Quiz 17 Flashcards
The films Strangers On A Train, and The Talented Mr Ripley are based on stories by which American writer?
Patricia Highsmith
The boxer James L Corbett, who won the World Heavyweight title in 1892 from John L Sullivan, was known by what nickname?
Gentleman Jim
The singer Jim Reeves was killed in a plane crach near Nashville in the summer of 1964. Two years later an unreleased recording had had made was dusted of with a new instrumental backing to give him a posthumous No 1 hit. What was the song’s title?
Distant Drums
What’s the name of the plumed serpent god of the Aztec and Toltec civilisations, associated with the morning and evening star?
Quetzlcoatl
What term is applied to the average period of the Earth with respect to fixed stars, a unit of time longer than a conventional year by twenty minutes and twenty three seconds
Sidereal year
A Love Supreme, Crescent and Giant Steps are among the albums of which jazz saxophonist, who died in 1967?
John Coltrane
Rising to ust over 1,700 feet, the hill known as Dunkery Beacon is part of which English national park?
Exmoor
The French director Claude Berri was many awads for his two part interpretation of the novels of Marcel Pagnol in the 1980s. The first part was entitled Jean de Florette, what was the title of the second?
Manon des sources
Trouble at Willow Gables is the title of a pastiche novel set in a girls’ school, written, but never published during his lifetime, by which respected poet and novelinst?
Philip Larkin
In the electromagnetic spectrum, what is found betwwn X-rays and visible light?
Ultra violet
Assault on a Queen was a 1966 adventure film starring Frank Sinatra, that was a critical and box office flop. Who, or what, was the Queen mentioned in the title?
RMS Queen Mary
Mary Queen of Scots’ motto, En ma fin git me commencement, which she embroidered on her cloth of estate, is echoed by a final line in a poem of 1940 - by which writer?
TS Elliot
Lipase, an enzyme which catalyses the breakdown of fats into fatty acids and glycerol in the small intestine, is secreted by which organ of the body?
Pancreas
What was the name of the London thoroughfare, renamed Milton Street in 1830, which Dr Johnson described as having been home to writers of small histories, dictionaries and temporary poems?
Grub Street
In which European city did the architect Walter Gropius ound the Bauhaus school of design in 1919?
Weimar
In medicine, what is measured by a spirometer?
Lung capacity
In Iraw, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates unite before they flow into the Gulf. What is the name of the waterway formed by their union?
Shat-al-Arab
How Tom Brangwen Married A Polish Lady is the title of the opening chapter of which 20th centuryt English novel?
The Rainbow
Which word, meaning a handsome and promiscuous man, was originally the name of a character in Nicholas Rowe’s play of 1702, The Fair Penitent?
Lothario
In 2010 a mad known as Comrade Duch became the first person ever to be convinced for the sytematic and horrifying crimes against humanity committed in the 1970s, in which country?
Cambodia
What, specifically, is feared by those who have the condition acrophobia?
Heights
To which writer is the quotation attributed: An acheologist ins the best husband a woman can have - the older she gets the more interested he is in her?
Agatha Christie
In fish, the lateral line system is sensory organ used by the fish for what purpose?
Movement
Rising to 14,500 feet, in the Sierra Nevada of California, which is the highest mounain in the contiguous United States - in other words outside Alaska?
Mount Whitney
Which name comes next in the following sequence: Heinrich Bruning, Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher -?
Adolf Hitler
Which resonant acronym was widely used for the committee set up by the Republican Party in the early 1970s to re-elect Richard Nixon as President of the USA?
CREEP
Which sparsely populated island, roughly midway between the Orkneys and mainland Shetland, lends its name to the shipping forecast sea areas in whose waters it lies?
Fairisle
The adjective diphyodont refers to which characteristics of mammals?
Two sets of teeth
Which British Prime Minister was the last to have been born in the 19th Century?
McMillan
What mishap befell the canvas entitled Le Bateau, by Henri Matisse, when it was initially displayed at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961?
Hung upside-down
Which fruit derives its name from an old Aztec word for a testicle?
Avocado
Sparrow is the literal meaning of the name of which Chinese game?
Mah-jong
Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed both won acting Oscars, and Fred Zinnemann was named Best Director, for which 1953 adaptation of a novel by James Jones?
From Here To Eternity
What was the name of the primeval supercontinent believed to have existed some 250 million years ago and which split into the two land masses known as Gondwanaland and Laurasia?
Pangaea
Which country made Jonas Furrer its first President in 1848, and has changed its president on an annual basis ever since
Switzerland
The title of a 1966 Jerry Herman Broadway musical and that of a Jane Austen novel first published in 1815 are anagrams of one another. Can you name them?
Mame and Emma
Who was the widow of the Roman Tributary, King Prasutagus?
Boudicca
The Revolution and the New Power Generation were names given to backing bands of which musician at different stages of his career?
Prince
Koplik’s Spots, occurring in the mouth as bluish white specks on the inner side of the cheeks, are an early symptom of which viral disease?
Measles
What was the name of the successor to Mohammed, known as Al-Siddiq or The Upright who became the first caliph of the Muslim world in the year 632
Abu Bakr
