This is the second Mike’s Maverick Missing Link Mindbender. If you missed the first one and want to try it click here. If you want the answers to the first one click here.

The second Missing Link Mindbender is a bit easier than the first one as some of you felt it was a shade too challenging.

The Missing Link Mindbender is meant to involve torturous, co-operative thinking. It’s pointless if you simply Google everything immediately. And, anyhow, key parts of it are deliberately UnGoogleable. The idea is to take your time and work together with your lockdown partners (if you have them). Maybe go old-school and print it out.

The structure is loosely based on a similar quiz in The Economist in December 2020.

Here’s how it works. There are 10 sets of five questions. The answers to each set of questions form a common theme or Missing Link. The first six Missing Links are relatively straightforward, the rest are more obscure. One trick is that, if you have three or four answers in a set, you might be able to spot the Missing Link which will then give you a clue about the question/s you haven’t yet answered.

There are no prizes, simply the inestimable rewards of brain exercise.

Answers will be posted in Daily Maverick on Tuesday.

Mike’s Maverick Missing Link Mindbender, Round Two

SET ONE

Oscar winner in 2001 for his role in ‘Training Day’.

‘Mrs Dalloway’ author and part of the Bloomsbury set.

Tblisi is the capital of this country.

Stage musical which includes the song ‘Oh what a beautiful mornin’ ’.

1967 Bee Gees hit about a place where all the lights went out.

Missing Link =

SET TWO

Famous fictional steam locomotive created by Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son.

Acronym for the SA government’s controversial five-year economic plan, published in 1996, which focused on privatisation and the removal of exchange controls.

1968 Blood, Sweat & Tears hit in which they “ride a painted pony”.

Guitar maker of the Stratocaster.

Southernmost headland of Tierra del Fuego which marks the meeting point of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Missing Link =

SET THREE

Groundbreaking American “love rock musical” which opened on Broadway in 1968.

Bingo call for ‘eleven’.

Hugely popular child movie star of the 1930s who later became the US Ambassador to Ghana.

Type of orange characterised by the growth of a second fruit at the apex, which protrudes slightly.

Name given to Diego Maradona’s infamous first goal of the FIFA World Cup quarter-final in 1986.

Missing Link =

SET FOUR 

Issued in 1840, this was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used on a public postal system.

‘R.I.P.’ and ‘Let You Love Me’ singer who also had a role in the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ movie. 

‘Becoming’ author.

A word beginning with ‘p’ which means “care, caution and good judgement”.

American actress who was in the Ally McBeal TV series and the Charlie’s Angels movies.

Missing Link =

SET FIVE

Solitary, territorial animals whose adults only associate in the mating season and whose growling is also called “sawing”.

‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’ was the first of six movies in this series.

KZN school which includes Alan Paton, Jonty Rhodes and Joel Stransky among its former pupils.

Team which won the American football Super Bowl in 2020.

Thuli Madonsela holds a chair of social justice at this university.

Missing Link =

SET SIX

John Travolta smash hit movie in 1977.

Popular name for a dachshund.

A container for holding arrows, bolts, darts, or javelins.

Author of ‘The Story of an African Farm’.

Common name for the part of the body called the metacarpus which is the underside area between the five phalanges and the carpus.

Missing Link =

SET SEVEN

Author of ‘Moby Dick’.

‘Annie’s Song’ singer.

Famous English military academy.

Biggest selling cigarette brand globally for more than 35 years.

Tallahassee is the capital of this south-eastern American state.

Missing Link =

SET EIGHT

Infamous SA gang which committed suicide in a cave during a stand-off with police in 1914.

Legendary Arabist and author of ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’.

Zoologist who published the first comprehensive guide to South African birds in 1940 and whose name is still on current field guides.

‘Bowling for Columbine’ & ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ documentary filmmaker.

A granodiorite stele which became the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, thereby opening a window into ancient Egyptian history.

Missing Link =

SET NINE

Cartoon strip about a boy and his tiger created by Bill Watterson.

The Greek shipping tycoon who married Jackie Kennedy.

Rapper whose name sounds timid and spent five months in jail in 2017/18.

New Zealand-born actor who was Oscar nominated for A Beautiful Mind and The Insider.

‘Sandpaper-gate’ Australian cricket captain.

Missing Link =

SET TEN 

The second largest province in SA by size.

Meghan and Harry’s former title.

Capital where you would find St Basil’s Cathedral.

City served by the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport.

Sir Herbert Baker creation on Meintjieskop.

Missing Link = (answers to be published soon). DM

Created for Daily Maverick by Mike Wills