Quiz 16

Question 1

Which children’s writer and illustrator whose family fled Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s created the bestselling children’s books The Tiger Who Came To Tea and the series about a forgetful cat called Mog?

Answer 1

Judith Kerr

Question 2

Based on a folk tune, the orchestral work Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus was written in 1939 by which English composer

Answer 2

Ralph Vaughan-Williams

Question 3

Lavrentiy Beria, executed in 1953, was the head of which organisation during the Second World War?

Answer 3

NKVD

Question 4

Which King of England reigned between the years 978 and 1016, succeeding his father Edgar and his half-brother Edward?

Answer 4

Ethelred the Unready

Question 5

Which journal, still in existence, was founded in 1823 by the Devon born MP, coroner and social health reformer Thomas Wakley?

Answer 5

The Lancet

Question 6

Lady Jane Grey got married shortly before she became Queen of England in July 1553 - so what was her actual married name at the time of her death?

Answer 6

Dudley

Question 7

Which Irish Taoseach signed the Hillsborough Agreement in 1985?

Answer 7

Garrett Fitzgerald

Question 8

In the Spider-Man series of Marvel comics, Peter Parker is a freelance photographer for which newspaper?

Answer 8

Daily Bugle

Question 9

In the classic game of Cluedo, the plant toxicologist Dr Orchid was introduced to the cast of suspects in 2016, becoming the first new character in the game for more than sixty years. Which of the six original characters did she replace?

Answer 9

Mrs White

Question 10

The Droeshout engraving, the Janssen bust and the Chandos Portrait are all believed to be the likeness of which historical figure?

Answer 10

William Shakespeare

Question 11

In Australian Rules football, how many points are awarded for a goal?

Answer 11

6

Question 12

Which famous 20th Century novel opens with the words: To the red country and the part of the grey country of Oklahoma the last rains came gently and did not cut the scarred earth?

Answer 12

The Grapes of Wrath

Question 13

In 2008, in genealogical research for the BBC program Who Do You Think You Are, which political figure discovered a hitherto-unsuspected blood tie to the British Royal Family?

Answer 13

Boris Johnson

Question 14

The villages of Reeth, Gunnerside and Keld are to be found in which of the North Yorkshire Dales?

Answer 14

Swaledale

Question 15

What is an Eton Crop?

Answer 15

Haircut

Question 16

The address of a site on the worldwide web is often referred to as a URL. What do the letters URL stand for?

Answer 16

Uniform Resource Locator

Question 17

What’s the surname of the brother and sister both noted Hollywood actors who played a pair of fictional siblings in the 2001 film thriller Donnie Darko?

Answer 17

Gyllenghaal

Question 18

In the 1930s, the Nazi regime justified its drive for expansion of its territory by the argument that the country was overcrowded and needed living space to give its people a comfortable life. What German word meaning Living Space was used in this context?

Answer 18

Lebensraum

Question 19

In a novel of 1889, the best known work of its author who was born in the West Midlands, there is a comical incident in which the protagonists manage to lose their way in Hampton Court Maze. Which novel is it?

Answer 19

Three Men In A Boat

Question 20

According to legend, the ninth century Pope officially known as Pope John the Eighth was unique in what respect?

Answer 20

Female

Question 21

Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was to be found at Halicarnassus in present day Turkey, which was also the birthplace of Herodotus

Answer 21

Mausoleum

Question 22

Somsersby Rectory in Lincolnshire what the birthplace, in 1809, of which English poet

Answer 22

Tennyson

Question 23

As opposed to plankton - minute aquatic organisms which drift - which word describes the ecological division of acuatic animals that swim actively and by their own efforts

Answer 23

Nekton

Question 24

What nationality was the 20th century composer Gerald Finzi?

Answer 24

British

Question 25

The word Pavonine, sometimes applied to a dandy or flamboyantly-dressed person, actually means having the appearance of or being similar to what?

Answer 25

Peacock

Question 26

In which 19th century novel does the hero meet up with two conmen who call themselves the Duke of Bridgewater and Looy the Seventeenth?

Answer 26

Huckleberry Finn

Question 27

A classic and much reproduced newspaper cartoon from the First World War features the caption Well if you knows of a beeter ole, go to it - who drew the cartoon?

Answer 27

Bruce Bairnsfather

Question 28

Which two-word term was coined by Thomas Rymer, the author of Tragedies of the Last Age Considered to describe the idea that in a work of literature, good characters should be rewarded and evil characters punished?

Answer 28

Poetic Justice

Question 29

What name was given to the first-ever line of the London Underground, opened in January 1863 and running originally from Bishop’s Road and Farringdon St?

Answer 29

Metropolitan

Question 30

Which silver-white metalloid element, discovered by Franz Joseph Muller von Richtenstein in 1782, has the atomic number 52 and takes its name from the Latin word for earth?

Answer 30

Tellurium

Question 31

Casey Kasem, in addition to being one of America’s most popular disc jockeys, was also known for providing the voice for which cartoon character created by Hanna-Barbera?

Answer 31

Shaggy

Question 32

On which of the twenty or so Hawaiian islands will you find the modern state capital Honolulu, as well as the former base of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour?

Answer 32

Oahu

Question 33

The principle that Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity is known by what name?

Answer 33

Occam’s Razor

Question 34

The Indian-born British physician Ronald Ross was the first to identify the means of transmission of which deadly disease?

Answer 34

Maleria

Question 35

Which writer’s first published novel The Grass is Singing dates from 1950?

Answer 35

Doris Lessing

Question 36

Two Italian composers wrote operas called La Boheme, both based on episodes from an 1851 book by Henri Murger. Puccini’s is the better known. Who wrote the other

Answer 36

Ruggero Leoncavallo

Question 37

In which decade of the 20th century were the following phrases first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary: nouvelle cuisine, paternity leave, no-go areas and passive smoking?

Answer 37

1970s

Question 38

Living in Manchester, the Irish sisters Mary and Lizzie Burns became successively the mistresses of which philosopher who married the latter on her deathbed in 1878?

Answer 38

Fredrich Engels

Question 39

Which artist was commissioned by the Strand Magazine to illustrate the first series of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Answer 39

Sidney Paget

Question 40

Which British pop group had eight Top Ten hits in a row in the early 1970, all of which titles were deliberately misspelled?

Answer 40

Slade