ROUND 1 - 'Name that John'

1.

Who was the first US President named John to reside in the White House?

2.

Who was the first man named John to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award?

3.

Who was the first man named John to win a best actor Oscar?

4.

In 1961 who became the first man named John (NOT Johnny or Johnnie) to top the UK singles chart?

5.

In 1932 which British writer was the first man named John to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

6.

Who was the first man named John to become world snooker champion?

7.

Who was the first man named John to hold the post of Poet Laureate in the UK in the twentieth century?

8.

Who was the first man named John to go into space?

Sp

Who was the first man named John to present Blue Peter?

Go to Round 1 questions with answers

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Which football club plays at Prenton Park?

2.

Which BBC science fiction series, written by Terry Nation (who also invented the Daleks), ran for four 13-episode series between 1979 and 1981?

3.

How are the six Dorset agricultural labourers sentenced in 1834 to penal transportation to Australia because of the oath they had sworn during initiation into a friendly society known?

4.

What is the name of the deep bog into which Christian sinks under the weight of his sins, early in The Pilgrim’s Progress?

5.

What was the title of the 1934 novel by Gabriel Chevalier, filmed by the BBC in 1972, which centres around the construction of a public convenience in the eponymous fictional town’s main square?

6.

Who sang the UK number one and US number two hit When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going?  Danny de Vito and Kathleen Turner are seen in the accompanying video.

7.

Which university has had as its Chancellors Cherie Booth QC, Brian May and, currently, Sir Brian Leveson, of inquiry fame?  (full University name required - not just the placename)

8.

The highest bridge in the world is the Millau Viaduct, designed by Norman Foster.  Which river’s gorge does it span?

Sp.

What eight words follow “All the world’s a stage” in Jaques’s 'Seven ages of man' speech from As You Like It?

Go to Round 2 questions with answers

ROUND 3 - Run-ons

The last word of the first answer is the first (or the first part of the first, at least) of the second: for example, innocuous statue and Irish actor would be Venus de Milo O’Shea.

First names and last names of people are required unless otherwise specified and homophones have been used.

1.

Winner of the Ballon d’Or in 1966;

Actor who was president of the National Rifle Association.

2.

British composer and conductor, knighted in 2017, who in 1980 became the youngest composer to have his music performed at the Proms;

Character played by Dustin Hoffman in a film which he is seduced by the wife of one of his father’s friends.

3.

Author of Atlas Shrugged, born in Russia as Alisa Rosenbaum;

Junior senator from Kentucky whose attempt at the Republican presidential nomination was withdrawn after the first round following the Iowa caucuses.

4.

Former head of Nissan Motors, now under arrest in Japan;

Novel by Gillian Flynn about a woman’s disappearance.

5.

1967 film for which Rod Steiger won the Best Actor Oscar;

Name given to a cabinet reshuffle in 1962 which led Jeremy Thorpe to comment “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life”.

6.

Former soldier released from prison in 2017 after her 35-year sentence for espionage was commuted by Barack Obama to time served.

7.

Plays by Oscar Wilde both of which contain the lines “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. (and) that is his”  (Note the word 'and' only appears in the second play).

8.

Yorkshire-born opera singer who has sung at several FA Cup finals, including the last and first to be held at the old and new Wembley stadia;

Surname of the first woman to quality as a doctor in Britain who was also the co-founder of a hospital staffed entirely by women, which was named after her in 1918 and is now a wing of University College Hospital.

Sp.

British pop group which won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976;

1960s British rock band, named after its keyboard player, whose three UK number one hits included Mighty Quinn.

Go to Round 3 questions with answers

ROUNDS 4 & 5 - Pick Your Own Subject

1.

GEOGRAPHY 1

The UK’s first conservation area was the Georgian centre of which Lincolnshire town which stands on the River Welland?

2.

GEOGRAPHY 2

In which country is Gangkhar Puensam, widely accepted to be the highest unclimbed mountain in the world?  Although attempts have been made, since 1994 all climbs of mountains over 6000m in this country have been prohibited out of respect for local spiritual beliefs.

3.

70s ROCK

In the song More Than a Feeling by Boston, what is the name of the ex-girlfriend the singer is reminiscing about?

4.

MUSICAL THEATRE

Taken from his childhood love of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, what is the name of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production company?

5.

SPORT 1

What is the current name of the racecourse opened as Great Leighs in 2008?  The first entirely new course since 1927, it went into administration after less than a year, and racing only resumed in 2015.  It takes its current name from a county town seven miles to the south.

6.

SPORT 2

What links Baden Baden, Rusenburg, Urca and Repino?

7.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Referred to by him as his Southern White House, what is the name of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach property in Florida?

8.

FOOD AND DRINK

Named after a restaurant in Stockholm, which style of cooking potatoes involves making a series of half cuts all through the potato before covering with breadcrumbs and baking?

9.

WORLD POLITICS

In which country is 92 year old Mahathir Mohamad currently serving his second term as prime minister?

10.

ART 1

This painting depicts a pawnbroker named Mr Gripe taking residents’ vital possessions for a few pennies.  It also depicts an undertakers, and in the foreground, a woman with syphilitic sores on her legs letting a baby slip to its death down a stairwell.  A distillery aptly named Kilman’s is visible in the background.  Set in London slum of St Giles, what is the name of this 1751 work?

11.

ART 2

What was the pseudonym of Touko Laaksonen, a 20th century artist best known for his stylised, homoerotic fetish art generally featuring muscular gay men in tight leather or PVC clothing?

12.

THEATRE

Hair, Because He Liked to Look at It and The Little Coochie Snorcher are among the constituent parts of which work which premiered in New York in 1996 and which was at the time described as "the most important piece of political theatre of the decade"?

13.

GRAVESITES

Only one of the four Brontë children is not buried at Haworth – in which town is Anne buried?

14.

THE TROUBLES

What kitchen utensil was the codename of IRA supergrass Freddie Scappaticci?

15.

WORLD WAR TWO

What word was used to refer to the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany consisting of army, navy and air force?

16.

SCANDAL

What is the name of the man with whom Jeremy Thorpe had an affair in the 1960s and whom he allegedly tried to have murdered in 1975?

17.

1970S TV COMEDY

In the No Hiding Place episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? which European nation were the England football team playing, the score of which match Terry and Bob go to great pains to avoid discovering before they can watch the highlights?

18.

AMERICAN CRIME

What was the colour, make and model of the car in which Al Cowlings drove along Interstate 405 on 17 June 1994 pursued by around 20 police cars, with an armed OJ Simpson threatening to commit suicide in the back seat?

19.

MUSEUMS

The first branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum outside London opened in September in which city?

20.

SPACE EXPLORATION

What was notable about Mark C Lee and Nancy Jan Davis’s participation in the September 1992 mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour?

21.

SCIENCE

What is missing from non-biological washing powders which distinguishes them from biological powders?

22.

WILDLIFE

By what name is the Portuguese Man O’War known in Ausralia, New Zealand and South Africa?  In Britain the same name refers to a metallic coloured variety of blow fly.

Go to Rounds 4 & 5 questions with answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

What type of bird is the flightless kakapo of New Zealand?

2.

What is the name of the powerful enchantress in Arthurian legend?  The unpredictable duality of her nature means that she has potential for both good and evil but she is generally regarded as King Arthur’s magical protector.  In Malory’s Morte d’Arthur she is Arthur’s half-sister.

3.

Which American teen drama which ran for six series between 1998 and 2003 was set in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts.  It helped to launch the careers of Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams?

4.

Which US president popularised the motto “the buck stops here”?  He kept a sign with the phrase on his desk in the Oval Office.

5.

Who is the author of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels each featuring the frontiersman Natty Bumpo?

6.

In a rare example of a statue to a person erected before their death, of whom is the 12ft likeness outside the Stormont parliament buildings?  More than 40,000 people, including the man himself, attended the unveiling in 1932.

7.

Which London Underground station lies between Archway and Kentish Town on the Northern Line?

8.

Which TV presenter, known for her trademark sunglasses, was best known for presenting the youth programmes Rough Guide and Reportage in the 1990s?

Sp1

 Born in Reddish, which architect is responsible for the Gherkin in London, the new Wembley Stadium and the Sage Centre in Gateshead?

Sp2

"Wha’chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis" was the catchphrase of which actor in his role as Arnold Jackson in Diff’rent Strokes?  He died aged 42 in 2010.

Go to Round 6 questions with answers

ROUND 7 - Paired

1.

Complete this Cary Grant quotation from the film North by Northwest: "I’ve got a job a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several ________ that depend on me".

2.

Completed this Cary Grant quotation from the film North by Northwest: "Ah, Maggie in the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie, there’s only the expedient _______".

3.

Which Beatles album of 1968 did Charles Manson believe contained coded messages about a coming race war between black and white in America?

4.

Charles Manson wrote a song which was recorded by an American group in 1968 under the title Never Learn Not To Love.  What is the name of the group?

5.

Which Premiership rugby union team plays at Sixways Stadium?

6.

Which English football league club plays at Sixfields Stadium?

7.

Which English king died after being imprisoned by his first cousin?

8.

Which English king survived being imprisoned by his first cousin?

Sp.

After her defeat by Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton was sent a humorous poem by a supporter on the topic of reconciliation between Republicans and Democrats.  Complete the final line: "I’ll hug your elephant / If __ __ __ ___".

Go to Round 7 questions with answers

ROUND 8 - 'A Key to Success'

All answers begin with one of the letters on the top row of a typewriter keyboard

1.

At the start of a game of the UK version of Monopoly, if you throw a double six, which square will you land on?

2.

Which was the first British newspaper to be printed in colour?

3.

What was the nickname of Gene Hackman’s character in The French Connection?

4.

Which European country has the oldest parliament?

5.

What is represented by a red triangle on an Ordnance Survey map?

6.

Which group released two albums named after Marx Brothers films?

7.

Which planet has satellites, each named after a Shakespearian character?

8.

What name is given to the unpaved road along the south side of Hyde Park, normally reserved for horse riders?

Sp.

In which film did Michael Douglas play Gordon Gecko?

Go to Round 8 questions with answers

ROUND 1 - 'Name that John'

1.

Who was the first US President named John to reside in the White House?

John Adams

(NOT John Quincy Adams)

2.

Who was the first man named John to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award?

John Surtees

3.

Who was the first man named John to win a best actor Oscar?

John Wayne

(for True Grit)

4.

In 1961 who became the first man named John (NOT Johnny or Johnnie) to top the UK singles chart?

John Leyton

(with Johnny Remember Me)

5.

In 1932 which British writer was the first man named John to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

John Galsworthy

6.

Who was the first man named John to become world snooker champion?

John Pulman

(in 1957)

7.

Who was the first man named John to hold the post of Poet Laureate in the UK in the twentieth century?

8.

Who was the first man named John to go into space?

John Herschel Glenn

Sp

Who was the first man named John to present Blue Peter?

John Noakes

ROUND 2 - Hidden theme

1.

Which football club plays at Prenton Park?

Tranmere Rovers

2.

Which BBC science fiction series, written by Terry Nation (who also invented the Daleks), ran for four 13-episode series between 1979 and 1981?

Blake’s Seven

3.

How are the six Dorset agricultural labourers sentenced in 1834 to penal transportation to Australia because of the oath they had sworn during initiation into a friendly society known?

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

4.

What is the name of the deep bog into which Christian sinks under the weight of his sins, early in The Pilgrim’s Progress?

The slough of despond

5.

What was the title of the 1934 novel by Gabriel Chevalier, filmed by the BBC in 1972, which centres around the construction of a public convenience in the eponymous fictional town’s main square?

Clochemerle

6.

Who sang the UK number one and US number two hit When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going?  Danny de Vito and Kathleen Turner are seen in the accompanying video.

7.

Which university has had as its Chancellors Cherie Booth QC, Brian May and, currently, Sir Brian Leveson, of inquiry fame?  (full University name required - not just the placename)

Liverpool John Moores

(not just Liverpool)

8.

The highest bridge in the world is the Millau Viaduct, designed by Norman Foster.  Which river’s gorge does it span?

Tarn

Sp

What eight words follow “All the world’s a stage” in Jaques’s 'Seven ages of man' speech from As You Like It?

"...and all the men and women merely players"

Theme: Each answer contains a word for a body of water

Go back to Round 2 questions without answers

The last word of the first answer is the first (or the first part of the first, at least) of the second: for example, innocuous statue and Irish actor would be Venus de Milo O’Shea.

First names and last names of people are required unless otherwise specified and homophones have been used.

1.

Winner of the Ballon d’Or in 1966;

Actor who was president of the National Rifle Association.

Bobby Charlton Heston

2.

British composer and conductor, knighted in 2017, who in 1980 became the youngest composer to have his music performed at the Proms;

Character played by Dustin Hoffman in a film which he is seduced by the wife of one of his father’s friends.

George Benjamin Braddock

3.

Author of Atlas Shrugged, born in Russia as Alisa Rosenbaum;

Junior senator from Kentucky whose attempt at the Republican presidential nomination was withdrawn after the first round following the Iowa caucuses.

Ayn Rand Paul

4.

Former head of Nissan Motors, now under arrest in Japan;

Novel by Gillian Flynn about a woman’s disappearance.

Carlos Ghosn/Gone Girl

5.

1967 film for which Rod Steiger won the Best Actor Oscar;

Name given to a cabinet reshuffle in 1962 which led Jeremy Thorpe to comment “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life”.

In the Heat of the Night of the Long Knives

6.

Former soldier released from prison in 2017 after her 35-year sentence for espionage was commuted by Barack Obama to time served.

Made in Chelsea Mannng

7.

Plays by Oscar Wilde both of which contain the lines “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. (and) that is his”  (Note the word 'and' only appears in the second play).

A Woman of No Importance of Being Earnest

8.

Yorkshire-born opera singer who has sung at several FA Cup finals, including the last and first to be held at the old and new Wembley stadia;

Surname of the first woman to quality as a doctor in Britain who was also the co-founder of a hospital staffed entirely by women, which was named after her in 1918 and is now a wing of University College Hospital.

Lesley Garrett Anderson

Sp.

British pop group which won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976;

1960s British rock band, named after its keyboard player, whose three UK number one hits included Mighty Quinn.

Brotherhood of Manfred Mann

Go back to Round 3 questions without answers

ROUNDS 4 & 5 - Pick Your Own Subject

1.

GEOGRAPHY 1

The UK’s first conservation area was the Georgian centre of which Lincolnshire town which stands on the River Welland?

Stamford

2.

GEOGRAPHY 2

In which country is Gangkhar Puensam, widely accepted to be the highest unclimbed mountain in the world?  Although attempts have been made, since 1994 all climbs of mountains over 6000m in this country have been prohibited out of respect for local spiritual beliefs.

Bhutan

3.

70s ROCK

In the song More Than a Feeling by Boston, what is the name of the ex-girlfriend the singer is reminiscing about?

Marianne

4.

MUSICAL THEATRE

Taken from his childhood love of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, what is the name of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production company?

Really Useful Group

5.

SPORT 1

What is the current name of the racecourse opened as Great Leighs in 2008?  The first entirely new course since 1927, it went into administration after less than a year, and racing only resumed in 2015.  It takes its current name from a county town seven miles to the south.

Chelmsford (City) Racecourse

6.

SPORT 2

What links Baden Baden, Rusenburg, Urca and Repino?

England base camps at last four men’s football world cups

7.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Referred to by him as his Southern White House, what is the name of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach property in Florida?

Mar-a-Lago

8.

FOOD AND DRINK

Named after a restaurant in Stockholm, which style of cooking potatoes involves making a series of half cuts all through the potato before covering with breadcrumbs and baking?

Hasselback potatoes

9.

WORLD POLITICS

In which country is 92 year old Mahathir Mohamad currently serving his second term as prime minister?

Malaysia

10.

ART 1

This painting depicts a pawnbroker named Mr Gripe taking residents’ vital possessions for a few pennies.  It also depicts an undertakers, and in the foreground, a woman with syphilitic sores on her legs letting a baby slip to its death down a stairwell.  A distillery aptly named Kilman’s is visible in the background.  Set in London slum of St Giles, what is the name of this 1751 work?

Gin Lane

(by William Hogarth)

11.

ART 2

What was the pseudonym of Touko Laaksonen, a 20th century artist best known for his stylised, homoerotic fetish art generally featuring muscular gay men in tight leather or PVC clothing?

Tom of Finland

12.

THEATRE

Hair, Because He Liked to Look at It and The Little Coochie Snorcher are among the constituent parts of which work which premiered in New York in 1996 and which was at the time described as "the most important piece of political theatre of the decade"?

The Vagina Monologues

13.

GRAVESITES

Only one of the four Brontë children is not buried at Haworth – in which town is Anne buried?

Scarborough

14.

THE TROUBLES

What kitchen utensil was the codename of IRA supergrass Freddie Scappaticci?

Steak-knife

15.

WORLD WAR TWO

What word was used to refer to the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany consisting of army, navy and air force?

Wehrmacht

16.

SCANDAL

What is the name of the man with whom Jeremy Thorpe had an affair in the 1960s and whom he allegedly tried to have murdered in 1975?

Norman Scott

(aka Norman Josiffe)

17.

1970S TV COMEDY

In the No Hiding Place episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? which European nation were the England football team playing, the score of which match Terry and Bob go to great pains to avoid discovering before they can watch the highlights?

Bulgaria

18.

AMERICAN CRIME

What was the colour, make and model of the car in which Al Cowlings drove along Interstate 405 on 17 June 1994 pursued by around 20 police cars, with an armed OJ Simpson threatening to commit suicide in the back seat?

White Ford Bronco

19.

MUSEUMS

The first branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum outside London opened in September in which city?

Dundee

20.

SPACE EXPLORATION

What was notable about Mark C Lee and Nancy Jan Davis’s participation in the September 1992 mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour?

They were the first married couple to go into space (at the same time)

21.

SCIENCE

What is missing from non-biological washing powders which distinguishes them from biological powders?

Enzymes

22.

WILDLIFE

By what name is the Portuguese Man O’War known in Ausralia, New Zealand and South Africa?  In Britain the same name refers to a metallic coloured variety of blow fly.

Bluebottle

Go back to Rounds 4 & 5 questions without answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

What type of bird is the flightless kakapo of New Zealand?

Parrot

2.

What is the name of the powerful enchantress in Arthurian legend?  The unpredictable duality of her nature means that she has potential for both good and evil but she is generally regarded as King Arthur’s magical protector.  In Malory’s Morte d’Arthur she is Arthur’s half-sister.

Morgan Le Fay

3.

Which American teen drama which ran for six series between 1998 and 2003 was set in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts.  It helped to launch the careers of Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams?

Dawson’s Creek

4.

Which US president popularised the motto “the buck stops here”?  He kept a sign with the phrase on his desk in the Oval Office.

Harry S Truman

5.

Who is the author of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels each featuring the frontiersman Natty Bumpo?

James Fennimore Cooper

6.

In a rare example of a statue to a person erected before their death, of whom is the 12ft likeness outside the Stormont parliament buildings?  More than 40,000 people, including the man himself, attended the unveiling in 1932.

Edward Carson

7.

Which London Underground station lies between Archway and Kentish Town on the Northern Line?

Tufnell Park

8.

Which TV presenter, known for her trademark sunglasses, was best known for presenting the youth programmes Rough Guide and Reportage in the 1990s?

Magenta Devine

Sp1

 Born in Reddish, which architect is responsible for the Gherkin in London, the new Wembley Stadium and the Sage Centre in Gateshead?

Norman Foster

Sp2

"Wha’chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis" was the catchphrase of which actor in his role as Arnold Jackson in Diff’rent Strokes?  He died aged 42 in 2010.

Gary Coleman

Theme: Each answer contains the name of a captain or presenter, past or present, on A Question of Sport

Go back to Round 6 questions without answers

ROUND 7 - Paired

1.

Complete this Cary Grant quotation from the film North by Northwest: "I’ve got a job a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several ________ that depend on me".

2.

Completed this Cary Grant quotation from the film North by Northwest: "Ah, Maggie in the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie, there’s only the expedient _______".

Exaggeration

3.

Which Beatles album of 1968 did Charles Manson believe contained coded messages about a coming race war between black and white in America?

4.

Charles Manson wrote a song which was recorded by an American group in 1968 under the title Never Learn Not To Love.  What is the name of the group?

5.

Which Premiership rugby union team plays at Sixways Stadium?

6.

Which English football league club plays at Sixfields Stadium?

7.

Which English king died after being imprisoned by his first cousin?

8.

Which English king survived being imprisoned by his first cousin?

Stephen

(imprisoned by Matilda)

Sp.

After her defeat by Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton was sent a humorous poem by a supporter on the topic of reconciliation between Republicans and Democrats.  Complete the final line: "I’ll hug your elephant / If __ __ __ ___".

Go back to Round 7 questions without answers

ROUND 8 - 'A Key to Success'

All answers begin with one of the letters on the top row of a typewriter keyboard

1.

At the start of a game of the UK version of Monopoly, if you throw a double six, which square will you land on?

Electric Company

2.

Which was the first British newspaper to be printed in colour?

Today

3.

What was the nickname of Gene Hackman’s character in The French Connection?

Popeye

4.

Which European country has the oldest parliament?

Iceland

5.

What is represented by a red triangle on an Ordnance Survey map?

6.

Which group released two albums named after Marx Brothers films?

7.

Which planet has satellites, each named after a Shakespearian character?

8.

What name is given to the unpaved road along the south side of Hyde Park, normally reserved for horse riders?

Sp.

In which film did Michael Douglas play Gordon Gecko?

Go back to Round 8 questions without answers