Quiz 21

Question 1

What kind of performer would be most likely to use a swazzle?

Answer 1

Punch and Judy man

Question 2

LHOOQ is a bawdy title given to an artwork of 1919 by Marcel Dauchamp, consisting of a reproduction of a very famous portrait on whose face he had drawn a beard and a moustache. Which portrait?

Answer 2

Mona Lisa

Question 3

The dormant Mount Rainier and the National Park that bears its name are to be found in which US state?

Answer 3

Washington

Question 4

The 1896 novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz and the film adaptation of 1951 are set in Rome in the time of which emperor?

Answer 4

Nero

Question 5

Which former journalist on the Atlanta Constitution in Georgia wrote the stories which provided the basis for the 1946 Disney film Song Of The South?

Answer 5

Joel Chandler Harris

Question 6

Which criminal sounding name is given to the broad nose marsh crocodile, found in parts of India and Sri Lanka and traditionally venerated in the Hindu religion?

Answer 6

Mugger

Question 7

In the binary system, what conventional number is expressed as 1111?

Answer 7

15

Question 8

What is the name of the faun, the first inhabitant of the land of Narnia to be introduced in the novels of CS Lewis?

Answer 8

Mr Tumnus

Question 9

The ancient mathematician Euclid, the chemist and crystalographer Dorothy Hodgkin and Naguib Mahjouz, the Nobel prize winning novelist, were all born in which country?

Answer 9

Egypt

Question 10

In a dramatic monologue by J Milton Hayes, whose grave is tended by a broken-hearted woman beneath the gaze of a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu?

Answer 10

Mad Carew

Question 11

How many sides does a hendecagon have?

Answer 11

11

Question 12

Whose acclaimed 2009 play Jerusalem centres around Johnny Rooster Byron, a defiant drop-out living in a ramshackle mobile home, played in the original production by Mark Rylance?

Answer 12

Jez Butterworth

Question 13

According to a widely quoted comment by the polyglot Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, he supposedly spoke Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men. Which language did he speak to his horse?

Answer 13

German

Question 14

Players of which game compete for the Bermuda Bowl and the Venice Cup?

Answer 14

Bridge

Question 15

Whose 1966 recording of the song Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) was memorably used on the soundtrack of the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill Vol 1, and also sampled by the Audio Bullys in the hit Shot You Down?

Answer 15

Nancy Sinatra

Question 16

Hoopes Process is an electrolytic technique of refining which metallic element, achieving a purity level as great as 99.99 per cent?

Answer 16

Aluminium

Question 17

In the musical Wicked, based on the 1995 book by Gregory Maguire, in turn inspired by characters from L Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, what’s the name of the character known originally only as the Wicked Witch of the West?

Answer 17

Elphaba

Question 18

In the human body, the tongue is attached at the floor of the mouth to which U shaped bone in the upper part of the throat?

Answer 18

Hyoid

Question 19

Almond kernels, the stones of apricots and apple pips all contain traces of acidic compounds of which poison?

Answer 19

Cyanide

Question 20

The physicist and astronomer Georges Lemaitre, who was also a Roman Catholic priest, proposed which theory in 1933 which has since become widely accepted?

Answer 20

Big Bang

Question 21

Popularised by an 1834 novel entitled Ayesha, a Turkish work for something worthless or empty came into common English usage, often as an exclamation ridiculing another person’s words as contemptible nonsense. Which word?

Answer 21

Bosh

Question 22

Ben Macdui, Braeriach and Cairn Toul are summits rising to more than 4,000 feet, in which much visited Scottish mountain range?

Answer 22

Cairngorms

Question 23

The composer Rossini is said to have composed the overture to which of his operas in a mad rush on the day of its premiere after being locked in a room at La Scala by the opera’s infuriated director?

Answer 23

La Gazza Ladra

Question 24

Why has a horse called The Chase, which came first in a race at Haydock Park in August 1948, entered racing history?

Answer 24

First victory by Lester Piggott

Question 25

With a density more than seven times that of air, which is the heaviest of the noble gases?

Answer 25

Radon

Question 26

Which voice-over artist, who died in 1985, provided the voice of Donald Duck in Walt Disney cartoons for over fifty years?

Answer 26

Clarence Nash

Question 27

What term, derived from a Hindi word for spotted, was originally used for painted or stained calico imported from India, but is now commonly used for cotton cloth printed with coloured designs and then usually glazed?

Answer 27

Chintz

Question 28

Which naval figure, who commanded the vessel The Glatton at the Battle of Copenhagen under Nelson in 1801, is better known to posterity for his part in an event that took place more than ten years earlier?

Answer 28

Captain Bligh

Question 29

What name was used for any of the shanty towns built by the unemployed and destitute during the American depression of the 1930s, a famous example having been in New York’s Central Park?

Answer 29

Hoovervilles

Question 30

The motor car designer for the Morris Minor and the Mini, Sir Alec Issigonis, was born in 1906 in which country?

Answer 30

Turkey

Question 31

Which island nation has, at approximately 2.4m the lowest maximum point of elevation of any country?

Answer 31

Maldives

Question 32

Its name derived from the name of the third wife of the emperor Claudius, the Messalina Complex is a synonym for which more common term for a form of manic behaviour?

Answer 32

Nymphomania

Question 33

Traditionally served in umble pie, umbles are most usually the entrails of which animal?

Answer 33

Deer

Question 34

In the Super Mario series of video games, what’s the name of Mario’s brother?

Answer 34

Luigi

Question 35

In botany, what term is given to a variety of plants, all of which share the feature of their leaves being orientated in a north-south direction, to take advantage of early and late sun while avoiding the stronger midday sunlight?

Answer 35

Compass plants

Question 36

At the court of King George I, who or what were nicknamed the Maypole and the Elephant and Castle?

Answer 36

Mistresses

Question 37

For which London bank was TS Eliot working in 1922 when he published his great poem The Wasteland?

Answer 37

Lloyds

Question 38

In the classic Morecombe and Wise sketch featuring the conductor Andre Previn, what piano piece was Eric Morecombe playing with all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order?

Answer 38

Grieg Piano Concerto

Question 39

In which capital city was Andre Previn born in 1929?

Answer 39

Berlin

Question 40

The Hostage and The Quare Fellow are plays by which irreverent 20th century Irish playwright who died in 1964?

Answer 40

Brendan Behan