Contents
About the Book
Title Page
Foreword from the National Quiz Team
General Knowledge: Standard
Pop Music
Sport
Miscellaneous I
Social Sciences and Religion
Literature
Geography
Other Music
Miscellaneous II
TV
Arts
Science
Lifestyle
Miscellaneous III
History and Politics
Film
Nature
General Knowledge: Fiendishly Difficult
Children’s
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781473517646
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Century 2014
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Copyright © David Stainer; © Pat Gibson; © Kevin Ashman; © Olav Bjortomt 2014
David Stainer, Pat Gibson, Kevin Ashman and Olav Bjortomt have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to correct any errors or omissions in future editions.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Century
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781780893693
Welcome to The Only Quiz Book You Will Ever Need, written by the four of us – who have all represented England at quizzing.
You probably weren’t even aware that there is a national quiz team. Each November some of Europe’s strongest general knowledge experts gather together to take part in the European Quizzing Championships (EQC). The first EQC took place ten years ago, in the Belgian city of Ghent, and in November 2014 we will be travelling to Bucharest in Romania, one of quizzing’s up-and-coming nations, which is hosting the event for the first time.
One of the most important events at the EQC is the national team quizzing championships, competed for by teams of four representing the leading European quizzing nations and facing some pretty difficult general knowledge questions. England has won six times in the ten years the event has been running, and has reached the final in three of the other four years, so we have a good claim to be the strongest quizzing nation in Europe.
Kevin Ashman and Pat Gibson have played on all six of those winning teams. Kevin and Pat are both members of the formidable Eggheads on the BBC quiz show of that name. Kevin has won four World Quizzing Championships (WQCs) and six EQC individual titles, and holds a host of quiz records including the highest ever scores on Mastermind and Brain of Britain. Pat has also won four WQC titles and Brain of Britain, he is one of five people to win the top prize on the UK version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and in 2010 won the Mastermind champion of champions title.
Olav Bjortomt has been on four winning national quizzing championships teams. He sets questions for the quiz shows The Chase and University Challenge, as well as the weekday daily quiz in Times2. Olav has won one WQC and one EQC individual title and habitually finishes near the top in major international quiz competitions.
David Stainer has played on two winning national quizzing championships teams. Unlike the others, David is a part-time quizzer; he works full-time as a solicitor in the City of London. David has finished in the top ten at both the WQC and EQC, and is a member of the Crossworders, the reigning champions of champions on ultratough BBC quiz show Only Connect.
When putting this book together, we wanted to appeal to all ages and abilities. For the serious quizzer, it includes a selection of intentionally very challenging questions of the kind which get asked at the big international quiz events such as the WQC or EQC. As is the case with all serious quiz competitions, these questions require wide and deep reading across a variety of topics, recall of specific points of detail, and often top-quality lateral thinking. We hope that even if you’re struggling with these ones, you’ll find them interesting and be prompted to read more on the subjects. For all of us, one of the great aspects of quizzing is the ability to learn about stuff you’ve never heard of before.
As well as some very tough questions, we also include some more moderate ones of a similar difficulty to those you might expect in a typical quiz league or pub quiz, or on a serious quiz show on television. If you’re doing well on these questions (or even the super-tough questions), you should consider getting involved in the UK quiz circuit! The British Quizzing Association (BQA) runs a monthly circuit of UK events, which tend to consist of an individual quiz paper and then a team event. You’ll be competing with some of the brightest stars in the quiz firmament, so you shouldn’t expect to win first time, but you’ll soon get a sense of who your rivals are, and will look forward to doing battle every month. Just visit www.quizzing.co.uk for details of the next event.
Within this book you’ll also find a broad selection of specialist rounds on a wide array of topics. We’ve certainly enjoyed being able to set questions on some of our favourite topics and hope you enjoy the questions we’ve written. We’ve tried to ensure that between them our specialist rounds cover most categories of general knowledge, so there should be something to please everyone.
Finally, we include something for the quizzers of the future: a selection of quizzes aimed at children. All of us first became interested in quizzing as children and we hope that our younger readers enjoy this book too.
Happy quizzing!
The National Quiz Team
About the Book
The championship winning England team presents for the very first time, 3,000 questions in a quiz book for all the family.
Fresh from winning the European Championships, the England quiz team have put their heads together and compiled 200 quizzes to challenge every member of the family. From questions for kids, to History, TV and Sport, and of course general knowledge, there’s a quiz to suit everyone. And for those quiz fanatics among you, there are even a few fiendishly difficult ones that our very own champions struggled to answer.
So pit yourself against the best, or just join in for a bit of fun; and whether you’re playing in groups or simply testing your own skill, one thing is for sure – a quiz book put together by the best team in Europe is guaranteed to be the only quiz book you’ll ever need.
1. Which well-known pair live at 6 West Wallaby Street, Wigan?
2. What is the sinister common name of Amanita phalloides, the most poisonous of British mushrooms, accounting for at least 90% of fungus-related fatalities?
3. Lowenbrau, Hofbrauhaus, Augustinerbrau, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr and Spaten are the ‘Big Six’ breweries in which city?
4. Which is England’s largest landlocked county?
5. What one word links an arch-enemy of Bugs Bunny and a California National Park that receives over 3 million visitors a year?
6. How many Apollo missions landed men on the moon?
7. In arithmetic, what is the value of 4! i.e. ‘four factorial’?
8. In Japan, who controls the so-called Nine Fingered Economy?
9. Who was Henry VIII’s wife at the time of his death?
10. Noted for his large-scale nude shoots, who fears for the future of his art because of the withdrawal of the high speed 800 ASA films which enabled him to work at sunrise before cities got crowded?
11. Where on your body would you wear a fascinator?
12. Which Indian lost his world chess title to Magnus Carlsen in November 2013?
13. In which country will the 2018 Winter Olympics be held?
14. In a food context, according to Shirley Conran, ‘Life’s too short to stuff a …’ what?
15. Which Dan Brown novel of 2013 shares its name with the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy?
1. Wallace and Gromit
2. Death cap
3. Munich
4. Shropshire
5. Yosemite (Yosemite Sam)
6. Six – 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17
7. 24 – 4×3×2×1
8. The Yakuza – the names refers to a punishment/penitence practice within the organisation
9. Catherine Parr
10. Spencer Tunick
11. On the head
12. Viswanathan Anand
13. South Korea
14. Mushroom
15. Inferno
1. Under what name did Belgian-born Wally de Backer enjoy a worldwide hit with ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ in 2012?
2. Played by hip hop recording artist Method Man, Cheese Wagstaff was the last on-screen death in which drama series?
3. As of 2014, which huge South Korean company, a sponsor of Chelsea FC and the main contractor for the Petronas Towers and Burj Khalifa skyscrapers, had over 20% of the world LCD TV market?
4. With 16 active volcanoes, which large Russian peninsula is considered the most volcanic area of the Eurasian content?
5. Sukarno, Suharto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (or SBY) have held the office of President in which large nation?
6. Discovered in 1996, element number 112 in the periodic table, with the symbol Cn is named after which Polish astronomer?
7. Which commercially important food fish has types called bluefin, yellowfin and albacore?
8. What, generally weekly, activity was described by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as ‘Going to see Mother’?
9. Derived from a profession/trade, what is the English equivalent of the German surname Fassbinder/Fassbender?
10. In which city will you find Michelangelo’s famous 17-foot-tall marble sculpture David?
11. Robert (or Robin) Gunningham from Bristol is alleged by some to be which graffiti artist?
12. In which sport was Yani Tseng of Taiwan ranked world number one for 109 consecutive weeks from 2011 to 2013?
13. Of all the cities to host the Summer Olympic Games in the modern era, which comes last alphabetically?
14. Which children’s character created by Jean de Brunhoff shares his name with one of the nicknames of Zahir-ud-din Muhammad, the founder of the Mughal dynasty in the Indian subcontinent?
15. Who played Jane Tennison in ITV’s series Prime Suspect and Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film The Queen?
1. Gotye (featuring Kimbra)
2. The Wire
3. Samsung
4. Kamchatka
5. Indonesia
6. Copernicus
7. Tuna
8. The PM’s audience with the Queen
9. Cooper (i.e. barrel-maker)
10. Florence
11. Banksy
12. Golf (women’s)
13. Tokyo (1964)
14. Babar (the Elephant)
15. Helen Mirren
1. Ashley Butler won the TV show Britain’s Got Talent in 2012 with an act featuring which dog?
2. Bela Fleck, the actor Steve Martin and the late Earl Scruggs are particularly associated with playing which musical instrument?
3. In 1985 France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed a treaty to cut border checks. The treaty was signed on a boat on the River Moselle running through which namesake village in Luxembourg?
4. In January 2009, which brand temporarily renamed their Butter Pecan ice cream to ‘Yes, Pecan!’ in honour of newly elected US President Barack Obama?
5. Which large and frequently active volcano dominates the eastern portion of the island of Sicily?
6. Which is bigger … 3 squared or 2 cubed?
7. Who wrote the hugely influential book On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859?
8. In January 1989, which US President’s penultimate diary entry was ‘Tomorrow I stop being president’?
9. Commemorated in a G. K. Chesterton poem, which major naval battle of 1571 saw a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states decisively defeat the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire off western Greece?
10. Born in Liverpool in 1724, which painter is noted for paintings of horses such as Whistlejacket and Hambletonian?
11. Nihonbashi is a famous bridge, used as the zero marker for all road distances in which country?
12. What nationality is Cadel Evans, the winner of the 2011 Tour de France?
13. Which 2012 World Snooker finalist is a qualified airline pilot, having the nickname ‘The Captain’ as a result?
14. Which author who died in 2014 wrote The Queen and I and Queen Camilla?
15. Which Yorkshireman was Poet Laureate from 1984 until 1998 and is noted for collections such as The Hawk in the Rain, Birthday Letters and Tales from Ovid?
1. Pudsey
2. Banjo
3. Schengen
4. Ben & Jerry’s
5. Mt Etna
6. 3 squared (9 as opposed to 8)
7. Charles Darwin
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Lepanto
10. George Stubbs
11. Japan – it is in central Tokyo and now has a roaring expressway suspended 10 metres above it
12. Australian
13. Ali Carter
14. Sue Townsend
15. Ted Hughes
1. Which word can refer both to a thick soup made from pureed seafood or vegetables or a handicapping mechanism used in croquet and real tennis?
2. In which city is the vast majority of the political drama Borgen set?
3. The album Stainless Style by Neon Neon is about the rise and fall of which auto industry figure?
4. Introduced to Paris from Italy in the 16th century by Queen Catherine de Medici, which cake/biscuit is most associated with the Parisian bakers Laduree?
5. Composed of two main islands and with its capital at Basseterre, which is the smallest nation in the Americas?
6. In 2012, Joyce Banda was sworn in as which African country’s first female president?
7. Located in Cheshire, by what name is the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratory better known?
8. In which US state is the country’s largest Indian reservation?
9. Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope – Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream were both written by which man?
10. In AD 828 the relics of St Mark were taken from which city to Venice and placed in the new basilica?
11. Home to The Night Watch amongst many other treasures, in which city did the Rijksmuseum reopen in 2013 after a massive 10-year restoration project?
12. In 1984, in accordance with his expressed wishes, what was played three times as Olympic swimmer Johnny Weismuller’s coffin was lowered into the grave?
13. Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandari and Gus Hansen are three of the world’s top players in which game?
14. Who played the implacable policeman Javert in the 2013 film of Les Miserables?
15. At the end of World War II, upwards of 70 U-boats were escorted into Lisahally and at one stage 45 were moored, five-deep, along the jetty. Lisahally lies near which city in the British Isles?
1. Bisque
2. Copenhagen
3. John DeLorean – DMC-12 had brushed stainless steel panels
4. Macaroons
5. St Kitts and Nevis
6. Malawi
7. Jodrell Bank
8. Arizona – Navajo Nation
9. Barack Obama
10. Alexandria
11. Amsterdam
12. His Tarzan call
13. Poker
14. Russell Crowe
15. Derry/Londonderry
1. Which BBC sitcom featured the Brockman family comprising parents Pete and Sue and their three children Jake, Ben and Karen?
2. Which Wiganer invented the Bully Proof Vest, the Soccamatic, the Tellyscope and the Autochef?
3. Billionaires Tadashi Yanai (Uniqlo), Chip Wilson (Lululemon) and Stefan Persson (H&M) are particularly associated with which industry?
4. Which EU capital city, the westernmost in mainland Europe, was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1755?
5. In 2008, in which country was Fernando Lugo elected President ending 61 years of continuous rule by the Colorado party?
6. Which island in Indonesia has the largest population of any island in the world with an estimated 132 million inhabitants?
7. Which manufacturer makes the car models Qashqai, Juke and Note?
8. Which became the fifth nation to land on the Moon, after its Chandrayaan-1 unmanned probe landed successfully on 14 November 2008?
9. Which Viennese woman wrote about her abduction and long captivity in the 2010 autobiography 3,096 Days?
10. Named after a national hero, Skandebeg Square is the main plaza in which European capital city?
11. Which comic strip created by Scott Adams features the title character, his Pointy-Haired Boss and colleagues including Alice, Wally and Asok?
12. With which team did Manchester United draw 5–5 in Sir Alex Ferguson’s 1,500th and last game in charge?
13. Boris Becker contested consecutive Wimbledon men’s singles finals in 1988, 1989 and 1990, winning in 1989. Who was his opponent in these three matches?
14. Who won the Best Supporting Oscar for his role in No Country for Old Men and played the villainous Raoul Silva in the Bond film Skyfall?
15. First staged in 1966, which Tom Stoppard play focuses on two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the five-word title of the play being a direct quote from Hamlet Act V, Scene II, line 411?
1. Outnumbered
2. Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit)
3. Fashion/Clothing
4. Lisbon
5. Paraguay
6. Java
7. Nissan
8. India
9. Natascha Kampusch
10. Tirana
11. Dilbert
12. West Bromwich Albion
13. Stefan Edberg
14. Javier Bardem
15. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
1. Wigan law student John Whaite won which BBC TV contest in 2012?
2. Matt Bellamy is the lead singer with which big-selling rock band from Devon that has released albums including Black Holes and Revelations (2006) and The Resistance (2009)?
3. In which country is the accolade ‘Vegas Finas Primeras’ used to describe land on which the finest tobacco is grown?
4. With a peak elevation of 8,611 metres (28,251 feet), which is the highest point of the Karakoram Range and the highest point in Pakistan?
5. Which large lake on the Rhine has shores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland?
6. Which great English scientist, who worked initially as an assistant to Sir Humphrey Davy, was commemorated on the Bank of England £20 note from 1991 until 2001?
7. Which is both the longest venomous snake in Africa and the fastest snake in the world?
8. Deriving from the Italian for ‘Red beard’, what name was used by two Ottoman corsair brothers who dominated the Mediterranean in the early 16th century?
9. In 1860, which British High Commissioner in China ordered the looting and burning of Peking’s Summer Palace?
10. From its completion in 1981, which British bridge was, for the next 16 years, the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world?
11. Serious competitors in which pursuit might train for long hours using the software package Zyzzyva?
12. Which male Ethiopian athlete holds both World and Olympic records in the 5,000 m and 10,000 m, winning both events at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the 10,000 m at the Athens Olympics in 2004?
13. Which Kenyan-born cyclist, riding for Team Sky, won the 2013 Tour de France?
14. Winning with The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Quiet Man (1952), who is the only person to win four Best Director Oscars?
15. Which best-selling novel started the trilogy which continued with Bring Up the Bodies and will conclude with The Mirror and the Light?
1. The Great British Bake Off
2. Muse
3. Cuba – something like ‘Appellation Contrôlée’
4. K2
5. Lake Constance or Bodensee
6. Michael Faraday
7. Black mamba – Dendroaspis polylepis
8. Barbarossa
9. Lord Elgin
10. Humber Bridge
11. Scrabble – it is a genus of tropical American weevil
12. Kenenisa Bekele
13. Chris Froome
14. John Ford
15. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
1. Which popular pet rodent, whose incisors never stop growing, comes in 24 different species, including the Syrian, the Russian dwarf Campbell and the Roborovski?
2. Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa became King of which island-country in 2002? Previous rulers of this kingdom have used the titles Hakim and Emir.
3. Which artist’s sculpture (1501–04) of David was created from a slab of marble abandoned 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio?
4. Who was the first US President to be assassinated?
5. Arranged by the ‘Prime Minister of Jazz’, Ferde Grofé, which 1924 composition by George Gershwin opens with a clarinet glissando made even more famous by its use in the opening of the Woody Allen film Annie Hall?
6. What is Poland’s oldest institute of higher learning?
7. In 1889, the Frenchwoman Herminie Cadolle invented and patented what she initially called the ‘corselet-gorge’. It has been called the first modern example of which undergarment?
8. In April 2014, which writer was called ‘the greatest Colombian who ever lived’ by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos?
9. What is [the mother of director Rob] Estelle Reiner’s only line in the film When Harry Met Sally …?
10. Which 1988 film from director John Waters has become a Broadway musical featuring the songs ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, ‘Welcome to the 60s’ and ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’?
11. In Arthurian legend, the Fisher King, who lives at the castle of Corbenic (or Corbin), is charged with keeping which cup?
12. On 9 June 1954, who was famously asked by army lawyer Joseph N. Welch: ‘At long last, have you left no sense of decency?’
13. Which Asian country is ruled by the only remaining monarch in the world who reigns under the title of ‘Emperor’?
14. Which detective is revealed in ‘The Yellow Face’ to occasionally use cocaine ‘as a protest against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting’?
15. Which city’s 15 subway stations include St George’s Cross, St Enoch, Kinning Park and Buchanan Street? They form the third-oldest underground metro system in the world.
1. Hamster
2. Bahrain
3. Michelangelo
4. Abraham Lincoln
5. ‘Rhapsody in Blue’
6. Jagiellonian University, Cracow
7. Bra/brassiere
8. Gabriel García Márquez, who died on 17 April 2014
9. ‘I’ll have what she’s having’
10. Hairspray
11. The Holy Grail
12. Senator Joseph McCarthy
13. Japan
14. Sherlock Holmes
15. Glasgow – opened in 1896, after the London and Budapest systems
1. Which veteran British actor, who died in April 2014, played Nikita Khrushchev, Beria, Manuel Noriega, Pope John XXIII, Mussolini, J. Edgar Hoover and Winston Churchill?
2. ‘I don’t want a place to stay / Get your booty on the floor tonight, make my day’ – lyrics from which Eurodance hit of 1989–90?
3. What are Olympus, Athos, Ossa, Giona and Parnassus?
4. Former CIA operative Bryan Mills wreaks havoc across Paris via the art of kicking major butt in which 2008 film?
5. The 16 November 1532 Battle of Cajamarca resulted in the defeat by 168 Spanish troops of an 80,000-strong army from which empire – the largest in pre-Columbian America?
6. Which US rapper was inspired by the artist Marina Abramović and her landmark MoMA piece The Artist is Present to create his own six-hour performance art piece Picasso Baby in 2013?
7. Regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue, which official language in Hong Kong and Macau is also known as Guangfuhua?
8. The herb Nepeta cataria attracts cats due to the organic compound nepetalactone. What is the plant’s popular name?
9. J.K. Rowling was given a £1,500 advance by Bloomsbury editor Barry Cunningham for which novel?
10. The 2006 novel I Want You by Federico Moccia features a romantic scene at Rome’s Milvian Bridge that is said to have inspired which global craze, blamed for a June 2014 parapet collapse on the Pont des Arts footbridge in Paris?
11. Flamengo, Botafogo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama are known as the ‘Big Four’ football clubs of which Brazilian city?
12. Created by Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac and released in 1977, which Yves Saint Laurent perfume shares its name with the dried latex obtained from Papaver somniferum?
13. Captured by a Gallic chief and put to death at Mark Antony’s order, Decimus Brutus became, in 43 BC, the first of which man’s assassins to be killed?
14. Jebediah, Shadrach, Marlon, Zak, Cain, Chas and Charity – members of which family in the TV soap Emmerdale?
15. Which two-word title links albums by Bruce Springsteen, Dead Confederate and Emmylou Harris and songs by Neil Young, Interpol, Gillian Welch and Miley Cyrus?
1. Bob Hoskins
2. ‘Pump up the Jam’ by Technotronic
3. Greek mountains, with the prefix Mount
4. Taken – Mills is played by Liam Neeson
5. Inca Empire
6. Jay Z
7. Cantonese
8. Catnip (or catmint)
9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
10. ‘Love locks’ – two lovers attaching a padlock inscribed with their names to a bridge then throwing the key in the river
11. Rio de Janeiro
12. Opium – Papaver … is the opium poppy
13. Julius Caesar
14. The Dingles
15. Wrecking Ball
1. Which Disney animated film features Olaf the Snowman?
2. Edith Cresson is the only woman to have held which office?
3. Wolverine World Wide manufacture boots and other footwear branded with the name of which company, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment?
4. Which novella about the fisherman Santiago and his attempt to catch a marlin was singled out for particular recognition when Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize?
5. Which Austrian founder of psychoanalysis was nominated 32 times for the Nobel Prize in Medicine? The prize’s committee engaged an expert who concluded that a further investigation was not necessary, since his work was of no proven scientific value.
6. Currently, it produces 5 million barrels per day and measures 174 miles by 19 miles. The world’s largest oil field by far, Ghawar is in which country?
7. Which Nordic island-nation is the most sparsely populated country in Europe, with an average of 3 people per km2?
8. Which transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania, was first played by Tim Curry in the 1973 London production of The Rocky Horror Show?
9. A Roman soldier who was martyred by decapitation in AD 303, who is the patron saint of Catalonia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Portugal and Serbia, as well as leprosy, herpes and syphilis?
10. Which action star has been a Kickboxer, a Hard Target, a Timecop and a Universal Soldier?
11. On 1 January 1892, the 15-year-old Irish girl Annie Morris became the first ever person to pass through which immigration station?
12. ‘The World’s Biggest Tennis Racquet’ is located in Barellan, New South Wales. It is a 13.8 metre-long replica of the racquet used by which two-time Wimbledon ladies’ singles champion?
13. Which Sheffield rock band sold 12 million copies in the US of their 1987 album Hysteria?
14. Salamandra salamandra is perhaps Europe’s best known salamander species. Coloured black with yellow dots or stripes, what is its common name?
15. Formerly called Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam is now named after which man, who was born Nguyn Sinh Cung?
1. Frozen
2. Prime Minister of France
3. Caterpillar
4. The Old Man and the Sea
5. Sigmund Freud
6. Saudi Arabia
7. Iceland
8. Dr Frank N. Furter
9. Saint George
10. Jean Claude van Damme
11. Ellis Island, New York City
12. Evonne Goolagong/Evonne Cawley – who was raised in the town
13. Def Leppard
14. Fire salamander
15. Ho Chi Minh
1. Launched on 23 November 1936, issue 1’s motto was ‘While there’s ______, there’s hope’. Which magazine’s first cover was a photo of the Fort Peck Dam taken by Margaret Bourke-White?
2. Which film, starring Glenn Close as the perpetrator of the rabbit’s gruesome fate, gave rise to the phrase ‘bunny boiler’?
3. Which bloke from Stoke is the best-selling British solo musical artist in UK chart history, as well as the best-selling non-Latino artist in Latin America?
4. D.D. Palmer theorised that misalignment of the bones was the underlying cause of all ‘dis-ease’, and the majority of misalignments were in the spinal column. As a result, he founded which ‘science of healing without drugs’ in the 1890s?
5. Code-named Operation Dynamo, the mass wartime evacuation from which port-city features in the Ian McEwan novel Atonement?
6. Pisa’s international airport is named after which ‘father of modern science’ and ‘father of observational astronomy’, who was born in the city in 1564?
7. Jonny Lee Miller plays Sherlock Holmes in which TV show?
8. Which sporting event was won by Australia on 7 June 2014?
9. The ad slogan ‘You press the button, we do the rest’ was coined by George Eastman, who founded which company in 1888?
10. Whose death at the age of 33 on 26 July 1952, was announced in a radio broadcast saying: ‘The Press Secretary’s Office of the Presidency of the Nation fulfils its very sad duty to inform the people of the Republic that at 20:25 hours Mrs_____ _____, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, died’?
11. Which 2000 memoir by US chef Anthony Bourdain is subtitled Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly?
12. Which film starred Will Ferrell as the evil fashion designer Mugatu, proud inventor of the piano key neck-tie?
13. Designed by architects Adolphe Willette and Édouard-Jean Niermans, which Paris cabaret at 82 boulevard de Clichy first opened on 6 October 1889?
14. In 1916, which Turin-based car company began building Europe’s largest factory at Lingotto, along with a rooftop track for test driving?
15. Which US pop star and tabloid favourite is seen giving birth on a bearskin rug in a 2006 nude sculpture by Daniel Edwards?
1. LIFE
2. Fatal Attraction
3. Robbie Williams
4. Chiropractic
5. Dunkirk
6. Galileo Galilei
7. Elementary
8. Epsom Derby – Australia is a British-bred Irish-trained chestnut racehorse
9. Kodak
10. Eva Perón (aka Evita)
11. Kitchen Confidential
12. Zoolander
13. Moulin Rouge
14. Fiat
15. Britney Spears
1. Dedicated to his mother Joyce Barbara, the 2009 ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection was created by which British fashion designer, whose previous clothing innovations included ‘bumster’ jeans?
2. In 1956, John Hunt retired from the army to run which award?
3. Complete the famous line that appeared in a New York Sun editorial in 1897: ‘Yes, Virginia, there is …’?
4. Which actor starred alongside his mother Jill Balcon in the 2003 BBC radio play Deadheading Roses? He later dedicated his record-breaking third Oscar win to her memory.
5. Born Hakeem Seriki, which rapper had a hit with ‘Ridin’?
6. While working at a London gallery in 1873, which Dutch artist is thought to have fallen in love with his landlady’s daughter, Eugenie Loyer – a period of his life that was dramatised in a 2003 play by Nicholas Wright?
7. Which award statuette was once described by Billy Connolly as ‘a death mask on a stick’?
8. Enoch Powell said: ‘All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in …’ what?
9. Which item of clothing made its public debut on 5 July 1946, at a fashion show hosted by the Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in the 16th arrondissement of Paris?
10. First staged at the National Theatre in 2013, The Light Princess is the first musical by which US musician, who topped the singles chart with a remix of her song ‘Professional Widow’?
11. Which Kazakh reporter made fashion news headlines at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival when he modelled a fluorescent green mankini, a type of one-piece sling swimsuit for men?
12. Which Austrian was described by the pianist Glenn Gould as ‘a bad composer who died too late rather than too early’?
13. The Yale University coach Walter Camp introduced the concept of ‘downs’ and ‘yards gained’ into which sport?
14. Which poet wrote the lyrics to the song ‘Scots Wha Hae’ in 1793?
15. Named after an extremely popular video game that came packaged with the Nintendo Game Boy, which 1992 one-hit wonder for Doctor Spin was co-written by Andrew Lloyd Webber?
1. Alexander McQueen or Lee McQueen
2. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award – Hunt led the first successful climb of Everest in 1953
3. ‘… a Santa Claus’
4. Daniel Day-Lewis
5. Chamillionaire – the 2006 no. 2 hit featured Krayzie Bone (of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony)
6. Vincent van Gogh – the play is Vincent in Brixton
7. BAFTA
8. ‘… failure’
9. Bikini – it was modelled by former nude dancer Micheline Bernardini
10. Tori Amos
11. Borat Sagdiyev (played by Sacha Baron Cohen)
12. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
13. American football or gridiron
14. Robert Burns
15. Tetris
1. The special sauce in a McDonald’s Big Mac is a variant of which salad dressing, whose name presumably comes from an archipelago in the St Lawrence River?
2. Kathleen Ni Houlihan is a female personification of what?
3. James Stewart played a photojournalist named Jeff who passes the time by watching neighbours like ‘Miss Torso’, ‘Miss Lonely-hearts’ and the suspicious-looking Lars Thorwald in which Hitchcock film?
4. Which of Henry VIII’s wives was beheaded for committing adultery with her personal secretary Francis Dereham and Henry’s favourite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper?
5. Which 1968 film, directed by Stanley Kubrick, had an LA premiere that Rock Hudson reputedly walked out of, saying: ‘Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?’?
6. First released for Facebook in April 2012, which game features red jelly beans, orange lozenges, yellow lemon drops, green chiclets, blue lollipop heads and purple clusters?
7. Which Swiss Société Anonyme calls itself ‘the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company’ and has named its mission to serve consumers ‘Good Food, Good Life’?
8. Established in 1926, which airline is Hong Kong’s flag carrier?
9. Stanley Peach is best known for designing which iconic English sporting venue? It was built in 1922 – the year in which Gerald Patterson and Suzanne Lenglen were singles champions.
10. Whose TV roles have included Daniel Ryan, Dr Ben, Derek Noakes, Andy Millman and David Brent?
11. Coined in 1971 by the entrepreneur Ralph Vaerst, which tech-related nickname is given to the South Bay portion of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, occupying roughly the same area as the Santa Clara Valley?
12. Soundtracking a video that showcased a memorable pair of hot pants, which 2000 lead single off the album Light Years was Kylie Minogue’s first UK no. 1 since 1990?
13. Which cruise ship struck rocks off Giglio in January 2012?
14. What is the only man-made interoceanic waterway in the world?
15. James Gregory (author of the memoir Goodbye Bafana), Christo Brand and Jack Swart were three of the best known prison warders of which Nobel laureate, who passed away in 2013?
1. Thousand Island dressing
2. Ireland
3. Rear Window
4. Catherine Howard
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. Candy Crush Saga
7. Nestlé
8. Cathay Pacific
9. Wimbledon Centre Court
10. Ricky Gervais (in Alias, Louie, Derek, Extras, The Office)
11. ‘Silicon Valley’
12. ‘Spinning Around’ – her first chart-topper since ‘Tears on My Pillow’
13. Costa Concordia
14. Panama Canal
15. Nelson Mandela
1. Who You Are was the 2011 debut album by which English singer and former coach on The Voice?
2. Which button on Facebook was originally going to be called ‘awesome’?
3. Louvre curator Jacques Saunière is murdered by the albino monk Silas at the start of which novel?
4. The wise and kind centaur Chiron, who taught Achilles among many other heroes in their youth, was placed by Jupiter in heaven among the stars as which zodiacal constellation (it lies between Scorpius and Ophiuchus to the west and Capricornus to the east)?
5. Owned by the Rijksmuseum, this painting appears on the packaging of Dutch Masters cigars. The Sampling Officials (1662), aka Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild, aka De Staalmeesters has been described as the ‘last great collective portrait’ by which painter?
6. What was Charles Alcock proposing in a meeting of 20 July 1871, when he said: ‘That it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete’?
7. Which of Rod Stewart’s ex-wives starred in the music video for ‘Stacy’s Mom’ by Fountains of Wayne?
8. Starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, which 1995 Michael Mann film was a remake of the TV movie L.A. Takedown?
9. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 sought to kill which king?
10. Published in the same year that its editorship was taken on by Graydon Carter, which US magazine’s August 1992 issue featured a cover photo of ‘Demi’s Birthday Suit’ – Demi Moore covered in a body painting by Joanne Gair?
11. Which Berkshire racecourse held its first horse race, Her Majesty’s Plate, with a purse of 100 guineas on 11 August 1711?
12. Palma de Mallorca is the capital city of which archipelago?
13. Which diarist grew up to have a child with Sharon Bott instead of his teenage paramour and love of his life, Pandora Braithwaite?
14. Nomophobia has become an increasingly common malady during the last decade. It is the fear of which type of technological deprivation?
15. In which chess variant does a piece moved on one board pass ‘through the looking glass’ onto the second board?
1. Jessie J/Jessica Ellen Cornish
2. Like button
3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
4. Sagittarius
5. Rembrandt
6. The FA Cup – Alcock was the Football Association secretary
7. Rachel Hunter
8. Heat
9. James I (and VI of Scotland)
10. Vanity Fair
11. Ascot
12. Balearic Islands
13. Adrian Mole
14. Having no mobile phone/not being in mobile phone contact
15. Alice chess
1. Championship Vinyl is a London record store in which 1995 Nick Hornby novel?
2. Which plant’s shoots account for 99% of a giant panda’s diet?
3. Emmet Brickowski, a builder from Bricksburg, is the hero of which 2014 film?
4. Which recurring cast member on the hospital TV comedy E/R then starred as Dr Doug Ross in the hospital TV drama ER?
5. Who measures 111 feet 6 inches from her heel to the top of her head, has a 420-inch waistline and weighs around 32,140 stone?
6. In a will dated 1279, a Genoese soldier named Ponzio Bastone left a box of ______ to his family. This bequest was the earliest known reference in Italian to which type of food?
7. Minamoto no Yoritomo was the first person to hold which title as the military dictator of feudal Japan? It was later used for the title of a 1975 novel by James Clavell and the UK’s name for the Mitsubishi Pajero SUV.
8. Which celestial body accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system?
9. Newly discovered evidence has resulted in the Australian machine-gunner Cedric Popkin being credited with shooting down which fighter ace on 21 April 1918?
10. Which form of physical augmentation, involving a silicone prosthesis was pioneered by the surgeons Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow at the University of Texas in 1962?
11. Which movie review aggregator website began as a spare-time project by Berkeley student Senh Duong on 12 August 1998? The first film featured was Your Friends and Neighbors.
12. Who won a Grammy for his 1986 comedy LP, A Night at the Met?
13. Launched in 2007 by Wallpaper* founder Tyler Brûlé, which unashamedly upmarket lifestyle/global affairs magazine shares its name with a type of eyeglass?
14. Which footwear/clothing brand began in 1970 when Frenchman Daniel Raufast saw a poster for the musical Hair and saw that its exciting but barefooted cast of youngsters deserved suitably exciting and youthful things to wear on their feet, like shoes made of nubuck cattle leather?
15. Which mural by Leonardo da Vinci depicts a scene of Jesus with his Twelve Disciples as told in the Gospel of John, 13:21?
1. High Fidelity
2. Bamboo
3. The Lego Movie
4. George Clooney
5. The Statue of Liberty
6. Pasta – it referred to ‘macaronis’
7. Shogun
8. The sun
9. Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen aka ‘The Red Baron’
10. Augmentation mammoplasty/breast augmentation – using the Cronin–Gerow implant
11. Rotten Tomatoes
12. Robin Williams
13. Monocle
14. Kickers
15. The Last Supper
1. Which Croydon-born supermodel performed a pole dance in the video for the White Stripes’ 2003 single ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself’?
2. Which London fish market name has become a word for coarsely abusive language?
3. In 1903, which US inventor and advocate of direct current (DC) electrocuted Topsy the Elephant in a horrifying demonstration of the dangers of alternating current?
4. Which French fashion designer and former Eurotrash TV presenter introduced the men’s skirt in the mid-1980s?
5. Founded in 1845, New York’s Temple Emanu-El is the world’s largest house of prayer of which type?
6. The former army drill instructor R. Lee Ermey played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in which Vietnam War film?
7. In a 1983 front page headline, the Sun asked ‘Do You Really Want This Old Fool to Run Britain?’ about which politician?
8. The casino gambling tables of which country are closed to its citizens, who are forbidden from entering the gaming rooms?
9. Which London dry gin was created by James Burroughs in a Chelsea distillery that he purchased in 1862?
10. In 1970, which member of the Beatles made his art gallery debut with the Bag One collection of lithographs? His (second) wife’s seminal performance work is Cut Piece (1964).
11. In 1905, which immigrant from Vetschau, Germany, opened a delicatessen on New York City’s Columbus Avenue, where he used his wife’s recipe to sell the first ready-made mayonnaise?
12. Which Costa del Sol resort is situated between Malaga and the Gibraltar Strait in the foothills of the Sierra Blanca? This Andalusian city is also the destination of an annual trip by the reality TV stars of The Only Way is Essex.
13. Before her career was torpedoed by ‘the Gwen Troakes Incident’ in 1976, which TV cook wrote the autobiography Something’s Burning (1960) and the novel The Lormes of Castle Rising (1975)?
14. In 1970, which US boxer knocked out Jimmy Ellis in five rounds to become undisputed World Heavyweight Champion; later fighting three classic bouts with Muhammad Ali.
15. Which Eltham-born comedian’s book I Never Left Home was 1944’s bestselling non-fiction book in the US?
1. Kate Moss
2. Billingsgate
3. Thomas Edison
4. Jean-Paul Gaultier
5. Synagogue
6. Full Metal Jacket
7. Michael Foot – the then Labour Party leader
8. Monaco
9. Beefeater
10. John Lennon
11. Richard Hellmann
12. Marbella
13. Fanny Cradock (born Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey)
14. Joe Frazier
15. Bob Hope (born Leslie Townes Hope)
1. Which fast food restaurant chain is known for its Bender in a Bun with Cheese?
2. The Australian actor Keith Michell is best known for his TV and film performances as which king, starting with a 1970 BBC series of six television plays?
3. Which Puccini opera’s historical setting, the Forbidden City, has been called ‘laughably inaccurate’ because it was built hundreds of years after the events of the opera supposedly take place?
4. Which USC graduate, best known for his singles ‘I Need a Dollar’ and ‘The Man’ and for writing and performing vocals on Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up’, was born Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III in 1979?
5. Which African mountain was first conquered in 1889 by Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller?
6. Nick Nack was the diminutive sidekick of which triple-nippled Bond villain and hit man-for-hire?
7. In the title of an HBO TV show, who are Hannah Horvath, Marnie Michaels, Jessa Johansson and Shoshanna Shapiro?
8. Launched in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, which San Francisco-based mobile app connects passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire and ridesharing services?
9. The Mission, the Tenderloin and ‘the Wall Street of the Twenty Teens’, SoMa (the docklands south of Market Street) are central areas of which Californian city?
10. The Christian Church celebrates the birth of three people. Christ on 25 December, and who else on 24 June and 8 September?
11. Which German luxury sports car maker has created the $848,000 887-horsepower super-hybrid, the 918 Spyder?
12. In 2003, Dong Hyun Kim founded which high street Japanese food chain in London’s embankment?
13. In 1962, which DIY company introduced the world’s first cordless outdoor product – the cordless hedge trimmer? It also made the world’s first portable electric drill for consumers (1946).
14. Who won the French Open in the year (2009) Rafael Nadal suffered his first ever singles defeat at the tournament (by Robin Söderling)?
15. Which Hampshire port-city served as the launching point of the Mayflower and the Titanic?
1. Wimpy
2. Henry VIII – the TV series was The Six Wives of Henry VIII
3. Turandot
4. Aloe Blacc
5. Kilimanjaro
6. Francisco Scaramanga – in The Man with the Golden Gun
7. Girls
8. Uber, founded as UberCab
9. San Francisco
10. John the Baptist and Virgin Mary
11. Porsche
12. Wasabi
13. Black + Decker
14. Roger Federer
15. Southampton
1. Which British peninsula is said to have given its name to an informal test for whether a tumescent penis can be broadcast on television?
2. ‘The surface is fine and powdery … I can pick it up loosely with my toe.’ Which American said these words in 1969 after saying something far more famous?
3. The Piedmont town of Ivrea holds a festival each spring in which local people throw which citrus fruit at one another?
4. A former husband of painter Georgia O’Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz is credited with turning what into a recognised art form?
5. In 2013 which carnivorous mammal was discovered in the western hemisphere, the first such discovery since 1978?
6. Led by Vivian Stanshall, which eccentric British band’s album Gorilla contains tracks called ‘Cool Britannia’, the origin of that phrase, and ‘Death Cab for Cutie’, the origin of the band name?
7.