麻豆社

The 2021 RBQ league table after five matches stands as follows:
1聽 North of England聽 Played 2聽 Won 1聽 Drawn 1聽 Lost 0聽 Total points 41
2聽 Scotland聽 聽P2聽 W1聽 D0聽 L1聽 Pts 35
3聽 Northern Ireland聽 聽P2聽 W1聽 D0聽 L1聽 Pts 34
4聽 The Midlands聽 P1聽 W1聽 D0聽 L0聽 Pts 22
5聽 South of England聽 P1聽 W0聽 D1聽 L0聽 Pts 21
6聽 Wales聽 聽P2聽 W0聽 D0聽 L2聽 Pts 31聽聽

Which point of the compass might be indicated by the Transylvanian film-maker Paul Martin (inspired by Graham Greene), a team in Essex with a single-letter chant, and the province that was the birthplace of the Castros?
The answer is East. The film-maker Paul Martin directed Orient Express in 1934, based on the Graham Greene story Stamboul Train. The team is Leyton Orient, the 'O's, whose nickname inspires a terrace chant. The province is Oriente, in the east of Cuba, birthplace of Raul and Fidel Castro. So they are all oriented towards the orient.

Q1 (from Philip Isaac)聽 How could a classical poet who might come to the rescue, a courtier and writer who imported the sonnet, a British sports car now Italian-owned, and Disney's smartest of seven, meet in a way that would only rate as satisfactory?
Q2聽 Leicester's chairman, Shakespeare's weaver, and Richard Gough's village: are they in the correct order?
Q3聽 Music: Which family might these all belong to?
Q4聽 In which cities might Tennyson's best friend, Godot's creator, and the second theological virtue, prove educational?
Q5 (from Jonathan Perry)聽 Where in London might you expect to find: King George IV between 1811 and 1820; his nominal successor; a country embodied by its flag; and the shout of a 麻豆社 game show contestant?聽聽
Q6聽 Music: How might the first usefully describe all of the others?
Q7 (from Mike Bath)聽 Why might someone in touch in Wolverhampton and someone else on the front line in Manchester form a holy alliance in Lincolnshire - especially if it involved a tiebreak system tried out in 2017?聽
Q8聽 What might make you think that an American soprano with an affinity for Mozart, the author of Akenfield, a couple of suburban eco-pioneers, and a man enriched by The Beggar's Opera, could have been born on a Sunday?

Where, apart from a zoo, might you expect to find a gorilla with a newspaper, a crab having a tea party, a camel and a cobra changing gear, and a dragon eating a meal?
Sorry, there are no prizes: but you can see if your solution matches ours when we reveal it next time.