Plate Semi Finals 16 Feb 2010

 

Questions set by:

The British Flag (1 – 60)

&

The Ox-fford (61 – 120)

1.	What kind of creature is a boomslang?
		VENOMOUS SNAKE
2.	What kind of creature is an alewife?
		FISH (type of herring)
3.	Which 1969 film directed by Sydney Pollack revolves around a dance marathon in Los Angeles with a $1,500 cash prize to the winner?
		THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY
4.	In which film did John Wayne make his final appearance?
		THE SHOOTIST
5.	Which religious organisation was founded by the Korean Sun Myung Moon in 1954?
		UNIFICATION CHURCH
6.	Which religious organisation was founded in Boston by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866?
		CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MOVEMENT
7.	Which perfume was first made in 1768 in response to a Russian count’s (Count Orlof) challenge to recreate the distinctive aroma of the Russian Court?
		IMPERIAL LEATHER
8.	Which perfume house makes perfumes called Opium, Paris and Rive Gauche?
		YVES ST LAURENT
9.	Who was writing “Love Letters in the Sand” in 1957?
		PAT BOONE
10.	Who was “Alone Again (Naturally)” in 1972?
		GILBERT O’SULLIVAN
11.	To which legendary queen of Carthage did Aeneas recount the story of the fall of Troy in Virgil’s Aeneid?
		DIDO
12.	Who was the first husband of Catherine of Aragon, who became the first wife of Henry VIII?
		PRINCE ARTHUR (Henry’s older brother who died 6 months after marrying her in 1501)
13.	Who switched on the Blackpool Illuminations in September 2009?
		ALAN CARR
14.	Whose new friends are Stumpy the elephant, a snorting bull and a bossy cockerel?
		NODDY (In the first new book for 46 years - Noddy and The Farmyard Muddle – written by Enid Blyton’s granddaughter, Sophie Smallwood)
15.	In the recent adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” who provides the voice for the eponymous character?
		GEORGE CLOONEY
16.	In which song would you find “the heavy, heavy monster sound”?
		ONE STEP BEYOND (Madness – 1979)
17.	Who wrote books with the titles and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes”?
		ANITA LOOS
18.	In which year was the first automatic dishwasher invented by Mrs Josephine Cochran?
		1889 (accept 1884 to 1894)
19.	In which year was the world’s first suntan cream developed?
		1936 (accept 1932 to 1940)
20.	Whose books have included “Down Among The Women” and “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil”?
		FAY WELDON
21.	Against which monarch was the Babington Plot organised?
		ELIZABETH I
22.	Against which monarch was the Rye House Plot organised?
		CHARLES II
23.	Which brand of cigarettes was sold under the slogan “pure gold”?
		BENSON AND HEDGES
24.	What was the name of the political party founded by Sir James Goldsmith in 1994?
		THE REFERENDUM PARTY
25.	What was the name of Bertie Wooster’s most formidable aunt?
		AUNT AGATHA
26.	What was the name of the first Blue Peter guide dog who was introduced to the show in 1964?
		HONEY
27.	Which was the last team to win the F.A. Cup with a team comprising all English players?
		WEST HAM UNITED (1975)
28.	Which English football league team has been relegated the fewest times?
		ARSENAL (1 time only in 1912/13)
29.	Which island is home to Grimsetter airport?
		ORKNEY
30.	In which islands is the date of January 10th set aside as Maggie Thatcher Day?
		FALKLAND ISLANDS
31.	Which is the largest castle in England?
		WINDSOR
32.	Which is the oldest cathedral in Great Britain?
		CANTERBURY
33.	Daisuke Inoue invented which musical machine in 1971?
		KARAOKE MACHINE (Bastard…)
34.	Which miniature synthesizer did Brian Jarvis invent in 1967?
		STYLOPHONE
35.	Which 1980’s BBC children’s cartoon series featured a hero dressed in a blue and yellow costume whose real identity was Eric Twinge?
		BANANAMAN
36.	In the first James Bond movie, what is the first name of Dr. No?
		JULIUS
37.	What is the largest internal organ in the human body?
		LIVER
38.	Which part of the body is medically referred to as the hallux?
		BIG TOE
39.	Which naval weapon was invented by Robert Whitehead in 1866?
		TORPEDO
40.	The Gettysburg Battlefield is in which US State?
		PENNSYLVANIA
41.	Which was the first cartoon character to attract the attention of the censors?
		BETTY BOOP
42.	What was the name of the cavemen racers in “Wacky Races”?
		SLAG BROTHERS (Rock and Gravel, in the Bouldermobile…)
43.	What does Zorro mean in Spanish?
		FOX
44.	How did the French author, philosopher, Nobel prize winner and occasional Goalkeeper Albert Camus die in 1960?
		IN A CAR CRASH
45.	How many spots are there on a complete set of “double six” dominoes? (allow 20 seconds thinking time)
		168
46.	What would be the smallest whole number written as a word that would have all its letters written in alphabetical order? (allow 20 seconds thinking time)
		FORTY
47.	Which country lies between Niger and Sudan?
		CHAD
48.	How many stars are there on the New Zealand flag?
		4
49.	Who was the first Christian Emperor of Rome?
		CONSTANTINE
50.	What was the name of the race of giants that Zeus defeated in order to rule on Mount Olympus?
		THE TITANS
51.	Which British footballer was the first to earn £100 a week?
		JOHNNY HAYNES
52.	On 11th June 1953, which famous cricketer became the first professional player to captain England?
		LEN HUTTON
53.	What links Kate Moss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Fry and Prince Philip?
		THEY ALL OWN A LONDON BLACK CAB!
54.	Who is the only non-Royal living person to appear on a British stamp?
		ROGER TAYLOR (drummer with Queen – in the background of a Freddy Mercury stamp)
55.	Which artist painted the double portrait “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy”?
		DAVID HOCKNEY
56.	Which British artist provided a coloured pattern to be used as a test card for cameras on board the space probe Beagle 2 in 2003?
		DAMIEN HIRST
57.	Which English monarch had the nickname “Old Rowley”?
		CHARLES II
58.	Who was known as “Brandy Nan”?
		QUEEN ANNE
59.	At what temperature does water have its maximum density?
		4°C (39.2°F)
60.	What name is given to the angle between two radii of a circle that cut off on the circumference an arc equal in length to the radius?
		A RADIAN (57.2°)
61.	Which football team knocked Macclesfield Town out of this season’s F.A. Cup in Round 1?
		M. K. DONS (managed by former Macclesfield Town boss Paul Ince)
62.	Former Macclesfield Town boss Sammy McIlroy is currently the manager of which English football league team?
		MORECAMBE
63.	Who directed the 2009 film Invictus?
		CLINT EASTWOOD
64.	Who directed the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes?
		GUY RITCHIE
65.	In November 2006, a painting entitled No. 5, 1948 was sold privately for a still current world record price (for any work of art) of $140 Million. Who was the artist?
		JACKSON POLLOCK
66.	What is the name of the sculptor of L’Homme Qui Marche 1 (The Walking Man 1), recently sold for a world record price (for a sculpture sold at auction) of £65 Million at Sotheby’s, London?
		ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
67.	Who was the first post-war German Chancellor to have been brought up in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany)?
		ANGELA MERKEL
68.	Who did not seek re-election as Austrian President in 1992 after revelations about his activities in World War II?
		KURT WALDHEIM
69.	Which chemical element, symbol Sb and atomic number 51, is a brittle silver-grey semi-metallic element?
		ANTIMONY
70.	Which chemical element, symbol Cd and atomic number 48, is a soft silvery-white metallic element?
		CADMIUM
71.	Which ballet, first performed in 1841, was inspired by a Heinrich Heine story about a peasant girl who kills herself when she discovers the man she loves is engaged to someone else?
		GISELLE
72.	Which Latvian-born dancer of the New York City Ballet defected to the West in 1974 and later appeared in films entitled The Turning Point and Dancers?
		MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV
73.	The name of which garden flower means, literally, “many flowers”?
		POLYANTHUS
74.	The name of which flower means, literally, “rock-breaker”?
		SAXIFRAGE
75.	What was the name of the space station launched by the USSR in 1996, later replaced by the International Space Station in 2001?
		MIR
76.	What was the name of the world’s first ‘space tourist’, a sixty-year old Californian financier, who paid the Russian space agency $20 Million to travel to the International Space Station in April 2001?
		DENNIS TITO
77.	According to the Bible, who visited King Solomon and gave him ‘a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones’?
		THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
78.	In Genesis 4:16, to where was Cain exiled after killing his brother Abel?
		THE LAND OF NOD
79.	Which cathedral contains the tomb of the Venerable Bede?
		DURHAM
80.	Which saint’s shrine is in the crypt of Glasgow cathedral?
		ST MUNGO
81.	In J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, what was the name of the Darling family’s dog, which was also the children’s nurse?
		NANA
82.	What was the name of the dog who was the first to win the English Greyhound Racing Derby twice, and whose embalmed body is now on display at Tring Zoological Museum
		MICK THE MILLER
83.	In 1912, what name was coined by the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener for the “supercontinent” which was thought to have split up to form the present continents?
		PANGAEA
84.	What is the Hobo West, which was found in 1920 near Grootfontein in what is now Namibia?
		THE LARGEST KNOWN METEORITE (Believed to weigh over 60 tons, which fell to Earth about 80,000 years ago)
85.	Which US bandleader and clarinettist, who achieved huge success with Begin the Beguine in 1938, was born Arthur Arshawsky?
		ARTIE SHAW
86.	Which US clarinettist and bandleader, who featured on the Let’s Dance radio series, was known as the ‘King of Swing’?
		BENNY GOODMAN
87.	Which British newspaper has as its logo a knight dressed in chain mail and carrying a white shield bearing a red cross?
		DAILY EXPRESS
88.	Which Mediterranean island was the headquarters of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem from 1529 to 1798?
		MALTA
89.	By what Latin phrase is the Canticle of Simeon from Luke 2:29, which begins “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace”, better known?
		NUNC DIMITTIS From the opening words of the Latin (Vulgate) version
90.	Which Latin phrase is the motto of the Crown of Scotland, the Order of the Thistle and all the Scottish regiments, often referred to in local dialect as “Wha daur meddle wi’ me”?
		NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT (No one provokes me with impunity)
91.	In which 19th century novel is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov the central character?
		CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (by Dostoyevsky)
92.	Which Oxford philosopher and writer won the 1978 Booker Prize for the novel The Sea, the Sea?
		IRIS MURDOCH
93.	Which bird is particularly associated with the village of Abbotsbury, near Dorchester?
		MUTE SWAN (Accept Swan)
94.	Which is the only native British bird to change the colour of its plumage in winter?
		PTARMIGAN (Grey and brown in the summer, white in winter)
95.	Which card game is said to have been invented by the seventeenth century poet John Suckling?
		CRIBBAGE
96.	Which playing card is sometimes called ‘the curse of Scotland’?
		NINE OF DIAMONDS (For a variety of reasons, all of which probably have some truth in them!)
97.	From which Shakespeare play did Ray Bradbury take the title for his 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes?
		MACBETH (Act IV, scene 1, with the witches - “By the pricking of my thumbs…”)
98.	In Shakespeare, which character’s “flashes of merriment…were wont to set the table on a roar”?
		YORICK (According to Hamlet)
99.	By what name is the European Treaty of Union signed in December 1991 better known, after the name of the town where it was signed?
		MAASTRICHT TREATY (In the Netherlands)
100.	Which Norwegian politician was the first Secretary-General of the United Nations?
		TRYGVE LIE
101.	Which German artist, commissioned by Thomas Cromwell, painted a flattering portrait of Anne of Cleves in 1539 which helped persuade Henry VIII to marry her?
		HANS HOLBEIN (THE YOUNGER) (Accept Holbein)
102.	Which Renaissance painter was the subject of the fictionalised biography The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, later made into a film starring Charlton Heston?
		MICHAELANGELO
103.	What was the name of the French-produced missile used to dramatic effect by the Argentinian Air Force in the Falklands War in 1982?
		EXOCET
104.	In the First World War, the slogan They Shall Not Pass symbolised the defence of which French town?
		VERDUN
105.	Who wrote the 1848 children’s Christmas story of The Little Match Girl?
		HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
106.	In which Cambridge College has the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols been held every Christmas Eve since 1918?
		KING’S COLLEGE
107.	Which renowned English editor of the Manchester Guardian wrote in a 1927 editorial that “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”?
		C.P. SCOTT
108.	Which magazine, founded in 1991 by Gordon Roddick and John Bird, was inspired by a New York publication called Street News?
		THE BIG ISSUE
109.	Which US recording artist has released albums entitled Control, Rhythm Nation 1814 and The Velvet Rope?
		JANET JACKSON
110.	Which US recording artist’s latest album is The Blueprint 3, featuring the New York inspired hit song Empire State of Mind?
		JAY-Z
111.	Which 1971 British gangster film was based on the Ted Lewis novel Jack’s Return Home, inspired by the so-called ‘One Armed Bandit Murder’ of a debt collector in County Durham?
		GET CARTER
112.	What was the name of the Oklahoma City bomber of April 1995 who was executed for the crime in 2001?
		TIMOTHY McVEIGH
113.	In English folklore, which tree is credited with magical protective powers against witchcraft?
		ROWAN (Accept Mountain Ash)
114.	According to legend, which plant, attributed with quasi-human properties, could be safely uprooted only on a moonlit night with a cord pulled by a black dog, which would later die?
		MANDRAKE
115.	In 1986, which natural area was declared the first World Heritage site in Northern Ireland?
		THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY
116.	Whose inscription in St Paul’s Cathedral reads, “Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice”?
		SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN (Reader, if you seek a monument, look around…)
117.	What is the most abundant mineral in the human body?
		CALCIUM
118.	The lack of which fat-soluble vitamin over a long period of time causes rickets in children and contributes to osteomalcia in adults?
		VITAMIN D
119.	In which 1987 Channel 4 drama based on Tom Sharpe’s 1974 novel, did David Jason play the role of Skullion, a janitor at a Cambridge college?
		PORTERHOUSE BLUE
120.	After which famous engineer is the university at Uxbridge named?
		ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL

SUPPLEMENTARIES:

1.	What is the name of the underwear model, ex girlfriend of Wayne Bridge who John Terry, the ex-England had an affair with thus ending up with him losing the England captaincy to Rio Ferdinand?
		VANESSA PERRONCEL (Amongst other names used…)
2.	The following is the first line from which well known novel? “It is truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”?
		PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Jane Austen)
3.	Who painted the “Monarch Of The Glen” and sculpted the 4 bronze lions in Trafalgar Square?
		SIR EDWIN LANDSEER
4.	In the 1938 film Going Places, Louis Armstrong sung the song ‘Jeepers Creepers’ – who or what was ‘Jeepers Creepers’?
		A RACEHORSE
5.	If all the chemical elements in the periodic table were listed alphabetically which one would come first?
		ACTINIUM
6.	If all the US States were listed alphabetically which one would come last?
		WYOMING

TIE_BREAK QUESTIONS – USE THEM CAREFULLY!

The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is currently the tallest man-made structure ever built. How tall is it in feet?
	2,717 feet (828 metres)

AND IF YOU ARE REALLY STUCK…

Add together the following numbers and write down the total… The height in feet of Mount Everest The height in feet of Blackpool Tower The length in miles of the Amazon River The height in feet of Angel Falls, Venezuela The year in which Shakespeare died
	Everest = 29,028 Blackpool Tower = 518 Amazon = 4,080 Angel Falls = 2,648 Shakespeare = 1616 Total = 37,890