunther while attempting to scale Nanga Parbat in 1970, and did not want the responsibility of risking others’ lives in his attempts

2. Genesis

3.The Last of the Mohicans

4. Charles Lindbergh, for crossing the Atlantic solo in the ‘Spirit of St Louis’

5.Betaab, 1983, Sunny Deol’s debut film

6. Texas

7.Asterix & the Great Divide

8. ‘The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane’

9. Jack Higgins

10. Glenlivet

Joy Bhattacharjyais a quiz master, Director - Kolkata Knight Riders and author of Junior Premier League — The First XI

Follow Joy on Twitter >@joybhattacharj

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