Quiz 20

Question 1

Robert Fitzroy, who commanded HMS Beagle on which Charles Darwin sailed as the ship’s naturalist, served from 1843 as the governor of which British colony?

Answer 1

New Zealand

Question 2

Which flower, referred to as a gillyflower in works by Shakespeare and Chaucer, was once used as a treatment for fevers and is now the symbol for Mothering Sunday?

Answer 2

Carnation

Question 3

Le Freak was one of the best-known songs of which group of the disco era, led by musicians Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards?

Answer 3

Chic

Question 4

Which annual publication that first appeared in 1864 has been edited over the years by Charles Pardon, John Woodcock and Matthew Engel, among others, and featured an entry on the trial of Charles I in its first edition?

Answer 4

Wisden

Question 5

What’s the name of the mythological snake, also sometimes called a cockatrice, an example of which is killed by Harry Potter in The Chamber of Secrets?

Answer 5

Basilisk

Question 6

Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are protozoan parasites that cause which disease, most common in the tropics and sub-tropics?

Answer 6

Malaria

Question 7

Which jazz trumpeter was the subject of the 1988 film documentary Let’s Get Lost, released the year of his death?

Answer 7

Chet Baker

Question 8

In 1844, the architects Eugene Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus were given the job of restoring which famous building?

Answer 8

Notre Dame

Question 9

Mount Toubkal, rising to 13,670 feet or 4,167 m, is the highest peak of which mountain range?

Answer 9

Atlas

Question 10

Which team sport, that can be played indoors or outdoors, was devised by William Morgan in 1895, supposedly for middle-aged men who found basketball too vigorous?

Answer 10

Volleyball

Question 11

Many German princes were known as Electors, such as the Elector of Hanover - a title that referred to what special privilege or duty?

Answer 11

Choosing the Holy Roman Emperor

Question 12

In which English country is the prehistoric monument known as the Rollright Stones?

Answer 12

Oxfordshire

Question 13

Harald, son of Gorm the Old, who was King of Denmark in the 10th Century, was known by what name?

Answer 13

Bluetooth

Question 14

If a painting is described as tondo, what shape must it be?

Answer 14

Round

Question 15

Which public school educated policeman, who made his debut on radio, also appeared in the Eagle comic in the 1950s?

Answer 15

PC 49

Question 16

A mobius strip is a band with only one face. What name is given to a bottle which is formed by passing the neck through the side to join a hole in the base, thus effectively creating a single side with neither an inside or outside?

Answer 16

Klein bottle

Question 17

Which item of food is thought to have been first displayed in England in the London shop window of Thomas Johnson on 10th April 1633?

Answer 17

Bananas

Question 18

The names of which two signatories were generally used to identify a manifesto issued in London in July 1955, calling for scientists of the world to address together the problems of nuclear proliferation?

Answer 18

Russell-Einstein

Question 19

In which TV series of the 1980s - set 20 years into the future - did the seriously injured investigative reporter Edison Carter have a copy of his mind downloaded onto a computer?

Answer 19

Max Headroom

Question 20

Maud Gonne was a muse to which poet and visionary writer, his love for her inspiring some of his best known works?

Answer 20

WB Yeats

Question 21

What is the name of the 264m tall volcanic neck in Wyoming in the USA, consisting of solidified lava, which was prominently featured in the Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Answer 21

Devil’s Tower or Bear Lodge Butt

Question 22

What name, derived from the Hebrew meaning formless thing or shapeless mass is given in Jewish legend to an artificially created being brought to life by supernatural means, and is also the title of a 20th century Gothic novel by Gustav Meyrinck?

Answer 22

Golem

Question 23

Who commanded the joint French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar?

Answer 23

Villeneuve

Question 24

What is the English alternative name for the Ruwenzori mountain range in East Africa?

Answer 24

Mountains of the Moon

Question 25

Derived from an old Norse word, a Cleg is another name for which insect?

Answer 25

Horse-fly

Question 26

The Guardian’s obituary of the film director Irvin Kershner, who died in November 2010, begins with the following sentence: Chosen to direct (X), he turned in one of the best sequels - and highest box office earners - of all time. Which film?

Answer 26

The Empire Strikes Back

Question 27

From Fred Perry in 1936 to 1997, no British male tennis player had reached a Grand Slam singles final. Which player broke that 61 year drought?

Answer 27

Greg Rusedski

Question 28

Having four valence electrons, which element forms the most known compounds?

Answer 28

Carbon

Question 29

“Clunton and Clunbury, Clungford and Clun, are the quietest places, under the sun” - are lines from a poem published in the 1890, naming villages in which English county?

Answer 29

Shropshire

Question 30

With which foreign secretary did Lord Castlereagh, the then Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, fight a duel on Putney Heath in 1809?

Answer 30

George Canning

Question 31

Modern Tanzania consists of the former state of Tanganyika, along with three island. Pemba and Mafia are two; which is the third?

Answer 31

Zanzibar

Question 32

Which TV weather forecaster was the subject of a novelty hit song by the Wearside band A Tribe Of Toffs in 1988?

Answer 32

John Kettley

Question 33

Which battle of the Vietnam War, fought by the United States and South Vietnamese against North Vietnamese forces from 10th May until 20th May 1969, was made into a John Irvine directed film of 1987?

Answer 33

Hamburger Hill

Question 34

The Arctic gets its name from Arktikos, the ancient name for a constellation, which in turn derives its name from the Greek word Arktos - meaning what?

Answer 34

Bear

Question 35

Which Russian composer died on the same day as Joseph Stalin in 1953?

Answer 35

Sergei Prokofiev

Question 36

What name is given to the specific speed an object must achieve as a minimum if it is rising against the pull of gravity so that it will not return to the object exerting the gravitational field?

Answer 36

Escape velocity

Question 37

Which supposedly mystical word of seven Greek letters appears in ancient engravings on precious stones and amulets, and was used an album title by the rock group Santana?

Answer 37

Abraxas

Question 38

What word, taken from a name for the divine intoxicating drink of the gods in Hindu mythology, was used by Aldous Huxley for the drug that subdues the populace in the novel Brave New World?

Answer 38

Soma

Question 39

In the game of backgammon, how many playing pieces are on the board at the beginning, in total?

Answer 39

30

Question 40

In 1955, which Dutch artist created the children’s character known in English as Miffy the Rabbit?

Answer 40

Dick Bruna