Set 08 Flashcards
Who was the only crew member allowed to whistle on board a man-of-war?
Cook (so he couldn’t spit in the food)
Which game in which two long jump ropes turning in opposite directions are jumped by one or more players jumping simultaneously began in the inner cities of America?
Double Dutch
What was adopted worldwide on November 1st 1884?
The Greenwich Meridian
In chess, which eight-letter word means a player put at a disadvantage because they have to make a move?
Zugzwang
Which Shelley work was written as a response to the Peterloo Massacre?
The Masque of Anarchy
What was the name of the boat in which Shelley died?
Ariel
Robert Garside, also known as ‘The Running Man’ holds which record?
First man to run around the world
In which city did W H Auden die in 1973?
Vienna
Which process includes stages called calcination, dissolution and projection?
Alchemy
Which conman sold the Eiffel tower for scrap?
Victor Lustig
Which five letter word means the excess days in a solar year compared to a lunar year?
Epact
Who owned the horse Different Class, that finished third in the Grand National 1968 behind Red Alligator?
Gregory Peck
Which man was the oldest ever to win the Grand National on Grittar in 1982?
Dick Saunders
Which 1996 Grand National winning jockey claimed that winning it was better than sex?
Mick Fitzgerald
Which horse, trained by Nigel Twiston Davies, won the Scottish, Welsh and English Grand Nationals in the 1990s?
Earth Summit
The Grand National that never was in 1993, had a false start because the starting tape got caught under whose chin?
Richard Dunwoody
The otter belongs to which family of animals?
Weasel
On a ship, what name is given to the compass housing?
Binnacle
The Menads were the followers of which Greek God?
Dionysus
Which wind has a name meaning ‘East Wind’ in Arabic?
Scirocco
Which bomb created by Barnes Wallis shared its name with a pieve of wooden furniture?
Tallboy
Which fashion designer launched the Rive Gauche range in 1966?
Yves St Laurent
Andy Murray lost to Roger Federer in the final of which Grand Slam tournament in 2010?
Australian Open
In cars, what does ABS stand for?
Antilock Braking System
Blue Jacket and Delph Blue are varieties of which scented flower?
Hyacinth
Traditionally, Parkin is served on what night in Yorkshire?
5th November
In 1979, which actor finished in second place in the Le Mans 24-hour race at the age of 54?
Paul Newman
Which rare bear-like mammal has an enlarged wrist bone, functioning like a thumb and allowing it to handle food?
Giant Panda
Which Michelin-starred chef presented ‘In Search of Perfection’, in which he created ‘perfect’ versions of everyday dishes like Spaghetti Bolognaise?
Heston Blumenthal
On which Hawaiian island is Lost filmed?
Oahu
Which river flows into Lake Geneva at its eastern end and out at its western end?
Rhone
Seth Pecksniff is a hypocritical architect in which Dickens book?
Martin Chuzzlewit
Terry, who starred as Toto in the Wizard of Oz, was what breed of dog?
Cairn terrier
Which French composer made his way from Italy to Paris intent on murdering his fiancee, who had left him for a piano manufacturer?
Hector Berlioz
Which wartime ballad was written by lyricist Frederick Weatherly while he was an army officer in 1916. Set to music by Haydn Wood, it was one of the most famous songs from World War I. Weatherley reportedly wrote the lyric after he had conceived an affection for a French widow while receiving protection at her home in France?
Roses of Picardy
What is the American for a dual carriageway?
Divided Highway
Paresthesia is the medical term for what sensation?
Pins and needles
Catoptromancy uses what to predict the future?
A mirror
Which choreographer’s ballets include A Month in the Country, Enigma Variations and Symphonic Variations?
Sir Frederick Ashton
Who was on the British throne when Pepys died?
Queen Anne
Van ‘t Hoff and Herman Emil Fischerr were the first two Nobel Laureates in which field?
Chemistry
Which is the only Ivy League university with the name of its state in its name?
Pennsylvania
Which planet has the shortest day?
Jupiter
Bandit Koose Veerappan was killed by police in 2004 in which country?
India
It included the Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, The Fisherman and His Soul and The Star Child. Who penned the 1891 collection of fairy tales called A House of Pomegranates?
Oscar Wilde
Which battle was fought in Normandy in 1106, between an invading force led by Henry I of England, and his older brother Robert Curthose, the Duke of Normandy? Henry’s knights won a decisive victory, capturing Robert and imprisoning him in England and then Wales until Robert’s death in Cardiff Castle.
Tinchebrai
Which Swedish king was defeated at the Battle of Poltava in his attempt to conquer Russia in 1709?
Charles XII
Which philosopher and advocate for women’s rights was married to John Stuart Mill?
Harriet Taylor
David Livingstone died in which modern-day country?
Zambia
Which sculpture in Lucerne, Switzerland, designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen, commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, France?
The Lion of Lucerne
Which Scottish songwriter and song collector was also known as Lady Nairne and the Flower of Strathairn because of her beauty?
Caroline Oliphant
What was the name of the consort of Pericles?
Aspasia
Which English antiquary (1687-1765) was one of the founders of field archaeology and pioneered the investigation of Stonehenge?
William Stukeley
Which British fascist, a scion of a notable political family, proposed to the Wehrmacht the formation of a British volunteer force (subsequently to become the British Free Corps) and made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany. He was executed for treason after the war having pleaded guilty?
John Amery
Which British polar explorer, writer and artist became in 1969 the first man to walk undisputed to the North Pole, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary’s famous, but disputed, expedition. He was described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as “the greatest polar explorer of our time”?
Sir Wally Herbert
What is the indigenous name given to the northern third of Quebec?
Nunavik
What did Wehrmacht literally mean?
Defence force
In the Wehrmacht was the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. What name was given to the army?
Heer
Who played Clouseau in the critically panned remake of the Pink Panther in 2006?
Steve Martin
Which ELO single was dedicated to Skylab?
Don’t Bring Me Down
Which TV series was focussed on the Luxton and District Traction Company in Essex?
On the Buses
Who directed Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and Ice Station Zebra (1968)?
John Sturges
Which 1962 remake of Gunga Din (1939) set in the American West, featuring Rat Pack icons Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. It was the last film to feature all five members of the Rat Pack due to Sinatra’s falling out with Lawford and later Bishop?
Sergeants Three
Which 1969 film, with a Pink Floyd soundtrack, deals with heroin addiction on Ibiza?
More
In Sweet Charity, which boyfriend of Charity steals her handbag and pushes her in a lake?
Charlie
Who created Conan the Barbarian?
Robert E Howard
Best known for the Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels, who died of a rare heart disease in 2007?
Robert Jordan
Since the inauguration of the Open Era in 1968, which tennis player holds the record for appearing in the most men’s singles Grand Slam finals?
Ivan Lendl
In the Shrek films, which princess does Shrek woo and marry?
Fiona
What is the Spanish for motorway?
Autopista
What was the most famous Cleopatra’s regnal number?
VII
Henderson’s model, the Roper-Logan-Tierney model and the Ruoy model are all recommended for members of which profession?
Nursing
Which 1966 Jerry Herman Broadway musical has a name that is an anagram of a Jane Austen work?
Mame
In the mouth, Koplik spots are an early sign of what?
Measles
Saccharum officinarum is the Latin name for which crop?
Sugar cane
According to Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, idleness has a son and a daughter. What are they?
Robbery and hunger
Nutcrack night is an alternative name for what?
Halloween
Sisters Mary and Lizzie Burns of Manchester were the mistresses of which philosopher?
Friedrich Engels
Who did Strand Magazine engage to illustrate Sherlock Holmes?
Sidney Paget
Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were the main cities of which ancient people?
Phoenicians
Which part of the body is affected by Ramsey Hunt’s syndrome?
Face
On which gulf is Piraeus?
Saronic
Delphine de la Mare inspired which literary heroine?
Madame Bovary
Which feminist and former communist, a long-term journalist and campaigner, stood for the Green Party in Hampstead and Kilburn in the 2010 General Election?
Bea Campbell
Veteran cars are those produced before which year?
1904
Which performer would be most likely to use a swozzle?
Punch and Judy man
Ribes grossulaia is the Latin name for which fruit?
Gooseberries
Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (published 1868) was written by whom?
Queen Victoria
Which medical tool for investigating body cavities, with a form dependent on the body cavity for which it is designed may also be referred to as a diopter or dioptra?
Speculum
Which is the most westerly of the Lake District lakes?
Ennerdale Water
Ain’t I volatile’ is a phrase associated with Miss Moucher, a dwarf manicurist and masseuse in which Charles Dickens novel?
David Copperfield
The Tsukahara is a technique used in which gymnastics discipline?
Vault
In the Just William books, what is Ginger’s surname?
Flowerdew or Merridew
What’s the surname of Ginger, Biggles’ companion?
Hebblethwaite
What is the better-known definition of a Messalina complex?
Nymphomania
Where according to Kipling ‘does the dawn come up like thunder outta China crorse the Bay?’
The Road to Mandalay
Which woman was the first black performer to be offered a long-term Hollywood contract, but was blacklisted due to her partnership with Paul Robeson?
Lena Horne
Which cartoon character made his first appearance in The Chain Gang, but was not given the name we know him by until the Moose Hunt a little later?
Pluto
In Australia, what have you done if you have ‘Major Mitchelled’?
Got lost
According to the US war slogan, Loose Lips do what?
Sink ships
A blivet is an optical illusion or undecipherable paradox that takes what form?
A fork that appears to have three tines at one end but only two at the other (also called an Impossible Trident)
Which biologist and geneticist, born in Oxford in 1892, wrote Daedalus, in which he predicted the development of test-tube babies?
J B S Haldane
Which part of the brain stem, occupying its lower half, regulates the heart, respiration, salivation and swallowing?
Medulla Oblongata
Which Roman poet wrote the Odes and Epodes and faught at the Battle of Phillipi?
Horace
The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce was the first of four tracts on that subject by which English poet?
Milton
Which three letters are the Speedo racing suit worn by Rebecca Adlington when she won two gold medals in Beijing?
LZR
Worn controversially at the FINA World Championships 2009, of what material are the all-in-one swimsuits that shaved seconds off times?
Polyurethane
Wayne’s A Pain was the winner of a Blue Peter competition to be added to which cartoon gang in 2007?
Bash Street Kids
Which architect started the building of St Peter’s in Rome, with the work much later passing to Michaelangelo?
Bramante
What name was given to the 2005 Kyrgyzstan revolution?
Tulip revolution
To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour. Which poet?
William Blake
What is the name of the monastery at Mount Sinai?
St Catherine’s
Dub Be Good to Me is based on which Clash song?
Guns of Brixton
On which Clash song is Stupid Girl by Garbage based?
Train in Vain
925 is a number associated with the purity of which metal?
Sterling silver
Which religion has a branch where the scriptures have a name meaning ‘baskets’?
Buddhism
Which newspaper commissioned Stanley to find Livingstone?
New York Herald
What was the name of Sarah Jessica Parker’s first fragrance?
Lovely
What item of clothing has a French bearer as a component part?
Trousers
Which comic book character was called the Short-Sighted Gink?
Colonel Blink
What kind of animal is a galliwasp?
Lizard
What is measured by a Mercalli scale in connection with earthquakes?
Intensity
In the human body, where is the canthus?
Corner of the eye
Diplopoda are what class of animals?
Millipedes
If you arrange the planets in order of size, which two are either side of Earth?
Neptune and Venus
Adult onset diabetes has been linked to a lack of which trace mineral, atomic number 24?
Chromium
In which year did Halley’s Comet appear in his lifetime?
1682
Which moon of Uranus, named for a character in the Taming of the Shrew, also shares its name with a soap character?
Bianca
Harry Wheatcroft, who died in 1977, was particularly associated with which specific plant?
Roses (rose-grower)
Which animal has a collective term of chine and is also sometimes called a fitch?
Polecat
Which six-time champion jockey was tried unsuccessfully for alleged race-fixing?
Kieran Fallon
The Grey Cup is awarded in which team ball game?
Canadian football
Which Briton won 3 races in Formula 1 and also the Le Mans in 1991?
Johnny Herbert
Which is the first horse-racing classic of the season?
2000 Guineas
Who painted, among others, David Garrick, Mrs Siddons, Dr Johnson and R B Sheridan?
Thomas Gainsborough
When considering the real value of his wealth, which man, who died in 1937, is widely held to be the wealthiest American in the history of the United States and the world?
John D Rockefeller
Which philosopher (1788-1860) developed Kant’s ideas and then devised a philosophy very similar to Buddhism?
Schopenhauer
Who was elected administrator of the Department of Paris in 1791 but was executed just over 3 years later?
Danton
Now Poland’s fifth largest city, it is the historical capital of the Wielkopolska (“Greater Poland”) region and lies on the Warta river halfway between Warsaw and Berlin. What’s it called?
Poznan
Which two word Latin phrase means ‘a papal pronouncement’?
Ex cathedra
Which French film-maker made Shoah, the nine and a half hour long film about the Holocaust?
Claude Lanzmann
Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres, later made into a Michelle Pfeiffer film, was a retelling of which Shakespeare play?
King Lear
What Greek word is used to mean the part of a play during which the main action develops?
Epitasis
Peregrine, Elberta and Rochester are cultivars of which fruit?
Peach
What is the surname of the protagonist of the Sword of Honour trilogy?
Crouchback
Edmund Crouchback was the second son of which English king?
Henry III
What is the name of the largest of many holes in the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes?
Foramen magnum
Which river did Midas use to wash away the ‘gift’ of turning all to gold?
Pactolus
Which country did Italy try to invade in October 1940?
Greece
The Gemara and Mishna together make up what?
Talmud
What is the maximum period of imprisonment a magistrates court can pass down?
Six months
Tulancingo was the capital of which civilisation?
Toltec
Whose desire to see John the Baptist killed was behind the request that his head be served on a platter?
Herodias
In which year did Cleopatra commit suicide?
30BC
ISKCON is the full name of the organisation normally referred to as what?
Hare Krishna
Which theatre reopened in 1998, after being damaged in the IRA bombing of Manchester?
Royal Exchange
In 1241, which army sacked Krakow?
Mongol
Which artist’s work went on display at the Royal Academy in January 1999, sparking huge demand for tickets?
Monet
Which English philosopher, and bishop of Peterborough from 1691 published De legibus naturae (On natural laws), propounding utilitarianism and opposing the egoistic ethics of Thomas Hobbes?
Richard Cumberland
Which English king was married to Elizabeth Woodville?
Edward IV
Before Sandhurst took over in 1947, where was the Royal Military Academy?
Woolwich
The name of a people, which word is missing from this epitaph relating to an incident in 480BC: ‘Go, stranger, and tell the ___________ that here we lie, obedient to their commands’?
Spartans
The musical ‘Always’ is based on the relationship between which two people?
Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
Before buying a plot of land, which Roman poet buried a flea on it and called it a cemetary, to avoid tax?
Virgil
Which European country has no currency of its own, therefore using the Euro, although it is not in the EU?
Montenegro
The Grandmaster’s Palace is the presidential residence of which EU member state?
Malta
What was the name of the worm that attacked Facebook in 2008, its name an anagram of that site’s name?
Koobface
Which city is home to the world’s most northerly metro system?
Helsinki
Which fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax, but not before it had beaten Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte?
The Turk
Which mathematical problem involves a knight on a chessboard? The knight is placed on the empty board and, moving according to the rules of chess, must visit each square exactly once.
The Knight’s Tour
Who was the first Briton to reach the summit of K2 in 1986, but died on the return journey?
Alan Rouse
Which scallop dredger sank with the loss of seven lives off the Isle of Man in January 2000?
Solway Harvester
In which year did the Gaul sink?
1974
Who was the first black person to own a Savile Row tailor’s shop?
Andrew Ramroop
Difficult to stage, Catalini’s opera La Waly has a memorable death, where the heroine dies in what?
An avalanche
It centred on Molly Robertson-Kirk and was an early example of a novel with a female detective. Who wrtoe Lady Molly of Scotland Yard?
Baroness Orczy
What is the title of the so far unreleased 14 minute long experimental Beatles track?
Carnival of Light
Directed by Barry Levinson, which 1984 film with Robert Redford and Glenn Close was based on the 1952 Bernard Malamud novel of the same name?
The Natural
Which body of water connects Rob Roy MacGregor and Scott’s Lady of the Lake?
Loch Katrine
Scoop, Match Point, and Cassandra’s Dream (which starred Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell) are which director’s London Trilogy?
Woody Allen
In 2010, who was announced as the winner of the TS Eliot prize for poetry for his collection ‘The Water Table’ about the Severn Estuary?
Philip Gross
All That Fall is a one-act radio play, his first, by which writer produced following a request from the BBC? It was written in English and completed in September 1956.
Samuel Beckett
Who wrote Tom’s Midnight Garden?
Philippa Pearce
What is the name of the largest media conglomerate in India, that now owns Absolute radio?
The Times Group
Who directed the video for Thriller?
John Landis
Who has been portrayed on the big screen more than anyone else- 70 different actors have played the role?
Sherlock Holmes
Alexandra Burke was beaten to the number one slot on Star For a Night aged 12 by which singer?
Joss Stone
Which Austrian psychologist coined the word ‘lifestyle’?
Alfred Alder
What is the name of the process in which a three-dimensional artistic composition is made from putting together found objects?
Assemblage
As with the burning of the Reichstag by ‘communists’, what name is given to covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities?
False flag operations
What was the magazine GP known as until 1957?
Apparel Arts
When fresh, what should a pear do in water?
Sink
At what age can kids in the UK legally be given alcohol at home?
Five
About how many UK police officers have died in the line of duty since the c17?
1600
In which decade were fixed penalty notices introduced into Britain to deal with minor parking offences?
1950s
Gay-Lussac’s laws concern the properties of what?
Gases
In meteorology, what name is given to an observable shaft of precipitation reaching down from a cloud that evaporates before reaching the ground?
Virga
With the atomic number 23, which toxic, soft, silvery-grey, ductile transition metal is used in alloys?
Vanadium
Which effect describes the explusion of a magnetic field from a superconductor and is the reason that magnets levitate over a superconductor?
Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect
To which family of trees do junipers belong?
Cypress
