1.

The apparently simple statement that: “Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes” is known to be true for all numbers up to 4 quintillion (four times ten to the power of eighteen) but it has not yet been proven.  Which mathematician’s name is typically attached to this statement?

2.

The statement that: “The zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part one-half” is considered by some mathematicians the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics.  Which mathematician’s name is attached to this statement?

3.

Diorite, basalt, obsidian and tuff are all examples of which type of rocks?

4.

Quartzite, marble, lapis lazuli, and slate are all examples of which type of rocks?

5.

First seen in 1945 using electron microscopy, this eukaryotic cellular organelle consists of an interconnected network of flattened membrane-enclosed tube-like structures.  It is found in most cells except spermatozoa and red blood cells, and functions in the synthesis of proteins and lipids.  What is its name?

6.

The endoplasmic reticulum comes in two types, 'rough' and 'smooth' based on electron microscopic appearance.  What are the molecular machines synthesizing proteins that give the 'rough' endoplasmic reticulum its appearance?

7.

The author of a 1948 paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which, among other things, introduced the term 'bit' as a unit of information, is usually considered 'the father of information theory'.  Who was he?

8.

In 1967, a dynamic programming algorithm for finding the most likely sequence of hidden states that results in a sequence of observed events was proposed, with the aim of accurately recovering information transmitted over noisy digital communication links.  It is now ubiquitous in fields from mobile telephony to bioinformatics.  Who was its inventor?

1.

The 1990 film Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and its 2012 remake starring Colin Farrell, is based on a 1966 short story by Philip K Dick.  What is the name of the story?

2.

The 1982 film Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, was based on a 1968 novel, also by Philip K Dick.  What is the name of the novel?

3.

The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is frequently voted the country’s favourite piece of classical music.  The title and inspiration of the piece is a poem by which Victorian poet?

4.

In Ralph Vaughan Williams’ autobiography, he recalled his composition tutor at the Royal College of Music exhorting him to: “Write choral music as befits an Englishman and a democrat”, sentiments amply demonstrated in the tutor’s most famous composition.  Who was he?

5.

This English biologist and comparative anatomist who lived 1825-1895 was nicknamed 'Darwin’s Bulldog' for his passionate advocacy of the theory of evolution after the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859.  Who was he?

6.

In 1869 TH Huxley coined a word describing a philosophical worldview which he defined as: “simply meaning that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe”.  What was the word?

7.

This Bloomsbury Group painter and designer who lived from 1885 to 1978 counted among his lovers his cousin Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, and Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell.  In the late 1950s he modelled a figure of Christ for a mural in Lincoln Cathedral on another lover, Paul Roche.  Who was he?

8.

In 1910 Duncan Grant, Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), her brother and three other Bloomsbury types pranked their way onto HMS Dreadnought while it was moored in Portland Harbour, by pretending to be the Abyssinian Royal Family.  Receiving an official tour of the ship, they repeatedly used a made-up alliterative phrase to indicate astonished approval.  The phrase became publicly popular for a time, and recently resurfaced in another, altogether more scandalous context.  What was the phrase?

1.

Kimberley Taylor, from Blackburn, was recently in the news.  Why?

2.

Who left the band Take That in 2014?

3.

Which footballer became synonymous with the concept of 'Total Football'?

4.

Which 1962 film starred Robert Mitchum, and its 1991 remake starred Robert De Niro as psychopath Max Cady?

5.

Which band, formed in 1969, was named after a robot character in the The Dandy?

6.

In the 1970’s there was a series of awful soft porn films called Confessions of a ....  Who played the character Tommy Lea in these films?

7.

Which town lying 4 miles north of Burnley on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, formerly called Marsden, was renamed after a town centre public house?

8.

Which town was named in honour of Juana Maria de los Doleres de Leon?  It has associations with two noted statesmen, one a War Correspondent, and one an organiser of stretcher bearers?

Sp.

Which author, who died in 1902, wrote the novel Therese Raquin, published in 1867?

1.

Which play opens with the line “If music be the food of love, play on"?

2.

Which play commences “Now is the winter of our discontent”?

3.

Which MP recently stood down in the constituency of Copeland in Cumbria?

4.

Which MP recently stood down in the constituency of Stoke Central?

5.

Which 1970-2 sitcom featured a precocious child called Tristram?

6.

Which 1990’s sitcom featured an aggressive PA inappropriately called Joy?

7.

Who wrote Gone Girl?

8.

Who wrote Apple Tree Yard?

Sp1

From which international nuclear non-proliferation agreement is the UK withdrawing as part of the Brexit process?

Sp2

What position does Rex Tillerson hold in the USA?

1.

Cantona was the first and Lukaku the 300th.  But to do what?

2.

Alan Shearer is top of the hat-tricks scored list. But who lies second?

3.

What surname connects an author/journalist/broadcaster, an Australian poet and an Australian fast bowler?

4.

What surname connects a singer/songwriter, first prominent in the 1980’s, a member of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang and The Antichrist?

5.

Torquemada, Mary Tudor and Lucretia Borgia were all subjects for this historical novelist, but his most famous works were turned into a number of films as well as a blockbuster musical.  Who was he?

6.

Count Belisarius and Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth were books written by another historical novelist.  His two most famous novels formed the basis of a big hit TV Series.  Who was he?

7.

In 1808 the Theater an der Wien was the venue for a concert at which two of this composer’s symphonies were first performed.  Who is the composer?

8.

Twenty years later, in 1928, another composer, one of Beethoven great admirers, was to die of typhus at the relatively early age of 31 years.  Who was he?

1.

Who did Kitty Packenham marry in Dublin on 19th April 1806?

2.

Who did Fanny Nisbett of Nevis marry on 11th March 1787?

3.

There seems to be a possibility that Leicester City could be relegated from the Premier League this season, having been champions last year.  To date only one team has achieved this distinction.  Which club was this and what was unusual about its record as a relegated team?

4.

Nine clubs have been relegated from the top flight of English Football three times, but only one club has been relegated four times.  Two if its Directors have achieved fame in other spheres.  What is the club and who are the Directors referred to?   (Please note this question and its answer have been found to be incorrect)

5.

Who was known as the Great Cham?

6.

Who was known as the Great Commoner?

7.

Fort Dusquesne is now known as what?

8.

Fort St George is now known as what?

Sp1

Robert Walpole was never called Prime Minister although he filled that function for about 21 years.  He also had the role of Master of the Revels.  Why?

Sp2

Robert Louis Stevenson’s father was a renowned builder of lighthouses.  He is also renowned for which invention still in use today?

1.

During 2016 who became the first performer ever to occupy the top three places in the UK singles chart simultaneously?

2.

Which singer has spent most of the year to date at numbers one and two in the UK singles chart?

3.

Who scored against Everton three weeks ago to become the 26th player to score 100 Premier League goals?

4.

Which player from that list of the top Premier League goalscorers is currently playing English league football in the Championship after racking up his total of 106 goals at several different clubs?

5.

What is the name of the French presidential candidate who is struggling to answer questions about the dubious jobs that he has previously given to family members, particularly his Welsh-born wife?

6.

What is the name of President Trump’s short-lived national security advisor who was forced to stand down due to his pre-election dealings with the Russians?

7.

Which former member of a family-based singing group was victorious in the recent series of Celebrity Big Brother?

8.

Which BBC sports news presenter was the winner of the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing?

Sp.

Who is the only monarch to be born and die at Buckingham Palace?

1.

The Throckmorton Plot was a conspiracy aimed at killing and replacing which monarch?

2.

Which conspiracy, named after an English city, intended to replace Henry V with Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March?

3.

Based in Milford, Connecticut, which is the world’s largest restaurant chain (by number of stores) worldwide?

4.

What is the name of the newly-released biopic starring Michael Keaton as McDonalds supremo Ray Kroc?

5.

Which planet in the Solar System has the fastest winds, with speeds up to 1500 mph?

6.

Which planet in the solar system is the fastest-spinning, doing a full rotation in roughly ten hours?

7.

What is the smallest mainland country on the African continent?

8.

According to the African Economist magazine’s 2016 data, which is Africa’s most populous city?

Sp.

What is the USA’s highest and oldest state capital?

1.

The apparently simple statement that: “Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes” is known to be true for all numbers up to 4 quintillion (four times ten to the power of eighteen) but it has not yet been proven.  Which mathematician’s name is typically attached to this statement?

(Christian) Goldbach

(it is known as the Goldbach conjecture)

2.

The statement that: “The zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part one-half” is considered by some mathematicians the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics.  Which mathematician’s name is attached to this statement?

(Bernhard) Riemann

(it is known as the Reimann hypothesis)

3.

Diorite, basalt, obsidian and tuff are all examples of which type of rocks?

Igneous rocks

(rocks formed from the solidification of molten material)

4.

Quartzite, marble, lapis lazuli, and slate are all examples of which type of rocks?

Metamorphic rocks

(rocks modified by heat, pressure and chemical processes buried deep below Earth’s surface)

5.

First seen in 1945 using electron microscopy, this eukaryotic cellular organelle consists of an interconnected network of flattened membrane-enclosed tube-like structures.  It is found in most cells except spermatozoa and red blood cells, and functions in the synthesis of proteins and lipids.  What is its name?

Endoplasmic reticulum

6.

The endoplasmic reticulum comes in two types, 'rough' and 'smooth' based on electron microscopic appearance.  What are the molecular machines synthesizing proteins that give the 'rough' endoplasmic reticulum its appearance?

Ribosomes

7.

The author of a 1948 paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which, among other things, introduced the term 'bit' as a unit of information, is usually considered 'the father of information theory'.  Who was he?

(Claude Elwood) Shannon

8.

In 1967, a dynamic programming algorithm for finding the most likely sequence of hidden states that results in a sequence of observed events was proposed, with the aim of accurately recovering information transmitted over noisy digital communication links.  It is now ubiquitous in fields from mobile telephony to bioinformatics.  Who was its inventor?

(Andrew) Viterbi

(it is the Viterbi algorithm)

1.

The 1990 film Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and its 2012 remake starring Colin Farrell, is based on a 1966 short story by Philip K Dick.  What is the name of the story?

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

2.

The 1982 film Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, was based on a 1968 novel, also by Philip K Dick.  What is the name of the novel?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

3.

The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is frequently voted the country’s favourite piece of classical music.  The title and inspiration of the piece is a poem by which Victorian poet?

George Meredith

4.

In Ralph Vaughan Williams’ autobiography, he recalled his composition tutor at the Royal College of Music exhorting him to: “Write choral music as befits an Englishman and a democrat”, sentiments amply demonstrated in the tutor’s most famous composition.  Who was he?

Hubert Parry

(composer of Jerusalem)

5.

This English biologist and comparative anatomist who lived 1825-1895 was nicknamed 'Darwin’s Bulldog' for his passionate advocacy of the theory of evolution after the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859.  Who was he?

Thomas Henry Huxley

(or TH Huxley)

6.

In 1869 TH Huxley coined a word describing a philosophical worldview which he defined as: “simply meaning that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe”.  What was the word?

Agnosticism

(allow Agnostic)

7.

This Bloomsbury Group painter and designer who lived from 1885 to 1978 counted among his lovers his cousin Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, and Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell.  In the late 1950s he modelled a figure of Christ for a mural in Lincoln Cathedral on another lover, Paul Roche.  Who was he?

Duncan Grant

8.

In 1910 Duncan Grant, Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), her brother and three other Bloomsbury types pranked their way onto HMS Dreadnought while it was moored in Portland Harbour, by pretending to be the Abyssinian Royal Family.  Receiving an official tour of the ship, they repeatedly used a made-up alliterative phrase to indicate astonished approval.  The phrase became publicly popular for a time, and recently resurfaced in another, altogether more scandalous context.  What was the phrase?

Bunga Bunga!

1.

Kimberley Taylor, from Blackburn, was recently in the news.  Why?

She is the first British woman to go to Syria to fight IS

(accept "joined Kurdish forces to fight IS")

2.

Who left the band Take That in 2014?

Jason Orange

3.

Which footballer became synonymous with the concept of 'Total Football'?

Johan Cruyff

4.

Which 1962 film starred Robert Mitchum, and its 1991 remake starred Robert De Niro as psychopath Max Cady?

Cape Fear

5.

Which band, formed in 1969, was named after a robot character in the The Dandy?

Thin Lizzy

6.

In the 1970’s there was a series of awful soft porn films called Confessions of a ....  Who played the character Tommy Lea in these films?

Robin Askwith

7.

Which town lying 4 miles north of Burnley on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, formerly called Marsden, was renamed after a town centre public house?

Nelson

8.

Which town was named in honour of Juana Maria de los Doleres de Leon?  It has associations with two noted statesmen, one a War Correspondent, and one an organiser of stretcher bearers?

Ladysmith

(the references are to Churchill and Gandhi

Sp.

Which author, who died in 1902, wrote the novel Therese Raquin, published in 1867?

Emile Zola

1.

Which play opens with the line “If music be the food of love, play on"?

Twelfth Night

2.

Which play commences “Now is the winter of our discontent”?

Richard III

3.

Which MP recently stood down in the constituency of Copeland in Cumbria?

Jamie Reed

4.

Which MP recently stood down in the constituency of Stoke Central?

Tristram Hunt

5.

Which 1970-2 sitcom featured a precocious child called Tristram?

George & Mildred

6.

Which 1990’s sitcom featured an aggressive PA inappropriately called Joy?

Drop The Dead Donkey

7.

Who wrote Gone Girl?

Gillian Flynn

8.

Who wrote Apple Tree Yard?

Louise Doughty

Sp1

From which international nuclear non-proliferation agreement is the UK withdrawing as part of the Brexit process?

Euratom

Sp1

What position does Rex Tillerson hold in the USA?

Secretary of State

1.

Cantona was the first and Lukaku the 300th.  But to do what?

Score a Premier League hat-trick

2.

Alan Shearer is top of the hat-tricks scored list. But who lies second?

Robbie Fowler

3.

What surname connects an author/journalist/broadcaster, an Australian poet and an Australian fast bowler?

Lawson

(Mark Lawson, Henry Archibald Lawson and Geoff Lawson)

4.

What surname connects a singer/songwriter, first prominent in the 1980’s, a member of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang and The Antichrist?

Thorn

(Paul Thorn, Andy Thorn and Damien Thorn)

5.

Torquemada, Mary Tudor and Lucretia Borgia were all subjects for this historical novelist, but his most famous works were turned into a number of films as well as a blockbuster musical.  Who was he?

Victor Hugo

6.

Count Belisarius and Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth were books written by another historical novelist.  His two most famous novels formed the basis of a big hit TV Series.  Who was he?

Robert Graves

7.

In 1808 the Theater an der Wien was the venue for a concert at which two of this composer’s symphonies were first performed.  Who is the composer?

Ludwig van Beethoven

8.

Twenty years later, in 1928, another composer, one of Beethoven great admirers, was to die of typhus at the relatively early age of 31 years.  Who was he?

Franz Schubert

1.

Who did Kitty Packenham marry in Dublin on 19th April 1806?

Arthur Wellesley

(later Duke of Wellington)

2.

Who did Fanny Nisbett of Nevis marry on 11th March 1787?

Horatio Nelson

3.

There seems to be a possibility that Leicester City could be relegated from the Premier League this season, having been champions last year.  To date only one team has achieved this distinction.  Which club was this and what was unusual about its record as a relegated team?

Manchester City – they had a positive goal difference

4.

Nine clubs have been relegated from the top flight of English Football three times, but only one club has been relegated four times.  Two if its Directors have achieved fame in other spheres.  What is the club and who are the Directors referred to?   (Please note this question and its answer have been found to be incorrect)

Norwich City - with Directors Ed Balls and Delia Smith

5.

Who was known as the Great Cham?

Samuel Johnson

6.

Who was known as the Great Commoner?

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham

7.

Fort Dusquesne is now known as what?

Pittsburg

8.

Fort St George is now known as what?

Chennai

(accept Madras)

Sp1

Robert Walpole was never called Prime Minister although he filled that function for about 21 years.  He also had the role of Master of the Revels.  Why?

He was responsible for the licensing of plays

(and thus the stifling of dissent - technically this was done by the Lord Chamberlain, to whom the Master of the Revels reported)

Sp2

Robert Louis Stevenson’s father was a renowned builder of lighthouses.  He is also renowned for which invention still in use today?

The Stevenson Screen

(for the housing of meteorological measuring instruments)

1.

During 2016 who became the first performer ever to occupy the top three places in the UK singles chart simultaneously?

Justin Bieber

2.

Which singer has spent most of the year to date at numbers one and two in the UK singles chart?

Ed Sheeran

3.

Who scored against Everton three weeks ago to become the 26th player to score 100 Premier League goals?

Peter Crouch

4.

Which player from that list of the top Premier League goalscorers is currently playing English league football in the Championship after racking up his total of 106 goals at several different clubs?

Darren Bent

5.

What is the name of the French presidential candidate who is struggling to answer questions about the dubious jobs that he has previously given to family members, particularly his Welsh-born wife?

Francois Fillon

6.

What is the name of President Trump’s short-lived national security advisor who was forced to stand down due to his pre-election dealings with the Russians?

Lt General Michael Flynn

7.

Which former member of a family-based singing group was victorious in the recent series of Celebrity Big Brother?

Colleen Nolan

8.

Which BBC sports news presenter was the winner of the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing?

Ore Oduba

Sp.

Who is the only monarch to be born and die at Buckingham Palace?

Edward VII

1.

The Throckmorton Plot was a conspiracy aimed at killing and replacing which monarch?

Elizabeth I

2.

Which conspiracy, named after an English city, intended to replace Henry V with Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March?

The Southampton Plot

3.

Based in Milford, Connecticut, which is the world’s largest restaurant chain (by number of stores) worldwide?

Subway

4.

What is the name of the newly-released biopic starring Michael Keaton as McDonalds supremo Ray Kroc?

The Founder

5.

Which planet in the Solar System has the fastest winds, with speeds up to 1500 mph?

Neptune

6.

Which planet in the solar system is the fastest-spinning, doing a full rotation in roughly ten hours?

Jupiter

7.

What is the smallest mainland country on the African continent?

The Gambia

8.

According to the African Economist magazine’s 2016 data, which is Africa’s most populous city?

Lagos

Sp.

What is the USA’s highest and oldest state capital?

Santa Fe