22nd Feb–Cup/Plate Semi Finals
Questions set by Plough Horntails and the Dolphin
1. How many hoops are used in the standard game of Croquet?
A, 6.
2. Which African kingdom was known as Basutoland before it gained independence in 1966?
A. Lesotho.
3. The work "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is the textbook of which religious movement founded in 1879?
A. Christian Science.
4. What is the fruit of the Blackthorn called?
A. The Sloe.
5. How many countries sit on the full United Nations Security Council?
A. 15.
6. According to the book of Genesis, which land lay to the "east of Eden"?
A. The Land of Nod.
7. What is the name of the southernmost point of Africa?
A. Cape Agulhas
(note: The Cape of Good Hope is just south of Cape Town and is NOT correct).
8. Responding to a pressing issue in year 1095, what appeal did Pope Urban II make to Kings, Nobles and Knights in a sermon at the Council of Clermont?
A. Please help to regain the Holy Lands… the First Crusade. (Accept any answer relating to freeing Jerusalem from Moslems/ Mohammadens / Turks/ Saracens)
9. Who holds the post of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union?
A. Baroness Ashton (Accept Catherine Ashton).
10. Which city was awarded the 1944 Summer Olympic Games?
A. London.
11. In which country did the Maoist organization the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) operate?
A. Peru.
12. Which major city’s name translates into English as Fragrant Harbour?
A. Hong Kong.
13. In which country was the Granny Smith apple first grown?
A. Australia (in 1868)
14. Strange, charm, up, down, top, and bottom are types of what?
A. Quarks.
15. Who was the architect of Coventry Cathedral?
A. Basil Spence.
16. Who opened an historic address to his people with the following, “In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, I send to every household of my peoples, both at home and overseas, this message, spoken with the same depth of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself.”
A. King George VI (as taken from the King’s Speech)
17. Which car company makes the Alhambra model?
A. Seat.
18. Which car company makes a model called the Sirion?
A. Diahatsu
19. What is the Nationality of Stefaan Engels who set a World record on Saturday 5th February in Barcelona by completing a marathon every day for a year, a total of 9,569 miles?
A. Belgian.
20. Who wrote Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, as well as collections of poetry?
A. Siegfried Sassoon.
21. Approximately what percentage of the planet’s surface is covered by Tropical rainforests?
A. 2% (but they are home to more than 50% species on Earth). Accept any figure less than 5%.
22. What is the name of the point on the Celestial sphere directly below an observer or a given position?
A. Nadir. (Note this is the opposite of zenith).
23. What is the term, of French origin, loosely translated 'into mouth', for using facial muscles and shaping the lips for the mouthpiece to play a woodwind or brass musical instrument?
A. Embouchure (origin, em = into, bouche = mouth) also accept embrasure.
24. In his 2011 memoir, ‘Known and Unknown’, which US ex-politician tries to deflect blame onto others including Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, for Iraq War mistakes?
A. Donald Rumsfeld.
(The book title alludes to Rumsfeld's famous statement: "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know..." The statement was made by Rumsfeld on February 12, 2002 at a press briefing addressing the absence of evidence linking the Iraq government with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.)
25. How many vertices (corners) has a regular dodecahedron (a dodecahedron is a 3D form with 12 faces)?
A. 20.
26. The Salmon River in Idaho, USA is known by what nickname, It is also the name of a 1954 film, whose title soundtrack was recorded by each of its stars, Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum?
A. The River of No Return (the Salmon River is only navigable downstream).
27. The reproduction method serigraphy, said to be based on the Japanese art of katazome, is better known by what name?
A. Silk-screen printing (or screen-printing).
28. British photographer Carl Warner's collection of landscapes went on display in London in October 2010. What did he use to create the landscapes?
A. Food.
29. Discovered by Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton in 1928, 2-chloro benzal malono nitrile is more commonly called what sort of gas?
A. C S Gas (from the names of its discoverers) Accept Tear Gas.
30. Which World War II leader was captured in April 1945 trying to flee to Switzerland with gold and looted Ethiopian sovereigns which became known as The Treasure of Dongo?
A. Mussolini (Benito Mussolini).
31. What were either of the first names of retailer F W Woolworth ?
A. Frank Winfield (the second was used as a brand name for this store).
32. Whisky, honey, oatmeal, cream and egg are the ingredients for which Scottish drink?
A. Atholl Brose.
33. Which British high street retailer started selling DNA / paternity tests over the counter in January 2011?
A. Boots.
34. The Bolton and England footballer Nat Lofthouse, who died age 85 in 2011, earned what nickname after his courageous match-winning performance in 1952?
A. The Lion of Vienna (the game was against Austria).
35. What was the name of the cyclone that struck Queensland Australia in early February 2011?
A. Yasi.
36. Which sea area is the most northerly of those used in the BBC radio shipping forecast?
A. South East Iceland.
37. In the TV series ‘Father Ted’, Mrs Doyle was the housekeeper and her role was described as ‘violently hospitable’. Her catchphrase was ‘Ah Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on…..’ etc’. Which actress played the part?
A. Pauline McLynn.
38. In the TV series ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’ which actor played the role of CJ whose catchphrase was ‘I didn’t get where I am today without ….. ?
A. John Barron.
39. Who was the Vice President of the USA for the whole of the period when Ronald Reagan was President?
A. George Bush (senior).
40. As of February 7th 2011, who is the UK Secretary of State for Defence?
A. Liam Fox
41. In the 1959 film ‘Some like it Hot’, what was the name of the character played by Marilyn Monroe?
A. Sugar Kane.
42. Also In the 1959 film ‘Some like it Hot’, which actor plays the part of the gangster ‘Spats’ Columbo?
A. George Raft.
43. Which county won the Clydesdale Bank 40 trophy, for UK 40-over cricket that was first held in the 2010 season?
A. Warwickshire Bears.
44. In which city of the USA is the sports ground called Wrigley Field?
A. Chicago (it is the home ground of the Chicago Cubs).
45. Which famous engineer’s factory is mentioned in ‘The Blaydon Races’
A. (William George) Armstrong.
46. A legacy of money from which engineer started Owen’s Park educational establishment in Manchester which ultimately became Manchester University?
A. Joseph Whitworth.
47. What’s the current name of the sea area that was called Heligoland up till 1956?
A. German Bight.
48. On March 17th 2003, what was the cause of the first ever standing ovation given by MPs in the House of Commons?
A. Robin Cook’s resignation speech (he opposed the invasion of Iraq).
49. In 2005, what caused Cherie Blair to say … ‘Honestly, what a load of fuss about trivia. It would be nice to be judged for who you are’?
A. The alleged £7,700 cost of her hairdos for the general election.
50. What is the name of the woman presenter who won her employment tribunal case against the BBC in January 2011 for wrongful dismissal based on ‘ageist’ reasons?
A. Miriam O’Reilly.
51. Which radio broadcaster has recently employed Andy Gray and Richard Keys after their removals from Sky Sports after their sexist comments about Sian Massey?
A. TalkSport.
52. The game in which Sian Massey was officiating on January 22nd 2011 was between Liverpool and which other football team?
A. Wolverhampton Wanderers.
53. In particular, what happened on Wall Street on at 2.45 p.m. on 6 May 2010?
A. The “Flash Crash” or the “2010 Flash Crash”. (Around 2:45pm the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 900 points only to recover those losses within minutes. It was the second largest point swing, 1,010.14 points and the biggest one-day point decline, 998.5 points, on an intraday basis in Dow Jones Industrial Average history. There are several possible reasons for the crash, one of which is the “fat-finger theory”).
54. What is considered the prime target of the Stuxnet Worm?
A. Centrifuges used in Iran for uranium enrichment. (Also accept: uranium enrichment, centrifuges, industrial control systems).
55. Howard Devoto and John McGeoch were members of which seminal Manchester band?
A. Magazine.
56. Which actress and singer starred in Derek Jarman’s film of “The Tempest”?
A. Toyah Wilcox (also accept Elisabeth Welch).
57. Which poet died and was buried at Skyros en route to battle in Gallipoli in 1915?
A. Rupert Brooke.
58. Where did Lord Elgin loot and destroy the Summer Palace?
A. Beijing (Peking).
(Lord Elgin was the son of the 7th Earl of Elgin who had obtained the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles from the Ottoman authorities.)
59. Who is the current (as of 7th February 2011), Shadow Home Secretary?
A. Yvette Cooper.
60. Who wrote the Regeneration Trilogy of novels. (“Regeneration”, “The Eye in the Door” and “The Ghost Road”)?
A. Pat Barker.
61. By what name is Beethoven’s 5th Piano concerto popularly known in this country? (Though the name was not Beethoven’s).
A. The Emperor.
62. Complete this quotation, attributed (dubiously) to Oscar Wilde: “We have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course,.......”
A. The language.
63. In the past Penguin Books used to publish whole ranges of similar books under the name of a different bird. What bird gave its name to Penguin’s academic books, always published in blue cover?
A. Pelican.
64. What type of art form is made up of tesserae?
A. A mosaic.
65. In Greek mythology, what form did the god Zeus adopt in order to seduce Europa?
A. A bull.
66. During the war, “Operation Crucible” was the German code name for the bombing of which British city?
A. Sheffield. (Crucible – steel industry).
67. In which geological period did trilobites first appear?
A. Cambrian. (Also accept Atdabanian).
68. Which anti-art movement, which emerged during the First World War, took its name from a French childish word for hobbyhorse?
A. Dada, or Dadaism.
69. What do the following Shakespeare characters, who all appear in different plays, have in common? Feste, Touchstone, Trinculo, Costard, and Launcelot Gobbo.
A. They are all clowns, fools or jesters.
70. When a person or event has a brief moment of fame it may be described as “a flash in the pan”. To what activity does this metaphor refer?
A. Firing a musket. (Or, more precisely, mis-firing!).
71. The width of a ship at its widest point is known as what?
A. Beam.
72. Which was the last Scottish football club other than Rangers or Celtic to win the Scottish Premier League?
A. Aberdeen. (1984-85).
73. Who is the star of the Legally Blonde series of films?
A. Reece Witherspoon.
74. In terms of residence, what do Peru, Nutwood and the 100 Acre Wood have in common?
A. They are all home to fictional bears, respectively Paddington, Rupert and Winnie the Pooh.
75. What nickname was shared by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster, and the man who gave his name to the Warner stand at Lords Cricket Ground?
A. Plum. (For Pelham).
76. Why was Mark Kennedy in the national news lately?
A. The undercover policeman who infiltrated climate change protesters and then appeared to change sides.
77. In cooking what would beurre manié be used for?
A. Thickening stews or casseroles. (A mixture of butter and flour).
78. Who, in 1932, received the Nobel Prize for Physics for “the indeterminancy principle of quantum mechanics”.
A. Werner Heisenberg. (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle).
79. Which actor appeared in all 295 episodes of the BBC sitcom The Last of the Summer Wine, from the first in 1973 to the last in 2010?
A. Peter Sallis. (Norman Clegg).
80. In which geological period did dinosaurs first appear?
A. Triassic.
81. Which former West Indian fast bowler had the nickname “the Whispering Death”?
A. Michael Holding. (Immortalised in the commentary “the bowler’s Holding the Batsman’s Willey”).
82. At which battle did Horatio Nelson put the telescope to his blind eye?
A. Copenhagen.
83. In a famous play, what are the characters Vladimir and Estragon doing?
A. Waiting for Godot.
84. In the acronym SIM, as in SIM card, what does the S stand for?
A. Subscriber.
85. What did the philosopher Sartre consider Hell to be?
A. Other people.
86. A character in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice shares a name with a character in Julius Caesar. What name?
A. Portia.
87. Who fell to an untimely death from the roof of his stately home in Ambridge on 6th January this year?
A. Nigel Pargeter.
88. The music hall entertainers Wilson, Keppel and Betty were famous for what act?
A. The Sand Dance.
89. Alyson Krauss, who recently released a joint album with Robert Plant, is better known for performing with her own band. What is it called?
A. Union Station.
90. Sue Ryder is a prominent name in the field of palliative health care, but who was her husband, also famous in the charity field and for other reasons?
A. Leonard Cheshire.
91. Which Commonwealth country is divided administratively into three counties, Cornwall, Surrey and Middlesex?
A. Jamaica.
92. Who plays Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brothers 2011 remake of the film True Grit?
A. Jeff Bridges.
93. Which actress, who played Superman’s mother in film, died recently?
A. Susannah York.
94. Tschaikovsky’s 6th Symphony has the same name as Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 8, Opus 13. What is it?
A. Pathétique.
95. The first volume of which writer’s autobiography was published in November, 9010, 100 years after his death, in accordance with his wishes?
A. Mark Twain.
96. How many cards are required to play the game of Canasta?
A. 108. (2 full decks, plus 4 Jokers).
97. In ancient Greece a small piece of broken pottery was called an ostrakon. In politics, what were they used for?
A. Citizens wrote on them the name of anyone they wanted to be exiled. Hence the word “ostracism”.
98. Every Christmas The Guardian newspaper publishes the pretentiously obscure quiz set for the pupils of which Isle of Man school?
A. King William’ School.
99. What is the name of the political party founded in Israel in 1973 by Menachem Begin, and currently led by Binyamin Netenyahu?
A. Likud.
100. Which US city is served by Louis Armstrong Airport?
A. New Orleans.
101. Someone who puts in the maximum effort to achieve something may be said to be “pulling out all the stops”. To what activity does this metaphor refer?
A. Organ playing.
102. After spending only a few weeks at Saracens, which French Rugby club has Gavin Henson recently joined?
A. Toulon.
103. What name is given to the tube connection the pharynx to the middle ear?
A. The Eustachian Tube. (Also accept Pharyngotympanic Tube).
104. The King Cobra has an alternative name, which it shares with the tree Nymphs of Greek mythology. What is it?
A. Hamadryad.
105. The father of which TV comedienne commanded the ill-fated HMS Coventry during the Falklands War, being last to leave when it sank?
A. Miranda Hart.
106. In which of G. B. Shaw’s plays is a Salvation Army officer the central character?
A. Major Barbara.
107. The prize for winning the American Football Super Bowl is named after the coach of the Green Bay Packers, who won the first two. Who was he?
A. Vince Lombardi.
108. In which town do Wallace and Gromit reside?
A. Wigan.
109. Who, in 1935, received the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the Neutron?
A. Sir James Chadwick.
110. Which popular garden shrub has a name derived from the Greek for water vessel?
A. Hydrangea.
111. What distinctive method of painting is particularly associated with the French artist Georges Seurat?
A. Pointillism. (Applying colours in lots of tiny dots on the canvas, rather than mixing them beforehand).
112. American actress Linda Gray made her name in the role of Sue Ellen Ewing in Dallas. But what contribution did she make to the 1967 film The Graduate?
A. It was her seductively stocking-clad legs which appeared on the film posters. (Not those of female lead, Anne Bancroft).
113. In the wartime acronym ATS, what did the T stand for?
A. Territorial. (Auxiliary Territorial Service).
114. Which European capital city stands on the River Vltava?
A. Prague.
115. Who is the fictional proprietor of the satirical magazine Private Eye?
A. Lord Gnome.
116. The American writers and cousins Frederick Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee wrote crime novels under which pseudonym, which was also the name of their fictional detective?
A. Ellery Queen.
117. Where did James IV of Scotland die in 1513?
A. The battle of Flodden.
118. Who was the UK’s first female Foreign Secretary?
A. Margaret Beckett. (2006).
119. In which Dickens novel would you hear the message “Barkis is willing”?
A. David Copperfield.
120. Which former Thin Lizzie guitarist died earlier this month aged 58?
A. Gary Moore.
Supplementary Questions:
1. Who directed the film Black Swan released in late 2010?
A. Darren Aronofsky.
2. Who directed the film The King’s Speech?
A. Tom Hooper.
3. In the Booker Prize winner Wolf Hall, what is Wolf Hall?
A. The family home or seat of the Seymour family. (Accept the home of Jane Seymour).
4. Name one of the two authors who has won the Booker Prize twice. (Note to QMs: this is the straight Booker Prize, not the special awards like “Booker of Bookers” or “Best of Booker”).
A. J. M. Coetzee or Peter Carey.
5. What was the name of the US sitcom based on Steptoe and Son?
A. Sanford and Son.
6. What was the name of the UK sitcom based on the US sitcom Who’s the Boss??
A. The Upper Hand.
7. Who is the President of South Africa (as of 20th Feb.)?
A. Jacob Zuma.
8. Bertha Mason was the mad wife of which of Charlotte Bronte’s characters?
A. Mr. Rochester (in Jane Eyre).
9. Sagamore Hill in New York state was the home of which US President, who lived there from 1885 until his death in 1919?
A. Theodore Roosevelt.
10. Which was England’s first Garden City?
A. Letchworth.
Tie Breaker Question:
In view of the recent thread about ‘ageism at the BBC’, carry out the following calculation:
Multiply the age (as at February 7th 2011) of Miriam O’Reilly by age of Joan Bakewell by age of Arlene Phillips
and then divide the result by the age of Jennie Bond multiplied by the age of Gloria Hunniford .
Suggestion for question masters: Allow 2 minutes for responses and allow calculators to be used if both sides have them available.
Answer: (53 x 77 x 67) ÷ (60 X 70) = 273,427 ÷ 4,200
= 65.10
The team with the closest answer to this is the winner.
All ages used for this question are from the Guardian article on this topic on February 5th 2011 titled ‘Who are you calling Past it? Female Presenters fight back’.
posted by Nick at
1:40 PM
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