Quiz: The Chips are Town

With the Delta variant playing havoc with the government’s plans to ease lockdown, it looks less and less likely that holidays abroad are going to be on the cards this year. Instead, the staycation is going to enjoy its moment in the spotlight that little bit longer. And what better way to get to know your own country, and perhaps find some inspiration regarding where to visit, than a frustrating and occasionally infuriating cryptic quiz? I agree – almost any way imaginable would be better, but cryptic nonsense is what you’ve got, so tough break.

In its defence, the quiz wasn’t created to be a guided tour of Britain, rather I’m shamelessly (and, I think we can all agree, tenuously) linking it today’s expected announcement of the easing of lockdown to be delayed, as a classic example of cheap journalistic chicanery. Equally shameless are those questions which I’ve flagrantly wagged from other quiz rounds when quizzing became de rigeur last year. So, in a statement which my (make-believe) lawyer advised me to include, all credits are given to whoever thought of those ones first, I owe you a beer. To collect that beer, go into any pub in town and yell “I HAVE GENITAL WARTS” six times – all the landlords in Brighton will know what it means.

To the quiz! Below are clues to 50 well known towns and cities throughout the UK. See how many you can get – good luck! Answers are at the bottom.

1. Modern fortress
2. Where the cook picks crops
3. Genuine oar movement
4. A quick ringer
5. Neck and above stuck in a hole in the country
6. Cannibal who devours previous partners
7. Writing implements with small insects
8. The darkest water
9. Dog controllers
10. People’s rock
11. Nibble your way through a female wizard
12. The safest way to eat dangerous cheese
13. Chief among garden doors
14. Harbour’s cake hole
15. Where a bullock would cross a river
16. If the singer Vera were a male monarch
17. How to inform the manufacturer that your Fiesta has a problem
18. Henry Vlll’s Court at the top of the compass

    

19. Order a drinking vessel to leave
20. After the meal the plate is still full
21. Originated not in the west
22. Where cows are milked in a capital city
23. An ocean of cygnets
24. Affix tightly
25. Store fortified wine
26. Finished the fourth letter
27. The very bottom of the compass
28. Heavy toilet
29. Where to go swimming in Dorset
30. A female servant’s rock
31. The last place for a burial
32. An appropriate place for a tea party
33. Between six and eight trees
34. A pond of offal
35. A small carpet and a buzzing insect
36. Part of a boat
37. A big grassy area with a male owner
38. A ship’s company
39. Vermillion vehicle
40. Escort for Mr Pitt?
41. A modern version of Noah’s boat
42. Destroys pink meat
43. How you get into your new house
44. Paul Hollywood’s advice to contestants?
45. Home for rubber ducks
46. Witches attempt a get-together
47. Hirsute Cortina
48. Rouse meadow
49. Two thirds of a Nestlé chocolate bar
50. Atoll named after Marx (or Lenny and Homer’s friend)

Answers
1) Newcastle, 2) Sheffield, 3) Truro, 4) Belfast, 5) Edinburgh, 6) Exeter, 7) Penzance, 8) Blackpool, 9) Leeds, 10) Folkestone, 11) Norwich, 12) Caerphilly, 13) Gateshead, 14) Portsmouth, 15) Oxford, 16) King’s Lynn, 17) Telford, 18) Northampton, 19) Glasgow, 20) Nuneaton, 21) Eastbourne, 22) Londonderry, 23) Swansea, 24) Bolton, 25) Stockport, 26) Dundee, 27) Southend, 28) Luton, 29) Poole, 30) Maidstone, 31) Gravesend, 32) Boston, 33) Seven Oaks, 34) Liverpool, 35) Rugby, 36) Hull, 37) Mansfield, 38) Crewe, 39) Redcar, 40) Bradford, 41) Newark, 42) Wrexham, 43) Newquay, 44) Bakewell, 45) Bath, 46) Coventry, 47) Hereford, 48) Wakefield, 49) York, 50) Carlisle