Quiz 5th December
Round One: Arts and Entertainment
1 Q Which US rock group is Gene Simmons, star of TV’s Rock School, the front man of?
A KISS
2 Q Which character in a popular TV drama series gave to the language such catchphrases as “a nice little earner” and “’er indoors”?
A Arthur Daley (in Minder)
3 Q Which bridge, or the view from it, was William Wordsworth referring to when he wrote, “Earth hath not anything to show more fair”?
A Westminster Bridge
4 Q Which popular author’s recently published childhood memoirs are entitled The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid?
A Bill Bryson
5 Q In a long-running British sitcom, by what nickname was Bill Simmonite better known?
A Compo (in Last of the Summer Wine)
6 Q Which 1970s pop group was named after one of T. S. Eliot’s practical cats?
A Mungo Jerry
7 Q Which book by Friedrich Nietzsche (NEET-shuh) inspired a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, which was made famous in a film by Stanley Kubrick?
A Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zarathustra)
8 Q Which iconic (fictional) TV institution links the Wooburn Grange Country Club, a listed building in Buckinghamshire which burnt down in 1991, and the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay?
A Fawlty Towers (The Gleneagles Hotel provided the inspiration for the series, and the Wooburn Grange was used for the exterior footage)
Supplementaries
1 Q In The Two Ronnies, who was Piggy Malone’s sidekick?
A Charley Farley
2 Q Which famous pop song opens with the line “The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload”?
A I don’t like Mondays (Boomtown Rats)
Round Two: Sport
1 Q When England last won the Ashes in Australia, in 1987-8, who was the England captain?
A Mike Gatting
2 Q Which so-called “extreme sport” is said to have started on Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1979?
A Bungee jumping
3 Q Which recently retired Premiership footballer was nicknamed “The Non-Flying Dutchman”? A Dennis Bergkamp
4 Q Which Australian golfer won The Open Championship four times in five years, from 1954 to 1958?
A Peter Thomson. (He was the only player to win it three times in a row in the 20th century – 1954-6 – and the last player apart from Tom Watson to win it five times. Tiger Woods, up to and including 2006, has three and counting!)
5 Q Which racehorse became an unlikely hero during the Great Depression in the USA, and more recently was immortalised in a book and a film?
A Seabiscuit
6 Q Cricket: which county won the Championship for the first time in 2003, and won it again in 2006?
A Sussex
7 Q What nationality was Juan Manuel Fangio, who won the Formula One drivers’ championship five times in the 1950s? (hwan man-well FAN-jee-oh)
A Argentine (his five wins were a record, beaten only by Michael Schumacher)
8 Q Which Premiership football club’s all-time leading goal scorer is Bobby Tambling? (164 goals, 1958-70)
A Chelsea
Supplementaries
1 Q Which appropriately-named horse won the Grand National just five days before the 1992 general election?
A Party Politics
2 Q Cricket: which county won its thirtieth County Championship in 2001, after a gap of 33 years?
A Yorkshire
Round Three: The Third Round
1 Q What’s the third book of the Old Testament?
A Leviticus
2 Q What’s the world’s third highest mountain?
A Kangchenjunga
3 Q What’s the popular nickname for Beethoven’s third symphony?
A The Eroica
4 Q How many teams compete in the Third Round of the FA Cup?
A 64
5 Q Who is currently third in line to succeed to the British throne?
A Prince Harry
6 Q In the Bible, who was the third son of Adam and Eve, from whom Noah was descended?
A Seth
7 Q Who succeeded John Adams in 1801 to become the third President of the USA?
A Thomas Jefferson
8 Q What’s the name of the character played by Orson Welles in the 1949 film The Third Man?
A Harry Lime
Supplementaries
1 Q Name either the son or the daughter of Loudon Wainwright the Third, who have followed in their father’s footsteps as singer-songwriters.
A Rufus or Martha (Wainwright). Their mother is Kate McGarrigle, who with her sister Anna forms one of the most criminally under-rated acts in the history of popular music.
2 Q In the human body, what’s the non-technical name for a third molar (tooth)?
A A wisdom tooth (after the incisors and canines there are two premolars, and then two or three molars)
Round Four: Geography
1 Q What’s the capital of Chad?
A N’Djamena
2 Q Which sea lies to the west of Italy and is bounded to the west by Corsica and Sardinia (and to the south by Sicily)?
A The Tyrrhenian Sea
3 Q Which range of hills is partly in Oxfordshire and partly in Buckinghamshire?
A The Chilterns
4 Q Also spoken in parts of Spain, France, and Italy, what is the official language of Andorra?
A Catalan
5 Q Which city is the largest in New Zealand, and was its capital until 1865 when it was replaced by Wellington?
A Auckland
6 Q In which country is the famous temple complex of Angkor Wat?
A Cambodia
7 Q What’s the name of the former Portuguese territory in China, situated across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong?
A Macao
8 Q What’s the name of the hill in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park, which geologists tell us is the “plug” of an extinct volcano?
A Arthur’s Seat
Supplementaries
1 Q Off which Welsh county, formerly part of Dyfed (DUH-ved), are the islands of Skokholm and Skomer?
A Pembrokeshire
2 Q Which modern country includes the Horn of Africa?
A Somalia
Round Five: It’s all about money
The pictures are at http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/Cusacks/Picture%20Quiz/ please click on the Slideshows button.
Note to question persons: this is a visual round. Before starting, ask if any of the contestants is or are visually impaired; if anyone is, offer them (when it comes to their turn) one of the alternatives below.
You should have two copies of each picture. Hand out one copy to each team simultaneously, one question at a time.
Now please read out the following two paragraphs to the contestants!
This is a visual round. You will be shown a picture of a banknote, with the name of the country (and in one case the name of the currency) removed. You have to give the name of the country.
The majority of these banknotes – if not all of them – are now obsolete.
General Knowledge Questions
1 Q Who directed the films Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Hannibal?
A Ridley Scott
2 Q Pen y Fan (Pen uh Van) is the highest point in which British National Park?
A The Brecon Beacons
3 Q By what brand name is the synthetic material “spandex” best known in the UK?
A Lycra (Lycra is a trade mark of a major US manufacturer)
4 Q Which 20th century novel is narrated by Charles Ryder, and describes the aristocratic family of his fellow student Sebastian Flyte?
A Brideshead revisited (by Evelyn Waugh)
5 Q Who composed the music for the ballets Coppelia and Sylvia, and for the opera Lakmé?
A Léo Delibes
6 Q Which part of the British Isles has a triskelion (tris-KELL-ee-uhn) on its flag?
A The Isle of Man (it’s the three-legged symbol)
7 Q Which new musical, currently packing ’em in in London’s West End, is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz?
A Wicked
8 Q What’s the more correct name for the tail of a whale?
A The fluke
9 Q According to the Book of Genesis, to which land (East of Eden) did Cain go after he’d killed Abel?
A The Land of Nod
10 Q In which film did Gregory Peck play the role of Atticus Finch, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1962?
A To kill a mockingbird
11 Q What’s the highest mountain in the Alps?
A Mont Blanc
12 Q What was Victoria Beckham’s birth surname (i.e. before she married Golden Balls)?
A Adams
13 Q Lady Caroline Lamb is famous for having had an affair with Lord Byron. But by what title was her husband William Lamb, who was twice prime minister in the 1830s, best known?
A Lord (2nd Viscount) Melbourne
14 Q Who succeeded Charles de Gaulle as President of France in 1969, and died in office in 1974?
A Georges Pompidou
15 Q What is the USA’s oldest military establishment outside US territory, and the only one on Communist soil?
A Guantanamo Bay
16 Q Which US state gave the Bee Gees the title of their first UK hit single?
A Massachusetts (1967)
17 Q What’s the common name for a gastropod without a shell?
A A slug (if it’s got a shell it’s probably a snail)
18 Q In the Bible (New Testament), who was the son of Elizabeth and Zacharias?
A John the Baptist
19 Q Which 2006 film was originally going to be called Venom, then Pacific Air Flight 121?
A Snakes on a Plane
20 Q What term is used for the molten rock that exists below the surface of the earth, and emerges as lava when a volcano erupts?
A Magma
21 Q Name the Australian wildlife expert and broadcaster who died in September 2006 after being stabbed by a sting ray.
A Steve Irwin
22 Q Which Austrian town gave its name to Mozart’s 38th symphony, which he composed there in 1783?
A Linz
23 Q Who said, after losing a fortune in the South Sea Bubble, “I can calculate the movements of the stars, but not the madness of men”?
A Isaac Newton
24 Q Which British newspaper dropped the word Manchester from its title in 1959?
A The Grauniad (sorry, Guardian)
25 Q Which song was a hit for the Mindbenders in 1966, and a Number One for Phil Collins after he sang it in the film Buster?
A Groovy kind of love
26 Q Which Dutch mother of two won four gold medals at the London Olympics in 1948?
A Fanny Blankers-Koen (accept Blankers or Koen; Koen was her birth surname and she married a Mr. Blankers)
27 Q Which former world champion boxer enters the ring to the tune of Blue moon, the anthem of the fans of Manchester City FC?
A Ricky Hatton (he’s scheduled to have another crack at the light welterweight title in January)
28 Q Which 2006 film stars Anne Hathaway as a college graduate who lands a plum job in a prestigious fashion magazine?
A The Devil Wears Prada
29 Q Which model village near Bradford, named after its founder and the river beside which it stands, was built in 1853 and is now a World Heritage Site?
A Saltaire (named after Sir Titus Salt and the River Aire)
30 Q Which unusual biblical forename was shared by the Staffordshire potters Wedgwood and Spode?
A Josiah
31 Q In music, how many semitones are there in an octave?
A 12
32 Q What name is commonly given to the United States’ plan for rebuilding the Allied nations of Europe and repelling Communism after World War Two?
A The Marshall Plan (accept Marshall Aid, etc.)
33 Q Which European city gave its name to the “midi”-sized format that the Guardian and the Observer recently changed to?
A Berlin (it’s called the “Berliner” format)
34 Q Which song, a cover version of a 1962 hit, provided Kylie Minogue with her first hit single?
A The Locomotion (it reached No. 2 in the UK both times)
35 Q Tom Cruise’s third wedding, to Katie Holmes, was much in the news as these questions were being prepared. Name one of his first two wives.
A Mimi Rogers (1987-90) or Nicole Kidman (1990-2001)
36 Q Which company manufactures the Liana, which was used until earlier this year as Top Gear’s “reasonably priced car”?
A Suzuki (in the latest series they use a Chevrolet Lacetti)
37 Q What was the title of the book written by O. J. Simpson, recently withdrawn from sale in the USA amid much controversy?
A If I did it
38 Q By what name is the Gulf of Gascony more commonly known in the English-speaking world?
A The Bay of Biscay
39 Q Derek McIntosh Bates was born in Crewe in 1923, and died there in September 2006. By what sobriquet was he best known?
A Blaster Bates
40 Q What’s the name of the German carol whose tune is traditionally used for the Socialist anthem The Red Flag?
A O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree)
41 Q Which famous comedian swam the English Channel in July 2006?
A David Walliams (of Little Britain)
42 Q Which other European capital city, apart from London and Paris, is served by the Eurostar train?
A Brussels
43 Q Who famously asked Debbie McGee what had first attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels?
A Mrs. Merton (Caroline Aherne)
44 Q Which term, commonly used in boxing, is said to have originated in baseball and to result from the fact that the batter usually faces east?
A Southpaw (Most baseball pitches are oriented so that the sun is behind the batter during the game, i.e. in the afternoon and evening. Consequently the pitcher’s left hand will usually be to the south.)
45 Q Which famous blue cheese, made in the south of France from ewes’ milk, has been regulated by parliamentary decree since the 15th century and by an AOC label since 1925?
A Roquefort
46 Q Who wrote the novels, Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose? (“Foucault’s” pronounced “FOO-co’s”)
A Umberto Eco
47 Q Which German state surrounds but excludes Berlin, and gave its name to the famous gate that symbolises the city?
A Brandenburg
48 Q Which South American country elected the socialist Hugo Chavez as president in 1998?
A Venezuela (still in office on 29 November 2006, having survived an attempted coup in 2002)
49 Q Which Spanish artist in 1815 painted a gruesome portrait of Saturn devouring one of his children – one of the so-called Black Paintings?
A Francisco de Goya
50 Q Which part of the body contains the vitreous humour and the aqueous humour?
A The eye
51 Q Which militant Arab organisation has a name that means “Party of God”?
A Hezbollah
52 Q What surname is shared by two of the actors who have played Doctor Who?
A Baker (Tom and Colin)
53 Q In cricket, which type of delivery was invented by Saqlain Mushtaq, exploited to great effect by Muttiah Muralitharan, and has a name that is Urdu and Hindi for “the second one” or “the other one”?
A The doosra
54 Q In Japanese cooking, what name is given to the classic technique of frying food, particularly seafood and vegetables, in batter?
A Tempura
55 Q Which Irish author’s life and works are commemorated by Bloomsday on June 16th each year?
A James Joyce (Leopold Bloom is the protagonist of Ulysses, the events of which took place on 16th June 1904)
56 Q Which region of Mexico gave its name to the smallest of all breeds of dog?
A Chihuahua
57 Q Which former Conservative minister is the great-nephew of the first Lord Beaverbrook, once had a glass of wine thrown over him by Anna Ford, and was later imprisoned for perjury?
A Jonathan Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook was Max Aitken)
58 Q In which city is Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper?
A Milan (in the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie)
59 Q What name is given to the sun’s “atmosphere”, invisible from Earth except during an eclipse?
A The corona
60 Q What German word meaning “defence force” was used for the collective armed forces of Nazi Germany?
A Wehrmacht (VAIR-macht)
61 Q How or why is the prelude to Charpentier’s setting of the Te Deum, composed around 1690, known to millions of TV viewers throughout Europe?
A It’s the signature tune of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and of the Eurovision Song Contest. Accept either, or just “Eurovision”.
62 Q What does Simone Perrotta, one of Italy’s 2006 world cup winning team, have in common with England’s 1966 hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst?
A They were both born in Ashton-under-Lyne (accept Tameside, (Greater) Manchester, Lancashire, etc. – but not Cheshire!)
63 Q What number links Virgin Radio and the Magna Carta?
A 1215 (Virgin’s wavelength, and the year the Magna Carta was signed)
64 Q What collective name has Ricky Gervais given to his collection of weird animals including the Honk, the Grundit, the Puddloflaj and the Mernimbler?
A Flanimals
65 Q Which US state is the home of Cajun (KAY-jun) and Zydeco (ZY-deco) music, and bizarrely has You Are My Sunshine as one of its state songs?
A Louisiana
66 Q What do Prince William, Joe Grundy in The Archers, and Kennedy (the Violinist Formerly Known as Nigel) have in common?
A They all support Aston Villa FC (or claim to)
67 Q Which Los Angeles-based pop-rock band is chiefly remembered for its 1979 debut single, My Sharona?
A The Knack
68 Q Which astronomical event happened in 2004 and will happen again in 2012, but then won’t happen again until 2117?
A The transit of Venus across the sun – it happens in pairs eight years apart, separated by a gap of (alternately) 121.5 or 105.5 years
69 Q “Halcyon” is a poetic or romantic name, originating in Greek, for which bird?
A The kingfisher
70 Q Which country won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2001, earning twelve points each from Latvia and Lithuania?
A Estonia
71 Q Which FA Premiership club reached the final of the UEFA Cup in 2006?
A Middlesbrough
72 Q Which traditional activity has three main styles, known respectively as Cotswold, North West, and Border?
A Morris dancing (do not accept “folk dancing”)
73 Q Which phrase was coined by Shakespeare, when Cleopatra referred to the time when she was “green in judgement, cold in blood”?
A Salad days
74 Q Which Germanic people are famous for “sacking” Rome in 455 AD, their name now used as a byword for anyone who destroys property?
A The Vandals
75 Q Which European city features a long, tree-lined pedestrian mall called La Rambla or Las Ramblas?
A Barcelona
76 Q Which song by Talking Heads opens with the line, “And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack”?
A Once In A Lifetime
77 Q What everyday name is given to a parcel of data that’s downloaded to your PC when you visit a website, and sent back to that website the next time you visit?
A A cookie
78 Q Which word, meaning jolly or merry, literally means “of or pertaining to Jupiter”?
A Jovial
79 Q Who appeared as DCI Roy Slater in Only Fools and Horses, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Iris Murdoch’s husband John Bayley in Iris, and played the title role in a recent Channel 4 TV drama about Lord Longford and his relationship with Myra Hindley?
A Jim Broadbent
80 Q Which team did Jenson Button drive for in the 2006 Formula 1 season?
A Honda
81 Q What German word (meaning “union”) was used for Hitler’s “inclusion” of Austria into Germany in 1938?
A Anschluss
82 Q Which liberated writer wrote, “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom”?
A Shirley Conran (in Superwoman)
83 Q Who immediately preceded Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer?
A Kenneth Clarke (1993-7)
84 Q In London, what’s the meaning of a road sign showing a white letter C on a red circle?
A Congestion charge area
85 Q Which song by David Bowie was a hit for Mott the Hoople and includes the line, “Oh man, I need TV when I got T Rex”?
A All The Young Dudes
86 Q Which Gloucestershire physician performed the first successful vaccination, in 1796, using the cowpox virus to inoculate against smallpox?
A Edward Jenner
87 Q Which Far Eastern capital city has given its name to a type of fibre, and thus to a type of folder or envelope?
A Manila (contrary to what many people believe, it’s nothing to do with the colour)
88 Q By what epithet is Californian-born Ann Maurice (muh-REECE) known to viewers of Britain’s Channel 5 and UK Style?
A She’s the House Doctor
89 Q In which sport is New Zealand represented by the Silver Ferns, South Africa by the Proteas (PRO-tee-uhs), and Jamaica by the Sunshine Girls?
A Netball
90 Q Which actress has been married to the British actor Gary Oldman and the US actor Ethan Hawke?
A Uma Thurman
91 Q Which humorous parody of history text books was written by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, and first published in book form in 1930?
A 1066 and all that
92 Q Who was born in 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, and died in 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia?
A Ernesto “Che” Guevara
93 Q Which London street links a monthly magazine first published in 1891 and a cigarette that you’re never alone with?
A Strand
94 Q Which musical includes the songs Oh What A Beautiful Morning, The Surrey With The Fringe On Top, and People Will Say We’re In Love?
A Oklahoma!
95 Q What’s the common name for the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium?
A Wormwood (this name can also apply to other plants of the genus Artemisia)
96 Q Which tiny Commonwealth nation has the lucrative Internet Top Level Domain name .tv (dot TV)?
A Tuvalu
Supplementaries
1 Q Which company, founded by Cecil Rhodes and based in Johannesburg and London, has historically held a near monopoly in the world diamond trade?
A De Beers
2 Q What’s the national flower of Switzerland and of Austria?
A Edelweiss
3 Q What word is used in chemistry to describe a reaction that gives off heat?
A Exothermic
4 Q What is the only province of Canada that has a Pacific coastline?
A British Columbia
5 Q What do Dave Brubeck’s Take Five, Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past, and the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique symphony have in common?
A They’re all in 5/4 (five four) time (five beats to a bar)
6 Q Which popular TV series of the 1970s starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as alter-egos of the same character?
A The Incredible Hulk
1 Q Which US rock group is Gene Simmons, star of TV’s Rock School, the front man of?
A KISS
2 Q Which character in a popular TV drama series gave to the language such catchphrases as “a nice little earner” and “’er indoors”?
A Arthur Daley (in Minder)
3 Q Which bridge, or the view from it, was William Wordsworth referring to when he wrote, “Earth hath not anything to show more fair”?
A Westminster Bridge
4 Q Which popular author’s recently published childhood memoirs are entitled The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid?
A Bill Bryson
5 Q In a long-running British sitcom, by what nickname was Bill Simmonite better known?
A Compo (in Last of the Summer Wine)
6 Q Which 1970s pop group was named after one of T. S. Eliot’s practical cats?
A Mungo Jerry
7 Q Which book by Friedrich Nietzsche (NEET-shuh) inspired a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, which was made famous in a film by Stanley Kubrick?
A Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zarathustra)
8 Q Which iconic (fictional) TV institution links the Wooburn Grange Country Club, a listed building in Buckinghamshire which burnt down in 1991, and the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay?
A Fawlty Towers (The Gleneagles Hotel provided the inspiration for the series, and the Wooburn Grange was used for the exterior footage)
Supplementaries
1 Q In The Two Ronnies, who was Piggy Malone’s sidekick?
A Charley Farley
2 Q Which famous pop song opens with the line “The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload”?
A I don’t like Mondays (Boomtown Rats)
Round Two: Sport
1 Q When England last won the Ashes in Australia, in 1987-8, who was the England captain?
A Mike Gatting
2 Q Which so-called “extreme sport” is said to have started on Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1979?
A Bungee jumping
3 Q Which recently retired Premiership footballer was nicknamed “The Non-Flying Dutchman”? A Dennis Bergkamp
4 Q Which Australian golfer won The Open Championship four times in five years, from 1954 to 1958?
A Peter Thomson. (He was the only player to win it three times in a row in the 20th century – 1954-6 – and the last player apart from Tom Watson to win it five times. Tiger Woods, up to and including 2006, has three and counting!)
5 Q Which racehorse became an unlikely hero during the Great Depression in the USA, and more recently was immortalised in a book and a film?
A Seabiscuit
6 Q Cricket: which county won the Championship for the first time in 2003, and won it again in 2006?
A Sussex
7 Q What nationality was Juan Manuel Fangio, who won the Formula One drivers’ championship five times in the 1950s? (hwan man-well FAN-jee-oh)
A Argentine (his five wins were a record, beaten only by Michael Schumacher)
8 Q Which Premiership football club’s all-time leading goal scorer is Bobby Tambling? (164 goals, 1958-70)
A Chelsea
Supplementaries
1 Q Which appropriately-named horse won the Grand National just five days before the 1992 general election?
A Party Politics
2 Q Cricket: which county won its thirtieth County Championship in 2001, after a gap of 33 years?
A Yorkshire
Round Three: The Third Round
1 Q What’s the third book of the Old Testament?
A Leviticus
2 Q What’s the world’s third highest mountain?
A Kangchenjunga
3 Q What’s the popular nickname for Beethoven’s third symphony?
A The Eroica
4 Q How many teams compete in the Third Round of the FA Cup?
A 64
5 Q Who is currently third in line to succeed to the British throne?
A Prince Harry
6 Q In the Bible, who was the third son of Adam and Eve, from whom Noah was descended?
A Seth
7 Q Who succeeded John Adams in 1801 to become the third President of the USA?
A Thomas Jefferson
8 Q What’s the name of the character played by Orson Welles in the 1949 film The Third Man?
A Harry Lime
Supplementaries
1 Q Name either the son or the daughter of Loudon Wainwright the Third, who have followed in their father’s footsteps as singer-songwriters.
A Rufus or Martha (Wainwright). Their mother is Kate McGarrigle, who with her sister Anna forms one of the most criminally under-rated acts in the history of popular music.
2 Q In the human body, what’s the non-technical name for a third molar (tooth)?
A A wisdom tooth (after the incisors and canines there are two premolars, and then two or three molars)
Round Four: Geography
1 Q What’s the capital of Chad?
A N’Djamena
2 Q Which sea lies to the west of Italy and is bounded to the west by Corsica and Sardinia (and to the south by Sicily)?
A The Tyrrhenian Sea
3 Q Which range of hills is partly in Oxfordshire and partly in Buckinghamshire?
A The Chilterns
4 Q Also spoken in parts of Spain, France, and Italy, what is the official language of Andorra?
A Catalan
5 Q Which city is the largest in New Zealand, and was its capital until 1865 when it was replaced by Wellington?
A Auckland
6 Q In which country is the famous temple complex of Angkor Wat?
A Cambodia
7 Q What’s the name of the former Portuguese territory in China, situated across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong?
A Macao
8 Q What’s the name of the hill in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park, which geologists tell us is the “plug” of an extinct volcano?
A Arthur’s Seat
Supplementaries
1 Q Off which Welsh county, formerly part of Dyfed (DUH-ved), are the islands of Skokholm and Skomer?
A Pembrokeshire
2 Q Which modern country includes the Horn of Africa?
A Somalia
Round Five: It’s all about money
The pictures are at http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/Cusacks/Picture%20Quiz/ please click on the Slideshows button.
Note to question persons: this is a visual round. Before starting, ask if any of the contestants is or are visually impaired; if anyone is, offer them (when it comes to their turn) one of the alternatives below.
You should have two copies of each picture. Hand out one copy to each team simultaneously, one question at a time.
Now please read out the following two paragraphs to the contestants!
This is a visual round. You will be shown a picture of a banknote, with the name of the country (and in one case the name of the currency) removed. You have to give the name of the country.
The majority of these banknotes – if not all of them – are now obsolete.
1 Argentina (General Manuel Belgrano)
2 Jordan (the Hashemite Kingdom)
3 Austria (W. A. Mozart)
4 New Zealand (Sir Edmund Hillary)
5 Malaysia (accept Malaya; the clue is name of the currency – ringgit)
6 Venezuela (Simon Bolivar, and the name of the currency – “Mil Bolivares”)
7 Germany (the Brothers Grimm. This is the one where we’ve removed the name of the currency; the remaining clues are in the words Bundesbank and Tausend)
8 Ireland (Republic of)
Alternatives (for visually impaired contestants)
1 Q What is the main unit of currency in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia?
A The shilling. (Each country replaced the old East African Shilling with its own currency following independence in the 1960s. There are currently plans to re-unite the currencies under a new East African Shilling.)
2 Q Which European country has the forint as its unit of currency?
A Hungary (scheduled to be replaced by the Euro circa 2010-2012)
Supplementaries
1 India (Mahatma Gandhi)
2 Iraq (Saddam Hussein!)
Round Six: Science
1 Q What name do mathematicians give to the point on a graph where the axes meet?
A The origin
2 Q Which mineral, a form of calcium sulphate, is used in making Plaster of Paris?
A Gypsum
3 Q Which common wild flower is sometimes known as the wood hyacinth?
A The bluebell
4 Q In the human body, what’s the more common name for the nasopharyngeal (nay-zo-fuh-RIN-jee-uhl) tonsils?
A The adenoids
5 Q What device allows a car’s wheels to revolve at different speeds when cornering?
A The differential
6 Q Sooty, sandwich and roseate (ROSE-ee-uht) are species of which family of seabirds?
A Terns
7 Q The order Coleoptera (colly-OPT-uh-ruh) includes about 40% of all insect species – more than any other order of animals. What are they known as in English?
A Beetles (Coleoptera means “sheathed wing”)
8 Q What sort of creatures are the echidna and the pangolin? (eh-KID-nuh, PAN-guh-lin)
A Anteaters (spiny and scaly respectively)
Supplementaries
1 Q Which unit of volume is a twentieth of a pint in Imperial units and an eighteenth of a pint in the USA?
A The fluid ounce
2 Q What is the value of “nine to the power of one half”?
A Three (“x to the power of one half” is another way of saying “the square root of x”)
Round Seven: Quiz Questions
This round is about alliteration: each answer, like the title of the round, contains two words that start with the same letter. In each case, both words are required.
1 Q Whose alter ego is Spiderman?
A (Puny) Peter Parker
2 Q Which city has a name that means “new flower”, and is the capital of the African Union as well as that of its country?
A Addis Ababa
3 Q In Greek mythology, and in astronomy, what’s the alternative name for the Pleiades (PLY-uh-dees)?
A The Seven Sisters
4 Q Which much-maligned car was made in Tamworth, Staffordshire between 1973 and 2001?
A The Reliant Robin (accept Robin Reliant)
5 Q What was the name of the fictional farm run by the Starkadder family?
A Cold Comfort
6 Q What’s the nickname of the famous gun now kept at Edinburgh Castle, believed to be about 550 years old?
A Mons Meg
7 Q Which Championship football team is currently (as at 20 November 2006) managed by Mick McCarthy?
A Wolverhampton Wanderers (unfortunately we are unable to accept The Dingles as it’s not alliterative)
8 Q Which group of fictional friends started on Treasure Island in 1942 and ended up Together Again in 1963?
A The Famous Five
Supplementaries
1 Q Which breed of dog is named after a character in Sir Walter Scott’s novel Guy Mannering?
A The Dandie Dinmont
2 Q Which character from a famous Music Hall song gives his name to a bookies’ slang term?
A Burlington Bertie (100 to 30)
Round Eight: History
1 Q Who was vice president of the USA under Jimmy Carter?
A Walter Mondale
2 Q Which wonder of the ancient world was built by King Nebuchadnezzar?
A The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3 Q Which European country, led by Enver Hoxha, sided with China during the Sino-Soviet split which started in the late 1950s?
A Albania
4 Q Who was the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West from 1950 to 1974, and Ulster Unionist for Down South from 1974 to 1987?
A Enoch Powell
5 Q Who was buried in Peterborough Cathedral in 1587, and moved to Westminster Abbey 25 years later (i.e. in 1612) on the orders of her son?
A Mary Queen of Scots
6 Q What was the principal effect of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which was proposed and ratified in 1865?
A Abolition of slavery
7 Q If Sir Robert Walpole was Britain’s first prime minister, he was also the longest serving. Give a year in his ministry.
A 1721-42
8 Q Whom did Fidel Castro replace as leader of Cuba in 1959?
A Fulgencio Batista
Supplementaries
1 Q Which Roman author and natural philosopher, known as “the Elder” to distinguish him from his nephew, died while observing the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD?
A Pliny (the Elder)
2 Q In which Yorkshire castle was King Richard II imprisoned and probably murdered?
A Pontefract (Pomfret)
General Knowledge Questions
1 Q Who directed the films Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Hannibal?
A Ridley Scott
2 Q Pen y Fan (Pen uh Van) is the highest point in which British National Park?
A The Brecon Beacons
3 Q By what brand name is the synthetic material “spandex” best known in the UK?
A Lycra (Lycra is a trade mark of a major US manufacturer)
4 Q Which 20th century novel is narrated by Charles Ryder, and describes the aristocratic family of his fellow student Sebastian Flyte?
A Brideshead revisited (by Evelyn Waugh)
5 Q Who composed the music for the ballets Coppelia and Sylvia, and for the opera Lakmé?
A Léo Delibes
6 Q Which part of the British Isles has a triskelion (tris-KELL-ee-uhn) on its flag?
A The Isle of Man (it’s the three-legged symbol)
7 Q Which new musical, currently packing ’em in in London’s West End, is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz?
A Wicked
8 Q What’s the more correct name for the tail of a whale?
A The fluke
9 Q According to the Book of Genesis, to which land (East of Eden) did Cain go after he’d killed Abel?
A The Land of Nod
10 Q In which film did Gregory Peck play the role of Atticus Finch, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1962?
A To kill a mockingbird
11 Q What’s the highest mountain in the Alps?
A Mont Blanc
12 Q What was Victoria Beckham’s birth surname (i.e. before she married Golden Balls)?
A Adams
13 Q Lady Caroline Lamb is famous for having had an affair with Lord Byron. But by what title was her husband William Lamb, who was twice prime minister in the 1830s, best known?
A Lord (2nd Viscount) Melbourne
14 Q Who succeeded Charles de Gaulle as President of France in 1969, and died in office in 1974?
A Georges Pompidou
15 Q What is the USA’s oldest military establishment outside US territory, and the only one on Communist soil?
A Guantanamo Bay
16 Q Which US state gave the Bee Gees the title of their first UK hit single?
A Massachusetts (1967)
17 Q What’s the common name for a gastropod without a shell?
A A slug (if it’s got a shell it’s probably a snail)
18 Q In the Bible (New Testament), who was the son of Elizabeth and Zacharias?
A John the Baptist
19 Q Which 2006 film was originally going to be called Venom, then Pacific Air Flight 121?
A Snakes on a Plane
20 Q What term is used for the molten rock that exists below the surface of the earth, and emerges as lava when a volcano erupts?
A Magma
21 Q Name the Australian wildlife expert and broadcaster who died in September 2006 after being stabbed by a sting ray.
A Steve Irwin
22 Q Which Austrian town gave its name to Mozart’s 38th symphony, which he composed there in 1783?
A Linz
23 Q Who said, after losing a fortune in the South Sea Bubble, “I can calculate the movements of the stars, but not the madness of men”?
A Isaac Newton
24 Q Which British newspaper dropped the word Manchester from its title in 1959?
A The Grauniad (sorry, Guardian)
25 Q Which song was a hit for the Mindbenders in 1966, and a Number One for Phil Collins after he sang it in the film Buster?
A Groovy kind of love
26 Q Which Dutch mother of two won four gold medals at the London Olympics in 1948?
A Fanny Blankers-Koen (accept Blankers or Koen; Koen was her birth surname and she married a Mr. Blankers)
27 Q Which former world champion boxer enters the ring to the tune of Blue moon, the anthem of the fans of Manchester City FC?
A Ricky Hatton (he’s scheduled to have another crack at the light welterweight title in January)
28 Q Which 2006 film stars Anne Hathaway as a college graduate who lands a plum job in a prestigious fashion magazine?
A The Devil Wears Prada
29 Q Which model village near Bradford, named after its founder and the river beside which it stands, was built in 1853 and is now a World Heritage Site?
A Saltaire (named after Sir Titus Salt and the River Aire)
30 Q Which unusual biblical forename was shared by the Staffordshire potters Wedgwood and Spode?
A Josiah
31 Q In music, how many semitones are there in an octave?
A 12
32 Q What name is commonly given to the United States’ plan for rebuilding the Allied nations of Europe and repelling Communism after World War Two?
A The Marshall Plan (accept Marshall Aid, etc.)
33 Q Which European city gave its name to the “midi”-sized format that the Guardian and the Observer recently changed to?
A Berlin (it’s called the “Berliner” format)
34 Q Which song, a cover version of a 1962 hit, provided Kylie Minogue with her first hit single?
A The Locomotion (it reached No. 2 in the UK both times)
35 Q Tom Cruise’s third wedding, to Katie Holmes, was much in the news as these questions were being prepared. Name one of his first two wives.
A Mimi Rogers (1987-90) or Nicole Kidman (1990-2001)
36 Q Which company manufactures the Liana, which was used until earlier this year as Top Gear’s “reasonably priced car”?
A Suzuki (in the latest series they use a Chevrolet Lacetti)
37 Q What was the title of the book written by O. J. Simpson, recently withdrawn from sale in the USA amid much controversy?
A If I did it
38 Q By what name is the Gulf of Gascony more commonly known in the English-speaking world?
A The Bay of Biscay
39 Q Derek McIntosh Bates was born in Crewe in 1923, and died there in September 2006. By what sobriquet was he best known?
A Blaster Bates
40 Q What’s the name of the German carol whose tune is traditionally used for the Socialist anthem The Red Flag?
A O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree)
41 Q Which famous comedian swam the English Channel in July 2006?
A David Walliams (of Little Britain)
42 Q Which other European capital city, apart from London and Paris, is served by the Eurostar train?
A Brussels
43 Q Who famously asked Debbie McGee what had first attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels?
A Mrs. Merton (Caroline Aherne)
44 Q Which term, commonly used in boxing, is said to have originated in baseball and to result from the fact that the batter usually faces east?
A Southpaw (Most baseball pitches are oriented so that the sun is behind the batter during the game, i.e. in the afternoon and evening. Consequently the pitcher’s left hand will usually be to the south.)
45 Q Which famous blue cheese, made in the south of France from ewes’ milk, has been regulated by parliamentary decree since the 15th century and by an AOC label since 1925?
A Roquefort
46 Q Who wrote the novels, Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose? (“Foucault’s” pronounced “FOO-co’s”)
A Umberto Eco
47 Q Which German state surrounds but excludes Berlin, and gave its name to the famous gate that symbolises the city?
A Brandenburg
48 Q Which South American country elected the socialist Hugo Chavez as president in 1998?
A Venezuela (still in office on 29 November 2006, having survived an attempted coup in 2002)
49 Q Which Spanish artist in 1815 painted a gruesome portrait of Saturn devouring one of his children – one of the so-called Black Paintings?
A Francisco de Goya
50 Q Which part of the body contains the vitreous humour and the aqueous humour?
A The eye
51 Q Which militant Arab organisation has a name that means “Party of God”?
A Hezbollah
52 Q What surname is shared by two of the actors who have played Doctor Who?
A Baker (Tom and Colin)
53 Q In cricket, which type of delivery was invented by Saqlain Mushtaq, exploited to great effect by Muttiah Muralitharan, and has a name that is Urdu and Hindi for “the second one” or “the other one”?
A The doosra
54 Q In Japanese cooking, what name is given to the classic technique of frying food, particularly seafood and vegetables, in batter?
A Tempura
55 Q Which Irish author’s life and works are commemorated by Bloomsday on June 16th each year?
A James Joyce (Leopold Bloom is the protagonist of Ulysses, the events of which took place on 16th June 1904)
56 Q Which region of Mexico gave its name to the smallest of all breeds of dog?
A Chihuahua
57 Q Which former Conservative minister is the great-nephew of the first Lord Beaverbrook, once had a glass of wine thrown over him by Anna Ford, and was later imprisoned for perjury?
A Jonathan Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook was Max Aitken)
58 Q In which city is Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper?
A Milan (in the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie)
59 Q What name is given to the sun’s “atmosphere”, invisible from Earth except during an eclipse?
A The corona
60 Q What German word meaning “defence force” was used for the collective armed forces of Nazi Germany?
A Wehrmacht (VAIR-macht)
61 Q How or why is the prelude to Charpentier’s setting of the Te Deum, composed around 1690, known to millions of TV viewers throughout Europe?
A It’s the signature tune of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and of the Eurovision Song Contest. Accept either, or just “Eurovision”.
62 Q What does Simone Perrotta, one of Italy’s 2006 world cup winning team, have in common with England’s 1966 hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst?
A They were both born in Ashton-under-Lyne (accept Tameside, (Greater) Manchester, Lancashire, etc. – but not Cheshire!)
63 Q What number links Virgin Radio and the Magna Carta?
A 1215 (Virgin’s wavelength, and the year the Magna Carta was signed)
64 Q What collective name has Ricky Gervais given to his collection of weird animals including the Honk, the Grundit, the Puddloflaj and the Mernimbler?
A Flanimals
65 Q Which US state is the home of Cajun (KAY-jun) and Zydeco (ZY-deco) music, and bizarrely has You Are My Sunshine as one of its state songs?
A Louisiana
66 Q What do Prince William, Joe Grundy in The Archers, and Kennedy (the Violinist Formerly Known as Nigel) have in common?
A They all support Aston Villa FC (or claim to)
67 Q Which Los Angeles-based pop-rock band is chiefly remembered for its 1979 debut single, My Sharona?
A The Knack
68 Q Which astronomical event happened in 2004 and will happen again in 2012, but then won’t happen again until 2117?
A The transit of Venus across the sun – it happens in pairs eight years apart, separated by a gap of (alternately) 121.5 or 105.5 years
69 Q “Halcyon” is a poetic or romantic name, originating in Greek, for which bird?
A The kingfisher
70 Q Which country won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2001, earning twelve points each from Latvia and Lithuania?
A Estonia
71 Q Which FA Premiership club reached the final of the UEFA Cup in 2006?
A Middlesbrough
72 Q Which traditional activity has three main styles, known respectively as Cotswold, North West, and Border?
A Morris dancing (do not accept “folk dancing”)
73 Q Which phrase was coined by Shakespeare, when Cleopatra referred to the time when she was “green in judgement, cold in blood”?
A Salad days
74 Q Which Germanic people are famous for “sacking” Rome in 455 AD, their name now used as a byword for anyone who destroys property?
A The Vandals
75 Q Which European city features a long, tree-lined pedestrian mall called La Rambla or Las Ramblas?
A Barcelona
76 Q Which song by Talking Heads opens with the line, “And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack”?
A Once In A Lifetime
77 Q What everyday name is given to a parcel of data that’s downloaded to your PC when you visit a website, and sent back to that website the next time you visit?
A A cookie
78 Q Which word, meaning jolly or merry, literally means “of or pertaining to Jupiter”?
A Jovial
79 Q Who appeared as DCI Roy Slater in Only Fools and Horses, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Iris Murdoch’s husband John Bayley in Iris, and played the title role in a recent Channel 4 TV drama about Lord Longford and his relationship with Myra Hindley?
A Jim Broadbent
80 Q Which team did Jenson Button drive for in the 2006 Formula 1 season?
A Honda
81 Q What German word (meaning “union”) was used for Hitler’s “inclusion” of Austria into Germany in 1938?
A Anschluss
82 Q Which liberated writer wrote, “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom”?
A Shirley Conran (in Superwoman)
83 Q Who immediately preceded Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer?
A Kenneth Clarke (1993-7)
84 Q In London, what’s the meaning of a road sign showing a white letter C on a red circle?
A Congestion charge area
85 Q Which song by David Bowie was a hit for Mott the Hoople and includes the line, “Oh man, I need TV when I got T Rex”?
A All The Young Dudes
86 Q Which Gloucestershire physician performed the first successful vaccination, in 1796, using the cowpox virus to inoculate against smallpox?
A Edward Jenner
87 Q Which Far Eastern capital city has given its name to a type of fibre, and thus to a type of folder or envelope?
A Manila (contrary to what many people believe, it’s nothing to do with the colour)
88 Q By what epithet is Californian-born Ann Maurice (muh-REECE) known to viewers of Britain’s Channel 5 and UK Style?
A She’s the House Doctor
89 Q In which sport is New Zealand represented by the Silver Ferns, South Africa by the Proteas (PRO-tee-uhs), and Jamaica by the Sunshine Girls?
A Netball
90 Q Which actress has been married to the British actor Gary Oldman and the US actor Ethan Hawke?
A Uma Thurman
91 Q Which humorous parody of history text books was written by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, and first published in book form in 1930?
A 1066 and all that
92 Q Who was born in 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, and died in 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia?
A Ernesto “Che” Guevara
93 Q Which London street links a monthly magazine first published in 1891 and a cigarette that you’re never alone with?
A Strand
94 Q Which musical includes the songs Oh What A Beautiful Morning, The Surrey With The Fringe On Top, and People Will Say We’re In Love?
A Oklahoma!
95 Q What’s the common name for the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium?
A Wormwood (this name can also apply to other plants of the genus Artemisia)
96 Q Which tiny Commonwealth nation has the lucrative Internet Top Level Domain name .tv (dot TV)?
A Tuvalu
Supplementaries
1 Q Which company, founded by Cecil Rhodes and based in Johannesburg and London, has historically held a near monopoly in the world diamond trade?
A De Beers
2 Q What’s the national flower of Switzerland and of Austria?
A Edelweiss
3 Q What word is used in chemistry to describe a reaction that gives off heat?
A Exothermic
4 Q What is the only province of Canada that has a Pacific coastline?
A British Columbia
5 Q What do Dave Brubeck’s Take Five, Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past, and the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique symphony have in common?
A They’re all in 5/4 (five four) time (five beats to a bar)
6 Q Which popular TV series of the 1970s starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as alter-egos of the same character?
A The Incredible Hulk
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