Half-time teaser
The Trans-Siberian railway is the longest in the world – what is its length in miles?
Round 3: Presidents
- Who was the first Roman Catholic president of the USA?
- Who preceded Jacques Chirac as president of France?
- Who was president of Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956?
- Which president of the USA was the tallest?
- Who was president of Germany from 1925 to 1934?
- In which series did Martin Sheen play President Josiah Bartlet?
- Which is the official residence of the president of France?
- George Bush senior is older than Jimmy Carter – true or false?
- Which march is traditionally played when the US president arrives at formal events?
- On which mountain in the USA are carved the heads of four presidents?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- Terpsichore was the Muse of what?
- Which company made the Brownie box camera?
- Who released an album called
The Song Remains the Same
?
- Who became the first unseeded tennis player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon?
- Which footpath runs 105 miles from Beachy Head to Winchester?
- Which day in the Church calendar marks the first day of Lent?
- What does sago come from?
- Which US state is known as the Heart of Dixie?
44
- Which London prison is the largest in Britain?
- Who designed the lions in London’s Trafalgar Square?
Jackpot
With what kind of weapon was Leon Trotsky murdered in exile in Mexico?
Quiz 45
Round 1: Pot Luck
- For what discovery is Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming remembered?
- Who was the sworn enemy of Dan Dare in the 1950s comic
Eagle
?
- What is the name of the vicious young gangster in the 1938 Graham Greene novel
Brighton Rock
?
- Who wrote the play
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
?
- What is a Snellen chart used for?
- Which famous dish is comprised of raw steak?
- Besides red and blue, which is the other colour of which all other colours are made?
- Which restaurant chain was founded in South Wales in 1948 by the son of an Italian-born café owner?
- Who wrote a trilogy of plays beginning with
Chicken Soup with Barley
in 1958?
- Which Filipino leader was known for her large collection of shoes?
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Round 2: Around Britain
- Which English city had the Viking name Jorvik?
- To which group of islands does Tresco belong?
- What is the county town of Buckinghamshire?
- Which is the most overweight city in the UK?
- What is the main promenade at Blackpool known as?
- What measure was introduced in London in 2003 to reduce the number of vehicles entering the city?
- In which fictional south-east town was the comedy series
Dad’s Army
set?
- Of which city is Handsworth a district?
- Where was Prince Charles invested as Prince of Wales?
- Which fishing village near Penzance in Cornwall gave its name to a renowned group of British artists?
Half-time teaser
How many mountains are there over 8,000 metres?
Round 3: On the Stage
- Which New York street is the centre of commercial theatre in the USA?
- Which Samuel Beckett play features two tramps named Vladimir and Estragon?
- Which major sporting event is staged annually at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre?
- Which London theatre acquired its present name in 1833 when it was renamed in honour of a future monarch?
- What name did playwright Terence Rattigan give to the typical conservative British theatregoer of the 1950s?
- What was the name of the revolutionary new acting style developed by Konstantin Stanislavsky?
- Which London-born comic actress enjoyed a successful stage partnership with Noël Coward in such plays as
Private Lives
?
- What name was given to John Osborne and the other members of a new generation of young British playwrights who became famous in the late 1950s?
- In which play do two kindly old ladies poison elderly guests in their home to relieve them of their loneliness, and then bury their bodies in the cellar?
- Upon which Shakespeare play did Tom Stoppard base his own play
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- How many countries does France share a border with?
- Who formed the first commando forces?
- How many stomachs does a cow have?
- Which notable writer lived for many years in the village of Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire?
- Footballer Peter Bonetti and cricketer Phil Tufnell shared what nickname?
- Under what name did George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley enjoy chart success?
- In which county is Portland Bill?
- What oath is traditionally sworn by newly qualified doctors?
- What was the nickname of the place from which the first BBC programme was broadcast in 1926?
- Which animal is mentioned more frequently than any other in the Bible?
Jackpot
What was the name of the former Italian prime minister kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades in 1978?
Quiz 46
Round 1: Pot Luck
- By what other name do Americans refer to the ‘Abominable Snowman’ or ‘Sasquatch’?
- Which US president was nicknamed ‘Old Hickory’?
- What major change was introduced by the Church of England in 1994?
- What was the name of the deranged castaway in Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Treasure Island
?
- Who composed the Trout Quintet?
- Which part of the face is technically known as the columella?
- Whose hits included ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ and ‘No particular place to go’?
- Which scientist observed, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’?
- A dotterel is a species of which bird?
- Who became the first black footballer to captain England?
Round 2: Medical Matters
- What is Joseph Lister remembered for?
- Rickets is a condition caused by a lack of which vitamin?
- What is myopia?
- What is the medical name for German measles?
- Which mobile medical innovation was introduced by Frenchman Jean Dominique Larrey in 1792?
- What medical first did George Jorgensen endure in 1952?
- What does the medical term hypertension refer to?
- Which neurological disorder features a range of tics and compulsive swearing?
- What is the medical term for phlegm?
- What type of surgery does Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire specialise in?
Half-time teaser
How tall, in centimetres, is an Oscar statuette?
Round 3: The Boys in Blue
- Which television policeman was reincarnated for a long television career after being killed in his only screen appearance?
- Which well-known snooker player was a policeman before entering sport as a professional?
- Which opera features an evil police chief called Scarpia?
- What is the name of the headquarters of London’s Metropolitan Police?
- Who was the adventurer pursued by the police in John Buchan’s thriller
The Thirty-Nine Steps
?
- The Automobile Association was founded to warn drivers of police patrols – true or false?
- What is the name of the chief of police in
The Simpsons
?
- Which notorious villains were eventually brought to justice in 1969 by Detective Superintendent Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read?
- Which of the following is not slang for a policeman – copper, rozzer or buzzer?
- How did police panda cars get their name?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- Who held Fay Wray in the palm of his hand?
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- What is noise measured in?
- The letter ‘i’ appears on which row of letters on a keyboard?
- The Grand Slam in tennis includes the French, US Open, Wimbledon and which other championship?
- Which biblical character changed his name from Saul?
- What did the composers Beethoven, Fauré and Smetana have in common?
- Which cricket team was the first to win both the County Championship and the Sunday League in the same season?
- Which US city is home to the Tigers baseball team?
- Who is golf’s ‘Great White Shark’?
- Who drank a drink to Lily the Pink in 1968?
Jackpot
To which class of animals do skinks belong?
Quiz 47
Round 1: Pot Luck
- What is the capital of Libya?
- There are more miles of canal in Birmingham than there are in Venice – true or false?
- Whose hits included ‘All I really want to do’, ‘If I could turn back time’ and ‘Love can build a bridge’?
- Which lake does the Ugandan capital Kampala overlook?
- Who wrote
The Caretaker
?
- Which drug prescribed to pregnant women in the early 1960s caused serious deformities in newborn children?
- Which country was the first to have a female prime minister?
- What is the name of the monstrous soldiers created by Sauron in J. R. R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings
?
- What was Che Guevara’s profession before he became a political figurehead?
- Which king of Babylon was warned of his own death by the writing on the wall?
Round 2: The USA
- Which US city is known as ‘the Big Apple’?
- Which US state has as its motto ‘Eureka’?
- Which opera singer was fined in 1906 for pinching a woman’s bottom in the monkey house of New York’s Central Park Zoo?
- When the Noddy books of Enid Blyton were published in the USA, which character was renamed Whitebeard to avoid causing offence?
- Which is bigger – the US state of Georgia or the republic of Georgia?
- Which US state has just one syllable in its name?
- Where is the bulk of the USA’s gold reserve kept?
- There are more vehicles than drivers in the USA – true or false?
- Which fictional character fell asleep as a subject of George III and awoke 20 years later to find himself a free American citizen?
- In the UK Remembrance Day falls on 11 November, but what is the same date known as in the USA?
Half-time teaser
Which name appears more than any other in the Bible?
Round 3: Rascals, Rogues and Villains
- How did Tom Keating and Hans van Meegeren become notorious?
- In 1997, Marcus Harvey caused a stir with his portrait of which infamous murderer?
- According to the popular rhyme, how many whacks did Lizzie Borden give her father in 1892?
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- Who was the last person to be hanged under British law on a charge of treason?
- Which fictional murderer disposed of his victims by using them as ingredients in meat pies?
- Which anti-Western Islamic terrorist network was founded in the early 1990s by Osama Bin Laden?
- Which classic romantic adventure story describes how Exmoor was terrorised by a family of outlaws in the late eighteenth century?
- What was the nickname of gangster Al Capone?
- Who starred as television’s rascally master sergeant Ernest G. Bilko?
- By what name was the Nazi officer Klaus Barbie known?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- What do you get if you mix grated coconut with sugar syrup?
- Los Del Rio had just one major chart hit, in 1996 – what was it called?
- Which is ‘the sweet you can eat between meals’?
- In
The African Queen
, what was ‘The African Queen’?
- In 1994 which famous sporting event came to the UK for the first time?
- What is measured by the Mohs scale?
- For whom was Buckingham Palace originally built?
- Where is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The Hound of the Baskervilles
chiefly set?
- What is the name given to an additional storey inserted between two other floors?
- Who played television’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Jackpot
Which is the largest art gallery in the world?
Quiz 48
Round 1: Pot Luck
- Which company are jewellers to the Crown?
- Under what name did Luke and Matt Goss enjoy chart success?
- The Blackwall, Rotherhithe and Dartford are all examples of what?
- In which Arthur Miller play is Willy Loman a central character?
- Which British film star died when his plane was shot down in 1943?
48
- On which river does Washington DC stand?
- Which US president had the motto ‘The buck stops here’?
- Who was ‘the Galloping Gourmet’?
- How many magpies for a wedding?
- Which was the only part of the mythological hero Achilles that was vulnerable?
Round 2: Rail Travel
- Which British city is served by Spa railway station?
- Which British railway station has the most platforms?
- Which high street chain opened its first store in Euston railway station?
- Which company operates the US rail system?
- Which character from Tolstoy kills herself by throwing herself under a train?
- The world’s first underground railway opened in which year – 1843, 1863 or 1883?
- Who was the driver of the ill-fated Cannonball Express?
- Which is the largest railway station in the world?
- In which city is Connolly railway station?
- In
Ivor the Engine
, what powered Ivor’s engine?
Half-time teaser
How many metres are there in a nautical mile?