ROUND 1 - Internally Paired

1.

Who are the presenters of the Great British Bake Off?

Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins

2.

Who are the judges on the Great British Bake Off?

Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood

3.

Why did Tom Cowan, a sport student on work experience, appear in the news in February 2011?

He was allegedly shot with an airgun by Ashley Cole

4.

Why was a video of Ben Shewood a big hit on You Tube on 29 April 2011?

He is the Westminster Abbey verger who cartwheeled down the red carpet after the Royal Wedding

5.

Which athlete won the Olympic 5,0000m and 10,000m in 1972 and successfully defended both titles four years later?

Lasse Viren

6.

Who is the only player to have won the FA Cup with both Liverpool and Everton?

Gary Ablett

7.

Careless is a variety of which fruit?

Gooseberry

8.

Of which animal are Karakul and Texel breeds?

Sheep

ROUND 2 - Hidden Theme - 'Who am I?'

The theme may be revealed after question 8

1.

Born in 1944, a former BBC newsreader, a presenter of Come Dancing and Antiques Roadshow.

Angela Rippon

2.

Born in 1953, an American singer and songwriter, former frontman of the band Blackjack but now a solo singer.

Michael Bolton

3.

Born 1946, a British actress whose first film was Shakespeare Wallah.

Felicity Kendal

4.

Born 1966, a former professional ballet dancer turned actor who starred in Holby City and Murder in Suburbia and has recently appeared in Coronation Street.

Jeremy Sheffield

5.

Born 1971, an English model and photographer, former contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.

Penny Lancaster

6.

Born 1949, a magician whose professional name is The Great Suprendo.

Geoffrey Durham

7.

Born 1973, actor whose first major role was in This Life and also appeared in the film Love Actually.

Andrew Lincoln

8.

Born 1942, actor best known for his roles in Cabaret and Zeppelin.

Michael York

All answers contain the name of an English town or city

ROUND 3 - Internally Paired

1.

In sporting terms, what word links Worcester and Glasgow?

Warriors

(Worcester Warriors and Glasgow Warriors are both Rugby Union teams)

2.

In sporting terms, what links Glasgow and Inverness?

Thistle

(Partick Thistle and Inverness Caledonian Thistle are Scottish football clubs)

3.

In the 1970s, which Asian country stamped the passports of long haired Western males with the acronym S.H.I.T.?

Singapore

(the acronym stands for Suspected Hippy In Transit)

4.

In the 1970s, which Asian country stamped the passport of any foreigner caught with a local prostitute with the word `Pervert’?

China

5.

In the film 24 Hour Party People, when God appears to Tony Wilson on the roof of Factory Records, which group does he tell him he was wrong not to sign up?

The Smiths

6.

In the film 24 Hour Party People, when God appears to Tony Wilson, which group does he tell him he was right not to sign?

Simply Red

("You were right about Hucknall – his music’s rubbish and he’s a ginger")

7.

This `cutting edge technology’ is known as the fallbeil in Germany.  What do the French call it?

The guillotine

8.

As of 2012, Oklahoma is the only American State to legally sanction which form of execution?

Firing Squad

ROUND 4 - Internally Paired

1.

What change was made to British coinage in 1982?

The word `new’ in `new pence’ was removed from the inscription on coins to be replaced by the number of pence in the denomination e.g. ten pence

2.

Since 2008, what has linked the designs for all the coins from 1p to 50p?

All show different sections of the Royal Shield and form the whole shield when placed together - the £1 coin shows the whole shield

3.

What was the first motorway service station to be opened in Great Britain?

Watford Gap

4.

Which motorway service station features in the Smiths track Is It Really So Strange?

Newport Pagnell

(Morrissey tells us "I lost my bag at Newport Pagnell")

5.

Who sang "If I was a genius I’d be Isaac Newton" on the 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor?

Madonna

(the track is Superpop)

6.

Who sang the line "Standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold, leaves me cold"?

REM/Michael Stipe

(in King of Birds)

7.

What species of dolphin is the largest?

Orca

(killer whale)

8.

What species of shark is the largest?

Whale shark

ROUND 5 - Internally Paired

1.

When the stock market is doing well, it is known as a `Bull Market’.  How did it get this name?

When a bull attacks an opponent, it attempts to throw its victim into the air.

2.

In financial circles, what is a `Dead Cat Bounce’?

(Dead cats don’t bounce very high when dropped from a height)

3.

In which film does a slow-witted character reply to a question with the line: "Don’t know…. Mongo only pawn in great game of life"?

Blazing Saddles

4.

In which film do the following lines occur: "You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape.  With me it’s a full time job.  Now behave yourself"?

Get Carter

5.

On a standard Monopoly board, apart from the railway stations and the utilities, there are only two properties that are not streets or roads – one is Mayfair.  What is the other?

The Angel, Islington

6.

Only one Monopoly board property is located south of the River Thames.  What is it?

Old Kent Road

7.

What is the link between the following musicians: Carl Harrison, Hari Georgeson and Spike Wilbury?

All were aliases used by George Harrison

8.

What links the following Beatles’ songs: What Goes On, Don’t Pass Me By and Octopus’s Garden?

Ringo Starr received a writing credit for all of them

The theme may be revealed after question 8

1.

Two actors were nominated for the Academy Award for best actor in both 2009 and 2010.  One was Colin Firth who won last year.  Who was the other,  who won in 2009 for his role in a music-based drama?

Jeff Bridges

2.

What was the name of the actress wife of Roman Polanski, murdered by the Manson Family on 9 August 1969?

Sharon Tate

3.

Which city in Texas bills itself as `The Music Capital of the World’ with more music venues per capita than any other US state?

Austin

4.

Who, in 1722, wrote A Journal of the Plague Year, a fictionalised account of one man’s experiences of the Great Plague in 1665?

Daniel Defoe

5.

What is the name of the Detective Chief Inspector played by Helen Mirren in the TV series Prime Suspect?

Jane Tennison

6.

Which Liverpool footballer, signed by Bill Shankly in 1967, was the son of a Barrow and Great Britain rugby league player?

Emlyn Hughes

7.

Which singer-songwriter released an album named after a suburb of Birkenhead which contained a hit single named after a London Underground station?

Duffy

(Warwick Avenue on the Rockferry album)

8.

Which mathematical model describes the random drifting of particles in a fluid?

Brownian Motion

All answers contain the surname (or soundalike of the surname) of a Poet Laureate:

Robert Bridges, Nahum Tate, Alfred Austin, Lord Tennyson, Samuel Daniel, Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Motion and Ted Hughes

ROUND 7 - Internally Paired

1.

Who did Roderick MacLean attempt to assassinate in 1882?

Queen Victoria

2.

Who did Giuseppe Zangara  attempt to assassinate in 1933?

Franklin D Roosevelt

3.

Which country’s army was the first to use the Molotov Cocktail in battle?

Finland

(in the 1939 Winter War against Soviet Russia)

4.

Used in battle in World War I, what was the purpose of the weapon known as the Bangalore Torpedo?

To clear a path through barbed wire before an infantry attack

5.

When it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this modern European capital of an EU state was known as Pressburg.  What is it called now?

Bratislava (in Slovakia)

6.

When it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this modern European capital of an EU state was known as Laibach.  What is it called now?

Llubljana (in Slovenia)

7.

Who won the 2011 Booker Prize for his novel The Sense of Ending?

Julian Barnes

8.

Under what unusual circumstances did J G Farrell’s novel Troubles, published in 1970, win the Booker Prize in 2008?

No Booker prize was awarded in 1970 so it was a retrospective award to complete the sequence of winners since 1969

(the competition was known as the 'Lost Man Booker Award')

ROUND 8 - Internally Paired

1.

In 2011 the world’s largest shopping mall by area, the Abraj Al Bait, opened in which country?

Saudi Arabia

2.

Which Asian country contains three of the world’s largest shopping malls by area – the No 1 Utama, the Mid Valley Megamall and the Sunway Pyramid?

Malaysia

3.

By number of lines, which is Shakespeare’s shortest play – a tale of mistaken identities set in Ephesus?

The Comedy of Errors

4.

Which Rogers and Hart musical is based on The Comedy of Errors?

The Boys from Syracuse

5.

Which Roman road runs 200 miles from Dover to the site of the Roman city of Viroconium Cornoviorum at Wroxeter in Shropshire?

Watling Street

6.

Icknield Street is a Roman road running from Templeborough in North Yorkshire to join the Fosse Way at which Gloucestershire village known as the 'Venice of the Cotswolds'?

Bourton-on-the-Water

7.

Which river flows through or adjacent to Wellingborough, Peterborough and Wisbech?

River Nene

8.

Which river flows through or adjacent to Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Stone Age site at Aylesford?

River Medway

Spares

1.

In the Bible who were the sons of Isaac?

Jacob and Esau

2.

There are three surviving Transporter Bridges in the UK.  The Warrington one is disused but the other two still operate.  In which towns or cities are they situated?

Middlesbrough and Newport

3.

What had previously only ever happened on one occasion on the London Underground (in 1924) until it happened again twice within six months in December 2008 and May 2009?

A baby was born on a tube train

4.

In children’s TV what is the name of Peppa Pig’s brother?

George

5.

Which country is being described here: It is the 33rd largest in size and 45^th largest by population - until 2007 it was the only non-Muslim member of OPEC - it has produced more Miss Worlds than any other country?

Venezuela

6.

Which horse won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years in succession in the 1960s?

Arkle