FT Weekend Quiz: Checkers and Sophie, Jason Bourne and Ballet Shoes

All the answers here are linked in some way. Once you’ve spotted the connection, any you didn’t know the first time around should become easier.

1. Which boys’ name – once virtually unknown outside Ireland – was the most popular for male American babies from 2017 to 2023?

2. What kind of spaniels were Richard Nixon’s dog Checkers and Oprah Winfrey’s Sophie?

3. According to its manufacturer Coca-Cola, which fruit drink has “an attitude that sees the funny side of things”?

4. What’s the innermost layer of a tooth?

5. Whose film roles have included Tom Ripley and Jason Bourne?

6. What’s the name of the main family in both the British and American versions of the TV series Shameless?

7. Who has recorded around 200 of Richmal Crompton’s William stories – many of them broadcast on Radio 4?

8. Which rock ’n’ roll song of 1955 begins “Well, it’s one for the money, two for the show”?

9. Who wrote the classic children’s book Ballet Shoes, published in 1936 and never out of print since?

10. What’s the pejorative nickname for the 2003 UK government briefing document “Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation”?

Click here for the answers

James Walton is co-host of “The Booker Prize Podcast”