-1. The Painted Desert lies in which US state?
-2. What nationality was the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard?
-3. What name is given to rodents of the family sciuridae?
-4. What is cynophobia the fear of?
-5. What is a dakimakura?
-6. BackRub was the was the original name of which piece of software?
-7. In flight systems, what does the initials "TCAS" stand for?
-8. What Benedictine monk invented champagne?
-9. What was the name for a Roman marketplace that was the civic centre of a town?
-10. A "blessing" is the collective noun for a group of what?
-11. A kangaroo can’t hop under what circumstances?
-12. What is this?

1. Arizona

And the winner is.... Marian!

4. fear of dogs

cyno - dogs phobia - fear of

12. Chichen Itza

Good one, jb!


Nice try but afraid not, oldbroad. I was sneaky and pixelated it

12. The Eiffel Tower

8. Dom Pérignon .... And a huge thank you for that invention !!

Excellent call, michele!

I'll second that, Mad

2. He was a Dane

9. forum

10. unicorns

10. Owls (for some reason this cropped up in another context recently, otherwise I would have been stumped!)

I just googled this out of interest and I see that unicorns is actually the more common answer, although I am quite surprised that they even have a collective noun (apart perhaps from an imagination)...

A perfect selection!

That's the problem with that sort of question, Lex - very often there's no 100% unambiguous right answer

3. I think it might be some kind of "Squirrel ..??

Lex,
Evidently there's also a marvel of unicorns, which I like better, and a parliament of owls. The book, An Exaltation of Larks, by James Lipton has over a thousand of these terms, and he sites origins for many of them from the 15th century to newly minted ones. The wordplay can be very funny.

Squirrel it is, Mad!

Thanks, Lady K - I rest my case

6. Backrub was renamed (much more appropriately) Google. Can you imagine saying "I'll Backrub Tom Cruise to find a list of his movie credits."

11. when it's in the water?

Nice try soot, but no

I was thinking along the same lines SD, but it wasn't Tom Cruise

11. in heavy mud

Afraid not, soot.

It's something to do with another part of their body

7. Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System

pretty sure I know this one

You certainly do, soot!

Not an answer for this puzzle, but a question ….

Where is the quiz that asked for the composer of Aida ??

Am I in entirely the wrong forum ??