Quiz 17

Question 1

The films Strangers On A Train, and The Talented Mr Ripley are based on stories by which American writer?

Answer 1

Patricia Highsmith

Question 2

The boxer James L Corbett, who won the World Heavyweight title in 1892 from John L Sullivan, was known by what nickname?

Answer 2

Gentleman Jim

Question 3

The singer Jim Reeves was killed in a plane crash near Nashville in the summer of 1964. Two years later an unreleased recording had had made was dusted off with a new instrumental backing to give him a posthumous No 1 hit. What was the song’s title?

Answer 3

Distant Drums

Question 4

What’s the name of the plumed serpent god of the Aztec and Toltec civilisations, associated with the morning and evening star?

Answer 4

Quetzlcoatl

Question 5

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?

Answer 5

Sidereal year

Question 6

A Love Supreme, Crescent and Giant Steps are among the albums of which jazz saxophonist, who died in 1967?

Answer 6

John Coltrane

Question 7

Rising to just over 1,700 feet, the hill known as Dunkery Beacon is part of which English national park?

Answer 7

Exmoor

Question 8

The French film director Claude Berri won many awards 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?

Answer 8

Manon des Sources

Question 9

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 novelist?

Answer 9

Philip Larkin

Question 10

In the electromagnetic spectrum, what is found between X-rays and visible light?

Answer 10

Ultra violet

Question 11

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?

Answer 11

RMS Queen Mary

Question 12

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?

Answer 12

TS Eliot

Question 13

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?

Answer 13

Pancreas

Question 14

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?

Answer 14

Grub Street

Question 15

In which European city did the architect Walter Gropius found the Bauhaus school of design in 1919?

Answer 15

Weimar

Question 16

In medicine, what is measured by a spirometer?

Answer 16

Lung capacity

Question 17

In Iran, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates unite before they flow into the Gulf. What is the name of the waterway formed by their union?

Answer 17

Shatt-al-Arab

Question 18

How Tom Brangwen Married A Polish Lady is the title of the opening chapter of which 20th century English novel?

Answer 18

The Rainbow

Question 19

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?

Answer 19

Lothario

Question 20

In 2010 a man known as Comrade Duch became the first person to be convicted for the systematic and horrifying crimes against humanity committed in the 1970s, in which country?

Answer 20

Cambodia

Question 21

What, specifically, is feared by those who have the condition acrophobia?

Answer 21

Heights

Question 22

To which writer is the quotation attributed: “An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have - the older she gets the more interested he is in her?”

Answer 22

Agatha Christie

Question 23

In fish, the lateral line system is a sensory organ used by the fish for what purpose?

Answer 23

Movement

Question 24

Rising to 14,500 feet, in the Sierra Nevada of California, which is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States?

Answer 24

Mount Whitney

Question 25

Which name comes next in the following sequence: Heinrich Bruning, Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher -?

Answer 25

Adolf Hitler

Question 26

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?

Answer 26

CREEP

Question 27

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?

Answer 27

Fair Isle

Question 28

The adjective diphyodont refers to which characteristics of mammals?

Answer 28

Two sets of teeth

Question 29

Which British Prime Minister was the last to have been born in the 19th Century?

Answer 29

MacMillan

Question 30

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?

Answer 30

Hung upside-down

Question 31

Which fruit derives its name from an old Aztec word for a testicle?

Answer 31

Avocado

Question 32

Sparrow is the literal meaning of the name of which Chinese game?

Answer 32

Mah-jong

Question 33

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?

Answer 33

From Here To Eternity

Question 34

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?

Answer 34

Pangaea

Question 35

Which country made Jonas Furrer its first President in 1848, and has changed its president on an annual basis ever since

Answer 35

Switzerland

Question 36

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?

Answer 36

Mame and Emma

Question 37

Who was the widow of the Roman Tributary, King Prasutagus?

Answer 37

Boudicca

Question 38

The Revolution and the New Power Generation were names given to backing bands of which musician at different stages of his career?

Answer 38

Prince

Question 39

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?

Answer 39

Measles

Question 40

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

Answer 40

Abu Bakr