GK 2 Flashcards
Which writer of plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest wrote the letter De Profundis to his former lover Lord Alfred Douglas while imprisoned in Reading Gaol?
Oscar Wilde
Which crisp brand notorious for its perverse decisions on colouring its packets (where for instance salt and vinegar is green and cheese and onion is blue) is ultimately owned by PepsiCo? Footballer Gary Lineker is associated with this brand’s advertising.
Walker’s
Also the name of a Shakespearean character what is the four-letter name of the vulcanised rubber disc which fills the function of the ball in ice hockey roller hockey and Octopush?
Puck
Mindanao and Luzon are the largest islands in which Asian island nation the capital of which is Manila?
Philippines
It is sometimes suggested that the expression funny bone is related to the name of which bone running from the shoulder to the elbow with a name which is a homophone of an adjective meaning funny? It probably relates more boringly to the funny feeling you get if you compress your ulnar nerve.
Humerus
India’s is longest Monaco’s is shortest and the US has the world’s oldest codified one in continuous use. The UK’s is often said to be unwritten. This is which aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity and determines how that entity is to be governed?
Constitution
Blur Oasis Suede and Pulp were bands associated with which musical and cultural movement of the 1990s which produced brighter and catchier alternative rock and formed part of the broader Cool Britannia movement?
Britpop
Emily Maitlis was reprimanded last week for delivering a monologue on Dominic Cummings’ breach of COVID-19 guidance on which BBC news programme usually broadcast at 2230 on weekdays on BBC Two? It was felt by some observers to be more opinion than factual reporting.
Newsnight
What six letter word connects a language spoken in cities such as Pamplona or Bilbao with an item of lingerie consisting of a bra with material continuing down beneath it and finishing at the top of the hips or waist?
Basque
Which artist painted The Two [Forename of this Artist]s. depicting her in a traditional white European dress on the left and a traditional tehuana dress from her native Mexico on the right?
Frida Kahlo
Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven are two of classical music’s Three Bs. Peter Cornelius suggested the third member was a French romantic composer of Symphonie fantastique and Hans von Bulow suggested a German romantic composer of A German Requiem. Name either of these potential Third Bs.
Hector Berlioz or Johannes Brahms
Voltaire is associated with the observation that what multi-ethnic complex of territories in western Europe in existence from the Early Middle Ages until 1806 was none of the three components in its name?
Holy Roman Empire
Less easy for beginners as it requires technique and strong muscles which B is a swimming stroke that involves moving the arms simultaneously accompanied by a namesake kick to achieve a wave-like body motion?
Butterfly
In physics what is the name of the resistance of a physical body to any change in its velocity (either speed or change of direction)? Newton’s First Law concerns this property which can be used more generally to refer to a feeling of sluggishness or reluctance to take action.
Inertia
What was the name of the anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle featuring in a series of Walt Disney movies beginning with 1968’s The Love Bug?
Herbie
The alphabetically last of the world’s currencies is which currency used in Poland divided into 100 grosz?
Zloty
What is the common name of Rumex obtusifolius a perennial considered an invasive species in some locales which in the UK is often found near nettle leaves and said to help calm a nettle sting if rubbed on it?
Dock
The laundry symbol consisting of a circle in a square with a cross through it indicates you should not use what process in respect of the garment?
Tumble drying
Demonstrating his trademark of leaving service ducts pipeworks and so on exposed on the building’s exterior the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyd’s Building in London were designed by which British architect?
Richard Rogers
Name any two of three London boroughs permitted to describe themselves as a Royal Borough.
Kensington and Chelsea Kingston-upon-Thames Greenwich
Lorena Ochoa who has spent most weeks at the top of the world rankings for female players of golf is from which Latin American nation?
Mexico
Which Southern African kingdom which fought a war against the British Empire in 1879 rose to prominence under the leadership of Shaka who ruled it from 1816 to 1828?
Zulu
Which country became independent in 2006 and began using the .me internet code the following year? It had previously adopted the .yu code used by its predecessor state and hence changed from .yu to .me pleasingly for trivia fans.
Montenegro
Which gemstone a typically blue variety of corundum classically celebrates a 45th wedding anniversary but was also used to name the 65th Jubilee reached by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017?
Sapphire
And when they buried him / the little port had seldom seen a costlier funeral are the much mocked final lines of the 1864 narrative poem Enoch Arden written by which then Poet Laureate the longest-serving in the role?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Keli Richards dislikes film questions which focus excessively on Academy Award winning films so just to annoy him: which Best Picture winner of the 2000s was directed by Clint Eastwood and concerns the underdog amateur boxer Maggie Fitzgerald played by Hilary Swank?
Million Dollar Baby
The title track inspired by an act of police brutality witnessed by cowriter Renaldo Obie Benson of the Four Tops Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler) were tracks on which classic 1971 album by Marvin Gaye?
What’s Going On?
The aviator Charles Kingsford Smith who disappeared during a flight over the coast of Burma in 1935 gives his name to the airport in which southern hemisphere city?
Sydney
What five-letter word meaning a shadowy group of plotters is said to have derived from the initial letters of the surnames of five of the key members of the ministry who advised Charles II between around 1668 and 1674 although this is most likely a folk etymology with no basis in fact?
Cabal
One of the achievements for which Dorothy Hodgkin won a Nobel Prize was for determining the complete chemical structure of which largest and most structurally complex vitamin in the Vitamin B complex also known as Cobalamin?
B12
The prolific Norwegian frontman Erling Braut Haaland scored the first goal after the post-lockdown resumption of the Bundesliga for which side Champions League winners in 1996-97 in the Revierderby against local rivals Schalke 04?
Borussia Dortmund
English comedian Tom Walker is the person behind which fictional satirical news correspondent whose rants about British and US politics are often shared on social media?
Jonathan Pie
Which mother of Romulus and Remus gives her name to the prominence on the surface of the asteroid Vesta which by some measures is the highest mountain in the solar system measured from peak to base?
Rhea Silvia
Which nation’s rugby league team are nicknamed The Kumuls which means birds of paradise in the local creole Tok Pisin?
Papua New Guinea
In Egyptian mythology which warrior goddess and goddess of healing a protector of the Pharoahs is often depicted as a lioness holding a uraeus (the stylised form of the upright cobra)?
Sekhmet
Which scientist gives his name to the constant in physics and chemistry which represents the magnitude of electric charge per mole of electrons?
Michael Faraday
The name of which adhesives company alludes to its foundation in 1889 in the town of Chelsea which sits the other side of the Mystic River from a particular US city?
Bostik (refers to Boston)
Coined by the Australian commentator A.A. Phillips what alliterative phrase refers to an internalized inferiority complex that causes people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries?
Cultural cringe
Pre-dating Claudio Monterverdi’s subsequent works which 1597 work by Jacopo Peri is the earliest known work that by modern standards could be described as an opera?
Dafne
In 1946 the right-wing Zionist organisation Irgun bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine which were based in what building in Jerusalem which gives its name to the bombing?
King David Hotel
The 1969 autobiography The Movies Mr Griffith and Me was written by which American actress known for her association with the works of D.W. Griffith? She appeared in his Birth of a Nation and later on in Duel in the Sun and Night of the Hunter dying aged 99 in 1993.
Lillian Gish
What integer comes next in the following sequence of integers: 0 4 18 48 100?
180 (n^3-n^2)
Which American Paralympic swimmer blind from birth competed in every Paralympic Games from 1980 to 2004 winning an astounding 55 medals in total (41 of them gold)?
Trischa Zorn
Which Portuguese explorer (born c. 1452) became in the 1480s the first European known to sight and enter the Congo River and to explore the West African coast between Cape St. Catherine near the equator and Walvis Bay in Namibia?
Diego Cao
Luigi was President of Italy from 1948 to 1955. His son Giulio founded a publisher regarded as Italy’s most prestigious in the postwar period. Giulio’s son Ludovico has scored films including This is England and I’m Still Here. What is their common surname?
Einaudi
Steve Blackman is the showrunner of which Netflix series returning for a second season in July 2020 which revolves around a dysfunctional family of adopted sibling superheroes who reunite to solve the mystery of their father’s death and the threat of an impending apocalypse?
The Umbrella Academy
Killer Mike who made a memorable speech in response to the death of George Floyd due to US police brutality forms which hip-hop supergroup with producer El-P? They have announced they will release their fourth album due this Friday for free.
Run the Jewels
Which tonic and patent medicine was created in 1863 by the Corsican chemist who gave it its name and was made with Bordeaux wine and coca leaves the wine extracting the cocaine from the leaves and giving the drink its effect? It is said to have inspired John Pemberton to develop Coca-Cola.
Vin Mariani
What was the pen name of the Danish thriller writer Borge Petersen (1917-2012)? Despite selling millions of copies his books are not stocked in Danish libraries after it was revealed in the 1960s that he had been a member of the Wehrmacht during WW2 and been convicted as a traitor on his return to Denmark.
Sven Hassel
With a population of just 2970 people in the 2011 census which is the smallest university town in the UK?
Lampeter
What name is shared by an American state with its capital at Atlanta and an ex-Soviet state with its capital at Tbilisi?
Georgia
Which letter of the alphabet is the international vehicle registration code for Germany and the Roman numeral for 500?
D
The Ukrainian dish borscht derives its distinctive red colour from its use of which vegetable as its primary ingredient? In recent years it has been claimed that juice made from this vegetable can reduce blood pressure in hypertensive people.
Beetroot
After Greenland which is the world’s next largest island to belong to a single country? This island nation is separated from Mozambique by the Mozambique Channel.
Madagascar
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer took place on 12 February 1994. Perhaps because of the focus on this event thieves chose this day to steal which 1893 painting undoubtedly the country’s most famous? Thankfully the painting was recovered three months later.
The Scream or Der Schrei der Natur or Skrik
Francis Fukuyama famously announced the end of what in the title of a 1992 book? The Greek writer Herodotus is often described as the ‘father’ of a field of study of this name.
History
Which tennis player had won six singles majors by the time she was stabbed on court aged 19 while playing in Hamburg? She did not return to tennis for two years and subsequently won only one further majors title triumphing at the 1996 Australian Open.
Monica Seles
The heroine of which Verdi opera dies after being entombed alive with her lover Radamès?
Aida
Commissioned in 1806 to honour those who died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars which well-known structure in Paris was designed by Jean Chalgrin and stands at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle?
Arc de Triomphe
Which American actor won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in 1993 for his role as the title character’s husband in the American TV sit-com Roseanne?
John Goodman
The older brother of a future Israeli Prime Minister Yonatan Netanyahu was the only soldier killed during Operation Thunderbolt in which the Israeli army freed over 100 people who had been taken hostage at the airport in which African city? The city in question had served as capital of Uganda until replaced by Kampala in 1962.
Entebbe
During the 1970s which golfer made the cut in 39 of the decade’s 40 majors finishing in the top 10 in 35 of them?
Jack Nicklaus
Measured in hertz what property is found by dividing the velocity of a sine wave by its wavelength?
Frequency
The French-born Argentine singer Carlos Gardel died in a plane crash in Colombia in 1935 at the height of his fame. He is perhaps the most famous figure in the history of which style of music and dance that originated either side of the Río de la Plata in the late 19th century?
Tango
Which term was invented by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 to describe a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale? The Koch snowflake was one of the earliest to be described.
Fractal
Which video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance surpassed Facebook YouTube and Instagram to become the world’s most downloaded iOS app in mid-2018 and in October 2018 became the first Chinese app to become the most downloaded app in the USA?
TikTok
In 1930 Mahatma Gandhi led a 240-mile march between the towns of Sabarmati Ashram and Dandi in order to protest against British taxes on which commodity?
Salt
The slightly creepy song Thank Heaven for Little Girls is the best-known number from which stage musical based on the 1958 film musical of the same name starring Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier? The film was itself an adaptation of a novella by Colette.
Gigi
At 84 metres (276 ft) underground Park Pobedy station is one of the world’s deepest metro stations. It is to be found on which city’s metro system Europe’s longest and busiest?
Moscow
This is the logo of which global fashion retail brand owned by Abercrombie & Fitch that is targeted at and particularly popular with teenagers and young adults?
Holister
Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.” (As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”) One of literature’s most famous lines this sentence opens which 1915 literary work by Franz Kafka?
The Metamorphosis or Die Verwandlung
Portrayed by Woody Harrelson in a 1996 Miloš Forman film which American porn mogul who introduced Hustler magazine in 1974 was left paralysed from the waist down due to injuries he suffered in a 1978 murder attempt by the serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin?
Larry Flint
Subdivided into 100 kobo the naira is the unit of currency in which country of around 200 million people?
Nigeria
Embryonic and Adult are the two major types of which undifferentiated biological cells with the unique ability to develop into specialised cell types in the body? These cells can be used to replace lost or damaged cells that our bodies can’t replace naturally but their use in medical research remains controversial.
Stem cells
Which great Soviet ballet dancer defected to Canada in 1974 and later played Carrie Bradshaw’s love interest in the final series of Sex and the City?
Mikhail Baryshnikov
In which European city did followers of the preacher Girolamo Savonarola collect and burn thousands of books and artworks in the Piazza della Signoria on Shrove Tuesday 1497 in an event known today as the Bonfire of the Vanities? In one of history’s little ironies Savonarola would himself be burned at the stake in the same square the following May.
Florence
Three of the last four Laureus Awards for Sportswoman of the Year have been awarded to which American artistic gymnast who won four gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio and five more at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart?
Simone Biles
Almost a third of them being found in Mumbai fire temples are places of worship for members of which religion based on the teachings of an Iranian prophet of the 2nd millennium BCE?
Zoroastrianism
Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Medal-winning 2008 novel The Invention of ____ Cabret tells the story of the titular 12-year-old boy who lives in a Parisian train station where he encounters the great film-maker Georges Méliès. The book was adapted to film by Martin Scorsese in 2011 with the boy’s first name providing the film’s title. What boy’s name completes the title of the novel and provides the title of the film?
Hugo
Possibly in use since the 3rd millennium BCE what is the name of the ‘talking knots’ regularly used by the Andean civilisations of South America as recording devices until the 17th century?
Quipus
