10 Questions A quiz by Jeremy Beadle

(answers on page 53)

1. What links Brent, Arbroath and Beatrice to the Elbe, Rhine and Thames?

2. What links a Leicester-born celebrity made famous by Sir Frederick Treves; a drawing by Antoine de Saint-Exupery for The Little Prince; and Mandy Miller?

3. What links Gardeners' World; the Hywel Bennett movie that was the first to be legally restricted to adults in Australia in 1971; the creator of Frankenstein's future husband?

4. What lightweight, carbon-fuelled, chewable (and wearable) wooden communicator whose point can withstand a pressure of 3,750 lbs per sq in before breaking, can do about 45,000 words or 35 miles before running out?

5. Why is an average man's arm physically perfect to wrap round an average woman's waist?

6. Name the all-American singer who starred in 31 musical feature films?

7. What two things link the 1956 Albert Lamorisse Oscar-winning film starring his 6-year-old son Pascal, and a cock, duck and a sheep in a basket on 19 September 1783?

8. Which sport, played out on an area of 2.13m x 4.27m, was only introduced into the Olympics in 2000?

9. Portuguese sailors, from the island of Madeira, introduced the "machete" into Hawaii, but the natives renamed it after the Hawaiian word for "little jumping flea". What?

10. What mythical creature features as the title of a John Updike novel; in C S Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and in John Varley's Titan, Wizard, Demon series?

10 Answers to Jeremy Beadle's quiz (see page 9)

1. The North Sea. The former are all oil fields and the latter are rivers which drain into the North Sea.

2. Elephant. John Merrick - The Elephant Man; Saint-Exupery's drawing was of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant; Mandy Miller sang Nellie the Elephant.

3. Percy. Percy Thrower - the first presenter; Percy; Percy Bysshe Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin created Frankenstein in 1816 - they were married in 1817).

4. The average lead pencil. Lead pencils contain no lead. The writing medium is graphite, a form of carbon.

5. Each is 28ins.

6. Elvis Presley.

7. Balloons and Paris. Le Ballon Rouge won the Academy award for Best Original Screenplay. The animals were the world's first air passengers in the Montgolfier Brothers hot-air balloon. The 8-minute flight began in Versailles (a suburb of Paris) and travelled 2 miles.

8. Trampolining. The first gold medallist was the Russian Alexander Moskalenko.

9. The ukulele

10. The centaur.