ROUND 1 - Unthemed

1.

Ellen Church (1904-1965) was a nurse and, because of this experience, she was hired to become the world’s first what?

Air Hostess

2.

Which Assam-born actress made her film debut in Billy Liar?

Julie Christie

3.

Which famous 20th century thriller book starts with the words:

“I returned from the city at about three o’clock on that May afternoon, pretty well disgusted.  I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it.”

The 39 Steps (by John Buchan)

4.

Where would you find people wearing dirndls?

Southern Germany or Austria (accept either Germany or Austria)

5.

Who wrote the songs: The Way You Look Tonight and Long Ago and Far Away?

Jerome Kern

6.

The site of Castle Montacute, built in 1068, is on top of St Michael’s Hill in which English county?

Somerset

7.

What word links the 1960s pop song Well I Ask You, Carlisle and Elia Kazan?

Eden (Eden Kane, pop singer; River Eden; East of Eden, the film directed by Elia Kazan)

8.

In which month is Candlemas?

February

ROUND 2 – “Home & Away”

The theme should quickly become evident

1.

Which city lies just north of Hastings and is renowned for the sunburst, chevron and ziggurat motifs on and inside its most prominent buildings?

Napier (New Zealand)

2.

Which well-known TV character was played by Frank Oz from 1976 until 2001?

Miss Piggy (from The Muppets)

3.

What were Courteney Cox Arquette, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer?

Friends

4.

In which recent film does Stephen Webb play the part of Posner, based on the author as a teenager?

The History Boys

5.

Stanley Holloway recorded a famous monologue about Blackpool Zoo.  What was it called?

Albert & the Lion

6.

What was the name of Blur’s third album and the first to top the UK album charts?

Parklife

7.

Who were the American husband and wife pair executed for treason in 1953?

8.

Which rock group features Stefan Cush, Paul Simmonds, Philip Odgers, Jon Odgers, and Shanne Bradley?

The Men They Couldn’t Hang

Each answer refers to one of the Withquiz teams

ROUND 3 – “It’s a quiet country”

Each answer leads somehow onto the next question

1.

The American-born composer, John Cage wrote a piece of music entitled 4 minutes 33 seconds which consists of total silence.  Why did he pick that number of seconds?

Minus 273 degrees Celsius (or Centigrade) is absolute zero, the lowest temperature attainable when all liquids turn to solids

2.

Minus 273 degrees Celsius is the equivalent to zero degrees according to the absolute temperature scale named after which physicist?

Earl Kelvin

3.

Which Greater Manchester-born physicist worked with Kelvin on temperature changes in gases, and has a unit of work named after him?

James Prescott Joule

4.

Earlier in Manchester, in 1793, which chemist was appointed teacher of mathematics and science at New College?

John Dalton

5.

Based on his own case, Dalton described the form of colour blindness now known as Daltonism.  Daltonism is an inability to distinguish between which two colours?

Red and Green

6.

Colour-blindness is far more common in men than women.  Which other disease, also far more common in men than women, afflicted Leopold, Duke of Albany 1853-84?

Haemophilia (Leopold was the youngest son of Queen Victoria - her other sons escaped the disease)

7.

Ruling from 1831 to 1865, Leopold I, Victoria’s uncle, was the first king of which country?

Belgium

8.

Which Belgian-born actress won an Oscar in 1953 and was nominated for one in 1967?

Audrey Hepburn (won for Roman Holiday, and nominated for Wait Until Dark)

 ROUND 4 – Unthemed

1.

If you walked in a straight line from Ireland’s most northerly mainland point (Malin Head) to its most southerly (Brow Head) you would pass through 10 counties.  Name 4 of them.

(4 from) Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Roscommon, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Kerry and Cork

2.

“If an integer n is greater than 2, then aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c.”  What is this?

Fermat’s Last Theorem

3.

Why are the corner flags at Bury’s Football ground triangular but not at Rochdale’s?

Only FA Cup Final winners are allowed to use triangular corner flags – Bury won it in 1900 and 1903, but Rochdale have never won it

4.

What single word does Orson Welles utter in the death scene at the start of the film Citizen Kane?

“Rosebud”

5.

Which late BBC Panorama reporter gained notoriety for attacking Harold Wilson live on air for his support of President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War?

James Mossman

6.

What London building has the address 60 Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia?

The Post Office Tower

7.

Which comedian referred to fictional friends Everard, Apricot Lil and Slack Alice as part of his routine?

Larry Grayson

8.

Lincolnshire is traditionally divided into 3 Parts.  Name them.

Lindsey, Kesteven and Holland

ROUND 5- Unthemed

1.

Working for a company whose name is a tribute to the founder’s liking for a certain English playwright, in 1886 Mrs P F Albee became the first what?

Avon Sales Representative

2.

Which Hull-born actor made his film debut in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner?

Tom Courtenay

3.

Which famous 20^th century novel starts with the words:

 “The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said: ‘Why don’t you go back and sleep?  We can ring you if he shows up.’”?

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

4.

Who would wear a calotte?

A clergyman (especially a Roman Catholic clergyman) – it’s a skullcap

5.

Whose best known musical works included Samson and Delilah and Danse Macabre?

Camille Saint-Saens

6.

Corfe Castle is in which English county?

Dorset

7.

What name links Ronnie Corbett, a Robert Louis Stevenson hero and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I?

Balfour (Ronnie Corbett’s middle name; David Balfour in Kidnapped; The Balfour Delaration)

8.

In which month is Martinmas?

November

ROUND 6 – “Naughty Opsimaths’ Silly Themes”

Each answer consists of 2 words, which start with consecutive ascending letters of the alphabet (e.g. Duncan Edwards or Torquay United) – no pair is repeated and they are in alphabetical sequence from Answer 1 to Answer 8

1.

Arnold Bax was Master of the Queen’s Musick until 1953 when he was succeeded by whom?

Arthur Bliss

2.

Which film, based on a 1985 book by Winston Groom, won the 1994 Oscar for Best Film with its Director, Robert Zemeckis, also picking up an award?

Forrest Gump

3.

What was the setting for both of Clint Eastwood’s most recent films?

Iwo Jima

4.

Who was appointed by Franklin Roosevelt as US Ambassador to Britain in 1938?

Joseph Kennedy

5.

Who came between Vic Feather and Norman Willis?

Len Murray (General Secretary of the TUC)

6.

Which Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1681 – the last Catholic martyr to die in England?

(St) Oliver Plunkett

7.

There are currently 3 Australian umpires on the Test panel: Darrell Hair, Daryl Harper and which other?

Simon Taufel

8.

Which designer and Dame of the British Empire was born in Tintwistle, Glossop?

Vivienne Westwood

ROUND 7 – Picture Round

Who produced these famous works of art?

1.

Jacques-Louis David

2.

L S Lowry

3.

Donald McGill

4.

Peter Blake

5.

William Hogarth

6.

Caravaggio

7.

Roy Liechtenstein

8.

Piet Mondriaan

ROUND 8 – Unthemed

1.

If you walked in a straight line from Ireland’s most easterly mainland point (Burr Point, Ards Peninsula) to its most westerly (Garraun Point, Dingle Peninsula) you would pass through 8 counties.  Name 4 of them.

(4 from) Down, Louth, Monaghan, West Meath, Offaly, Galway, Clare and Kerry

2.

What is the smallest Pythagorean Triple?

3, 4, 5 (lowest whole numbers where the sum of the squares of two of them equals the square of the third – i.e. 9 + 16 = 25)

3.

FA Cup Final crowds have exceeded 100,000 a number of times.  Mostly this has been at Wembley, but on two occasions at another ground.  Which? 

Crystal Palace

4.

According to Orson Welles in The Third Man, what did “brotherly love and 500 years of democracy and peace produce”?

“The Cuckoo Clock” (in reference to Switzerland)

5.

What was the name of the bearded BBC Tonight Scottish reporter from the 1950s/1960s who often wore a deerstalker hat?

Fyfe Robertson

6.

What London building has the address 30 St Mary Axe?

The Gherkin (The Swiss Re Tower)

7.

What was the name of the character played by Peter Cook in Beyond the Fringe who says:

“Yes, I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin. I never had the Latin for the judgin’.”?

E L Wisty

8.

After Lincoln which are the next 2 largest centres of population in Lincolnshire?

Boston and Grantham

SPARES

1.

Orion has his shield and club raised against which neighbouring constellation?

Taurus (accept The Bull)

2.

The Haber process combines nitrogen with hydrogen to produce which gas?

Ammonia

3.

In 2003 a new species of mankind was discovered called scientifically ‘Homo Floresiensis’.  By what name is the species more popularly known?

The Hobbit

4.

In what type of business are Wire and Plastic Products plc primarily involved?

Media – specifically advertising

5.

What is the meaning of the name of the Belgian town Bruges?

Bridge

6.

Who was Queen Anne’s husband?

George of Denmark

7.

Brass is an alloy of which two metals?

Copper and Zinc

8.

What is the birthstone for April?

Diamond