Set 15 Flashcards
Coined by Eric Drexler, what term is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy (“eating the environment”)?
Grey goo
Often abbreviated as HUAR, what is a semi-tongue-in-cheek organization designed to unify mankind and prepare them for a futuristic cybernetic uprising?
Humans United Against Robots
What is the German crocodilian equivalent of the Swedish Crazy Frog?
Schnappi
Clarus the Dogcow is an early (and thus poorly pixellated) character that was meant to be a dog but looked more like a cow in early 1980s programmes of which computer manufacturor?
Apple
Which search engine has been created to search for terms in reverse?
Elgoog
Name the non-profit Christian website that aims to help those who struggle with pornography.
xxxchurch.com
Frequently used in the context of “_______ the whip” (a “whip” being a vehicle), what is it called when a person puts a vehicle’s transmission in gear then exits the vehicle while it is still rolling to dance beside it or on the hood or roof?
Ghost-riding
The hip-hop subgenre of hyphy originates in which US city?
San Francisco/Bay Area
Which fictional game was featured in the British sitcom Green Wing? Its rules are never fully explained, and are designed to be as confusing and as difficult to understand as possible. However, Green Wing fans have attempted to create their own rules and societies. The first such society was created at King’s College London.
Guyball
Body Art Ride is a community-driven art event which raises funds for children’s cancer research while promoting healthy sustainable living. It is held annually in the middle of February. Volunteer participants create an ephemeral moving artwork called “The Human Rainbow.” which consists of hundreds of painted cyclists riding in groups to form a rainbow that travels through the city to a beach. Which city?
Sydney
What two-word phrase encompasses any cycling not done primarily for fitness, recreation such as cycle touring, or sport such as cycle racing, but simply as a means of transport. It is the most common type of cycling in the world?
Utility cycling
In professional wrestling, what wprd means is the portrayal of events within the industry as “real”. That is, the portrayal of professional wrestling as being genuine?
Kayfabe
What was a controversial season of television programming that was due to be broadcast in the United Kingdom by Channel 4, expected to consist of a series of three documentary programmes about masturbation. However, plans to broadcast it in March 2007 came under public attack from senior television figures, and the planned broadcasts were pulled amid claims of declining editorial standards and controversy over the channel’s public service broadcasting credentials?
Wank week
Mehran Karimi Nasseri is an Iranian refugee who lived where from 8 August 1988 until July 2006, when he was hospitalized for an unspecified ailment?
Charles de Gaulle Airport
Its name referring to the old cliche about Eskimo words for frozen water, what type of cliché and phrasal template was originally defined as “a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants? For example, ‘x is the new y’.
Snowclone
As well as inventing the artificial horizon still used in planes, Lawrence Burst Sperry made what important contribution to aviation technology before his disappearance over the English Channel in 1923?
Autopilot
What word means the transformation of humans into animals?
Therianthropy
Mooning the Cog is a tradition in which hikers bare their backsides to the Cog Railway on the highest peak in New Hampshire, which is called what?
Mount Washington
Sharing its name with that of a dictator, it is a card game of the shedding family, in which the aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules. The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often told only “the only rule you may be told is this one.” Specifics are discovered through trial and error. Which game?
Mao
How is Joseph Pujol better known to posterity?
Le Petomane
Sardarji jokes in India make fun of which ethnic group?
Sikhs
What is shoefiti?
The practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires
Dicky Mint, Mick the Marmalizer, Stephen “Titch” Doyle, Little Evan, Hamish McDiddy, Nigel Ponsonby-Smallpiece, Nicky Nugget, Sid Short and Smarty Arty are what?
Some of Ken Dodd’s Diddy Men
Which satirical board game was originally conceived back in 2003 by Andy Tompkins and Andrew Sheerin, two friends based in Cambridge, England? The initial inspiration for the game came from the imminent invasion of Iraq.
War on Terror
Which collaborative novel created by a group of science fiction and fantasy authors, with the express purpose of producing a bad piece of work of unpublishable quality to test whether publishing firm PublishAmerica would still accept it, was accepted, but after the hoax was revealed, the publisher withdrew its offer?
Atlanta Nights
The Bookseller/Diagram Prize was originally awarded at the Frankfurt book fair to which book annually?
The one with the oddest title
What name is given to the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois?
American Bottom
Iconic for being Duchamp’s first “true” readymade, which of his pieces was accidentally thrown out as garbage by his sister?
Bottle Rack
La Bougie du Sapeur, first published in 1980 is a humorous French newspaper. What is unusual about it?
Only ever published on February 29
What is the name of Ferdinand II of Austria’s collection of uncommon objects on display at his castle in Ambras near Innsbruck? It includes a woodcarving of “Death as a Hunter” by Hans Leiberger, goblets, coral collections and artifacts, glass figures, centerpieces, mechanical toys, clocks and various instruments.
Chamber of Art and Curiosities
What is the name of Donald Duck’s twin sister?
Della
According to Don Rosa’s timeline, the Clan is known since 122 AD, when an unnamed member of the clan sold stone to the construction crew of Hadrian’s wall. It was originally called the Clan MacDuich, but dropped the Gaelic spelling of the name in 1071. Which family?
The (Disney) McDucks
Which Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era is considered a national hero of the Philippines, having been executed by the Spanish? (1861-1896)
Jose Rizal
Traditionally, in Japan and Korea, if you know you are about to die, what should you do?
Write a death poem
Billed as the world’s first openly gay doll, it was created in 1977 by former advertising executive Harvey Rosenberg and marketed through his company, Gizmo Development. What was it called?
Gay Bob
Which reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story?
Henry Darger
Cabazon Dinosaurs, also referred to as Claude Bell’s Dinosaurs, are enormous, sculptured roadside attractions located in Cabazon and visible to the immediate north of Interstate 10. The site features Dinny the Dinosaur, a 150-ton building shaped like a larger-than-life-sized Apatosaurus, and Mr. Rex, a 100-ton Tyrannosaurus rex structure. In which US state?
California
Which American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson ran from 1988 to 1999 and featured a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, initially (but not specifically limited to) science fiction B-movies?
Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Like a female Irish William McGonagall- she published her first novel Irene Iddesleigh at her own expense in 1897. She wrote poetry and a number of novels. Her works were not read widely, and her eccentric, over-written, “purple” circumlocutory writing style is alleged by some critics to be some of the worst prose and poetry ever written?
Amanda McKittrick Ros
Whick West Indian-born heir to significantly profitable, sugar-growing slave plantations is numbered among the ranks of famous British eccentrics because of his unusual career as an amateur actor. His self-image included a highly mistaken belief in his own thespian prowess. After professional theatrical producers failed to cast him in significant roles, he used his family fortune to subsidize his own productions in which he was both the producer and the lead actor?
Robert Coates
Pioneered by Saussure, what name is given to the science of signs?
Semiotics
Gimme Shelter was on which Rolling Stones album?
Let It Bleed
What given name is shared by the addressee of Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Rosalind’s companion in As You Like It and Dorothea Brooke’s sister in Middlemarch?
Celia
What part of New York City gives its name to a Declaration by the eco-sceptical International Conference on Climate Change?
Manhattan
An Appeal to Reason- A Cool Look at Global Warming is a book of 2008 by which former Chancellor?
Nigel Lawson
What term demotes freely movable joints whose surfaces are covered with a thin cartilaginous sheet and which are lubricated by a fluid in a surrounding capsule?
Synovial
In which part of the body would you find a zygapophysial joint?
Vertebrae
Joseph L Mankiewicz’s 1967 film The Honey Pot was based on which work of Ben Jonson?
Volpone
Which Soviet, Elem Klimov-directed film from the mid 1970s was based on the last days of Rasputin?
Agony
Which chef worked for George IV and Napoleon and is often called ‘the first celebrity chef’?
Marie Antoine Careme
Careme is credited with changing service from ‘at at once’ to ‘one course at a time’- an innovation introduced from which country?
Russia
Which Melbourne-born artist is famous for hyper-real larger than life silicone sculptures, such as Boy at the Millennium Dome?
Ron Mueck
David Copperfield, Emma and the Harry Potter series are all examples of which genre of novel?
Bildungsroman
Which proteins are produced by white blood cells and are usually represented in the shape of a Y?
Antibodies
The Roman province of Noricum is within the borders of which present-day country?
Austria
Bithnyia was a Roman province now in which country?
Turkey
Which single by Wings was banned by the BBC for its supposedly suggestive lyrics and drug references? The specific sexual line objected to is the apparent phrase “get you ready for my body gun”; McCartney has said that the correct lyrics are “get you ready for my polygon”, an abstract image, and later, “The BBC got some of the words wrong. But I suppose it is a bit of a dirty song if sex is dirty and naughty. I was in a sensuous mood in Spain when I wrote it.”
Hi, hi, hi
Which Nobel laureate was the author of Lotte in Weimar, in which the elderly Goethe is visited by a character from The Sorrows of Young Werther?
Thomas Mann
Which US state is known as the Bay State?
Massachussets
The name of which grape refers to its pine-cone shape and its grey colour?
Pinot grigio
Which Italian wine is a desert wine served with almond biscuits and whose name means Holy Wine?
Vin Santo
Which wine from near Venice, named for a town, is the main ingredient of a Bellini cocktail?
Prosecco
The phrase ‘blinking idiot’ occurs in which Shakespeare play?
The Merchant of Venice
Born Isadore Soifer, who wrote the music for Unchained Melody and also the scores for Spartacus, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Cleopatra?
Alex North
Born in New York, which musician is best known for his musical version of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds?
Jeff Wayne
Which football team went bankrupt in 1992, the last professional league team to do so?
Maidstone
What does UNCTAD stand for?
UN Conference on Trade and Development
What does UNEP stand for?
UN Environment Programme
Cerrusite and anglesite are ores of which metal?
Lead
What are the two countries that border El Salvador?
Honduras and Guatemala
In 1076, Bishop Stigland started the building of which English cathedral, the only mediaeval one visible from sea?
Chichester
The speed of what is given by the square root of bulk modulus over density for a given material?
Speed of sound
Sea Pictures is the title of which composer’s Opus Number 37?
Edward Elgar
Where did Tiberius die in AD37?
Capri
Which King of Armenia proclaimed the country as Christian in 301AD?
Tiridates III
Laamb is the Wolof name for the Senegalese version of which sport, now increasingly popular throughout Africa?
Wrestling
What was the original name of Botany Bay?
Stingray Bay
Which character is played by Peter Sallis in the Last of the Summer Wine?
Cleggy
Which Korean-born American artist, 1932-2006, is considered to be the first ever video artist?
Nam June Paik
Which American graphic designer is best known for thousands of movie poster designs? During his 60-year career he worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers. Among his most famous film posters are those for Casablanca, A Clockwork Orange, and The Sting. He designed (and often photographed) posters for 35 consecutive Clint Eastwood films, from Dirty Harry (1971) to Mystic River (2004).
Bill Gold
Which American visual artist and composer based in New York’s work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramaphone records and turntables as musical instruments to create sound collage, he is, in the words of critic Thom Jurek, perhaps the “unwitting inventor of turntablism.”- his own use of turntables and records, beginning in the mid-1970s, was developed independently of but roughly parallel to hip hop’s use of the instrument?
Christian Marclay
Which monk burned himself to death in Vietnam in 1963, only to find himself on the cover of Killing In The Name Of 29 years later?
Thich Quang Duc
Which part of Boston is the nearest equivalent to Harlem in New York?
Roxbury
Born and raised in Roxbury, famous jazz performer Roy Haynes plays which instrument?
Drums
Which fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii has a name referring to its characteristic open tunings?
Slack key guitar
Born 1909, which Grammy Award-winning Canadian centenarian, bass-baritone singer of gospel music and the composer of several hymns and hymn tunes has often been described as “America’s Beloved Gospel Singer” and is considered “the first international singing ‘star’ of the gospel world,” as a consequence of his solos on the Billy Graham Crusades. According to the Guinness Book of Records, he holds the world record for singing in person to the most people ever, with an estimated cumulative live audience of 220 million people?
George Beverly Shea
Who painted the iconic poster of Barack Obama with the word ‘Hope’?
Shepard Fairey
A psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place, is named for which writer?
Stendhal syndrome
Also called siliceous cotton, what substance is said to be dispersed from UFOs as they fly overhead. It has been described as being like a cobweb or a jelly. It has also been reported at sightings of the Virgin Mary?
Angel hair
Also called the ACHOO syndrome, what name is more generally given to an autosomal dominant hereditary trait which causes sneezing, possibly many times consecutively (due to naso-ocular reflex) when suddenly exposed to bright light?
Photic Sneeze Reflex
Also known as Big Bill, he was an American race car driver. He is best known for co-founding and managing NASCAR?
Bill France
Also known as fetal resorption, what name is given to a fetus in a multi-gestation pregnancy which dies in utero and is then partially or completely reabsorbed by the mother or twin?
Vanishing twin
Also known as Hempel’s paradox as it was proposed by the German logician Carl Gustav Hempel in the 1940s to illustrate a problem where inductive logic violates intuition, which paradox reveals the fundamental problem of induction?
Raven paradox
Art Ingels founded which sport?
Go-karting
Australian tourist Denis Rohan, seized with Jerusalem syndrome, tried to set fire to which building in 1969?
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Between 1942 and 1977, which US park ranger was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. For this reason, he gained a nickname “Human Lightning Conductor” or “Human Lightning Rod”? He is recognized by Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 71 over an unrequited love?
Roy Sullivan
By conducting the first ever clinical trial, he developed the theory that citrus fruits cured scurvy. Which Scottish doctor?
James Lind
Coined by Irving Langmuir, it is defined as an area of research that simply will not “go away” —long after it is given up on as ‘false’ by the majority of scientists in the field. He called it “the science of things that aren’t so”?
Pathological science
Gary Fisher, of California, was a pioneer in which sport?
Mountain biking
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon was the first man to take an aerial photograph, from a balloon. What was his pseudonym?
Nadar
Horace Wilson introduced baseball to which country?
Japan
If Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the World Wide Web, who are the twin fathers of the Internet?
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn
In OOKP surgery, used for people with severe corneal failure, which part of your body can be used to restore sight?
Tooth
In southern parts of the USA, the pointed hat called a capuchon is worn on which day?
Mardi Gras
In which Cambridge college is Oliver Cromwell’s head kept?
Sidney Sussex
It was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a “study society for Intellectual Ancient History.” Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, its goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan race, and later to experiment and launch voyages with the intent of proving that prehistoric and mythological Nordic populations had once ruled the world.
Ahnenerbe
Italo Santelli was an important figure in the development of which modern sport?
Fencing
James Richardson Spensley and William Garbutt founded football in which country?
Italy
Lakshmi Tatma of India and Rudy Santos of the Phillipines (also called Octoman) both suffer from which rare medical condition?
Parasitic twin
Lithotripsy is used in medicine for removing what?
Kidney stones
Lluvia de Peces or Rain of Fish is a phenomenon that has been occurring for more than a century on a yearly basis in the Yoro Department of which country?
Honduras
Marcian Hoff and Masatoshi Shima are known as the fathers of which important component of a computer?
Microprocessor
Martha Wash and Izora Armstead are better known as who?
The Weather Girls
Originally the “Study Group for Germanic Antiquity”, it was a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which was later transformed by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party)?
Thule Society
Philo T Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin, together with a very famous third man, are credited with the invention of what?
Television
Popular among pseudoscientists, what is a substance described in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 novel The Coming Race?
Vril
Project Cybersyn was an attempt at real-time computer-controlled planned economy in the years 1970–1973 in which country?. It was essentially a network of telex machines that linked factories with a single computer centre in the capital, which controlled them using principles of cybernetics. The principal architect of the system was British operations research scientist Stafford Beer.
Chile
RP FLIP is a US oceanographic research vessel deiberately designed to do what?
Capsize
Some Japanese tourists suffer an eponymous ‘syndrome’ when they visit which European city?
Paris
Sometimes referred to as a “Combined road course”, it is an oval track racing facility that features a road course in the infield (or outfield), that may or may not be directly linked to the oval circuit. Which portmanteau word?
Roval
The 2006 “sweet” seawater incident was a phenomenon during which residents of which city claimed that the water at Mahim Creek, which receives thousands of tonnes of raw sewage and industrial waste every day, had suddenly turned “sweet”? Scientists attributed it to a sudden surge of freshwater into the sea.
Mumbai
The bizarre pseudoscientific invention of the pasilalinic-sympathetic compass relied on the supposed telepathic abilities of which animals?
Snails
The interstate highway system in the USA is named for which President?
Dwight D Eisenhower
What acronym is given in computing to a fake FAQ?
FWAK (False Wisdom and Knowledge)
What does GEV stand for, also called wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) vehicle, flarecraft, sea skimmer, ekranoplan, SkimMachine, or wing-in-surface-effect ship (WISE)?
Ground Effect Vehicle
What is a humorous term referring to the variably-sized body parts (“guts”), fragments, and offal produced when non-player characters or game players are damaged or killed in computer games?
Gibs (short for giblets)
What is a medical disorder characterized by uncontrollable bursts of sneezing brought on by fullness of the stomach, and typically observed in sufferers immediately after a large meal?
Snatiation
What is a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version (e.g. acoustic guitar, World War I, Queen Elizabeth I). The original name is most often augmented with an adjective (rather than being completely displaced) to account for later developments of the object or concept itself?
Retronym
What is a phrase constructed purposely such that an acronym can be formed to a specific word. They may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology?
Backronyms
What is rhinotillexomania?
Obsessive nose picking
What is the female equivalent of priapism?
Clitorism
What is the name of the wood pulp and ice composite that is extremely resistant to damage?
Pykrete
What is unusual about Indian tea estate worker Chandre Oram?
He has a long tail
What name did Nazi Germany give to the part of Antarctica they claimed, which is now part of Norwegian territory?
New Swabia
What name is given to a 550 ton military Russian ekranoplan used on a certain lake?
Caspian Sea Monster
What name is given to a series of organic molecules whose structural formulae appear human?
Nanoputian
What name is given to an extremely rare intestinal condition in humans resulting from eating hair (trichophagia)?
Rapunzel syndrome
What name is given to the medical study of lightning casualties and their treatment?
Keraunomedicine
What name is given to the purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device, secret weapon, first described by Polish journalist Igor Witkowski, it was later popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook as well as by conspiracy theory writers such as Joseph P. Farrell. Farrell and others associate it with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energy research?
The Bell
What name is given to the speculation and thought experiment whereby someone who ends their own life might survive in another universe?
Quantum suicide
What name is given to the whole category of sleep disorders that involve abnormal and unnatural movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams that occur while falling asleep, sleeping, between sleep stages, or during arousal from sleep?
Parasomnia
What name was a political incident in which the United States Secretary of State Alexander Haig accused the Soviet Union of supplying T-2 mycotoxin to the Communist states in Vietnam and Laos for use in counterinsurgency warfare?
Yellow Rain
What name was given to an early atomic model in which electrons were positioned at the eight corners of a cube in a non-polar atom or molecule?
Cubical atom
What name was given to Pyke’s secret project?
Project Habbakuk
What name was given to the mysterious rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects sighted in 1946, mostly in Sweden and nearby countries?
Ghost rockets
What nickname is given to Steve Jobs’ trademark keynote speeches?
Stevenote
What three word term was coined by Burrell Smith at Apple Computer in 1981, to describe company co-founder Steve Jobs’ charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Mac project?
Reality distortion field
Which American ballet dancer and figure skater is regarded as the father of modern figure skating?
Jackson Haines
Which American multinational clothing company is named after artist Kenny Howard. It is known primarily by its eponymous logo?
Von Dutch
Which American-Bangladeshi structural engineer pioneered tubular steel construction and co-designed the John Hancock Centre and Willis Tower?
Fazlur Rahman Khan
Which Canadian blogger did the One Red Paperclip trading game?
Kyle McDonald
Which clockmaker and inventor shares his name with a modern Premiership football manager and worked with Thomas Tompion?
George Graham
Which Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording including popular digital media such as Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-Ray Disc? He has been a prolific and influential engineer, who holds more than 1100 US and international patents. The impact of his work on consumer electronics is so large that it is virtually impossible to enjoy digital audio or video that does not reflect his work.
Kees Immink
Which example of pathological science refers to a form of water which appeared to have a much higher boiling point and much lower freezing point than normal water; many articles were published on the subject, and research was done around the world with mixed results. Eventually it was determined that many of its properties could be explained by biological contamination.
Polywater
Which founding father of modern aerodynamics was the first to identify the four aerodynamic forces of flight— weight, lift, drag, and thrust?
George Cayley
Which gelatinous substance, according to folklore, is deposited on the earth during meteor showers. It is described as a translucent or grayish white gelatin which tends to evaporate shortly after having fallen. Reports of the compound date back to the 14th century and continue to the present?
Star jelly
Which important word in cosmology, meaning all possible states of reality, was coined by Henry James’ brother William James?
Multiverse
Which man is known as the father of the laser?
Charles Hard Townes
Which man suggested the plan to create a British aircraft carrier in WW2 out of wood pulp and ice?
Geoffrey Pyke
Which nonstandard unit of length was created as part of an MIT fraternity prank? It is named after a man who lay on the Harvard Bridge (between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts), and was used by his fraternity brothers to measure the length of the bridge?
Smoot
Which noted Canadian dentist and patriot is referred to as the “father of modern lacrosse” for his work establishing the first set of playing rules for the game?
William George Beers
Which paradox goes as follows: Consider an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. Suppose a chord of the circle is chosen at random. What is the probability that the chord is longer than a side of the triangle?
Bertrand Paradox
Which pseudoscience is one step beyond metaphysics and is a word coined by Alfred Jarry?
Pataphysics
Which radio pioneer obtained the first Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license to operate an FM station in Alpine, New Jersey at approximately 50 megahertz (1939)?
Edwin H Armstrong
Which religious organization, often seen as a “parody religion” founded by “Bob Dobbs”, that satirizes religion, conspiracy theories, UFOs, and popular culture was originally based in Dallas, Texas?
Church of the SubGenius
Which son of a famous potter was an early experimenter in photography with Humphrey Davy?
Thomas Wedgwood
Which spoof paper appeared in the June 1956 edition of American Anthropologist and referred in fact to Americans themselves?
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (American backwards)
Which truck, built by Bob Chandler in 1979, is regarded as the original monster truck?
Bigfoot
Which UFO religion was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon? It has been described as “the largest UFO religion in the world”?
Raelism
Which very rare disorder makes it impossible to move the face or eyes?
Moebius Syndrome
Who is known as the Father of Route 66?
Cyrus Stevens Avery
Who is the Japanese moon goddess and nickname of the Japanese Selene moon exploration programme?
Kaguya
Who recently died and was the inventor of the instant noodle?
Momofuku Ando
Who should share the credit for the invention of the telephone?
Antonio Meucci
Who was the man who popularised jogging, but died of a heart attack aged 54 in 1984 after a run in Vermont, leading many to question the health benefits?
Jim Fixx
Who wrote the first ever computer programme, for Charles Babbage?
Ada Lovelace
William Phelps Eno was a pioneer in which important field?
Road safety (invented the stop sign, the pedestrian crosswalk, the traffic circle, the one-way street, the taxi stand, and pedestrian safety islands)
What is a theological view held by many in Christianity and other world religions that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere?
Complementarianism
What is notable about the 1939 novel Gadsby: Champion of Youth by Ernest Vincent Wright?
Does not use the letter E
In Gavle, Sweden, a giant what is constructed out of straw every Christmas time and then burnt down?
Goat
In terms of American comic books, how are the late 1930s to the early 1950s and the period from 1956 to 1970 known?
Golden age and silver age
When was the Bronze age of comic books?
1970 to 1985
What followed the Bronze age and has lasted to the present day?
Modern age of comic books
What was a conflict between rival systems of teaching Latin in early c16 England? The two main antagonists were schoolmasters William Horman and Robert Whittington, and involved Latin primers called Vulgaria.
Grammarian’s War
What is John Buckley’s main contribution to Oxford?
The Headington Shark
The Magic Carpet Ride is the official name of a 16-foot (4.9 m) high bronze statue of a surfer in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, that has been nicknamed what by local residents?
The Cardiff Kook
Which non-existent book was a literary hoax that began as a practical joke by late-night radio raconteur Jean Shepherd. Shepherd was highly annoyed at the way that the bestseller lists were being compiled in the mid-1950s. These lists were determined not only from sales figures but were also derived from the number of requests for new and upcoming books at bookstores?
I, Libertine
Shakespearean actor Norman Lumsden, who died aged 95 from shingles, is most famous for playing what role?
J R Hartley
Aka “The Shifter”, she is an open source, public domain character. She was specifically created to be as such, when her creators could not find any other truly open source, public domain characters.She can be inserted into the continuity of any existing or new work, such as various comics or webcomics. She was originally created by Canadian comic book artist Steven Wintle, who uses the internet alias Moriarty?
Jenny Everywhere
Which household items were kept out on the pavement for many days after Hurricane Katrina due to the difficulty of disposing of them and ended up covered with folk art?
Refrigerators
What is the name of the group of anonymous knitters who began the “knit graffiti” movement in Houston, Texas in 2005. They wrap public architecture – e.g. lampposts, parking meters, telephone poles, and signage – with knitted or crocheted material. It has been called “knit graffiti” and “yarnbombing”?
Knitta
What is the name of the 50-foot mechanical spider designed and operated by French performance art company La Machine? It was showcased in Liverpool, England, as part of the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations, travelling around the city between 3-7 September. In 2009, it was on display in Yokohama as part of the 150th anniversary of its port opening.
La Princesse
Which science fiction author published a book of 100 dirty limericks called Lecherous Limericks in 1975?
Isaac Asimov
Casino magnate Steve Wynn is famous for putting his elbow through which Picasso, which he was planning to sell for a record $139 million? It’s now worth only $85 million.
Le Reve
The Legacy Project, created by Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada, and depicting the control tower and runways at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Orange County, California, is notable for what reason?
World’s largest (seamless) photograph
Of the at least nine novels with subtitle ‘Virtue Rewarded’, which is the most famous?
Pamela
Of the at least five works with the subtitle ‘constancy rewarded’, which is the most famous, an opera?
Beethoven’s Fidelio
Anonymous employees of the newspaper would visit seaside resorts. The newspaper would print details of the town, a description of the appearance of that day’s plant, and a particular pass phrase. Anyone carrying a copy of the newspaper could challenge the day’s plant with the appropriate phrase, and receive the sum of five pounds. What was the name of the plant?
Lobby Lud
Which newspaper created Lobby Lud, naming him because their phone number in London was Lobby, Ludgate?
Westminster Gazette
Coined by Spike Lee, what name is given to the supporting, sometimes mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble?
Magical Negro
