Quiz 31

Question 1

The Boathouse in Laugharne, on the Taf estuary in Carmarthenshire, is now a museum dedicated to which writer?

Answer 1

Dylan Thomas

Question 2

How is the colour silver referred to in heraldry?

Answer 2

Argent

Question 3

A perfect number is a number the sum of whose integral divisors including 1 but excluding itself, is that number itself. The smallest perfect number is 6. What is the only other perfect number less than 100?

Answer 3

28

Question 4

Pagan Papers and The Golden Age are among the early works of which Scots born children’s writer, whose most enduring book was first published in 1908?

Answer 4

Kenneth Grahame

Question 5

In 1635 Cromwell dismissed MPs of the Long Parliament with the words - “You have sat here for too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” 287 years later, in 1940, which individual was the target of Leo Amery when he used the same words?

Answer 5

Neville Chamberlain

Question 6

Kibo (or Uhuru), Mawenzi and Shira are the three most prominent peaks of which extinct volcanic mountain whose summit was first reached in 1899?

Answer 6

Kilimanjaro

Question 7

The town of Fray Bentos, best known for the industrial production of meat extract, is located in which South American country?

Answer 7

Uruguay

Question 8

Which town on the river Wansbeck is the seat of the local government headquarters of Northumberland?

Answer 8

Morpeth

Question 9

US Patent no 6,812,392, filed in 2002, describes a mechanised device for tightening the heads of conga drums, and thus tuning them. According to the patent, the inventor of the device was a legendary Hollywood actor who was also, in his spare time, a keen exponent of the conga drum. Who was that actor?

Answer 9

Marlon Brando

Question 10

At King Arthur’s round table, for whom was the seat called Siege Perilous reserved?

Answer 10

The knight who found the Holy Grail

Question 11

“I was born in the the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family”, are the opening words of which novel?

Answer 11

Robinson Crusoe

Question 12

Which branch of the Roman Army, originally a small escort which accompanied an army commander, was established as a permanent force under Augustus and became closely involved in imperial politics, their support of crucial important for any new emperor?

Answer 12

Praetorian Guard

Question 13

Which word, from the French for light of hand, means cunning deception or trickery?

Answer 13

Legerdemain

Question 14

Following territorial disputes between New York and New Hampshire, in the 1770s, the Green Mountain Boys became the militia of which newly declared republic which was ultimately allowed into the United States as the 14th state in 1791?

Answer 14

Vermont

Question 15

The Barbary Ape, much loved by visitors to Gibraltar, is not actually an ape, but a tailless species of which genus of monkey?

Answer 15

Macaque

Question 16

What was the name of the peerage which Anthony Wedgwood Benn disclaimed in 1963?

Answer 16

Viscount Stansgate

Question 17

In satires by Norman Hunter, what is the name of the absent-minded professor who is always building crazy impractical machines?

Answer 17

Professor Brainstorm

Question 18

Ram Das, the 16th century religious leader and the 4th guru of Sikhism, founded which holy city around the pool of nectar?

Answer 18

Amritsar

Question 19

Which fluid, deriving its name from the Latin word for egg, lubricates and cushions joints in the human body during movement?

Answer 19

Synovial

Question 20

Which football manager is credited with saying - A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing?

Answer 20

Bill Shankley

Question 21

The congenital condition protanopia affects which of the senses?

Answer 21

Sight

Question 22

The scientific name of which cultivated vegetable is Allium porrum?

Answer 22

Leek

Question 23

The Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, commemorated the re-dedication of the temple after the victory of which army?

Answer 23

Macabees

Question 24

The 1956 summer Olympic Games were held in Melbourne, but because of Australian quarantine laws the equestrian events were held somewhere else. Where?

Answer 24

Stockholm

Question 25

Which British rap star first came to international prominence when his first album Boy In Da Corner won the 2003 Mercury Music Prize?

Answer 25

Dizzee Rascal

Question 26

What is the modern English name for the headland that Bartolomeu Dias originally called Cabo das Tormentos, or Cape of Tempests, when rounding it for the first time in 1488?

Answer 26

Cape of Good Hope

Question 27

Which well-known and much anthologised 18th century poem is believed to have been partly written in the graveyard of the church at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire?

Answer 27

Gray’s Elegy (Written In A Country Churchyard)

Question 28

Sfax is the second largest city in which African country?

Answer 28

Tunisia

Question 29

Who, in 52BC, united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars?

Answer 29

Vercingetorix

Question 30

Okhrana is an informal name for the organisation founded in 1881 as the secret police force of which imperial power?

Answer 30

Tsarist Russia

Question 31

In the Albert Memorial, designed by George Gilbert Scott and standing opposite the Royal Albert Hall, which book is Prince Albert holding on his knee?

Answer 31

Catalogue of the 1851 Exhibition

Question 32

Which globally popular cartoon strip had its origins in an earlier strip called Li’l Folks that first appeared in a Minnesota newspaper in 1947?

Answer 32

Peanuts

Question 33

Troglodytes troglodytes is the taxonomic name for the wren. But which mammal has the designation Pan troglodytes?

Answer 33

Chimpanzee

Question 34

What is the name of the 18 mile long shingle bank in Dorset that separates the Fleet Lagoon from the sea?

Answer 34

Chesil Beach

Question 35

With words by Samuel F Smith, which enduring US patriotic song shares its melody with the British national anthem?

Answer 35

My Country ‘Tis of Thee

Question 36

Which major road - one of the highest paved roads in the world - connects Islamabad in Pakistan to Kashkar in China?

Answer 36

Karakorum Highway

Question 37

On the Rowley Mile racecourse in Newmarket there stands a statue of a horse who was unbeaten in 18 races and whose name lives on in racing. What was the horse’s name?

Answer 37

Eclipse

Question 38

Since 1984 an annual festival has been staged at the Cornish town of Camborne, in celebration of the achievements of which engineer who was born nearby?

Answer 38

Richard Trevithick

Question 39

Which team game, invented in the early 1900s by Nico Broekhuysen, derives its name from the Dutch word for basket?

Answer 39

Korfball

Question 40

Which agricultural system sees the seasonal movement of people with their livestock over relatively short distances, typically to higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter?

Answer 40

Transhumance