Perfect Pub Quiz (23 page)

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Authors: David Pickering

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Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. What is the main constituent of glass?
  2. Which arts festival was founded in August 1947 by Rudolf Bing?
  3. In which sport was Roger Clark a leading figure in the 1960s and 1970s?
  4. Timothy McVeigh was executed for which terrorist outrage?
  5. What is Margaret Thatcher’s middle name?
  6. Which letter is positioned between F and H on a computer keyboard?
  7. When was chewing-gum first patented – 1869, 1899 or 1919?
    84
  8. Which English city was originally known as Sarum?
  9. What does the musical direction ‘tacet’ mean?
  10. At which racing circuit is the Italian Grand Prix held?

Jackpot

Which novel begins with the words ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen’?

 

Quiz 85

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. Who was ‘Tricky Dicky’?
  2. What is depicted in a calvary?
  3. Which former captain of England ended his playing career with Newcastle United in 2006?
  4. Who wrote the classic ghost story ‘The Signal-Man’?
  5. Which British conductor was known as ‘Old Timber’?
  6. What is the name of the valley that runs from Mozambique through East Africa and as far north as Syria?
    85
  7. Which specialist unit commanded by Major General Orde Wingate operated behind enemy lines in Burma during World War II?
  8. Whose number one hits included ‘Kon-Tiki’, ‘Please don’t tease’ and ‘Travellin’ light’?
  9. What new name was given to Idlewild airport in New York in 1963?
  10. In which US state is Boston?

Round 2: Spies

  1. Which US intelligence organisation was set up in 1947?
  2. In the films based on the novels by Ian Fleming, by what initial is the officer who provides James Bond with his lethal gadgets known?
  3. Which English architect, builder of Blenheim Palace, was once imprisoned in the Bastille as a spy?
  4. Which radio series of the 1940s featured such characters as Mrs Mopp, Funf the spy, and Claude and Cecil?
  5. What was the code name of George Smiley’s adversary in the John Le Carré spy thriller
    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
    ?
  6. Which Soviet double agent fled to the USSR after escaping from Wormwood Scrubs prison in London in 1966?
  7. What was the name of the art expert who in 1979 was publicly unveiled as the fourth man in the Cambridge Spy Ring alongside Philby, Burgess and Maclean?
  8. Francis Walsingham acted as spymaster for which English monarch?
  9. Who succeeded Roger Moore as James Bond in 1987?
  10. What is the name of the boy spy created by Anthony Horowitz?

Half-time teaser

How far is it in miles from Penzance to Dover?

Round 3: Wildlife

  1. What kind of crab shelters in the discarded shells of other animals?
  2. Pregnant women attract double the number of mosquitoes that other women do – true or false?
  3. What was the name of the horse ridden by Roy Rogers?
  4. Who wrote the poems on which Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical
    Cats
    was based?
  5. Of which plant did singer Gracie Fields claim to have the world’s largest example?
  6. Penguins fall over backwards when looking upwards at an aeroplane flying overhead – true or false?
  7. Against whom was the so-called Cat and Mouse Act of 1913 aimed?
  8. Who sang vocals with the Animals?
  9. Which biblical character was swallowed by a whale?
  10. Who released an album called
    Journey through the Secret Life of Plants
    ?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. Is an ankle-biter a small dog, a young child or a kind of bicycle?
  2. Who provided the narrator’s voice in the comedy series
    Little Britain
    ?
  3. Who briefly succeeded Richard Whiteley as presenter of television’s
    Countdown
    programme?
  4. What was the name of the central character in the 1971 film
    First Blood
    ?
  5. Who wrote the
    Gormenghast
    trilogy?
  6. Who sang ‘Moon river’ in
    Breakfast at Tiffany
    ’s?
  7. Which river flows through the Grand Canyon?
  8. Which African country was named after a profitable export?
  9. What was the name of the US Defense Secretary who resigned his post in 2006 in the wake of criticism of US policy in Iraq?
  10. Against which German city was the first RAF ‘thousand-bomber raid’ directed?

Jackpot

In which British city was the first Odeon cinema opened in 1930?

 

Quiz 86

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. What is the colour of the gemstone known as jet?
  2. Who is television’s ‘domestic goddess’?
  3. Which country is home to Aeroflot?
  4. Which Gilbert and Sullivan operetta takes place in the Tower of London?
  5. Which character was introduced in Nintendo’s Donkey Kong game?
  6. Why did Frank Sinatra junior hit the headlines in 1963?
  7. Who was football’s ‘Galloping Major’?
  8. How many hours are there in a week?
  9. Which celebrity died at the hands of Kenneth Halliwell?
  10. What name is given to an otters’ den?

Round 2: Countries of the World

  1. Which country is nearest to the North Pole?
  2. Which country has the largest Roman Catholic population?
  3. The 2003 mountaineering drama
    Touching the Void
    was set in which country?
  4. In which country is the Ataturk Dam?
  5. Of which Commonwealth country did William Lyon Mackenzie King serve three terms as prime minister?
  6. Which country is serviced by Qantas Airlines?
  7. Of which country is Manama the capital?
  8. Which country has taken part in every Olympic Games, both summer and winter?
  9. Which country was split in 1945 along the so-called Thirty-Eighth Parallel?
  10. In which country are the most alcoholic spirits drunk?

Half-time teaser

The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin
, in seven acts, holds the record for the longest opera of all time – how long does it take to perform?

Round 3: Television

  1. What innovation was introduced to television in 1967?
  2. Where was television’s
    Bergerac
    set?
  3. Which cult series included among the cast the ‘Cigarette-Smoking Man’?
  4. What was the name of the neurotic lawyer played on television by Calista Flockhart?
  5. Which popular television programme has included among its hosts Angela Rippon, Hugh Scully and Michael Aspel?
  6. On which programme did Nick Bateman attract the headlines in 2000?
  7. At what number do the Kumars live?
  8. Where is
    Last of the Summer Wine
    filmed?
  9. Who were television’s original badly behaved men?
  10. Len Goodman, Arlene Phillips, Bruno Tonioli and Craig Revel Horwood are the panel in which television talent show?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. What do chandlers make?
  2. Is a peruke a hat, a cigar or a wig?
  3. What does the mathematical symbol comprising a triangle of three dots mean?
  4. Which road connects Oxford Circus with Piccadilly Circus?
  5. In the James Bond stories, what is the first name of the villain Goldfinger?
    86
  6. The vernal equinox marks the end of which season?
  7. In which country did balti cooking evolve?
  8. What was the name of Harare until 1982?
  9. What is the equivalent of a try or goal in American football?
  10. How many stars are there on the flag of New Zealand?

Jackpot

For which novel did Roddy Doyle win the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1993?

 

Quiz 87

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. What is sometimes called ‘the Conservative Party at prayer’?
  2. What was the name of Radio Four before 1967?
  3. Who became the first man to win five successive Wimbledon Men’s Singles titles?
  4. In which Scottish city are the football clubs Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian based?
  5. Which battle began on 1 July 1916?
  6. Who starred in the films
    The Sound of Music, Waterloo
    and
    The Royal Hunt of the Sun
    ?
  7. From which Broadway show comes the song ‘Bewitched’?
  8. Is a quango a large flightless bird, an administrative organisation or a fizzy orange drink?
  9. What was the name of the theme tune of David Lean’s 1965 film
    Doctor Zhivago
    ?
  10. How many locks are there on the Suez Canal?

Round 2: Ancient History

  1. Which British archaeologist located the tomb of Tutankhamun?
  2. In which county is Stonehenge?
  3. What were the scroll-shaped tablets called in which the names of ancient Egyptian pharaohs were inscribed?
  4. Who was the first Christian emperor of Rome?
  5. Which style of classical column was decorated with carvings representing acanthus leaves?
  6. What is the English name for the Roman town of Camulodunum?
  7. Which Mediterranean island was the scene of a volcanic explosion that destroyed the Minoan civilisation around 1450
    BC
    ?
  8. Who set sail in the
    Argo
    ?
  9. What was the name of the race of giants that Zeus defeated in order to rule on Olympus?
  10. According to the Old Testament, how did the priests of Joshua destroy the walls of Jericho?

Half-time teaser

The world’s largest sandwich was made at Wild Woody’s Chill and Grill in Roseville, Michigan in 2005 – what did it weigh in kilograms?

Round 3: Top of the Pops

  1. Who had a number one hit in the UK in 1961 with ‘Runaway’?
  2. What was the title of the chart-topping single released by the England World Cup squad in 1970?
  3. Who won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland?
  4. Who had a number one hit in the UK in 1975 with ‘If’?
  5. Who, in 1979, got to number one because they didn’t like Mondays?
  6. Which opera singer reached number two in the UK charts in 1992 with ‘Nessun dorma’?
  7. Who had number one hits with ‘I’ll stand by you’ and ‘Sound of the underground’?
  8. Which Spice Girl topped the charts with ‘Bag it up’, ‘Lift me up’ and ‘Mi chico Latino’?
  9. Whose number one hits included ‘Babe’, ‘Everything changes’ and ‘Pray’?
  10. Who topped the UK charts with ‘Unchained melody’ and ‘The man from Laramie’?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. What is Ceylon’s modern name?
  2. In the nursery rhyme, who marched his men to the top of the hill?
    87
  3. In which year was the Berlin Wall constructed?
  4. Who created the naval hero Horatio Hornblower?
  5. In which novel by Virginia Woolf does the central character change sex at the age of 30?
  6. Which is ‘the city that never sleeps’?
  7. Which, according to T. S. Eliot in
    The Waste Land
    , is ‘the cruellest month’?
  8. In the 1945 film
    Brief Encounter
    , which stage and film actor makes the railway announcements?
  9. What is the documented history of a work of art known as?
  10. Who, in 1975, had a funky moped?

Jackpot

Who played Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes in a series of films made in the 1930s and 1940s?

 

Quiz 88

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. Who wrote
    Water Music
    for George I?
  2. Where does rioja come from?
  3. Which country lies between Niger and Sudan?
  4. Who owns a celebrated fish restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall?
  5. What was the name of Elvis Presley’s house?
    88
  6. Who created the detective Jack Frost?
  7. Whereabouts in the UK is Osborne House?
  8. Which acid gives a nettle its sting?
  9. Which road in 2003 became Britain’s first toll-paying motorway?
  10. What fail-safe mechanism prevents a locomotive crashing if something happens to the driver?

Round 2: Husbands and Wives

  1. What was the name of William Shakespeare’s wife?
  2. Who married Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones in 1999?
  3. Who, according to Jewish folklore, was Adam’s first wife?
  4. To whom has Princess Anne been married since 1992?
  5. Which US state was named in honour of Charles II’s wife Henrietta Maria?
  6. What was the name of Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife?
  7. To whom was film actress Anne Bancroft married until her death in 2005?
  8. Which former child star married Joan Collins in 1963?
  9. To whom did Beatle Paul McCartney become engaged in 1967?
  10. In which Thomas Hardy novel does Michael Henchard sell his wife and daughter for five guineas?

Half-time teaser

The record for the number of instances of swearing in an animated film is held by the 1999 film
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
– how many were there?

Round 3: Current Affairs

  1. Which constituency does Tony Blair represent as an MP?
  2. After the 2005 general election which well-known figure had the biggest majority?
  3. Which British political party has its headquarters in Victoria Street, London?
  4. Who served as the first leader of the Scottish parliament?
  5. Which system of nuclear weaponry replaced Polaris in the UK in the 1990s?
  6. Which protest organisation has as its symbol a circle containing an inverted V bisected by a vertical line?
  7. Which British chancellor pulled Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992?
  8. Which state is the first to produce a result in US presidential primary elections?
  9. How old must a US president be?
  10. Who, in 2000, became the second president of the Russian Federation?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. What colour are the flowers of St John’s Wort?
  2. What is a smolt?
  3. Which US city was named after a British prime minister?
  4. How many bottles of wine are there in a case?
  5. Where were General Custer and his command wiped out in 1876?
  6. What nationality was the composer Sibelius?
  7. Which is the largest state of the USA?
  8. Who did Muhammad Ali beat to win his third world title?
  9. For which team did both Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill win the Formula One World Championship?
  10. In which war did W. H. Auden serve as a stretcher-bearer?

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