Quiz 04

Question 1

The surname Fletcher specifically refers to a person who makes and sells what?

Answer 1

Arrows

Question 2

Mons Meg, a siege gun presented to King James the Second of Scotland in 1457, is now housed in which castle?

Answer 2

Edinburgh

Question 3

Which American poet, who died in 1886, was known as the nun of Amherst?

Answer 3

Emily Dickinson

Question 4

Known as the master endocrinal gland, which gland at the bottom of the brain secrets hormones that regulate a number of bodily processes, including growth, reproduction and other metabolic activities?

Answer 4

Pituitary

Question 5

In literature, theatre and film, who is hounded throughout his life by Inspector Javert?

Answer 5

Jean Valjean

Question 6

The song Here In My Heart, as sung by Al Martino, holds what particular distinction in the history of the British pop charts?

Answer 6

First number one

Question 7

Wood-spack, hood-awl, eccle and yaffle are all local names for which bird?

Answer 7

Woodpecker (Green)

Question 8

The jazz musician Erroll Garner is most closely associated with which instrument?

Answer 8

Piano

Question 9

The National Library of Wales is to be found in which coastal town?

Answer 9

Aberystwyth

Question 10

Who were the two other Patricians who, along with Julius Caesar, formed what’s often called the First Triumvirate to rule Rome in 60BC?

Answer 10

Crassus and Pompey

Question 11

Which American cartoonist born in 1954, whose first success was the syndicated strip-cartoon Life In Hell, is also the creator of The Simpsons?

Answer 11

Matt Groening

Question 12

The job of publishing a verbatim record of the proceedings of parliament was taken over by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office from which family, whose established job it had been for much of the 19th century?

Answer 12

Hansard

Question 13

Which civil engineer born in 1832 became known as the Magician of Iron?

Answer 13

Eiffel

Question 14

The Eiffel Tower was built to celebrate the centenary of which event?

Answer 14

The French Revolution

Question 15

The use of which chemical, at the time being used to treat sewage in Carlisle, was pioneered from 1866 by Joseph Lister as an antiseptic, in solution, at Glasgow Royal Infirmary?

Answer 15

Carbolic Acid/Phenolchlorine

Question 16

Jenkins Hill in Washington DC is now better known by a name referring to a building, begun in the 1790s, which stands upon it. What name is that?

Answer 16

Capitol Hill

Question 17

The conspiracy to murder all the members of the cabinet in 1820 is known by the name of a street in the Marylebone area of West London: what is it called?

Answer 17

Cato Street

Question 18

Which is the only English city whose name begins with T?

Answer 18

Truro

Question 19

In geometry, what name is given to any angle that is greater than 180 degrees (but smaller than 360)?

Answer 19

Reflex

Question 20

The Austrian monk Gregor Mendel derived his genetic theories from his experiments during the 1860s with what kind of plants?

Answer 20

Peas

Question 21

What type of star, the smallest and densest known, is produced when a massive star explodes as a supernova, exceeding what’s called the Chandresekhar Limit, and then collapses on itself?

Answer 21

Neutron star

Question 22

Which fictional reporter made his debut appearance in a story called Land Of The Soviets in 1929?

Answer 22

Tintin

Question 23

The Land Of Green Ginger is the name of a street in which Northern British city?

Answer 23

Kingston upon Hull

Question 24

Ginger You’re Barmy! Is a comic novel based on the author’s own experience of national service in the 1950s, by a writer and academic best known for novels set on university campuses. Who is he?

Answer 24

David Lodge

Question 25

Which isotope of Hydrogen is the principal component of heavy water?

Answer 25

Deuterium

Question 26

“Gimme a viskey, ginger ale on the side - and don’t be stingy, baby” - was the first line ever spoken on film by which star?

Answer 26

Greta Garbo

Question 27

In which decade was Switzerland admitted to membership of the United Nations?

Answer 27

2000s

Question 28

What two word term describes the temperature at which air becomes saturated and unable to hold any more water vapour?

Answer 28

Dew point

Question 29

What forename was shared by Jane Austen’s mother and older sister?

Answer 29

Cassandra

Question 30

Which English logician gave his name to diagrams of mathematical sets in which intersecting areas denote elements that are common to the sets represented?

Answer 30

John Venn

Question 31

Who wrote the much anthologised English poem that opens with the lines “So we’ll go no more a-roving / So late into the night / Through the heart be still as loving / and the moon be still as bright?”

Answer 31

Byron

Question 32

The winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978 and the inventor of the domestic sewing machine in the 19th century share the same forename and surname. What are they?

Answer 32

Isaac Singer

Question 33

Which inland sea is bounded by Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan?

Answer 33

Caspian

Question 34

Although unrelated, the pop singers Joe Cocker and Jarvis Cocker both come from which British city?

Answer 34

Sheffield

Question 35

The name of which artistic movement is thought to have originated in a less-than-complimentary comment by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, reviewing an exhibition of the work of Georges Braque in 1908?

Answer 35

Cubism

Question 36

The man who was Surveyor of the King’s, and later the Queen’s, pictures between 1945 and 1972, and Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art from 1947 to 1974, later became known to the general public for other reasons entirely. Who was he?

Answer 36

Anthony Blunt

Question 37

Which branch of mathematics is concerned with the motion of objects under the actions of forces?

Answer 37

Dynamics

Question 38

First published in 1982, the anthology The Rattle Bag is a collection of the favourite poems of the two poets who edited it. They were Ted Hughes and - who else?

Answer 38

Seamus Heaney

Question 39

The rock and roll song Blue Suede Shoes, recorded most famously by Elvis Presley, was written by which performer, another Sun Records recording artist?

Answer 39

Carl Perkins

Question 40

In the familiar equation E=mc^2, which is the constant represented by c?

Answer 40

Speed of light, approx 300k m/s