ROUND 1 - 'The Worm's Head'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What Shropshire town gave its name to both a canal and the canal’s northern terminus?  It had been planned to link the River Mersey with the River Dee at Chester and the River Severn at Shrewsbury, but was abandoned in about 1805 when only partially complete due to spiralling costs.

2.

What could be found at Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula in 1831, at Allen Lake on Prince Edward Island in 1947, and just off Ellesmere Island in 2001?

3.

What creature is the subject of a poem by William Blake, the family name of a British Prime Minister, and an unlikely adornment on the crest of Preston North End Football club?

4.

What opening line of a Shakespeare play would later be the inspiration for the title of John Steinbeck’s last novel and also be used to telling effect by Larry Lamb, editor at the Sun from 1975 to 1981?

5.

What country has an estimated population of about 90 million making it the world’s thirteenth most populous country; shares land borders with three other countries; has a coastline of 3,444 kilometres according to the CIA; and has never sent any athletes to a Winter Olympics?

6.

What song gave its original recording artist her first UK singles chart number one and was described by Tom Breihan as “maybe the finest bitchy kiss-off in pop history”?  Its lyrics made it a firm favourite with the US Infantry in Vietnam prompting her to perform there in 1966 and 1967.

7.

Who has help from both a talking backpack and an anthropomorphic monkey called Boots to overcome the problems she encounters with Swiper, a light-fingered fox?

8.

Which English city is home to Explorer House, the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey, and the National Oceanography Centre?

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Which 1971 single appears to promote urinating in public places and sexual deviancy with the lyrics “we can swing together, we can have a wee wee, we can have a wet on the wall, if someone slips a whisper that its simple sister, slapped them down and slavered on their smalls”?

2.

3.

George Grenville, Prime Minister from 1763 to 1765, never acceded to the peerage being a younger son.  His nephew also served as Prime Minister, died whilst in office and similarly never acceded to the peerage being a younger son. Who was he?

4.

What was the name of Maggie the Cat’s husband, in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

5.

What is the common name for the bird correctly called Vanellus vanellus, which is drably coloured but with a flamboyant crest and easily recognised by its irregular wing beat, erratic flight and plaintive cry?

6.

What is the common name for the lizard Anguis fragilis that is native to this country?

7.

Which 1960 comedy features the following dialogue spoken by Alistair Sim: “Well gentlemen, lifemanship is the science of being one up on your opponents at all times.  It is the art of making him feel that somewhere, somehow, he has become less than you – less desirable, less worthy, less blessed”?

8.

What mode of transport provided the logo of the Village, from the TV cult series The Prisoner?

Sp.

What do the initials DRAM stand for when used in a computer context?

ROUND 3 - 'The Worm Expands'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

The fictional Southampton Row police station in London made its debut when it featured in the first of which television mini-series franchise initially broadcast in 1991?

2.

Name the Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington who in 1952 married Clarissa Spencer Churchill, the niece of the then serving Prime Minister.

3.

Which Westmoreland market town lies on the Coast to Coast walk and has a station on the Settle and Carlisle Railway? Many mistakenly think that the town’s name must refer to its parish church but that is dedicated to St. John; instead it is probably derived from its proximity to the River Eden.

4.

Who was appointed head of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence which published its report in February 1999?

5.

What was Fiona MacPherson, an employee of the Oxford English Dictionary, referring to when, at an awards evening on 13th of November 2013, she remarked that “it seemed to sum up so many of the events of the last 366 days in a beautiful way”?

6.

What enterprises were to be found clustered in medieval streets named The Shambles as typified by the example in York, or even Shambles Square as found in Manchester?

7.

Being incarcerated in Slaughterhouse Five helped save Billy Pilgrim from what apocalyptic event of February 1945?

8.

Dresden is the capital of which of the sixteen federal states of Germany?

ROUND 4 - Hidden theme

1.

What is both a long lived computer game first released in 1984 featuring Panama Joe, and a colloquialism, with a reference to a historical figure, for an unfortunate medical condition?

2.

What adjective with the meaning 'characterised by austerity or a lack of comfort or luxury' was also the name selected, but because of a different connotation to this meaning, by the US military for its LIM 49A missile designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles?

3.

In the version published in the 1906 English Hymnal what is the first line of the only hymn written by John Bunyan?

4.

Which King of England, who reigned for 21 years, died in a priory at Rouen and lies buried at Caen?

5.

Which town in Manitoba, once an important trading post standing at the mouth of a 1600 kilometre long river, was named after the Governor of The Hudson’s Bay Company from 1685 to 1692?

6.

After jail what is the second most landed upon square in monopoly with a 3.1858% probability of being occupied?

7.

8.

Who, while being found guilty of stealing a silver snuff box, chose to warn the court that his “attorney is a breakfasting this morning with the Vice President of the House of Commons”?

Sp.

For his role as a fisherman in which 1937 film did Spencer Tracey win an Academy Award for Best actor?  It also starred a young Mickey Rooney and was based on a novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.

ROUND 5 - 'The Worm Turns'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

The Battle of Lutzen in Saxony in 1632 proved to be a decisive battle in which pan-European conflict?

2.

Which goalkeeper, in a career lasting nearly 30 years, played for fifteen different Football League clubs, a record total that still stands, and is also the oldest player to play in the Premier League when appearing aged 43 in his club’s final game of the 1994/5 season?

3.

Who made a cameo performance in Coronation Street in 2004 playing a pensioner trying to get fit who buys an exercise bike from Jack Duckworth?  It came more than fifty years after he had won a BAFTA as best newcomer playing a clerk in Burridge’s department store.

4.

To what use were the names of the Roman goddess of agriculture, the Greek goddess of wisdom, a daughter of Saturn, the Roman goddess of home and hearth, and the Greek goddess of justice put between 1801 and 1845?

5.

Which British company has, since 1968, used a distinctive theme tune called Asteroid.  It lasts a mere 20 seconds but according to the company its staccato sound is now capable of evoking the distinctive smell of the location where the public hear it?

6.

What is the name of the freestanding tower found in a city on the Pearl River which, when opened in September 2010, was the tallest in the world?  Somewhat surprisingly the chosen name was the Portuguese corruption of the Chinese name for the surrounding area.

7.

What departed Memphis 95 minutes late shortly after midnight on 30th April 1900 and was supposed to be hauled by Illinois Central 384 as far as Canton, Mississippi en route to St Louis?

8.

Complete this sextet of musicians who recorded A Kind of Blue: Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb. Cannonball Adderley and…

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

Who did Jake La Motta fight six times, losing five of the bouts including one for the undisputed middleweight world championship on Valentine’s Day 1951, causing him to speculate “I fought him so often I almost got diabetes”?

2.

Which battle site is marked by a memorial found on Tockwith Road, a couple of miles from its junction with the B1224 that connects York and Wetherby?

3.

The Grauspitz at 8,527 feet is the highest point of which country?

4.

What did Sainsburys rebrand as Colin in April 2009 because, according to their research, many customers were simply too embarrassed to ask the counter staff for it by its English name?

5.

You are travelling south east on the Jubilee Line: Kilburn, West Hampstead, Finchley Rd, Swiss Cottage but what comes next?

6.

What is the name of the cricket pitch, the scene of thirteen of W G Grace’s centuries for Gloucestershire, which was immortalised in Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem Vitai Lampada?

7.

What parlour game was concocted by three students in Pennsylvania while watching a double bill of films, Footloose followed by The Air Up Here, on television during a snowstorm in 1994?  The concept is currently used to advertise EE.

8.

What southwestern Chinese city, located in Yunnan Province, was the capital of the Bai Kingdom of Nanzhao that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries?

Sp.

Name the musician born to Jewish parents in Berlin in either 1929 or 1930 who has won four Academy Awards for his work in scoring the music of Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce and My Fair Lady.  He received an honorary KBE in 1996.

ROUND 7 - 'The Worm's Tail'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What is the common on-screen destiny of the following characters: Dave Albinizi as played by Robbie Coltrane in 1991, Kiril Pavlovich Lokota as played by Anthony Quinn in 1968, and Joan as played by Johanna Wokalek in 2009?

2.

Which politician’s grave on the Isle of Iona carries this epitaph from Alexander Pope: “An honest man’s the noblest work of God”?

3.

(By my reckoning no venue in use tonight serves this beverage, but just in case it is on tap, nobody is allowed to visit the bar until the question is answered)

What object was registered as a trademark in 1911 and still appears on the logo of John Smith’s Brewery bearing the legend 'estab. 1758'?

4.

Who once said to Charlie Brown “Do you know what I am?  I’m a dust magnet”?

5.

What is the pen name used by the best selling author Erika Leonard, born Erika Mitchell, in 1963?

6.

To what use did Dr James Naismith put a pair of peach baskets in December 1891 at the YMCA international training school?

7.

In a televised basketball match in 1976 Texas A&M Aggies fought back strongly to draw level with arch rivals Texas Tech Raiders in the closing minutes, prompting commentator Ralph Carpenter to utter which now common colloquialism for, apparently, the very first time on air?

8.

Which opera first performed in 1869 provided the name of a luxurious train whose inaugural run in 1928 connected The Hook of Holland and Amsterdam in the north with Basle in the south?

ROUND 8 - Hidden theme

1.

Which play opened at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden 1989 and is the second longest running play in the West End after The Mousetrap?

2.

In what year did the following occur:

• Mallard set the world speed record for a steam locomotive,

• the first Beano was published,

• the first successful ascent of the Eiger North Face was made,

• Bill Shankly won an FA Cup winners medal with Preston North End?

(one year's leeway either side)

3.

Name the valet to Count Almaviva who, after a few arias, finally got to marry Susanna, the maid to the Count’s wife.

4.

What station is Britain’s busiest, if measured by passenger numbers, with 94 million passengers in the year to March 2012?

5.

Which Cambridge College is named after Elizabeth, a granddaughter of Edward the First and the wealthy widow of The Duke of Hertford, who made a large endowment to what was then known as University Hall in 1338?

6.

Which 1938 film starred James Cagney as gangster Rocky Sullivan, Pat O’Brien as priest Father Jerry Connolly and the Dead End Kids as a gang of youths obviously in need of a wash?

7.

The AERE was founded by the Government in 1945 and led by the Nobel Prize winning physicist John Cockcroft.  Its headquarters were on a surplus RAF airbase, Harwell, partly because it was near Oxford and also because there was a lot of space.  Now defunct, what did the initials AERE stand for?

8.

Which honorary Member of the British Empire’s record breaking day of the 28th of September 1996 started on Wall St and ended with spectacular leap off Fujiyama Crest shortly after 17.35?

Sp.

What is the code name for the Boeing AH64 introduced into the US Army in 1986?

Spares for Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - 'The Worm Dies'

A question 'worm' snakes through these spares - apart from question 1 each contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What title was held by the future William IV when he married Princess Adelaide of Saxe Meiningen in 1818?

2.

What was the name of the chimpanzee that co-starred with Clarence the cross eyed lion in the TV series Daktari?

3.

In which 1944 film did Judy Garland sing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?

4.

Which is the only team to have won more World Series than the St Louis Cardinals?

5.

Who wrote the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court?

6.

What poem by Rudyard Kipling contains the line “and never the twain shall meet”?

Tiebreaker

1.

Back in Round 4, Question 8 you may have been torpedoed by the Artful Dodger.  The tiebreak is: How many tonnes of water is HMS Artful designed to displace when submerged and fully laden?

2.

Back in Round 5, Question 2 you may have had a long shot at John Burridge.  The tiebreak is: What was the total number of League appearances made by Burridge during his 15 club Football League and Premiership career?

3.

Back in Round 5, Question 6 you may have stumbled over the Canton Tower.  The tiebreak is: How high is the Canton Tower above ground level in metres and including its transmission tower?

ROUND 1 - 'The Worm's Head'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What Shropshire town gave its name to both a canal and the canal’s northern terminus?  It had been planned to link the River Mersey with the River Dee at Chester and the River Severn at Shrewsbury, but was abandoned in about 1805 when only partially complete due to spiralling costs.

Ellesmere

2.

What could be found at Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula in 1831, at Allen Lake on Prince Edward Island in 1947, and just off Ellesmere Island in 2001?

The Magnetic North Pole

3.

What creature is the subject of a poem by William Blake, the family name of a British Prime Minister, and an unlikely adornment on the crest of Preston North End Football club?

A lamb

4.

What opening line of a Shakespeare play would later be the inspiration for the title of John Steinbeck’s last novel and also be used to telling effect by Larry Lamb, editor at the Sun from 1975 to 1981?

“Now is the winter of our discontent”

5.

What country has an estimated population of about 90 million making it the world’s thirteenth most populous country; shares land borders with three other countries; has a coastline of 3,444 kilometres according to the CIA; and has never sent any athletes to a Winter Olympics?

Vietnam

6.

What song gave its original recording artist her first UK singles chart number one and was described by Tom Breihan as “maybe the finest bitchy kiss-off in pop history”?  Its lyrics made it a firm favourite with the US Infantry in Vietnam prompting her to perform there in 1966 and 1967.

These Boots Were Made for Walking

7.

Who has help from both a talking backpack and an anthropomorphic monkey called Boots to overcome the problems she encounters with Swiper, a light-fingered fox?

Dora the Explorer

8.

Which English city is home to Explorer House, the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey, and the National Oceanography Centre?

Southampton

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Which 1971 single appears to promote urinating in public places and sexual deviancy with the lyrics “we can swing together, we can have a wee wee, we can have a wet on the wall, if someone slips a whisper that its simple sister, slapped them down and slavered on their smalls”?

The Fog on the Tyne

2.

Black Pudding

3.

George Grenville, Prime Minister from 1763 to 1765, never acceded to the peerage being a younger son.  His nephew also served as Prime Minister, died whilst in office and similarly never acceded to the peerage being a younger son. Who was he?

William Pitt the Younger

4.

What was the name of Maggie the Cat’s husband, in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

Brick

5.

What is the common name for the bird correctly called Vanellus vanellus, which is drably coloured but with a flamboyant crest and easily recognised by its irregular wing beat, erratic flight and plaintive cry?

Lapwing

(accept peewit but point out that the theme requires the given answer)

6.

What is the common name for the lizard Anguis fragilis that is native to this country?

Slow worm

(accept blind worm but point out that the theme requires the given answer)

7.

Which 1960 comedy features the following dialogue spoken by Alistair Sim: “Well gentlemen, lifemanship is the science of being one up on your opponents at all times.  It is the art of making him feel that somewhere, somehow, he has become less than you – less desirable, less worthy, less blessed”?

School for Scoundrels

8.

What mode of transport provided the logo of the Village, from the TV cult series The Prisoner?

Penny-farthing

Sp.

What do the initials DRAM stand for when used in a computer context?

Dynamic Random Access Memory

ROUND 3 - 'The Worm Expands'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

The fictional Southampton Row police station in London made its debut when it featured in the first of which television mini-series franchise initially broadcast in 1991?

Prime Suspect

2.

Name the Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington who in 1952 married Clarissa Spencer Churchill, the niece of the then serving Prime Minister.

Anthony Eden

3.

Which Westmoreland market town lies on the Coast to Coast walk and has a station on the Settle and Carlisle Railway? Many mistakenly think that the town’s name must refer to its parish church but that is dedicated to St. John; instead it is probably derived from its proximity to the River Eden.

Kirby Stephen

(its name probably being a corruption of Kirk by the Eden)

4.

Who was appointed head of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence which published its report in February 1999?

Lord MacPherson

5.

What was Fiona MacPherson, an employee of the Oxford English Dictionary, referring to when, at an awards evening on 13th of November 2013, she remarked that “it seemed to sum up so many of the events of the last 366 days in a beautiful way”?

The word 'omni-shambles'

6.

What enterprises were to be found clustered in medieval streets named The Shambles as typified by the example in York, or even Shambles Square as found in Manchester?

Slaughterhouses / butchers

7.

Being incarcerated in Slaughterhouse Five helped save Billy Pilgrim from what apocalyptic event of February 1945?

Dresden firestorm

8.

Dresden is the capital of which of the sixteen federal states of Germany?

Saxony

ROUND 4 - Hidden theme

1.

What is both a long lived computer game first released in 1984 featuring Panama Joe, and a colloquialism, with a reference to a historical figure, for an unfortunate medical condition?

Montezuma’s Revenge

2.

What adjective with the meaning 'characterised by austerity or a lack of comfort or luxury' was also the name selected, but because of a different connotation to this meaning, by the US military for its LIM 49A missile designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles?

Spartan

3.

In the version published in the 1906 English Hymnal what is the first line of the only hymn written by John Bunyan?

"He who would valiant be"

4.

Which King of England, who reigned for 21 years, died in a priory at Rouen and lies buried at Caen?

William the Conqueror

(obviously accept William I but point out that that the theme needs the given answer)

5.

Which town in Manitoba, once an important trading post standing at the mouth of a 1600 kilometre long river, was named after the Governor of The Hudson’s Bay Company from 1685 to 1692?

Churchill

(as in the 1st Duke of Marlborough)

6.

After jail what is the second most landed upon square in monopoly with a 3.1858% probability of being occupied?

Trafalgar Square

(its popularity is due to it being 14 spaces after Jail plus the 'Go to Trafalgar Square' chance card)

7.

'Splendid isolationism'

8.

Who, while being found guilty of stealing a silver snuff box, chose to warn the court that his “attorney is a breakfasting this morning with the Vice President of the House of Commons”?

Sp.

For his role as a fisherman in which 1937 film did Spencer Tracey win an Academy Award for Best actor?  It also starred a young Mickey Rooney and was based on a novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.

Captains Courageous

ROUND 5 - 'The Worm Turns'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

The Battle of Lutzen in Saxony in 1632 proved to be a decisive battle in which pan-European conflict?

Thirty Years War

2.

Which goalkeeper, in a career lasting nearly 30 years, played for fifteen different Football League clubs, a record total that still stands, and is also the oldest player to play in the Premier League when appearing aged 43 in his club’s final game of the 1994/5 season?

John Burridge

(his fifteenth and final league club being the mighty Darlington)

3.

Who made a cameo performance in Coronation Street in 2004 playing a pensioner trying to get fit who buys an exercise bike from Jack Duckworth?  It came more than fifty years after he had won a BAFTA as best newcomer playing a clerk in Burridge’s department store.

Norman Wisdom

4.

To what use were the names of the Roman goddess of agriculture, the Greek goddess of wisdom, a daughter of Saturn, the Roman goddess of home and hearth, and the Greek goddess of justice put between 1801 and 1845?

They provided the names for the first 5 Asteroids to be discovered

5.

Which British company has, since 1968, used a distinctive theme tune called Asteroid.  It lasts a mere 20 seconds but according to the company its staccato sound is now capable of evoking the distinctive smell of the location where the public hear it?

Pearl and Dean

6.

What is the name of the freestanding tower found in a city on the Pearl River which, when opened in September 2010, was the tallest in the world?  Somewhat surprisingly the chosen name was the Portuguese corruption of the Chinese name for the surrounding area.

Canton Tower

7.

What departed Memphis 95 minutes late shortly after midnight on 30th April 1900 and was supposed to be hauled by Illinois Central 384 as far as Canton, Mississippi en route to St Louis?

(The Illinois Central’s) Cannonball Express

8.

Complete this sextet of musicians who recorded A Kind of Blue: Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb. Cannonball Adderley and…

John Coltrane

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

Who did Jake La Motta fight six times, losing five of the bouts including one for the undisputed middleweight world championship on Valentine’s Day 1951, causing him to speculate “I fought him so often I almost got diabetes”?

Sugar Ray Robinson

2.

Which battle site is marked by a memorial found on Tockwith Road, a couple of miles from its junction with the B1224 that connects York and Wetherby?

Marston Moor

3.

The Grauspitz at 8,527 feet is the highest point of which country?

Liechtenstein

4.

What did Sainsburys rebrand as Colin in April 2009 because, according to their research, many customers were simply too embarrassed to ask the counter staff for it by its English name?

Pollock

('Co-lan' being the French for cooked Pollock)

5.

You are travelling south east on the Jubilee Line: Kilburn, West Hampstead, Finchley Rd, Swiss Cottage but what comes next?

St Johns Wood

6.

What is the name of the cricket pitch, the scene of thirteen of W G Grace’s centuries for Gloucestershire, which was immortalised in Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem Vitai Lampada?

The Close

("There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight, 10 to make and a match to win")

7.

What parlour game was concocted by three students in Pennsylvania while watching a double bill of films, Footloose followed by The Air Up Here, on television during a snowstorm in 1994?  The concept is currently used to advertise EE.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

8.

What southwestern Chinese city, located in Yunnan Province, was the capital of the Bai Kingdom of Nanzhao that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries?

Dali

Sp.

Name the musician born to Jewish parents in Berlin in either 1929 or 1930 who has won four Academy Awards for his work in scoring the music of Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce and My Fair Lady.  He received an honorary KBE in 1996.

Andre Previn

ROUND 7 - 'The Worm's Tail'

A question 'worm' snakes through Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - apart from Question 1 in Round 1 each question contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What is the common on-screen destiny of the following characters: Dave Albinizi as played by Robbie Coltrane in 1991, Kiril Pavlovich Lokota as played by Anthony Quinn in 1968, and Joan as played by Johanna Wokalek in 2009?

To become Pope

(The Pope Must Die, The Shoes of the Fisherman, and Pope Joan)

2.

Which politician’s grave on the Isle of Iona carries this epitaph from Alexander Pope: “An honest man’s the noblest work of God”?

John Smith

3.

(By my reckoning no venue in use tonight serves this beverage, but just in case it is on tap, nobody is allowed to visit the bar until the question is answered)

What object was registered as a trademark in 1911 and still appears on the logo of John Smith’s Brewery bearing the legend 'estab. 1758'?

A magnet

4.

Who once said to Charlie Brown “Do you know what I am?  I’m a dust magnet”?

Pig Pen

5.

What is the pen name used by the best selling author Erika Leonard, born Erika Mitchell, in 1963?

E L James

6.

To what use did Dr James Naismith put a pair of peach baskets in December 1891 at the YMCA international training school?

They were the baskets on the first basketball court

7.

In a televised basketball match in 1976 Texas A&M Aggies fought back strongly to draw level with arch rivals Texas Tech Raiders in the closing minutes, prompting commentator Ralph Carpenter to utter which now common colloquialism for, apparently, the very first time on air?

"The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings"

(it was the first recorded use of the term although many claim similar expressions were in general parlance in the Southern states in the 1920s)

8.

Which opera first performed in 1869 provided the name of a luxurious train whose inaugural run in 1928 connected The Hook of Holland and Amsterdam in the north with Basle in the south?

Das Rheingold

ROUND 8 - Hidden theme

1.

Which play opened at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden 1989 and is the second longest running play in the West End after The Mousetrap?

The Woman in Black

2.

In what year did the following occur:

• Mallard set the world speed record for a steam locomotive,

• the first Beano was published,

• the first successful ascent of the Eiger North Face was made,

• Bill Shankly won an FA Cup winners medal with Preston North End?

(one year's leeway either side)

1938

(accept 1937-1939)

3.

Name the valet to Count Almaviva who, after a few arias, finally got to marry Susanna, the maid to the Count’s wife.

Figaro

4.

What station is Britain’s busiest, if measured by passenger numbers, with 94 million passengers in the year to March 2012?

Waterloo

5.

Which Cambridge College is named after Elizabeth, a granddaughter of Edward the First and the wealthy widow of The Duke of Hertford, who made a large endowment to what was then known as University Hall in 1338?

Clare

(born Elisabeth de Clare)

6.

Which 1938 film starred James Cagney as gangster Rocky Sullivan, Pat O’Brien as priest Father Jerry Connolly and the Dead End Kids as a gang of youths obviously in need of a wash?

Angels with Dirty Faces

7.

The AERE was founded by the Government in 1945 and led by the Nobel Prize winning physicist John Cockcroft.  Its headquarters were on a surplus RAF airbase, Harwell, partly because it was near Oxford and also because there was a lot of space.  Now defunct, what did the initials AERE stand for?

Atomic Energy Research Establishment

8.

Which honorary Member of the British Empire’s record breaking day of the 28th of September 1996 started on Wall St and ended with spectacular leap off Fujiyama Crest shortly after 17.35?

Frankie Dettori

Sp

What is the code name for the Boeing AH64 introduced into the US Army in 1986?

Apache

Spares for Rounds 1, 3, 5 & 7 - 'The Worm Dies'

A question 'worm' snakes through these spares - apart from question 1 each contains a word from the answer to the previous question

1.

What title was held by the future William IV when he married Princess Adelaide of Saxe Meiningen in 1818?

Duke of Clarence

2.

What was the name of the chimpanzee that co-starred with Clarence the cross eyed lion in the TV series Daktari?

Judy

3.

In which 1944 film did Judy Garland sing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?

Meet Me in St Louis

4.

Which is the only team to have won more World Series than the St Louis Cardinals?

New York Yankees

5.

Who wrote the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court?

Mark Twain

6.

What poem by Rudyard Kipling contains the line “and never the twain shall meet”?

The Ballad of East and West

Tiebreaker

1.

Back in Round 4, Question 8 you may have been torpedoed by the Artful Dodger.  The tiebreak is: How many tonnes of water is HMS Artful designed to displace when submerged and fully laden?

7400

2.

Back in Round 5, Question 2 you may have had a long shot at John Burridge.  The tiebreak is: What was the total number of League appearances made by Burridge during his 15 club Football League and Premiership career?

691

3.

Back in Round 5, Question 6 you may have stumbled over the Canton Tower.  The tiebreak is: How high is the Canton Tower above ground level in metres and including its transmission tower?

600