Quiz 39

Question 1

What’s the scientific term for the emission of light by living organisms such as glow-worms and fireflies?

Answer 1

Bioluminescence

Question 2

Which Danish philosopher observed that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards?

Answer 2

Kierkegaard

Question 3

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?

Answer 3

George Melies

Question 4

What’s the principal spirit ingredient in a Mai Tai cocktail?

Answer 4

Rum

Question 5

Which Spanish football club, for many years in the shadow of another club in the same city, has among its nicknames Los Colchoneros or The Mattress Makers?

Answer 5

Atletico Madrid

Question 6

Which murderer, who was hanged at Pentonville Prison in 1910, graduated from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in the 1880s?

Answer 6

Dr Crippen

Question 7

Tubulidentata is the smallest extant order of mammals, comprising only one species. Which insectivorous mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa is this?

Answer 7

Aardvark

Question 8

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?

Answer 8

It takes two to tango

Question 9

Number 263 Prinsengracht, in Amsterdam, is now a museum to the memory of whom?

Answer 9

Anne Frank

Question 10

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?

Answer 10

The Venerable Bede

Question 11

Stomatology is the branch of medicine concerned with what part of the body?

Answer 11

Mouth

Question 12

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?

Answer 12

Our Friends In The North

Question 13

What is the flavour of the cream or paste called frangipane, widely used in bakery products?

Answer 13

Almonds

Question 14

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 primeval Lost World of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel?

Answer 14

Mount Roraima

Question 15

Who killed the English knight Henry de Bohun in single combat in 1314, in the early stages of a major battle?

Answer 15

Robert the Bruce

Question 16

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?

Answer 16

Bassett hound

Question 17

Belomancy is an ancient form of divination by means of which objects, marked in certain ways to indicate their supposed significance?

Answer 17

Arrows

Question 18

Which film director once said “TV has brought murder into the home, where it belongs”?

Answer 18

Alfred Hitchcock

Question 19

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?

Answer 19

Graham Hill

Question 20

Who became the first Chairman of BOAC in 1939, but is better remembered for his work with another high profile organisation in the years between the wars?

Answer 20

John Reith

Question 21

In physics, what is measured in Newtons?

Answer 21

Force

Question 22

Which naval figure, born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1748, is buried near Nelson’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral?

Answer 22

Collingwood

Question 23

Which eccentric American performer and record producer created the 1970s R&B groups Parliament and Funkadelic?

Answer 23

George Clinton

Question 24

In which Scottish town do the football team St Mirren play their home games?

Answer 24

Paisley

Question 25

What term is generally given to sound with a frequency above 20,000Hz?

Answer 25

Ultrasonic

Question 26

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?

Answer 26

Escalator

Question 27

Which well-travelled character from an 1873 novel is named after a French term for a master key?

Answer 27

Passepartout

Question 28

Who was the Roman emperor when Vesuvius erupted destroying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae?

Answer 28

Titus

Question 29

Which rod-shaped, gram-negative bacteria, that causes food poisoning, was named after an American veterinary pathologist?

Answer 29

Salmonella

Question 30

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?

Answer 30

Suzuki

Question 31

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 December?

Answer 31

Christmas Cactus

Question 32

Sunset Strip in Los Angeles is part of which longer thoroughfare?

Answer 32

Sunset Boulevard

Question 33

Who was the architect of the Royal Crescent in Bath?

Answer 33

John Wood the Younger

Question 34

Which famous dog, originally known as Little Curly, is remembered today by a name that means Barker in Russian?

Answer 34

Laika

Question 35

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”?

Answer 35

Oliver Cromwell

Question 36

Which two literary figures met for the first time in May 1763, in a bookshop belonging to Thomas Davies in Russell Street in London?

Answer 36

Johnson and Boswell

Question 37

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?

Answer 37

Roman Catholic Church / Brigade of Guards / National Union of Mineworkers

Question 38

“On an exceptionally hot evening in early July, a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S Place, and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K Bridge” - is a translation of the opening sentence of which great Russian novel?

Answer 38

Crime and Punishment

Question 39

The Shah Jehan Mosque, dating from 1889 and consequently the oldest in the UK, is in which town in Surrey?

Answer 39

Woking

Question 40

Walker Smith Jr, born in Georgia on the 3rd May 1921, became a major sporting figure under which other name?

Answer 40

Sugar Ray Robinson