ROUND 1

1.

Which country has a state called Chihuahua?

2.

What is the name of Plymouth Argyle’s football league ground?

3.

Which famous Oxford Dean might have called his place of work Cue Knowledge?

4.

Who wrote the play ‘Amy’s View’ currently playing at the Library Theatre?

5.

Who directed the 1986 film ‘The Colour of Money’?     

6.

Of which American corporation is Steve Jobs the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

7.

Which famous singer won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 for Switzerland?

8.

What is the name of the new museum being built on the Ship Canal opposite the Lowry Centre?

ROUND 2

1.

Bokmal is one of the 2 official versions of which European language?      

2.

What is the name of Glasgow’s Cathedral?

3.

Which Russian physiologist, best known for his studies on ‘conditioned’ or ‘acquired’ reflexes, was awarded a Nobel prize in 1904?

4.

Name 3 of the 4 cathedral cities you would pass through on a train journey from King’s Cross to Edinburgh (using the normal and most direct route)?

5.

Who played James Bond in the 1967 film ‘Casino Royale’?

6.

What is produced in the Haber process?

7.

Alphabetically which element starts the periodic table?

8.

What game is played in an area that includes a penthouse, a grille, and a winning gallery?

ROUND 3

1.

What stretch of water lies between Iceland and Greenland

2.

In which US city are the remains of the Alfred Murrah Federal Block?

3.

Which comedian and writer’s latest book is entitled ‘The Star’s Tennis Balls’?

4.

In 1995 two African countries joined the Commonwealth.  Name either of them

5.

What are the 2 principal constituents of Stainless Steel?

6.

Which London museum is based on the site of the old Bedlam Hospital?

7.

Who are the famous parents of baby Rocco born in August last year?

8.

Who was Chief Executive of Railtrack when it was shut down recently by Stephen Byers?

ROUND 4

1.

‘No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds….’  What word comes next in Thomas Hood’s poem ‘No!’?

2.

What is the name of the new BBC1 half hour drama starring Liza Tarbuck?

3.

Which is Europe’s most southerly landlocked country?

4.

Who wrote the biography that is currently top of the bestselling hardback non-fiction book list?

5.

What date does the Commonwealth Games start next year?

6.

Rod Eddington is currently boss of which large UK business?

7.

Which bank owns the online banking operation called ‘Cahoot’?

8.

Who is the Australian Labor party leader just defeated in the Australian General Election?

ROUND 5

1.

What is the capital of the German state of Saxony?

2.

Which English Football League Club plays at Nene Park?

3.

What name is given to the type of humorous verse illustrated by the lines: ‘Sir Christopher Wren said “I’m going to dine with some men.  If anyone calls, say I’m designing St. Paul’s”’?

4.

Which actress is currently playing the title role in Hedda Gabler at the Royal Exchange theatre?

5.

Who directed the 1994 film ‘Natural Born Killers’?

6.

The Japanese company responsible for the Panasonic and National brands is in trouble.  What is it called?

7.

Linda Martin won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1992 with ‘Why Me?’  Which country did she represent?

8.

What is the name of Manchester’s new ‘Museum of the Modern City’ being built nearby Victoria Station?

ROUND 6

1.

Name one of the 2 principal languages of Afghanistan?

2.

What do Glaswegians refer to as ‘The Clockwork Orange’?

3.

Which German physicist, best known for formulating the quantum theory won a Nobel prize in 1918?

4.

What 3 cathedral cities would you pass through on a train journey from Euston to Glasgow (using the normal and most direct route)?

5.

Which actress comes next in this ‘Avengers’ sequence: Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg……?

6.

What is produced in the Bessemer process?

7.

Alphabetically which element finishes the periodic table?   

8.

In American sporting parlance what is a ‘Shutout’?

ROUND 7

1.

What stretch of water lies between the East coast of Africa and Madagascar?

2.

Which is the only US state to have formerly been an independent republic?

3.

Which American writer has just published ‘Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man’?

4.

The Commonwealth was set up in 1931.  Name the 5 original members

5.

What are the 2 principal constituents of brass?

6.

Which London museum was originally called the Museum of Ornamental Art?

7.

Who are the famous parents of recently born Jaden Gil?

8.

Who is the Rail Regulator?

ROUND 8

1.

Walt Whitman’s poem ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed’ was a commemoration of whom?

2.

ITV1 has a new 3 days a week teatime soap opera.  What is it called?

3.

Which is Ireland’s most southerly landlocked county?

4.

Who wrote ‘The Falls’ – the book that is currently top of the bestselling paperback fiction list?

5.

Where will the Commonwealth Games Hockey tournament be staged next year?   

6.

Who is the current Marks & Spencer Chief Executive?

7.

Who owns the online banking operation called ‘Smile’?

8.

Michael Oliver has just become the 674^th what?

SPARES

1.

What was strange about Clark Gable’s birth certificate?

2.

With which pet did Florence Nightingale always travel?

3.

Why did pirates wear earrings?

4.

Who played the part of Doctor Who on TV for the longest period?

5.

Which British monarch said of his eldest son: ‘After I am dead the boy will ruin himself within 12 months’?

6.

What are the last 2 lines of the poem ‘The Ancient Mariner’?

7.

What name is given to a series of numbers where each term is the sum of the preceding 2 terms (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc)?

8.

Whose first number one hit single was entitled ‘Country House’?

ROUND 1

1.

Mexico

2.

Home Park

3.

Rev. W. A. Spooner of New College (famous for transposing the initial letters of words)

4.

David Hare

5.

Martin Scorcese 

6.

Apple Computers

7.

Celine Dion

8.

Imperial War Museum North

ROUND 2

1.

  Norwegian

2.

Saint Mungo’s 

3.

Ivan Pavlov

4.

(3 from) Peterborough, York, Durham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

5.

David Niven

6.

Ammonia

7.

Actinium

8.

Real Tennis

ROUND 3

1.

The Denmark Strait

2.

Oklahoma City

3.

Stephen Fry 

4.

(One from) Mozambique and Cameroon

5.

Iron and Chromium (with a small quantity of Carbon)

6.

Imperial War Museum

7.

Madonna & Guy Ritchie

8.

Steve Marshall

ROUND 4

1.

November

2.

Linda Green

3.

Macedonia

4.

Pamela Stephenson (about her husband Billy Connolly)

5.

July 25th

6.

BA (British Airways)

7.

Abbey National

8.

Kim Beazley

ROUND 5

1.

Dresden

2.

Rushden & Diamonds 

3.

Clerihew (invented by E. Clerihew Bentley)

4.

Amanda Donohue

5.

Oliver Stone

6.

Matsushita

7.

Ireland

8.

Urbis

ROUND 6

1.

(One from) Pashto (or Pushto), and Persian (or Parsi)

2.

The Glasgow Underground 

3.

Max Planck

4.

Lichfield, Lancaster and Carlisle

5.

Linda Thorson

6.

Steel

7.

Zirconium

8.

The result of a match in which the loser does not score at all (what we call a ‘whitewash’)

ROUND 7

1.

The Mozambique Channel

2.

Texas

3.

Joseph Heller

4.

UK, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand

5.

Copper and Zinc

6.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V & A)

7.

Steffi Graf & Andre Agassi

8.

Tom Winsor

ROUND 8

1.

Abraham Lincoln

2.

Night and Day

3.

Tipperary

4.

Ian Rankin

5.

Belle Vue Leisure Centre

6.

Luc Vandevelde

7.

Cooperative Bank

8.

Lord Mayor of London

SPARES

1.

He was listed as a girl

2.

An owl

3.

They believed it improved their eyesight

4.

Tom Baker 

5.

George V (of the future Edward VIII)

6.

‘A sadder and a wiser man, he rose the morrow morn’

7.

Fibonacci Numbers

8.

Blur