SO HOW DID YOU GET ON?
1. John Keats. He wrote it after a walk along the River Itchen near Winchester — as he tried to escape the sound of his landlady’s daughter practising the violin.
2. Ten months. They spent their entire migration — UK to Africa and back again, which is more than 10,000 miles — without landing at all. 3. Barley. Otherwise you won’t have any to make beer with.
4. Chlorophyll. The reduced sunlight means photosynthesis loses its benefits — it costs a tree more energy to support a leaf than the leaf gives back. Autumnal colours then result from other chemicals in the leaves, like beta-carotenes (red — also found in carrots) and luteins (yellow — also found in egg yolks). 5. Rutting, when males fight for dominance and the right to mate.
6. Conkers. Last year’s men’s winner was Chelsea pensioner John Riley, who at 85 was possibly the oldest world champion on the planet.
7. A huge wave, beloved of surfers. It can be up to 35ft high — just under half the size of the 2004 Asian tsunami. It takes its name from the Cribbar reef at Newquay, though is also known chillingly as the ‘widow maker’.
8. Fall. The end of British Summer Time. ‘March forward, fall back’ reminds you which way the clocks move. Incidentally, BST was the idea of William Willett — one of whose great-great-grandsons is Coldplay’s Chris Martin. 9. He jumped from the scaffold, broke his neck and died. This saved him the pain of drawing and quartering, normally carried out while the condemned man was still alive after partial hanging.
10. So the skins will break, thereby allowing the flavour out. Folklore also suggests using a silver needle.
11. Because she’s his wife. Peter Phillips (Princess Anne’s son) married the Canadian, Autumn Kelly, in 2008. 12. Hailstone. It was one ounce heavier than a cricket ball. 13. The Shipping Forecast. 14. They’re seeking the attention of females inside the cave. 15. Helicopter seeds. 16. Jay. 17. Rowan berry. (Not named after Rowan Atkinson.) 18. Trompette, from ‘trompette de la mort’, or ‘hearing trumpet of death’. 19. 17.
20. Knot. It derives from King Canute (Cnut in Danish), who went to the shore and got his feet wet to prove his powers to control the tides were nothing compared with God’s. The wading bird is thought to have inherited the name through its inability to control the tides. 21. Hoglet.
22. 3,937. On the way back to London, George V said to his son: ‘I shouldn’t say anything about this if I were you. I think we may have overdone it today.’
23. Cardinal. It’s named after Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was once scared by a spider at Hampton Court.