Quiz 39 Flashcards
What’s the scientific term for the emission of light by living organisms such as glow-worms and fireflies
Bioluminescence
Which Danish philosopher observed that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards
Keikergaard
To which pioneering film-maker, an illusionist and designer whose fantasy films date from the first few years of the 20th Century, did Martin Scorsese pay affectionate tribute in his 2011 film Hugo
George Melies
What’s the principal spirit ingredient in a Mai Tai cocktail
Rum
Which Spanish football club, for many years in the shadow of another club in the same city, has among iits nicknames Los Colchoneros or The Mattress Makers?
Atletico Madrid
Which murderer, who was hanged at Pentonville Prison in 1910, graduated from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in the 1880s?
Dr Crippen
Tubulindentata is the smallest extant order of mammals, comprising only one species, an insectivorous mammal native to sub-saharan Africa?
Aardvaark
What proverbial phrase, roughly meaning You can’t make progress unless both sides do what’s required of them, is thought to originate from the title of a 1952 song by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning?
It takes two to tango
Number 263 Prinsengracht, in Amsterdam, is now a museum to the memory of whom?
Anne Frank
Which scholar and churchman’s Ecclesiastical history of the English People, dating from about the year 731, is regarded as one of the most important sources of information about the early history of Britain?
The Venerable Bede
Stomatology is the branch of medicine concerned with what part of the body?
Mouth
Now among the best-known actors of their generation, Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Mark Strong first came to prominence playing the four central characters in which BBC TV drama series of the 1990s?
Our Friends In The North
What is the flavour of the cream or paste called frangipane, widely used in bakery products?
Almonds
What is the name of the highest of the distinctive table-top mountains that rise from the forests of Venezuela’s Canaima National Park, which are thought to have provided the inspiration for the primevalLost World of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel?
Mount Roraima
Who killed the English knight Henry de Bohun in single combat in 1314, in the early stages of a major battle?
Robert the Bruce
Which breed or group of breeds of short legged dog originated in France and takes its name from a French term meaning rather low down.
Bassett hound
Belomancy is an ancient form of divination by means of which objects, marked in certain ways to indicate their supposed significance?
Arrows
Which film director once said - TV has brought murder into the home, where it belongs?
Hitchcock
In motor racing, you are said to have gained the Triple Crown if you have won the Indianapolis 500, the Le Mans 24 hour race and the Monaco Grand Prix. Who is the only driver ever to have achieved this, completing the triple in 1972?
Graham Hill
Who became the first Chairman of BOAC in 1939, but is better remembered for his work with another high profile organisatin in the years between the wars?
John Reith
In physics, what is measured in Newtons?
Force
Which naval figure, born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1748, is buried near Nelson’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral?
Collingwood
Which eccentric American performer and record producer created the 1970s R&B groups Parliament and Funkadelic?
George Clinton
In which Scottish town do the football team St Mirren play their home games?
Paisley
What term is generally given to sound with a frequency above 20,000Hz?
Ultrasonic
According to legend, a one-legged man named Bumper Harris was employed by London Transport at Earl’s Court Station to demonstrate to travellers the safety of an innovation introduced there in 1911. Which innovation?
Escalator
Which well-travelled character from an 1873 novel is named after a French term for a master key?
Passepartout
Who was the Roman emperor when Vesuvius erupted destroying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae?
Titus
Which rod-shaped, gram-negative bacteria, that causes food poisoning, was named after an American veterinary pathologist?
Salmonella
What surname is shared by the originator of a music teaching method developed in the mid 20th century, and an environmentalist and broadcaster sometimes described as the Canadian David Attenborough?
Suzuki
What English name is most commonly used for house plants of the genus Schlumbergera, known for winter flowering and sold in huge numbers in late numbers?
Christmas Cactus
Sunset Strip in Los Angeles is part of which longer thoroughfare?
Sunset Boulevard
Who was the architect of the Royal Crescent in Bath?
John Wood the Younger
Which famous dog, originally known as Little Curly, is remembered today by a name that means Barker in Russian?
Laika
Of whose funeral did the English diarist John Evelyn write - It was the joyfullest funeral that I ever saw, for there was none that cried but dogs?
Oliver Cromwell
Which two literary figures met for the first time in May 1763, in a bookshop belonging to Thomas Davies in Russell Street in London?
Johnson and Boswell
According to former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan in 1981, there are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges. Can you name one of these institutions?
Roman Catholic Church/Brigade of Guards/National Union of Mineworkers
On an exceptionally hot evening in early July, a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S Place, and wlked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K Bridge - is a translation of the opening sentence of which great Russian novel?
Crime and Punishment
The Shah Jehan Mosque, dating from 1889 and consequently the oldest in the UK, is in which town in Surrey?
Woking
Walker Smith Jr, born in Georgia on the 3rd May 1921, became a major sporting figure under which other name?
Sugar Ray Robinson
