ROUND 1 - Pairs

1.

Which 20th Century Prime Minster was forced to travel abroad to where the monarch was holidaying, for the official 'kissing of hands' of the monarch, the only time a British Prime Minister has formally taken office on foreign soil?

2.

Who is referred to as "the unknown Prime Minister", the soubriquet coming from a remark by Asquith at his funeral, that they were burying the 'Unknown Prime Minister' next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?

3.

Which European painter of the 15th/16th century, known as 'Jerome from Aachen', is better known by his pseudonym. One of his works, The Conjurer, depicts a game of cups and balls.

4.

Which European painter of the 15th/16th century created a woodcut of a Rhinoceros without ever seeing the animal himself, and is famous for the Praying Hands.

5.

Which two US composers who, though they shared the same surname, were not related but were friends and, within the world of professional music, were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames 'West' and 'East'?

6.

Who composed the oratorio A Child of Our Time, about the murder in Paris of a German diplomat by a 17-year-old Jewish refugee?  This murder triggered the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938, known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night).

7.

Which American writer succeeded Kurt Vonnegut as honorary president of the American Humanist Association and appeared on the Da Ali G Show, where Ali G mistook him for a hairdresser.

8.

Which American writer, well known for claiming to know intimately people whom he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo, appeared in the film version of Neil Simon's murder mystery spoof Murder by Death, portraying reclusive millionaire Lionel Twain who invites the world's leading detectives together to a dinner party to have them solve a murder.

Sp.

Which American writer ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York City in 1969?  Among his works are The Executioner’s Song, a Pullitzer Prize-winning novel based on the life of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore.

ROUND 2 - Pot pourri

1.

Whose last collection of poems was called Winter Words and includes Midnight on the Great Western?

2.

Which Shakespeare play ends with the following line "let's go together hand-in-hand not one before another"?

3.

Which instrument of the standard 20th century orchestra, patented in 1835, can play the lowest note?

4.

Which Beatles number one hit of 1968 was the last to appear on the Parlophone label?  It had as the B-side The Inner Light, which was the first George Harrison composition to appear on a single.

5.

In the film Whisky Galore who played a cameo role as the captain of the ship SS Cabinet Minister?  He was a co-founder of the Scottish National party in 1928.

6.

Which street in London has the nickname 'Tin Pan Alley'?

7.

Rufus Norris will become the director of the National Theatre from 2015.  Whom will he replace?

8.

What is the name of the collection of art housed in a building just off 5th Ave between 70th and 71st Street in New York city, which was assembled by the industrialist who was called at one time "the most hated man in United States"?

ROUND 3 - Pot pourri

1.

What is the name of the part of the flag nearest to the mast?

2.

The film Heaven's Gate lost $40 million in 1977 and effectively bankrupt which Hollywood studio that was then put up for sale and absorbed by one of its competitors?

3.

What is the name of the alien who lives in the Smith family's attic in the cartoon show American Dad?

4.

What utopian idea was first introduced in the book Tomorrow: a Peaceful Way to Real Reform in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard?  The first attempt to put the idea into practice in this country was made in 1909  in Hertfordshire.

5.

Which Internet search engine, which has become more popular recently because of the revelations by Edward Snowden, takes its name from a US children's game?

6.

The Cambridge college founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort received its charter on this day in 1511.  Two of its courts are connected by the Bridge of Sighs and it is a great rival of Trinity to which it is attached.  Which college is it?

7.

Which city in the United States, the 14th most populous, was renamed from Yerba Buena in 1847?

8.

Which country's national anthem starts with the words "the great Charlemagne, my father"?

ROUND 4 - Pot pourri

1.

Which biographer is married to the playwright Michael Frayn?

2.

Which Australian novelist is married to the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC?

3.

Which flat horse racing course which closed in 1970 and would lie within the M25 today was known colloquially as the 'frying pan' because of its shape?  Only three distances were run at the course, five furlongs, 1 mile and 1 miles five furlongs.

4.

What is the name of the chess variant played with the same rules but with neither of the opponents seeing the other person's pieces.  A referee is required to remove captured pieces from the board and say whether moves are legal or not.

5.

Scald Law is the highest point (at 579m) of which range of hills that is about 20 miles in length and runs southwest from Edinburgh?

6.

Which animal of the genus gulo is the largest of the weasel family?

7.

Which 2012 novel opens with the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother in a golf club car park where he had taken his wife Mary for a Wedding Anniversary meal?

8.

Which comedy musical and film actress was known as the golden foghorn?  She was the original Rose in the Broadway run of Gypsy.

ROUND 5 - Pot pourri

1.

Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics of both 1932 and 1980.  In which current state of the USA is it?  The highest point in the State is Mount Marcy with a height of 5344 feet.

2.

Oscillations from front to back and side to side of a ship in motion are called surge and sway respectively.  Given this motion's effect on certain people what is the appropriate sounding name for oscillations in the vertical plane?

3.

Who is the only person to have won the professional football writers' player of the year award three times?

4.

Which long-running radio program, that was broadcast each weekday morning on the light programme between 1946 and 1967, had the instantly recognisable signature tune In Party Mood by Jack Strachey?

5.

Who wrote the book The Railway Man, telling mainly of his experiences as a Japanese POW, which was recently made in to a film?

6.

The plant Narcissus pseudonarcissus is better known under what name?

7.

What is the name of the raised earthwork commonly seen in fortifications built between the 10th and 14th centuries?

8.

What city with a population of about 150,000 is the capital of the French region of Burgundy?

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

Which American R&B and pop singer served as an elected council woman for the city of Detroit from 2005 until 2009? She fronted a trio whose signature song was covered as a duet for Live Aid. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given state the full answer)

2.

Which secret organization of coal miners, named after a widow who led a group of Irish anti-landlord agitators in the 1840s, were supposedly responsible for acts of terrorism in the coalfields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, from 1862 to 1876?  Their exploits formed the basis for the Sherlock Holmes story The Valley of Fear.

3.

By what name was the boxer Thomas Barbella better known?  His life story was the basis of the 1956 Oscar-winning film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, based on his autobiography of the same title. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given state the full answer)

4.

Which children’s TV series revolves around an anthropomorphic mammal, and her family and friends?  Each of her friends is a different species of mammal that are the same age as she, and her younger brother George's friends are the same age as him.  Although the mammals are anthropomorphic, other animals are not, for example, Tiddles the tortoise and Polly Parrot.

5.

At the end of Mary Poppins, which toy is mended by Mr Banks and is the subject of the film’s final song?

6.

On the centenary of this physicist’s birthday, Einstein described his work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton”.  He is best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory.

7.

Which actor has played the part of Ragetti, a recurring character in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and is best known for playing a TV character who is obsessed with his military service in the Territorial Army. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given, state the full answer)

8.

Which former England and Wasps rugby union footballer is the current head of rugby for the Welsh Rugby Union?  He released his autobiography in 2009 entitled One Chance: My Life and Rugby.

Sp1

Who bought Channel 5 in 2010?  In 2003, together with Roger Daltrey, he formed the RD Crusaders, a rock group in which he played the drums, in order to raise money for charitable causes.

Sp2

By what name is Joan Collins’s fifth husband jokingly known by his friends?

ROUND 7 - Complete the set

1.

Who completes this team:

Deighton, Morgan, Gauke, Javid, Alexander.....?

2.

Kreuziger, Contador, Rodríguez, Quintana.....?

3.

What comes next:
Albert, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Lambeth.....?

4.

What comes next:
Blackfriars, Temple, Embankment, Westminster, St James's Park.....?

5.

What comes next:
Sandy, St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Grantham.....?

6.

Who preceded:
Bercow, Martin, Boothroyd?

7.

What comes next:

Trinity Cambridge, Manchester, Manchester.....?

8.

Denmark, Sweden, Azerbaijan.....?

Sp.

Matthew McConaughey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jean Dujardin, Colin Firth......?

ROUND 8 - Pot pourri

1.

At the Battle of Waterloo Sir Fitzroy Somerset was the military secretary to Lord Wellington.  After losing an arm at Waterloo Somerset continued his military career and died 40 years later still in the army.  How was he known then?

2.

Who was the last person to have won the top tier English Football League both as player and manager?

3.

Carnations, pinks and the Sweet William belong to which genus?

4.

Whose band's theme tune was I'm Getting Sentimental Over You?

5.

Which pop group was formed in 1980 by Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry?

6.

Which singer, born in 1923, had the nickname 'the Velvet Fog'?

7.

Who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958 but refused it?

8.

The musical Blood on Brothers is loosely based on an 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers by which author?

Spares

1.

There is a voltage drop of 10 volts across a resistance of 5 ohms.  What is the power dissipated across the resistance?

2.

The Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald of Kent is currently the Minister for Sport.  Who is she?

3.

Whose Sunday evening show on radio two played out with the song I Love You Samantha?  The show was broadcast without break between 1998 and its abrupt end in August 2013.

4.

Cristina Fernandes de Kirchner is currently President of which country?

5.

With which band did Doris Day have her first hit Sentimental Journey in 1945?

Tiebreaker

ROUND 1 - Pairs

1.

Which 20th Century Prime Minster was forced to travel abroad to where the monarch was holidaying, for the official 'kissing of hands' of the monarch, the only time a British Prime Minister has formally taken office on foreign soil?

Herbert Asquith

(Edward VII was in Biarritz)

2.

Who is referred to as "the unknown Prime Minister", the soubriquet coming from a remark by Asquith at his funeral, that they were burying the 'Unknown Prime Minister' next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?

Andrew Bonar Law

3.

Which European painter of the 15th/16th century, known as 'Jerome from Aachen', is better known by his pseudonym. One of his works, The Conjurer, depicts a game of cups and balls.

Hieronymus Bosch

4.

Which European painter of the 15th/16th century created a woodcut of a Rhinoceros without ever seeing the animal himself, and is famous for the Praying Hands.

Albrecht Dürer

5.

Which two US composers who, though they shared the same surname, were not related but were friends and, within the world of professional music, were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames 'West' and 'East'?

Elmer and Leonard Bernstein

6.

Who composed the oratorio A Child of Our Time, about the murder in Paris of a German diplomat by a 17-year-old Jewish refugee?  This murder triggered the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938, known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night).

Michael Tippett

7.

Which American writer succeeded Kurt Vonnegut as honorary president of the American Humanist Association and appeared on the Da Ali G Show, where Ali G mistook him for a hairdresser.

Gore Vidal

(mistaken for Vidal Sassoon)

8.

Which American writer, well known for claiming to know intimately people whom he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo, appeared in the film version of Neil Simon's murder mystery spoof Murder by Death, portraying reclusive millionaire Lionel Twain who invites the world's leading detectives together to a dinner party to have them solve a murder.

Truman Capote

Sp.

Which American writer ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York City in 1969?  Among his works are The Executioner’s Song, a Pullitzer Prize-winning novel based on the life of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore.

Norman Mailer

ROUND 2 - Pot pourri

1.

Whose last collection of poems was called Winter Words and includes Midnight on the Great Western?

Thomas Hardy

2.

Which Shakespeare play ends with the following line "let's go together hand-in-hand not one before another"?

A Comedy of Errors

3.

Which instrument of the standard 20th century orchestra, patented in 1835, can play the lowest note?

(Bass) Tuba

4.

Which Beatles number one hit of 1968 was the last to appear on the Parlophone label?  It had as the B-side The Inner Light, which was the first George Harrison composition to appear on a single.

Lady Madonna

5.

In the film Whisky Galore who played a cameo role as the captain of the ship SS Cabinet Minister?  He was a co-founder of the Scottish National party in 1928.

Compton Mackenzie

6.

Which street in London has the nickname 'Tin Pan Alley'?

7.

Rufus Norris will become the director of the National Theatre from 2015.  Whom will he replace?

8.

What is the name of the collection of art housed in a building just off 5th Ave between 70th and 71st Street in New York city, which was assembled by the industrialist who was called at one time "the most hated man in United States"?

The Frick collection

ROUND 3 - Pot pourri

1.

What is the name of the part of the flag nearest to the mast?

The hoist

2.

The film Heaven's Gate lost $40 million in 1977 and effectively bankrupt which Hollywood studio that was then put up for sale and absorbed by one of its competitors?

United Artists

3.

What is the name of the alien who lives in the Smith family's attic in the cartoon show American Dad?

Roger

4.

What utopian idea was first introduced in the book Tomorrow: a Peaceful Way to Real Reform in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard?  The first attempt to put the idea into practice in this country was made in 1909  in Hertfordshire.

Garden cities

5.

Which Internet search engine, which has become more popular recently because of the revelations by Edward Snowden, takes its name from a US children's game?

Duckduckgo

6.

The Cambridge college founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort received its charter on this day in 1511.  Two of its courts are connected by the Bridge of Sighs and it is a great rival of Trinity to which it is attached.  Which college is it?

St John's

7.

Which city in the United States, the 14th most populous, was renamed from Yerba Buena in 1847?

San Francisco

8.

Which country's national anthem starts with the words "the great Charlemagne, my father"?

Andorra

ROUND 4 - Pot pourri

1.

Which biographer is married to the playwright Michael Frayn?

Claire Tomalin

2.

Which Australian novelist is married to the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC?

Kathy Lette

3.

Which flat horse racing course which closed in 1970 and would lie within the M25 today was known colloquially as the 'frying pan' because of its shape?  Only three distances were run at the course, five furlongs, 1 mile and 1 miles five furlongs.

Alexandra Palace

4.

What is the name of the chess variant played with the same rules but with neither of the opponents seeing the other person's pieces.  A referee is required to remove captured pieces from the board and say whether moves are legal or not.

Kriegspiel

5.

Scald Law is the highest point (at 579m) of which range of hills that is about 20 miles in length and runs southwest from Edinburgh?

The Pentland Hills

6.

Which animal of the genus gulo is the largest of the weasel family?

Wolverine

7.

Which 2012 novel opens with the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother in a golf club car park where he had taken his wife Mary for a Wedding Anniversary meal?

The Casual Vacancy

(by J K Rowling)

8.

Which comedy musical and film actress was known as the golden foghorn?  She was the original Rose in the Broadway run of Gypsy.

Ethel Merman

ROUND 5 - Pot pourri

1.

Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics of both 1932 and 1980.  In which current state of the USA is it?  The highest point in the State is Mount Marcy with a height of 5344 feet.

New York State

2.

Oscillations from front to back and side to side of a ship in motion are called surge and sway respectively.  Given this motion's effect on certain people what is the appropriate sounding name for oscillations in the vertical plane?

Heave

3.

Who is the only person to have won the professional football writers' player of the year award three times?

Thierry Henri

4.

Which long-running radio program, that was broadcast each weekday morning on the light programme between 1946 and 1967, had the instantly recognisable signature tune In Party Mood by Jack Strachey?

Housewives Choice

5.

Who wrote the book The Railway Man, telling mainly of his experiences as a Japanese POW, which was recently made in to a film?

Eric Lomax

6.

The plant Narcissus pseudonarcissus is better known under what name?

Daffodil

(accept 'Lent lily')

7.

What is the name of the raised earthwork commonly seen in fortifications built between the 10th and 14th centuries?

Motte

8.

What city with a population of about 150,000 is the capital of the French region of Burgundy?

Dijon

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

Which American R&B and pop singer served as an elected council woman for the city of Detroit from 2005 until 2009? She fronted a trio whose signature song was covered as a duet for Live Aid. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given state the full answer)

Martha Reeves

2.

Which secret organization of coal miners, named after a widow who led a group of Irish anti-landlord agitators in the 1840s, were supposedly responsible for acts of terrorism in the coalfields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, from 1862 to 1876?  Their exploits formed the basis for the Sherlock Holmes story The Valley of Fear.

The Molly Maguires

3.

By what name was the boxer Thomas Barbella better known?  His life story was the basis of the 1956 Oscar-winning film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, based on his autobiography of the same title. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given state the full answer)

Rocky Graziano

4.

Which children’s TV series revolves around an anthropomorphic mammal, and her family and friends?  Each of her friends is a different species of mammal that are the same age as she, and her younger brother George's friends are the same age as him.  Although the mammals are anthropomorphic, other animals are not, for example, Tiddles the tortoise and Polly Parrot.

Peppa Pig

5.

At the end of Mary Poppins, which toy is mended by Mr Banks and is the subject of the film’s final song?

A kite

(Let’s Go Fly a Kite)

6.

On the centenary of this physicist’s birthday, Einstein described his work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton”.  He is best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory.

James Clerk Maxwell

7.

Which actor has played the part of Ragetti, a recurring character in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and is best known for playing a TV character who is obsessed with his military service in the Territorial Army. (Note to QM: If only the surname is given, state the full answer)

Mackenzie Crook

(played Gareth in The Office)

8.

Which former England and Wasps rugby union footballer is the current head of rugby for the Welsh Rugby Union?  He released his autobiography in 2009 entitled One Chance: My Life and Rugby.

Josh Lewsey

Sp1

Who bought Channel 5 in 2010?  In 2003, together with Roger Daltrey, he formed the RD Crusaders, a rock group in which he played the drums, in order to raise money for charitable causes.

Richard Desmond

Sp2

By what name is Joan Collins’s fifth husband jokingly known by his friends?

Bungalow Bill (Wiggins)

ROUND 7 - Complete the set

1.

Who completes this team:

Deighton, Morgan, Gauke, Javid, Alexander.....?

George Osborne

(Treasury ministerial team)

2.

Kreuziger, Contador, Rodríguez, Quintana.....?

Chris Froome

(top 5 in 2013 Tour de France)

3.

What comes next:
Albert, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Lambeth.....?

Westminster Bridge

(Thames Bridges moving Eastwards)

4.

What comes next:
Blackfriars, Temple, Embankment, Westminster, St James's Park.....?

Victoria

(District & Circle tube stations moving Westwards)

5.

What comes next:
Sandy, St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Grantham.....?

Newark

(stations on the East Coast main line)

6.

Who preceded:
Bercow, Martin, Boothroyd?

(Speakers of the HoC)

7.

What comes next:

Trinity Cambridge, Manchester, Manchester.....?

Magdalen, Oxford

(University Challenge winners working backwards)

8.

Denmark, Sweden, Azerbaijan.....?

Germany

(Eurovision winners working backwards)

Sp.

Matthew McConaughey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jean Dujardin, Colin Firth......?

(Best Actor Oscar winner 2009)

ROUND 8 - Pot pourri

1.

At the Battle of Waterloo Sir Fitzroy Somerset was the military secretary to Lord Wellington.  After losing an arm at Waterloo Somerset continued his military career and died 40 years later still in the army.  How was he known then?

Lord Raglan

2.

Who was the last person to have won the top tier English Football League both as player and manager?

Kenny Dalglish

3.

Carnations, pinks and the Sweet William belong to which genus?

Dianthus

4.

Whose band's theme tune was I'm Getting Sentimental Over You?

5.

Which pop group was formed in 1980 by Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry?

6.

Which singer, born in 1923, had the nickname 'the Velvet Fog'?

Mel Tormé

7.

Who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958 but refused it?

8.

The musical Blood on Brothers is loosely based on an 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers by which author?

Spares

1.

There is a voltage drop of 10 volts across a resistance of 5 ohms.  What is the power dissipated across the resistance?

20 Watts

(V=IR, W=IV)

2.

The Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald of Kent is currently the Minister for Sport.  Who is she?

Helen Grant

3.

Whose Sunday evening show on radio two played out with the song I Love You Samantha?  The show was broadcast without break between 1998 and its abrupt end in August 2013.

David Jacobs

4.

Cristina Fernandes de Kirchner is currently President of which country?

Argentina

5.

With which band did Doris Day have her first hit Sentimental Journey in 1945?

Les Brown

(and his band of renown)

Tiebreaker

Give the year and month and day of the last time that a plane was shot down by a bomber's rear-gunner in hostile combat.