1. Which character in a novel translates Mardi Gras - wrongly - as Fat Lunchtime?

   1. Nanny Ogg in Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad

   2. Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

   3. Rupert Campbell Black in Jilly Cooper's Riders

   4. Little Lord Fauntleroy in Frances Hodgson Burnett's eponymous novel

2. Who is the author of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, which opens on a Weiberfastnacht party, the German festival which occurs just before the start of Lent?

   1. Thomas Mann

   2. Heinrich Böll

   3. Günter Grass

   4. Cornelia Funke

3. What is the real storyline of Lynda La Plante's thriller Cold Blood?

   1. A masked killer is on the loose during the Venice Carnival

   2. The daughter of an ageing film star has disappeared during Mardi Gras in New Orleans

   3. A serial killer is committing a different murder every day of Lent

   4. A race against time to recover a batch of pancakes fatally infected with a deadly virus

4. What is Sandra Brown's thriller, which has its deadly climax during the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations, called?

   1. Carnival of the Animal

   2. Pancake Peril

   3. From New Orleans With Love

   4. Fat Tuesday

5. “Mix a pancake,/ Stir a pancake, / Pop it in the pan. / Fry the pancake, / Toss the pancake, / Catch it if you can.” Which poet penned these lines?

   1. Wendy Cope

   2. John Donne

   3. Christina Rossetti

   4. Pam Ayres

6. How does TS Eliot begin his poem Ash Wednesday?

   1. Because I do not hope to turn again / Because I do not hope

   2. April is the cruellest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land

   3. Not with a bang, but a whimper

   4. A cold coming we had of it, / Just the worst time of the year

7. In Pennsylvania Dutch Country, Shrove Tuesday is known by its German name of Fasnacht Day. In which novel, set in Pennsylvania, does the main character reminisce about the Fasnacht Day tradition of teasing the last person to rise in the morning?

   1. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

   2. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

   3. Christine by Stephen King

   4. Fallen by Kathleen George

8. In which children's book does the hero, Jack, have to gather all the ingredients for his pancake – flour from the mill, an egg from the hens, milk from the cow, jam from the cellar – before his mother will agree to make it for him?

   1. Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle

   2. Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie de Paola

   3. Mr Wolf's Pancakes by Jan Fearnley

   4. The Runaway Pancake by Mairi Mackinnon

9. Who described the New Orleans Mardi Gras carnival as a 'diverting grotesquerie - a startling and wonderful sort of show, as it filed solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smoking and flickering torches …'

   1. Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi

   2. Jonathan Raban in Old Glory

   3. John Kennedy Toole in A Confederacy of Dunces

   4. Junkie by William Burroughs

10. 10.Whose poem, Lent, begins with the lines 'Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee, / He loves not Temperance, or Authority, / But is compos'd of passion …'

    1. George Herbert

    2. John Donne

    3. John Clare

    4. Rowan Williams

Solutions

1:A, 2:B, 3:B, 4:D, 5:C, 6:A, 7:A, 8:A, 9:A, 10:A

Scores

1. 3 and above.

   Terrible. Your pancakes are all stuck to the ceiling. Scrape them off and start again.

2. 6 and above.

   Not bad. Time to go back to the recipe books, perhaps.

3. 9 and above.

   Well done: you flip a fine pancake. Lemon juice and sugar will be yours.

4. 10 and above.

   Top marks! Your milk is uncurdled, your eggs unbroken, your flipping-arm flexed. Happy eating!