The 31st Annual Xmas Quiz Answers

On Friday, this space ran its Xmas Quiz, and no doubt many parts of the Bay Area were excited into a mini-frenzy. Although the hysteria could have been the last-minute shopping. But now all that is behind us, and it's time for the answers, always a topic of discussion.

With luck, you saved or bookmarked the questions; they're still available at www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/23/DD2E1MFFQG.DTL . Look there, or merely intuit the questions from the answers. It's a whole different kind of game!

1. We was all on the cover of Newsweek! (The reference comes from the Paul Simon song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," which some of you are too young to remember and some of you are too old. Such is life.

2. Ni Ni is a Chinese actress and is the star of "The Flowers of War," an epic about Nanjing that has been approved by the Chinese government but that is nevertheless good, say experts.

3. (a) Sakichi Toyoda made the first Japanese power loom. His son expanded into automobiles, changing the family name slightly for easier pronunciation around the world. (b) Coco Chanel considered five to be her lucky number. Chanel No. 5 was introduced on the fifth day of the fifth month of 1921. (c) Lucky Strike cigarettes were named for the romantic aura surrounding the California Gold Rush.

4. "Up" is an English word that can be a noun, verb, adjective, adverb or preposition.

5. The answer is (a). When dissident Fatimid Muslims conquered Egypt in A.D. 969, they claimed the rich delta basin near Cairo as their own, hence: "al-Qahira," "the Victorious." Parts of Cairo used to be called Memphis.

6. A chifforobe is a piece of furniture, now rarely seen, that has room for drawers and space for hanging clothes. A chigetai is a Mongolian wild ass, also called an onager. A chigger is a blood-sucking mite and a pest to humans, particularly in the American Southeast. A chignon is a type of hairstyle, a roll or knot worn at the nape of the neck.

7. Many of you might say that Kevin Costner's first film role was in "The Big Chill," playing a corpse. But the corpse in the opening-credit scenes ain't him. His first role was as John Logan in "Malibu Hot Summer" or "Sizzle Beach." In it he meets up with three big-breasted women who insist on doing their household chores topless.

8. The answer is (b), Pope Lando I, who served only for six months and did not apparently take the job all that seriously.

9. The Kingsmill Group is part of the Kiribati Islands in the western South Pacific. The islands are very near to a small atoll called Bikini.

10. We exit South America just at the eastern tip of Venezuela. We encounter Nova Scotia, right near Sydney on the eastern tip, then on into Quebec, over Baffin Bay and finally into Greenland, where the green stops.

11. Crna Gora is the name that the people of Montenegro call Montenegro.

12. Firn air is ice that is in an intermediate stage between snow and glacial ice. It has, say people who know, the appearance of wet sugar, and is damnably hard to shovel. Plein air, by contrast, is a painting technique popularized in the 19th century and made possible by the introduction of paint in tubes. The painter, rather than relying on sketches for later work in the studio, actually completes the painting in the open air.

13. Bozo the Clown wears Size 83AAA shoes. These are not available at Target, so budding clowns will have to haunt specialty stores.

14. Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis, as her name was then, appeared together in the movie "Hellcats of the Navy." (Which of them was the hellcat is not known to this writer.) They also appeared in a "General Electric Theater" holiday presentation, "A Turkey for the President." I am not making this up.

15. Portola, on a commission from the king of Spain, mounted a thorough exploration of California with an eye to claiming it for the king of Spain. Along the way, they encountered a river they named (in Spanish) "River of the Sweetest Name of Jesus," and, the next day, added "de los Temblores" because of a series of earthquakes they had encountered. It is now called the Santa Ana River.

16. PJ Harvey was the leader of a post-punk power trio. One of their hits was "Happy and Bleeding."

You may have quarrels with some of these answers, and you may be right. It's far more likely that I'm right. Now that you've completed this difficult quiz, my suggestion is that you take the rest of the day off. This is hard work.

Riddle me this, riddle me an answer. Take all your questions down to the lake and give me only answers, jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.