ROUND 1 - ‘All for one and one for all’

The answers in this round all contain the three-letter combination ‘ALL’, for example ‘Cornwall’, ‘Lily Allen’ and ‘pathetic fallacy’

1.

Capital of a country that gained independence in 1964, which city is named after one of its founders, a grand master of the Order of Hospitallers?

2.

Name the character played by Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force and Sudden Impact.  (first name and surname required)

3.

Born in Wisconsin, which author’s first published work was Little House in the Big Woods in 1932?  I need a three-word name  to fit the theme.

4.

Helen Graham is the title figure of which 1848 novel?  The second part of the novel concerns her treatment by an abusive husband.

5.

One of the six demands of the Chartists, what reform to the electoral system was introduced by W E Forster in 1872?  A two-word answer is needed.

6.

The Famous Tay Whale is a work by which performance poet, born in Edinburgh in 1825?  His highly individual style ensures that his works remain in print. (surname only required)

7.

Museums in Nice and Vitebsk, in Belarus are dedicated to which 20th-century artist?  His subject-matter included melancholic clowns, flying lovers and green-faced fiddlers.  (surname only required)

8.

Discovered by William Hyde Wollaston, which metal of the platinum group was named after a newly-discovered asteroid?

Sp1

Which detective has been played on screen by Krister Henriksson, Rolf Lassgård and Kenneth Branagh?

Sp2

Which novel by Arthur Conan Doyle concerns a murderous society known as The Scowrers?

Go to Round 1 questions with answers

ROUND 2 - Poetry

To forestall difficulties of adjudication, the answers require only only one or two words.

1.

The second line of a poem by Christina Rossetti reads "Gone far away into the silent land".  What is the first word of this poem?

2.

What is the last word of W H Auden’s Night Mail?  The rest of the line reads: "For who can bear to feel himself…"

3.

In G K Chesterton’s poem The Rolling English Road, Birmingham appears in connection with what south coast chalk headland?

4.

Name one of the two English counties mentioned in Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop.

5.

A 20th-century poem includes the line, "where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet"?  What Christian festival appears in the title of this poem?

6.

"Thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand".  These words describe which title figure of an early romantic poem?

7.

Name either of the rhyming foodstuffs eaten by the Owl and the Pussy-cat in Edward Lear’s poem.

8.

In Ogden Nash’s poem Columbus, which historical figure said: "if America was a bird in the bush and he’d rather have a bird-in-hand"?

Sp1

In the final couplet of Wordsworth’s poem that starts "I wandered lonely as a cloud", what word rhymes with "daffodils"?

Sp2

What country is mentioned numerous times in the poem by Rupert Brooke that begins "If I should die, think only this of me..."?

Go to Round 2 questions with answers

ROUND 3 - Hidden theme

1.

Which British admiral circumnavigated the world with HMS Centurion in 1740-44, capturing a Spanish galleon with 1.3 million pieces of eight aboard?

2.

Which 2016 film starred Casey Affleck as a man forced to care for his teenage nephew in the eponymous Massachusetts town after his brother’s death?

3.

The Ashton Memorial is a folly built in 1907-1909 by a local industrialist.  It dominates the skyline of which British city?

4.

A statue of which Roman god tops Sheffield Town Hall?

5.

James Caird was the main sponsor of which Antarctic explorer’s most famous expedition?  During the expedition, he would name a lifeboat after Caird.

6.

The chocolate company Terry’s, most famous for their Chocolate Orange, was founded in which British city, also home to Rowntree’s?

7.

Which royal dynasty traced their claim to the throne back to a lover of Catherine of Valois?

8.

Born in 1809, Hannibal Hamlin was the vice-president during the first term of which US President?

Sp1

Which NHL team plays in the city of Vancouver?

Sp2

Who won the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics with John Hicks.  He is best known for his eponymous ‘impossibility theorem’, which implies that ranked voting systems can’t fairly reflect the choices of voters.

Go to Round 3 questions with answers

ROUND 4 - 'Harold… Bird'

But sadly, nothing to do with cricket - each answer comprises two short, rhyming words

Give both words from the definition or description.

1.

"A long time in politics", according to Harold Wilson,

AND

those who "shall inherit the earth", according to the King James Bible.

2.

Physical substance that is the subject of a 1945 book by Harold Wilson,

AND

the SI unit for the amount of substance.

3.

Surname of the Minister for Transport from 1965-68,

AND

in the feudal system, one holding lands from a superior on conditions of homage and allegiance.

4.

Surname of the Postmaster General and Minister for Technology under Harold Wilson,

AND

English baroque architect who shares his name with a small, chunky songbird.

5.

Bird of prey whose species include ‘red’, ‘black’ and ‘yellow-billed’,

AND

undead inhabitant of the barrow downs in The Fellowship of the Ring.

6.

Family of birds that includes the brambling and crossbill,

AND

fictional character created by Dr Seuss; Jim Carrey and Benedict Cumberbatch have voiced him on film.

7.

Small, brown finch closely related to the linnet,

AND

geographical term meaning ‘large, open bay’; examples include ‘German’ and ‘Great Australian’.

8.

Bird described as "darkling" in a poem by Thomas Hardy,

AND

all-time leading goalscorer for Liverpool FC.

Sp.

A general kind of ship mentioned in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: "the star to every wandering…",

AND

small bird that sings in hovering flight over open land.

Go to Round 4 questions with answers

ROUND 5 - ‘We Love January’ 

The answers in this round all include the three-letter combination J-A-N, whether at the start of the word, the middle, or at the end, for example: the god Janus, the Buddhist cave monument of Ajanta, or the conductor Herbert von Karajan

1.

In 1755, to test an actor's claim that he could memorise anything, the dramatist Samuel Foote invented what mock title for an exalted personage or pompous official?  The answer is a ten-letter word.

2.

Significant in the 17th and 18th centuries, what movement in the Roman Catholic church took its name from a 17th-century bishop of Ypres?

3.

Dating from 1898, which annual British publication gives technical details of every significant ship in every navy of the world?

4.

Which Texas-born rock singer recorded with the bands: Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full-Tilt Boogie Band?  (first name and surname required)

5.

Born in 1887, which largely self-taught Indian mathematician was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 30 but contracted tuberculosis and died two years later? (surname only required)

6.

Which Czech-American physicist gives his name to the non-SI unit used in radio-astronomy to measure the flux density of radio signals from space?  I need only the surname, which includes a common Slavic surname suffix.

7.

Making lace, pouring milk, and playing the virginal are all activities being performed by solitary young women in the paintings of which Dutch artist?  (first name and surname required)

8.

Helen Hayes, Joan Hickson and Angela Lansbury have all played which detective?  Her cases include What Mrs Mcgillicuddy Saw and A Pocketful of Rye? (first name and surname required)

Sp.

Described as the first modern standing army in Europe, what term meaning 'new soldier', denotes the elite infantry units that formed the household troops of the Ottoman emperor from the 14th century?

Go to Round 5 questions with answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

2.

In recent years, cathedrals such as Lincoln and Norwich have become nesting places for which bird of prey?  It can reach speeds of over 200 mph during its characteristic ‘hunting swoop’.

3.

Tamworth and Repton were capitals of which former kingdom?  Its rulers included Penda and Offa?

4.

What short surname links: the US nobel laureate who was Calvin Coolidge’s vice-president AND a character played by Matt Lucas on the game show Shooting Stars?

5.

What area of London links: a disused tube station near Knightsbridge; a neo-classical church known as the ‘oratory’ and a pain-suppressing ‘cocktail’?

6.

In South African history, what two-word name is given to the eastward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers from 1836 that resulted in the formation of the Boer republics?

7.

Which US state capital is located roughly midway between Charlotte and Virginia Beach, or between Miami and Montreal?

8.

James Dean plays ranch hand Jett Rink in which 1956 film, his last?

Sp.

What surname links the US science fiction author of Kindred and The Parable of the Sower with the 1944 Education Act?

Go to Round 6 questions with answers

ROUND 7 - Pairs

1.

Born in 1887, Heitor Villa-Lobos is probably the best-known composer from which large country?

2.

The 20th-century composer Arthur Honegger appeared on a twenty-franc banknote of which country in 1996?

3.

The flags of Australia, New Zealand and Brazil all depict the Southern Cross.  Name one of the two other national flags on which the Southern Cross appears.

4.

A yellow pig’s tusk appears on the flag of which pacific island country?  It was formerly the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides.

5.

Sado (prounced 'Saddo') is the 6th-largest island of which country?  It is about the size of the Isle of Mull and is on a similar latitude to Sicily.

6.

Shikoku, the fourth-largest island of Japan is closest in land area to which of Rugby Union’s ‘Six Nations’?

7.

The strait known as the Kattegat separates which two countries of northern Europe?

8.

Which narrow strait links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman?

Sp1

If its three colours, from hoist to fly, are reversed, the national flag of Ivory Coast most closely resembles that of which EU member state?

Sp2

What are the two main colours of all these flags: Staffordshire, Somerset, Sicily and New Mexico?

Go to Round 7 questions with answers

ROUND 8 - ‘Walkover’

These are all well-known names that feature in the ‘Blue Peter Gold Badge Walk’ at Media City UK

Name the person from the description. Given name AND surname needed in each case.

1.

A winner of seven Olympic medals who once asked to borrow Tom’s bike for a photo shoot; shares a surname with one of the islands that forms Scapa Flow.

2.

In a brief victory speech in July 2012, this person said: "Excuse me if I speak English. we're about to draw the raffle tickets… have a safe journey home and don’t get too drunk!”

3.

Educated in Chester, the first British female gymnast to win a medal at the European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games.

4.

The author best known for writing the Horrid Henry series of children's books.

5.

A four-foot tall, multiple-gold-medal-winning paralympian swimmer born in Walsall in 1994.

6.

The diver who was Britain's youngest competitor at the 2008 Olympics.  With Daniel Goodfellow, he won a bronze medal in a synchronised event at Rio in 2016

7.

The Children’s Laureate from 2013-15; she is the author of the dystopian novel series Noughts & Crosses.

8.

Born in 1966, the author of the How to Train Your Dragon and Emily Brown series of children’s books

Sp1

The actress best known for her portrayal of Tracy Beaker on CBBC.

Sp2

The person who devised and introduced the Blue Peter badge in 1963; she edited the programme from 1965 to 1988.

Go to Round 8 questions with answers

ROUND 1 - ‘All for one and one for all’

The answers in this round all contain the three-letter combination ‘ALL’, for example ‘Cornwall’, ‘Lily Allen’ and ‘pathetic fallacy’

1.

Capital of a country that gained independence in 1964, which city is named after one of its founders, a grand master of the Order of Hospitallers?

Valletta

2.

Name the character played by Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force and Sudden Impact.  (first name and surname required)

Harry Callahan

3.

Born in Wisconsin, which author’s first published work was Little House in the Big Woods in 1932?  I need a three-word name  to fit the theme.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

4.

Helen Graham is the title figure of which 1848 novel?  The second part of the novel concerns her treatment by an abusive husband.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

5.

One of the six demands of the Chartists, what reform to the electoral system was introduced by W E Forster in 1872?  A two-word answer is needed.

Secret ballot

6.

The Famous Tay Whale is a work by which performance poet, born in Edinburgh in 1825?  His highly individual style ensures that his works remain in print. (surname only required)

(William) McGonagall

7.

Museums in Nice and Vitebsk, in Belarus are dedicated to which 20th-century artist?  His subject-matter included melancholic clowns, flying lovers and green-faced fiddlers.  (surname only required)

(Marc) Chagall

8.

Discovered by William Hyde Wollaston, which metal of the platinum group was named after a newly-discovered asteroid?

Sp1

Which detective has been played on screen by Krister Henriksson, Rolf Lassgård and Kenneth Branagh?

Wallander

Sp2

Which novel by Arthur Conan Doyle concerns a murderous society known as The Scowrers?

ROUND 2 - Poetry

To forestall difficulties of adjudication, the answers require only only one or two words.

1.

The second line of a poem by Christina Rossetti reads "Gone far away into the silent land".  What is the first word of this poem?

"Remember"

(...me when I am gone away)

2.

What is the last word of W H Auden’s Night Mail?  The rest of the line reads: "For who can bear to feel himself…"

"forgotten"

3.

In G K Chesterton’s poem The Rolling English Road, Birmingham appears in connection with what south coast chalk headland?

Beachy Head

4.

Name one of the two English counties mentioned in Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop.

(either)

Oxfordshire

(or)

Gloucestershire

5.

A 20th-century poem includes the line, "where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet"?  What Christian festival appears in the title of this poem?

 Whitsun

(The Whitsun Weddings by Larkin)

6.

"Thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand".  These words describe which title figure of an early romantic poem?

Ancient Mariner

7.

Name either of the rhyming foodstuffs eaten by the Owl and the Pussy-cat in Edward Lear’s poem.

(either)

mince

(or)

quince

8.

In Ogden Nash’s poem Columbus, which historical figure said: "if America was a bird in the bush and he’d rather have a bird-in-hand"?

Ferdinand

Sp1

In the final couplet of Wordsworth’s poem that starts "I wandered lonely as a cloud", what word rhymes with "daffodils"?

"fills"

("...and then my heart with pleasure…")

Sp2

What country is mentioned numerous times in the poem by Rupert Brooke that begins "If I should die, think only this of me..."?

England

Go back to Round 2 questions without answers

ROUND 3 -  Hidden theme

1.

Which British admiral circumnavigated the world with HMS Centurion in 1740-44, capturing a Spanish galleon with 1.3 million pieces of eight aboard?

(George) Anson

2.

Which 2016 film starred Casey Affleck as a man forced to care for his teenage nephew in the eponymous Massachusetts town after his brother’s death?

 Manchester by the Sea

3.

The Ashton Memorial is a folly built in 1907-1909 by a local industrialist.  It dominates the skyline of which British city?

 Lancaster

4.

A statue of which Roman god tops Sheffield Town Hall?

Vulcan

5.

James Caird was the main sponsor of which Antarctic explorer’s most famous expedition?  During the expedition, he would name a lifeboat after Caird.

(Ernest) Shackleton

6.

The chocolate company Terry’s, most famous for their Chocolate Orange, was founded in which British city, also home to Rowntree’s?

York

7.

Which royal dynasty traced their claim to the throne back to a lover of Catherine of Valois?

Tudors

8.

Born in 1809, Hannibal Hamlin was the vice-president during the first term of which US President?

(Abraham) Lincoln

Sp1

Which NHL team plays in the city of Vancouver?

Vancouver Canucks

Sp2

Who won the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics with John Hicks.  He is best known for his eponymous ‘impossibility theorem’, which implies that ranked voting systems can’t fairly reflect the choices of voters.

(Kenneth) Arrow

Theme: Each answer contains the name of an aircraft produced by Avro Aircraft...

which had factories throughout Greater Manchester...

Anson, Manchester, Lancaster, Vulcan, Shackleton, York, Tudor and Lincoln

...while the two spares contain the names of aircraft produced by Avro’s Canadian subsidiary...

Canuck and Arrow

Go back to Round 3 questions without answers

ROUND 4 - 'Harold… Bird'

But sadly, nothing to do with cricket - each answer comprises two short, rhyming words

Give both words from the definition or description.

1.

"A long time in politics", according to Harold Wilson,

AND

those who "shall inherit the earth", according to the King James Bible.

week AND meek

2.

Physical substance that is the subject of a 1945 book by Harold Wilson,

AND

the SI unit for the amount of substance.

coal AND mole

3.

Surname of the Minister for Transport from 1965-68,

AND

in the feudal system, one holding lands from a superior on conditions of homage and allegiance.

(Barbara) Castle AND vassal

4.

Surname of the Postmaster General and Minister for Technology under Harold Wilson,

AND

English baroque architect who shares his name with a small, chunky songbird.

Benn AND Wren

5.

Bird of prey whose species include ‘red’, ‘black’ and ‘yellow-billed’,

AND

undead inhabitant of the barrow downs in The Fellowship of the Ring.

kite AND wight

6.

Family of birds that includes the brambling and crossbill,

AND

fictional character created by Dr Seuss; Jim Carrey and Benedict Cumberbatch have voiced him on film.

finch AND grinch

7.

Small, brown finch closely related to the linnet,

AND

geographical term meaning ‘large, open bay’; examples include ‘German’ and ‘Great Australian’.

twite AND bight

8.

Bird described as "darkling" in a poem by Thomas Hardy,

AND

all-time leading goalscorer for Liverpool FC.

thrush AND Rush

Sp.

A general kind of ship mentioned in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: "the star to every wandering…",

AND

small bird that sings in hovering flight over open land.

bark AND lark

Go back to Round 4 questions without answers

ROUND 5 - ‘We Love January’ 

The answers in this round all include the three-letter combination J-A-N, whether at the start of the word, the middle, or at the end, for example: the god Janus, the Buddhist cave monument of Ajanta, or the conductor Herbert von Karajan

1.

In 1755, to test an actor's claim that he could memorise anything, the dramatist Samuel Foote invented what mock title for an exalted personage or pompous official?  The answer is a ten-letter word.

Panjandrum

2.

Significant in the 17th and 18th centuries, what movement in the Roman Catholic church took its name from a 17th-century bishop of Ypres?

Jansenism

3.

Dating from 1898, which annual British publication gives technical details of every significant ship in every navy of the world?

Jane’s (Fighting Ships)

[after Fred T Jane]

4.

Which Texas-born rock singer recorded with the bands: Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full-Tilt Boogie Band?  (first name and surname required)

Janis Joplin

5.

Born in 1887, which largely self-taught Indian mathematician was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 30 but contracted tuberculosis and died two years later? (surname only required)

(Srinivasa) Ramanujan

6.

Which Czech-American physicist gives his name to the non-SI unit used in radio-astronomy to measure the flux density of radio signals from space?  I need only the surname, which includes a common Slavic surname suffix.

(Karl) Jansky

7.

Making lace, pouring milk, and playing the virginal are all activities being performed by solitary young women in the paintings of which Dutch artist?  (first name and surname required)

Jan Vermeer

8.

Helen Hayes, Joan Hickson and Angela Lansbury have all played which detective?  Her cases include What Mrs Mcgillicuddy Saw and A Pocketful of Rye? (first name and surname required)

(Miss) Jane Marple

Sp.

Described as the first modern standing army in Europe, what term meaning 'new soldier', denotes the elite infantry units that formed the household troops of the Ottoman emperor from the 14th century?

Janissaries

Go back to Round 5 questions without answers

ROUND 6 - Hidden theme

1.

Gazelle

2.

In recent years, cathedrals such as Lincoln and Norwich have become nesting places for which bird of prey?  It can reach speeds of over 200 mph during its characteristic ‘hunting swoop’.

Peregrine falcon

(both words needed)

3.

Tamworth and Repton were capitals of which former kingdom?  Its rulers included Penda and Offa?

Mercia

4.

What short surname links: the US nobel laureate who was Calvin Coolidge’s vice-president AND a character played by Matt Lucas on the game show Shooting Stars?

Dawes

(Charles and George)

5.

What area of London links: a disused tube station near Knightsbridge; a neo-classical church known as the ‘oratory’ and a pain-suppressing ‘cocktail’?

Brompton

6.

In South African history, what two-word name is given to the eastward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers from 1836 that resulted in the formation of the Boer republics?

Great Trek

7.

Which US state capital is located roughly midway between Charlotte and Virginia Beach, or between Miami and Montreal?

Raleigh

8.

James Dean plays ranch hand Jett Rink in which 1956 film, his last?

Giant

Sp.

What surname links the US science fiction author of Kindred and The Parable of the Sower with the 1944 Education Act?

Butler

(Octavia and ‘Rab’)

Theme: Brands / makes of bicycle...

 Peregrine & Falcon, Mercian, Dawes, Brompton, Trek, Raleigh, Giant and Butler

Go back to Round 6 questions without answers

ROUND 7 - Pairs

1.

Born in 1887, Heitor Villa-Lobos is probably the best-known composer from which large country?

Brazil

2.

The 20th-century composer Arthur Honegger appeared on a twenty-franc banknote of which country in 1996?

Switzerland

3.

The flags of Australia, New Zealand and Brazil all depict the Southern Cross.  Name one of the two other national flags on which the Southern Cross appears.

(either)

Papua New Guinea

(or)

Samoa

4.

A yellow pig’s tusk appears on the flag of which pacific island country?  It was formerly the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides.

Vanuatu

5.

Sado (prounced 'Saddo') is the 6th-largest island of which country?  It is about the size of the Isle of Mull and is on a similar latitude to Sicily.

Japan

6.

Shikoku, the fourth-largest island of Japan is closest in land area to which of Rugby Union’s ‘Six Nations’?

Wales

(Shikoku,18,800 sq km; Wales, 20,800)

7.

The strait known as the Kattegat separates which two countries of northern Europe?

Sweden and Denmark

(the Skagerrak is between Denmark and Norway)

8.

Which narrow strait links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman?

(Strait of) Hormuz

Sp1

If its three colours, from hoist to fly, are reversed, the national flag of Ivory Coast most closely resembles that of which EU member state?

Ireland

Sp2

What are the two main colours of all these flags: Staffordshire, Somerset, Sicily and New Mexico?

gold (yellow) and red

Go back to Round 7 questions without answers

ROUND 8 - ‘Walkover’

These are all well-known names that feature in the ‘Blue Peter Gold Badge Walk’ at Media City UK

Name the person from the description. Given name AND surname needed in each case.

1.

A winner of seven Olympic medals who once asked to borrow Tom’s bike for a photo shoot; shares a surname with one of the islands that forms Scapa Flow.

2.

In a brief victory speech in July 2012, this person said: "Excuse me if I speak English. we're about to draw the raffle tickets… have a safe journey home and don’t get too drunk!”

3.

Educated in Chester, the first British female gymnast to win a medal at the European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games.

Beth Tweddle

4.

The author best known for writing the Horrid Henry series of children's books.

Francesca Simon

5.

A four-foot tall, multiple-gold-medal-winning paralympian swimmer born in Walsall in 1994.

Ellie Simmonds

6.

The diver who was Britain's youngest competitor at the 2008 Olympics.  With Daniel Goodfellow, he won a bronze medal in a synchronised event at Rio in 2016

Tom Daley

7.

The Children’s Laureate from 2013-15; she is the author of the dystopian novel series Noughts & Crosses.

Malorie Blackman

8.

Born in 1966, the author of the How to Train Your Dragon and Emily Brown series of children’s books

Cressida Cowell

Sp1

The actress best known for her portrayal of Tracy Beaker on CBBC.

Sp2

The person who devised and introduced the Blue Peter badge in 1963; she edited the programme from 1965 to 1988.

Biddy Baxter

Go back to Round 8 questions without answers