ROUND 1 - Pairs

1.

Three original members of the Football League currently ply their trade in The Premier League. Which clubs are they?

2.

Seven members of the original Football League now play in The Championship.  Name five of these clubs

3.

Born Peter Campbell McNeish in Leigh in 1955, he wrote or co-wrote the albums Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978), Love Bites (1978) and A Different Kind of Tension (1979).  He died in 2018.

4.

Born in 1957, this person died in 2018.  They expressed a particular loathing for: London, doctors, Jane Austen, Beaujolais, psychologists, Manchester United, The Guardian, David Bowie, the NYPD, 'soft lads who blab', John Lennon, nouvelle cuisine, Australia, Princess Diana, the smoking ban in pubs, Bob Geldof (a "dickhead"), the football pundits Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen ("they look like retired policemen, I bet they go shopping together"), Brighton ("shit pubs, shit music, shit beaches"), the works of J R R Tolkein, David Cameron, "beer minded proles", Kojak (a twat) and the town of Stockport.  Who was he?

5.

Who directed the Michael Caine and Sean Connery 1975 film The Man Who Would be King?  In 1948 he directed his own father in a film where they both won Oscars.

6.

Who directed the Michael Caine and Julie Walters 1983 film Educating Rita?  He also directed a number of James Bond films including You Only Live Twice.

7.

Which three words, consecutive in the dictionary, mean the following:

• a former secret police force;

• to carry in the womb from conception to birth;

• to make vigorous movements with the hands to express emotion or passion?

8.

Which three words, consecutive in the dictionary, mean the following:

• the science of language from the points of view of pronunciation, inflexion and syntax;

• a unit of mass in the Metric system;

• an annual American award?

Sp1

Born in 1964, this actress died in 2018.  She played High Grant's sister in Notting Hill and the part of Alice Tinker in The Vicar of Dibley.  Who was she?

Sp2

Who first entered Parliament in 1992 as the MP for Dulwich.  As Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport she launched the successful Olympic bid for 2012.  She died in 2018 shortly after giving an emotional speech in the House of Lords.

Go to Round 1 questions with answers

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Before Mo Farah in 2012 &and 2016, only 2 British athletes since the war had won gold medals in consecutive summer Olympic Games.  Both did so in the same years.  Name the athletes and the years (all 4 answers required).

2.

In the World Cup finals of 2010 and 2014 which German footballer’s 5 goals in both tournaments won him the Golden Boot and Silver Boot (second-top scorer) respectively?

3.

What starchy food-stuff is extracted from the cassava plant?  Its 3 largest producers are Brazil (from where it originated), Nigeria & Thailand.

4.

What type of fish is an ‘Arbroath Smokie’ and is also the essential ingredient in both the Scottish dish Cullen Skink and the Anglo-Indian dish Kedgeree?

5.

Which word, derived from the Latin word for pebble, is used in medicine to describe gall stones or kidney stones, and in dentistry to describe hardened plaque on the teeth?

6.

Which media publishing company’s eclectic range of print titles includes The People’s Friend (first published in 1869 and still going today)?  It also owns websites 'Find My Past’, ‘Genes Re-united’ and ‘Friends Re-united’ and currently has contracts to digitise the archives of both the Imperial War Museum and the British Library.

7.

Who in 1985 recorded the hit pop song Kiss Me (With Your Mouth), including the lyric:

"Kiss me with your mouth
Your love is better than wine
But wine is all I have
Will your love ever be mine?"

8.

What name means a castle or palace in Spain, built during the Moors’ rule of the country between the 8th & 15th centuries?  The one in Toledo was occupied by local Nationalists at the very start of the Spanish Civil War, and besieged for over 2 months.  The siege was finally lifted by the arrival of Franco’s forces, thus giving him a symbolic and famous victory which helped see him as Spain’s head of state within another month.

Sp.

In Greek mythology who was King of Pylos?  He fought on the side of Odysseus in the Trojan Wars and appears in both The Odyssey and The Iliad.  When too old to engage in combat he is still a respected font of sound advice, even though that is often prefaced by lengthy, boastful recollections of his own past heroism (a kind of forerunner of Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses’!)

Go to Round 2 questions with answers

ROUND 3 - Pairs

1.

In the art world, how is Master Jonathan Buttall more famously known?

2.

In the art world, how are Jean De Dinteville and Georges De Selve more famously known?
 

3.

The 3 spires known as the 'Ladies of the Vale' are a feature of which English cathedral?

4.

Which English cathedral described by Ruskin as “the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles” was, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the tallest building in the world?

5.

In which year did Manchester achieve city status?  (allow 2 years either way)

6.

In which year did Salford achieve city status?  (allow 2 years either way)

7.

What surname connects an 'adult' film actress of the 1970’s, a Cavalier poet and a computing pioneer?

8.

What surname connects a French 'adult' film actress born in 1973, an American country singer born in 1932 and an English comedy writer and actor born in 1960?

Go to Round 3 questions with answers

ROUNDS 4 & 5  

RADIO

1.

Disregarding one-off appearances, the presenters of Desert Island Discs have been Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young and Lauren Laverne.  Who’s missing from this list?

2.

What is the castaways’ top track between 1942 and 2011 according to the Radio 4 web site?  Two clues: it's classical and the composer was not British.

LOCATION UK

1.

In which English county is Thatcher’s Rock?

2.

Which well-known island has these co-ordinates: 53.2653 degrees N; 4.4291 degrees W?

45 RPM

1.

Island Records' first success in the UK was recorded by Millie Small in 1964.  Name it.

2.

In July 1954, the first debut record certified as a gold disc in the UK was Rock Island Line.  Name the artiste.

LITERATURE

1.

Name the island which was Ulysses’ legendary home.

2.

This fortress on a small Mediterranean island 1.5 kilometres offshore in the Bay of Marseilles is a famous fictional setting.  Name it.

GEOGRAPHY

1.

Which island south of Cape Cod includes the notorious Chappaquiddick Peninsula and is known as a summer playground for the USA’s rich elite?

2.

A party of mutineers led by Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian settled on which island?

QUOTATIONS

1.

"This sceptered isle, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England" are lines spoken by which Shakespearean character in which play?

2.

John Donne’s "no man is an island" line is famous but can you recite the three words that finish the line?

EXPLORERS

1.

Who sailed the 1947 replica Kon Tiki across the Pacific to Polynesia?

2.

According to Norse sagas which son of Erik the Red visited Newfoundland in 1000 AD?

MAROONED

1.

The Pacific island Mas a Tierra, renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, forms a part of which country?

2.

Golding’s 1954 dystopian novel Lord of the Flies could be argued to be a dark caricature of which idyllic children’s tale published almost a hundred years before?

WAR

1.

There is an iconic statue of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.  Name either of the two 2006 films, directed by Clint Eastwood, which show both sides of this story.

2.

On April 1st 1945, one of the final battles of the war to bring the Allies to within striking distance of Japan took place.  110,000 Japanese soldiers died and there were 49,000 US casualties.  Where was it?

Go to Rounds 4 & 5 questions with answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

In the House of Commons, what title is currently held by Nick Brown?

2.

Which US new wave band formed in 1981 by husband and wife Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz released the single Genius of Love and a cover version of Under the Boardwalk?

3.

Which Liverpool-born musician was conductor of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1980-98 and of the Berlin Philharmonic until June of last year?

4.

In which Shakespeare play does Imogen wake up to find that she is lying next to the dead body of Cloten who had been dressed in her husband’s clothes?

5.

The mammalian order Sirenia consists of two genera.  One is the manatee, what is the other?

6.

Who, since 2009, has been president of Gabon?  He shares his name with a TV and stage magician born William Oliver Wallace.

7.

Members of which Scottish clan were the victims of the Glencoe massacre in 1692?

8.

Which Bob Dylan song, from the album Bringing It All Back Home, has been covered, by among others, Judy Collins, Marmalade and The Four Seasons?

Go to Round 6 questions with answers

ROUND 7 - 'Celebrity Anagram' theme

The initial letters of the answers spell out (in anagram form) the forename and surname of a celebrity who passed away in 2018

1.

2.

Which common household product has the chemical name sodium hypochlorite?

3.

In financial terms, what does the abbreviation WACC stand for?

4.

In financial terms, what does the abbreviation EBITD stand for?

5.

Which renowned Shakespearian actress born in South Africa in 1939 starred in films such as Nicholas and Alexandra, A Dry White Season and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg?

6.

Which British actor born in 1931 won a best supporting actor Oscar playing the role of a trainer in a 1981 film.  More recently he has become better known for his roles in the Lord of the Rings films.

7.

Which astronomic region lying between 2000 and 200,000 Astronomical Units defines the outer boundary of the solar system?

8.

What is formed after the supernova collapse of a massive star that does not form a black hole? They are the densest and smallest stars.

Go to Round 7 questions with answers

ROUND 8 - Hidden theme

1.

Ant and Dec released this song in 1994 as PJ and Duncan.  It reached No.9 at the time but reached No.1 on its reissue in 2013 when all royalties were donated to ChildLine.  What is it?

2.

What was the biggest selling single of the 1970s?

3.

Which geological period is the second segment of the Mesozoic Era?  It spanned 56 million years from 200million to 144 million years ago and immediately preceded the Cretaceous Period.

4.

This London borough is one of 11 south of the River Thames.  The borough council sits in Catford and its 10 wards include Sydenham, Forest Hill and Blackheath.  What is it?

5.

What is the name of the 1954 biography by Paul Brickhill and the 1956 film of the same name that tell the story of World War 2 fighter pilot, Douglas Bader?

6.

Born in 1923 this American actor played numerous film and television roles from the 1960s the the 1990s.  He is perhaps most famous for playing Tee Hee the muscle for Bond villain Mister Big in the film Live and Let Die in which he has a metallic pincer in place of one of his hands. He died in 2004.  Who is he?  (forename and surname required)

7.

This fish, also known as the Asian sea bass, is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific region from South East Asia to Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia.  Very popular in Thai cuisine, what is its name?

8.

What is the name of the Australian TV and film actress who is married to Ali G star Sacha Baron Cohen?  She began her career in Home and Away in the 1990s but graduated to Hollywood in the Noughties where she has starred in the films Wedding Crashers (2005) and The Great Gatsby (2013) amongst others.  (forename and surname required)

Sp.

This phrase originated in Yorkshire in the early 20th century as an update to earlier, similar phrases.  It translates as, “Where there are dirty jobs to be done there is money to be made”. What is it?

Go to Round 8 questions with answers

ROUND 1 - Pairs

1.

Three original members of the Football League currently ply their trade in The Premier League. Which clubs are they?

Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley and Everton

2.

Seven members of the original Football League now play in The Championship.  Name five of these clubs

(5 from) Aston Villa, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Derby County

3.

Born Peter Campbell McNeish in Leigh in 1955, he wrote or co-wrote the albums Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978), Love Bites (1978) and A Different Kind of Tension (1979).  He died in 2018.

Pete Shelle

(of The Buzzcocks)

4.

Born in 1957, this person died in 2018.  They expressed a particular loathing for: London, doctors, Jane Austen, Beaujolais, psychologists, Manchester United, The Guardian, David Bowie, the NYPD, 'soft lads who blab', John Lennon, nouvelle cuisine, Australia, Princess Diana, the smoking ban in pubs, Bob Geldof (a "dickhead"), the football pundits Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen ("they look like retired policemen, I bet they go shopping together"), Brighton ("shit pubs, shit music, shit beaches"), the works of J R R Tolkein, David Cameron, "beer minded proles", Kojak (a twat) and the town of Stockport.  Who was he?

Mark E Smith

(lead singer of The Fall)

5.

Who directed the Michael Caine and Sean Connery 1975 film The Man Who Would be King?  In 1948 he directed his own father in a film where they both won Oscars.

John Huston

6.

Who directed the Michael Caine and Julie Walters 1983 film Educating Rita?  He also directed a number of James Bond films including You Only Live Twice.

Lewis Gilbert

7.

Which three words, consecutive in the dictionary, mean the following:

• a former secret police force;

• to carry in the womb from conception to birth;

• to make vigorous movements with the hands to express emotion or passion?

Gestapo;

gestate;

gesticulate (do not accept gesture)

8.

Which three words, consecutive in the dictionary, mean the following:

• the science of language from the points of view of pronunciation, inflexion and syntax;

• a unit of mass in the Metric system;

• an annual American award?

grammar;

gramme;

Grammy

Sp1

Born in 1964, this actress died in 2018.  She played High Grant's sister in Notting Hill and the part of Alice Tinker in The Vicar of Dibley.  Who was she?

Emma Chambers

Sp2

Who first entered Parliament in 1992 as the MP for Dulwich.  As Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport she launched the successful Olympic bid for 2012.  She died in 2018 shortly after giving an emotional speech in the House of Lords.

Tessa Jowell

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Before Mo Farah in 2012 &and 2016, only 2 British athletes since the war had won gold medals in consecutive summer Olympic Games.  Both did so in the same years.  Name the athletes and the years (all 4 answers required).

Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson; 1980 and 1984

2.

In the World Cup finals of 2010 and 2014 which German footballer’s 5 goals in both tournaments won him the Golden Boot and Silver Boot (second-top scorer) respectively?

Thomas Muller

3.

What starchy food-stuff is extracted from the cassava plant?  Its 3 largest producers are Brazil (from where it originated), Nigeria & Thailand.

Tapioca

4.

What type of fish is an ‘Arbroath Smokie’ and is also the essential ingredient in both the Scottish dish Cullen Skink and the Anglo-Indian dish Kedgeree?

Haddock

5.

Which word, derived from the Latin word for pebble, is used in medicine to describe gall stones or kidney stones, and in dentistry to describe hardened plaque on the teeth?

Calculus

6.

Which media publishing company’s eclectic range of print titles includes The People’s Friend (first published in 1869 and still going today)?  It also owns websites 'Find My Past’, ‘Genes Re-united’ and ‘Friends Re-united’ and currently has contracts to digitise the archives of both the Imperial War Museum and the British Library.

DC Thomson

7.

Who in 1985 recorded the hit pop song Kiss Me (With Your Mouth), including the lyric:

"Kiss me with your mouth
Your love is better than wine
But wine is all I have
Will your love ever be mine?"

Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy

(accept Stephen Duffy)

8.

What name means a castle or palace in Spain, built during the Moors’ rule of the country between the 8th & 15th centuries?  The one in Toledo was occupied by local Nationalists at the very start of the Spanish Civil War, and besieged for over 2 months.  The siege was finally lifted by the arrival of Franco’s forces, thus giving him a symbolic and famous victory which helped see him as Spain’s head of state within another month.

Alcazar

Sp.

In Greek mythology who was King of Pylos?  He fought on the side of Odysseus in the Trojan Wars and appears in both The Odyssey and The Iliad.  When too old to engage in combat he is still a respected font of sound advice, even though that is often prefaced by lengthy, boastful recollections of his own past heroism (a kind of forerunner of Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses’!)

Nestor

Theme: Each answer contains the name of a character in Herge’s Adventures of Tintin....

Thompson, Dr. Muller, General Tapioca, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, Thomson, Tintin, General Alcazar and Nestor

Go back to Round 2 questions without answers

ROUND 3 - Pairs

1.

In the art world, how is Master Jonathan Buttall more famously known?

The subject of the painting The Blue Boy

(by Thomas Gainsborough)

2.

In the art world, how are Jean De Dinteville and Georges De Selve more famously known?
 

The Ambassadors

(in a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger)

3.

The 3 spires known as the 'Ladies of the Vale' are a feature of which English cathedral?

Lichfield Cathedral

4.

Which English cathedral described by Ruskin as “the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles” was, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the tallest building in the world?

Lincoln Cathedral

5.

In which year did Manchester achieve city status?  (allow 2 years either way)

1853 (allow 1851-55)

6.

In which year did Salford achieve city status?  (allow 2 years either way)

1926 (allow 1924-28)

7.

What surname connects an 'adult' film actress of the 1970’s, a Cavalier poet and a computing pioneer?

Lovelace

(Linda, Richard and Ada)

8.

What surname connects a French 'adult' film actress born in 1973, an American country singer born in 1932 and an English comedy writer and actor born in 1960?

Cash

(Tabatha, Johnny and Craig)

Go back to Round 3 questions without answers

ROUNDS 4 & 5

RADIO

1.

Disregarding one-off appearances, the presenters of Desert Island Discs have been Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young and Lauren Laverne.  Who’s missing from this list?

Michael Parkinson

2.

What is the castaways’ top track between 1942 and 2011 according to the Radio 4 web site?  Two clues: it's classical and the composer was not British.

Beethoven Symphony no.9 in D minor or Ode to Joy

LOCATION UK

1.

In which English county is Thatcher’s Rock?

Devon

2.

Which well-known island has these co-ordinates: 53.2653 degrees N; 4.4291 degrees W?

Anglesey

45 RPM

1.

Island Records' first success in the UK was recorded by Millie Small in 1964.  Name it.

My Boy Lollipop

2.

In July 1954, the first debut record certified as a gold disc in the UK was Rock Island Line.  Name the artiste.

Lonnie Donegan

LITERATURE

1.

Name the island which was Ulysses’ legendary home.

Ithaca

2.

This fortress on a small Mediterranean island 1.5 kilometres offshore in the Bay of Marseilles is a famous fictional setting.  Name it.

Chateau d’ If

(from The Count of Monte Cristo)

GEOGRAPHY

1.

Which island south of Cape Cod includes the notorious Chappaquiddick Peninsula and is known as a summer playground for the USA’s rich elite?

Martha’s Vineyard

2.

A party of mutineers led by Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian settled on which island?

Pitcairn

QUOTATIONS

1.

"This sceptered isle, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England" are lines spoken by which Shakespearean character in which play?

John of Gaunt; Richard the Second

2.

John Donne’s "no man is an island" line is famous but can you recite the three words that finish the line?

"...entire of itself"

EXPLORERS

1.

Who sailed the 1947 replica Kon Tiki across the Pacific to Polynesia?

Thor Heyerdahl

2.

According to Norse sagas which son of Erik the Red visited Newfoundland in 1000 AD?

Lief Erikson

MAROONED

1.

The Pacific island Mas a Tierra, renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, forms a part of which country?

Chile

2.

Golding’s 1954 dystopian novel Lord of the Flies could be argued to be a dark caricature of which idyllic children’s tale published almost a hundred years before?

Coral Island

(by R M Ballantyne)

WAR

1.

There is an iconic statue of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.  Name either of the two 2006 films, directed by Clint Eastwood, which show both sides of this story.

Letters from Iwo Jima or Flags of our Fathers

2.

On April 1st 1945, one of the final battles of the war to bring the Allies to within striking distance of Japan took place.  110,000 Japanese soldiers died and there were 49,000 US casualties.  Where was it?

Okinawa

Go back to Rounds 4 & 5 questions without answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

In the House of Commons, what title is currently held by Nick Brown?

Labour Shadow Chief Whip

2.

Which US new wave band formed in 1981 by husband and wife Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz released the single Genius of Love and a cover version of Under the Boardwalk?

Tom Tom Club

3.

Which Liverpool-born musician was conductor of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1980-98 and of the Berlin Philharmonic until June of last year?

Sir Simon Rattle

4.

In which Shakespeare play does Imogen wake up to find that she is lying next to the dead body of Cloten who had been dressed in her husband’s clothes?

Cymbeline

5.

The mammalian order Sirenia consists of two genera.  One is the manatee, what is the other?

Dugong

6.

Who, since 2009, has been president of Gabon?  He shares his name with a TV and stage magician born William Oliver Wallace.

Ali Bongo

7.

Members of which Scottish clan were the victims of the Glencoe massacre in 1692?

Campbell

(surely this should be the McDonalds!)

8.

Which Bob Dylan song, from the album Bringing It All Back Home, has been covered, by among others, Judy Collins, Marmalade and The Four Seasons?

Mr Tambourine Man
 

Theme: Each answer contains the name of a percussion instrument

Go back to Round 6 questions without answers

The initial letters of the answers spell out (in anagram form) the forename and surname of a celebrity who passed away in 2018

1.

Milk of Magnesia

2.

Which common household product has the chemical name sodium hypochlorite?

Bleach

3.

In financial terms, what does the abbreviation WACC stand for?

Weighted Average Cost of Capital

4.

In financial terms, what does the abbreviation EBITD stand for?

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

5.

Which renowned Shakespearian actress born in South Africa in 1939 starred in films such as Nicholas and Alexandra, A Dry White Season and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg?

Janet Suzman

6.

Which British actor born in 1931 won a best supporting actor Oscar playing the role of a trainer in a 1981 film.  More recently he has become better known for his roles in the Lord of the Rings films.

Ian Holm

7.

Which astronomic region lying between 2000 and 200,000 Astronomical Units defines the outer boundary of the solar system?

Oort Cloud

8.

What is formed after the supernova collapse of a massive star that does not form a black hole? They are the densest and smallest stars.

Neutron stars

Theme: The initial letters of the answers spell out the name of the comedian and Bullseye supremo Jim Bowen

Go back to Round 7 questions without answers

ROUND 8 - Hidden theme

1.

Ant and Dec released this song in 1994 as PJ and Duncan.  It reached No.9 at the time but reached No.1 on its reissue in 2013 when all royalties were donated to ChildLine.  What is it?

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

2.

What was the biggest selling single of the 1970s?

Mull of Kintyre

(by Wings)

3.

Which geological period is the second segment of the Mesozoic Era?  It spanned 56 million years from 200million to 144 million years ago and immediately preceded the Cretaceous Period.

The Jurassic Period

4.

This London borough is one of 11 south of the River Thames.  The borough council sits in Catford and its 10 wards include Sydenham, Forest Hill and Blackheath.  What is it?

Lewisham
 

5.

What is the name of the 1954 biography by Paul Brickhill and the 1956 film of the same name that tell the story of World War 2 fighter pilot, Douglas Bader?

Reach for the Sky

6.

Born in 1923 this American actor played numerous film and television roles from the 1960s the the 1990s.  He is perhaps most famous for playing Tee Hee the muscle for Bond villain Mister Big in the film Live and Let Die in which he has a metallic pincer in place of one of his hands. He died in 2004.  Who is he?  (forename and surname required)

Julius Harris

7.

This fish, also known as the Asian sea bass, is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific region from South East Asia to Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia.  Very popular in Thai cuisine, what is its name?

Barramundi

8.

What is the name of the Australian TV and film actress who is married to Ali G star Sacha Baron Cohen?  She began her career in Home and Away in the 1990s but graduated to Hollywood in the Noughties where she has starred in the films Wedding Crashers (2005) and The Great Gatsby (2013) amongst others.  (forename and surname required)

Sp

This phrase originated in Yorkshire in the early 20th century as an update to earlier, similar phrases.  It translates as, “Where there are dirty jobs to be done there is money to be made”. What is it?

"Where there’s muck there’s brass"

Theme: Each answer contains the name of a Scottish Hebridean island....
Rhum, Mull, Jura, Lewis, Skye, Harris, Barra, Islay and Muck

Go back to Round 8 questions without answers