Jackpot
Who is the only living US playwright to have a Broadway theatre named after him?
Quiz 93
Round 1: Pot Luck
- What was the Spice Girls’ début single?
- Who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
?
- Which is the most popular tourist attraction in Britain?
- The word gamelan refers to a species of alligator, a small game bird or a form of Indonesian music?
- Who persuaded Shakespeare’s Othello that his wife was being unfaithful?
- What lamp with an innovative stand imitating the human arm was first marketed in 1933?
- In which television comedy did Leonard Rossiter play the seedy landlord Rigsby?
- What did Private Teruo Nakamura discover in December 1974?
- What material did the jeweller René Lalique specialise in?
- Where is the dong the main unit of currency?
Round 2: Executions
- What has among its nicknames Old Smoky, Sizzling Sally and Gruesome Gerty?
- In which year did Ruth Ellis become the last woman to be hanged in Britain?
- What was the original career of Joseph Ignace Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine?
- Who was the last official Chief Hangman for the United Kingdom?
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- In which film did Susan Sarandon win an Oscar as a nun who befriends a man on Death Row?
- Who was known as ‘the Hanging Judge’?
- In eighteenth-century Britain the death penalty applied to 222 offences – true or false?
- Which US murderer was the first to be executed when capital punishment was resumed in 1976?
- Whose execution in 1918 brought about the end of the Russian monarchy?
- Which character goes to the guillotine in
A Tale of Two Cities
saying ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known’?
Half-time teaser
The world’s largest millipede is an African giant black millipede owned by Jim Klinger of Coppell, Texas – how many legs does it have?
Round 3: Sport and Leisure
- From which sport comes the saying ‘three strikes and you’re out’?
- Which BBC commentator delivered the immortal line ‘They think it’s all over’ during the 1966 Wembley World Cup final?
- Which country was admitted to rugby union’s Five Nations Championship in 2000, making it the Six Nations Championship?
- By what name did the Jules Rimet Trophy become better known?
- The English cricketer C. B. Fry was once offered the throne of which country?
- Which US football club did David Beckham leave Real Madrid for in 2007?
- Which British Formula One driver was killed at Hockenheim in 1968?
- What innovation in dress did Bunny Austin introduce to Wimbledon in 1933?
- In three-day eventing, what is the first day devoted to?
- Which sportsperson was the first BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- ‘Leopard’ and ‘panther’ are different names for the same animal – true or false?
- In which country did the Ayatollah Khomeini seize control in 1979?
- What was the name of the character played by Frankie Howerd in
Up Pompeii
?
- Who was prime minister at the time of the ‘I’m backing Britain’ campaign?
- Which Buddy Holly single was named after the girlfriend of the drummer with the Crickets?
- Who was worried about her pussy in the sitcom
Are You Being Served
?
- What was the political and military organisation founded in 1958 by Yasser Arafat?
- Members of which branch of the British army are known as the Red Devils?
- Which long-running children’s story programme was revived on television in 2006?
- Who wrote the book on which Steven Spielberg based
Jurassic Park
?
Jackpot
What musical instrument was patented by Anthony Faas of Philadelphia in 1854?
Quiz 94
Round 1: Pot Luck
- On which mountain is Noah’s Ark traditionally supposed to have come to rest?
94
- What does the acronym CAMRA stand for?
- What does an aeroplane’s altimeter measure?
- Who was Marie Antoinette’s husband?
- Joseph Stalin was once a trainee priest – true or false?
- Which British Olympic medal-winner famously received his gold medal by post?
- Which guidebook was allegedly used to direct German air raids on historic British cities in World War II?
- Where does the Buran wind blow?
- Which actress married both Frank Sinatra and André Previn?
- Who was run down by a tram in
Coronation Street
?
Round 2: Animals
- Which animal comes in grey and timber varieties?
- What is the world’s largest venomous snake?
- Cobb, Kerry Hill and Scottish Blackface are all breeds of what?
- What kind of animal is a miller’s thumb?
- How many horns does an Indian rhinoceros have?
- What is a beaver’s home called?
- What kind of animal is a bobolink?
- What is a black and white horse called?
- Apart from humans, which is the only animal to suffer from sunburn?
- What kind of animal comes in hairstreak and meadow brown varieties?
Half-time teaser
William Henry ‘Fatty’ Foulke holds the record as the heaviest footballer to play for England – how heavy (in kilograms) was he?
Round 3: Nicknames
- Which British monarch was nicknamed ‘Farmer George’?
- Which snooker player earned the nickname ‘Interesting’ for his dull public persona?
- What is the nickname of the third battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland?
- What was the nickname of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm in 1991?
- Who was Brandy Nan?
- Which English monarch had the nickname ‘Old Rowley’?
- What is the nickname of the Scottish football club Celtic?
- Which US general was nicknamed ‘Old Blood and Guts’?
- What is the nickname of the New Zealand rugby league team?
- Which British footballer was known as ‘the White Ghost’ or ‘the Preston Plumber’?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- In which city was there an Easter Rising in 1916?
- A Persian Blue is a variety of what?
- Who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape Scotland disguised as her maid?
- Which country includes among its rivers the Arno and the Po?
- Who was the lead singer of INXS who apparently killed himself in Sydney in 1997?
- Which flying insect spreads sleeping sickness?
- In which country was Greenpeace founded – France, Germany or Canada?
- From 1982 to 1993 only two women claimed the Women’s Singles title at Wimbledon – Martina Navratilova and who else?
- Which footballer became, in 2002, the subject of the first thirty-million-pound transfer?
- What was the title of the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about Watergate?
Jackpot
Which military force was founded by David Stirling?
Quiz 95
Round 1: Pot Luck
- In which war did the Battle of the Atlantic take place?
- What did US writer Elbert Hubbard summarise as ‘one damned thing after another’?
- Which evangelical and charitable organisation was founded by William Booth in 1865?
- On which earlier tune was the song ‘Danny Boy’ based?
- Who had the nickname ‘Old Groaner’?
- Which battle on British soil claimed the most lives?
- How many balls do you need to play a game of snooker?
- What was the name of the spinster witch played by Angela Lansbury in the Walt Disney film
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
?
- What do the initials ECT stand for?
- To which historical figure did Beethoven dedicate his third symphony?
Round 2: British Television
- Which television sitcom written by Jimmy Perry was set in India and Burma during World War II?
- What nickname of the BBC reflects what many people have seen as its cautious, conservative nature?
- Who wrote the music that is used as a theme tune for television’s
The Sky at Night
?
- Which cult television programme starred a motley band of resistance fighters opposed to the Terran Foundation?
- On which long-running television talent show did such stars as Mary Hopkin, Bonnie Langford and Freddie Starr get their big break?
- For what television programme is ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ the theme tune?
- What is the name of the Yorkshire village in which the television drama series
Heartbeat
is set?
- Who for many years presented the television pop music programme
Old Grey Whistle Test
?
- Which television programme of the 1960s had the slogan ‘The weekend starts here’?
- What was the name of the fictional village in which the television comedy series
The League of Gentlemen
was set?
Half-time teaser
How far is it in miles from Birmingham, England to Birmingham, Alabama?
Round 3: Shopping
- Which street in Soho, London, became a focus for fashionable youth in the 1960s?
- What phrase describes the activity of looking at things for sale without planning to buy them?
- Which British businessman lost his job after publicly scorning the products of his own leading high-street company?
- Which brand of soup was immortalised in paintings by Andy Warhol?
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- According to a VAT tribunal ruling of 1991, is a Jaffa cake a cake or a biscuit?
- In which year did Smarties first go on sale – 1927, 1937 or 1947?
- What product is sold with the help of the biblical slogan ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’?
- Which is the world’s largest hypermarket chain?
- Which supermarket chain was created by the merger in 1965 of the Asquith chain of supermarkets and Associated Dairies?
- Who provided a slogan for shoppers with her song ‘A little of what you fancy does you good?’
Round 4: Pot Luck
- Complete the following quotation: ‘Are you sitting comfortably? …’
- Which choral work written by Carl Orff during the Nazi period has become a popular standard of modern concert performances?
- In which city is the famous al-Aqsa mosque?
- Who wrote the 1951 play
The Rose Tattoo
?
- Which Beatles album included the tracks ‘Got to get you into my life’, ‘Taxman’ and ‘Here, there and everywhere’?
- Which two countries fought the so-called Soccer War of 1969 after violence erupted following a football match between their national teams?
- Which US president summarised his foreign policy in the phrase ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’?
- Who created the concept of ‘oneupmanship’ in a 1952 book of that title?
- Which town in Britain has the highest divorce rate?
- What do golfers call the ‘nineteenth hole’?
Jackpot
Who wrote the opera
Der Rosenkavalier
?
Quiz 96
Round 1: Pot Luck
- From which country does retsina come?
- Which three South American countries does the equator go through?
- Which British writer became subject to an Iranian fatwa in 1989?
- Which pop celebrity in 2004 had a marriage that lasted just 55 hours?
- What colour is Sonic the Hedgehog?
- Which English county has the heaviest rainfall?
- Which board game started life as Lexico?
- What kind of meat is used to make Bombay duck?
- Where did Boddington’s brewery close in 2005?
- In which sport was Charles McCoy, the original ‘real McCoy’, a world champion?
96
Round 2: Europe
- Which bay lies off northern Spain and south-western France?
- What is the Latin name for Switzerland?
- In which country do Ajax play domestic football?
- In which country is the westernmost point of mainland Europe?
- Of which European country is Vaduz the capital?
- Who is ‘the Muscles from Brussels’?
- How many times has a British football side won football’s European Nations Championship?
- Latvia and Lithuania are two of the Baltic states – which is the third?
- On which river does Budapest stand?
- Which country has finished last most times in the Eurovision Song Contest?
Half-time teaser
How many hours did the longest competitive tennis match on record last?
Round 3: Minority Sports
- The Stanley Cup is contested in which sport?
- In which sport do teams play chukkas lasting seven and a half minutes?
- In which sport might one use a besom?
- Which sport is James Gibb credited with inventing in 1890 – table-tennis, billiards or ski-jumping?
- Essendon, Port Adelaide, Collingwood and West Coast Eagles are all leading teams in which sport?
- Who is the only cyclist to have won the Tour de France seven times?
- From which sport comes the phrase ‘the moment of truth’?
- Which sport is associated with the Circus Tavern, Purfleet?
- In which sport do teams contest the Iroquois Cup?
- What term describes a surfer falling off his board?
Round 4: Pot Luck
- Which ingredient is present in beer but missing in ale?
- The death of which iconic figure occurred five days after that of Princess Diana?
- Which is furthest south – Bhutan, Cambodia or Thailand?
- Which US general was known by his detractors as ‘the American Caesar’?
- What was the name given to the temporary steel bridges put up by the Allies during World War II?
- Who is the only person to have won the PFA Player of the Year two years running?
- Which Caribbean island was devastated by hurricane Hugo in 1989?
- What object stands in the middle of the Place de la Concorde in Paris?
- Which writer was played by Anthony Hopkins in the film
Shadowlands
?
- Which singer had a hit in 2001 with ‘It’s raining men’?