ROUND 1 - Announced theme - 'Relatives'

Each answer starts with a relative

1.

Common name of Dracaena trifasciata.

2.

Dusty Springfield song, released in 1969.

3.

ITV sitcom, featuring Patrick Cargill, which ran from 1968 to 1973.

4.

Title of a track written by Paul McCartney on side 3 of the Beatles’ White Album.

5.

1989 American comedy film starring John Candy.

6.

Paul Simon song, whose opening lines are:

“No, I would not give you false hope / On this strange and mournful day”.

7.

Which of his relatives is Paddington Bear prone to quoting?

8.

Pierre Kartner was a Dutch musician and songwriter, most famous in the late 1970s for hit records with puppets.  How was he better known?

Sp1

Which humorous and educational book for children by Nicholas Allen was published in 2009?

Sp2

What novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe was first published in 1852?

Go to Round 1 questions with answers

ROUND 2 - Pairs

1.

Which European capital city was previously known as Pressburg?

2.

Which European capital city was previously known as Laibach?

3.

Which English Football League club is nicknamed The Tractor Boys?

4.

Which English Football League club is nicknamed The Chair Boys?

5.

The last words of which 20th century Latin American revolutionary, assassinated in 1923, are said to have been:

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something”?

6.

The last words of the king of which European country, assassinated in 1900, are said to have been:

"These are the risks of the trade"?

7.

What is the American slang term, derived from the game of Pool, used to describe the situation of a complete loser?

8.

What is the American slang term, derived from a prominent feature in many Native American settlements, to describe someone of little or no status?

Sp.

On 10 December 1941 two British battleships were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Singapore.  One was HMS Prince of Wales.  What was the name of the other?

Go to Round 2 questions with answers

ROUND 3 - Hidden theme

1.

Native to New Zealand, the Kea is the only species of which bird able to live in alpine regions?

2.

What is the surname of the title character in the 2021 biopic King Richard, starring Will Smith?

3.

Which North Yorkshire town on the River Ouse is best known for its 11th century Benedictine abbey?

4.

What is the family name of the Earls of Lucan, whose most (in)famous member disappeared in 1974?

5.

Which man was known as the 'Voice of horse racing' until his retirement in 1997?  He commentated on all three of Red Rum’s Grand National wins.

6.

Played by John Hillerman, what was the surname of the caretaker of Robin’s Nest, the beachfront estate on which the title character of the TV show Magnum PI lived rent free?

7.

Composed around 1700 by Jeremiah Clarke, how is The Prince of Denmark’s March better known?

8.

What is the name of the music and science festival held annually at the Jodrell Bank Observatory?  It takes its name from the last two words of the title given to a famous 1990 photograph.

Sp1

In The Simpsons, what is the name of the jazz saxophonist, idol of, and mentor to, Lisa Simpson?

Sp2

Situated on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood and featuring prominently in films such as Rebel Without a Cause and La La Land, what is the name of the Los Angeles observatory and planetarium, and indeed, the park in which it sits?

Go to Round 3 questions with answers

ROUND 4 - Pot pourri

1.

A currently popular set of business principles, supposedly to be considered when investing in a company, is known by the abbreviation ESG.  What does ESG stand for?

2.

GIDS, at the Tavistock Clinic, was much in the news before it was shut down in March 2024 (and little less since).  What does GIDS stand for?

3.

From around 1890 to 1914, French audiences. including initially those at the Moulin Rouge, were entertained (it was easier in those days) by Joseph Pujol, a flatulist.  What was his stage name, also the name of a character in the film Blazing Saddles?

4.

Which fictional character claimed, amongst other tales, to have shot a stag with cherry stones instead of a bullet (having run out of ammunition) and a year or two later to have encountered the same animal which by then had “a cherry tree quite ten feet high growing between his antlers”?

5.

In 1984 an advertisement directed by Ridley Scott was shown on US TV during a break in the third quarter of the NFL Superbowl final.  It featured a female athlete who throws a sledgehammer at a screen.  What did it advertise?

6.

Where would one most commonly be when experiencing hypnogogic hallucinations?

7.

What very long-running British TV series was first broadcast, in 1963, the day after President Kennedy had been shot?

8.

Garter Principal, Norroy and Ulster, Clarenceaux and Lord Lyon are the four what?

Sp1

Macaulay observed that the Puritans hated bear-baiting "not because it gave pain to the bear but because ....".  What?

Sp2

What shrub, whose dried and ground berries form an astringent spice, is the palindrome of the surname of a 20th century French philosopher and author?

Go to Round 4 questions with answers

ROUND 5 - (not very well) Hidden theme

Beware soundalikes, etc

Questions 7 and 8 are picture-based

1.

Who was Queen of Denmark until her abdication in January 2024?

2.

What is the nickname for the interchange between the M6, A38 and A5127?

3.

Who collaborated with Andrew Lloyd-Webber on musicals including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar?

4.

What jocular nickname is given by mathematicians, particularly in the USA, to 14th March?

5.

An American social climber, who was a Conservative MP in the UK and died in 1958, is best known for his extensive and outspoken diaries which some think well-written but according to one reviewer showed him to be “a snob, a bigot, vain, self-deceived, entranced by the trivial, a bore and a boor both”.  His first name was Henry; what were his nickname and surname?

6.

Which producer, best known for his involvement with the Bond films, died in 1996?

7.

Who took this photograph, entitled Afghan girl?

8.

What is the name of this sculpture, by Rodin?

Sp.

Go to Round 5 questions with answers

ROUND 6 - Music

1.

Who wrote symphonies nicknamed Prague and Linz?

2.

Who wrote symphonies nicknamed The Clock and Farewell?

3.

In which opera by Puccini does the aria Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep) appear?

4.

In which opera by Delibes does the Flower Duet, particularly famous for its use in advertisements by British Airways, appear?

5.

Which 20th century composer wrote a set of 24 preludes and fugues for the pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva?

6.

Who wrote Concerto for Orchestra, first performed in 1943?

7.

Which composer’s most popular – and very well-known – work is a 15-minute ballet score consisting of a repeated short theme which is passed between instruments of the orchestra, gradually increasing in volume but with no other development?

8.

Who wrote Music for the Royal Fireworks?

Sp1

Whose rondo for piano in G is nicknamed 'Rage over a Lost Penny'?

Sp2

Peter Schickele, who died this year, wrote a biography of which fictional son of J S Bach, composer of, amongst other silly works, The Short-Tempered Clavier, preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys except for the really hard ones?  (surname alone will, obviously, not suffice)

Go to Round 6 questions with answers

To mark this not particularly significant anniversary, a round on the American space programme.

1.

What is the name of the air force base in California that was the site for all space shuttle landings until 1991?

2.

Who was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, played by Tom Hanks in the movie of the same name?

3.

What is the name of the current NASA programme, established in 2017, which aims to send the first woman to the moon and to establish the first permanent lunar base?

4.

What was the name of the orbiter used in the last Space Shuttle mission, in July 2011?

5.

Who was the oldest man to walk on the moon?  He was 47.

6.

What was the name of NASA’s first manned spaceflight programme, which ran from 1958 to 1963?

7.

What was the name of the German aerospace engineer who was co-opted to work for NASA under Operation Paperclip, and who became the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle?

8.

Name either of the astronauts who performed the first American tethered and untethered spacewalks, in 1965 and 1984 respectively.

Sp.

What was the aim of NASA’s 2021 DART mission?

Go to Round 7 questions with answers

ROUND 8 - Quotations

1.

What is the title of the poem which begins:

“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk”?

2.

What is the title of the poem which begins:

“Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table”?

3.

Who, in Hamlet, advises his son:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be”?

4.

Who, in Romeo and Juliet, says:

“A plague o’ both your houses”?

5.

What is the first line of the poem which ends:

“So long as men can breathe and eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”?

6.

What is the first line of the poem by Betjeman which ends (the last word rhymes with 'stones'!):

“Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doilies / With afternoon tea-cakes and scones”?

7.

Complete the quotation (4 words which are the title of the book):

“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it's a sin …”

8.

Complete the quotation (6 words):

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on earth …”

Sp1

Who wrote:

“Oh the little more, and how much it is! / And the little less, and what worlds away!”

Sp2

In 1987, who, in the middle of a speech, said to whom:

“Mr .... , tear down this wall!"

Go to Round 8 questions with answers

Tiebreaker

What is the total length, in metres, of Manchester Airport’s two runways?

Go to Tiebreaker question with answer

ROUND 1 - Announced theme - 'Relatives'

Each answer starts with a relative

1.

Common name of Dracaena trifasciata.

Mother-in-law’s tongue

2.

Dusty Springfield song, released in 1969.

Son of a Preacher Man

3.

ITV sitcom, featuring Patrick Cargill, which ran from 1968 to 1973.

Father, Dear Father

4.

Title of a track written by Paul McCartney on side 3 of the Beatles’ White Album.

Mother Nature’s son

5.

1989 American comedy film starring John Candy.

Uncle Buck

6.

Paul Simon song, whose opening lines are:

“No, I would not give you false hope / On this strange and mournful day”.

Mother and Child Reunion

7.

Which of his relatives is Paddington Bear prone to quoting?

Aunt Lucy

8.

Pierre Kartner was a Dutch musician and songwriter, most famous in the late 1970s for hit records with puppets.  How was he better known?

Father Abraham

(and the Smurfs)

Sp1

Which humorous and educational book for children by Nicholas Allen was published in 2009?

Father Christmas Needs a Wee!

Sp2

What novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe was first published in 1852?

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

ROUND 2 - Pairs

1.

Which European capital city was previously known as Pressburg?

Bratislava

(Slovakia)

2.

Which European capital city was previously known as Laibach?

Lubjliana

(Slovenia)

3.

Which English Football League club is nicknamed The Tractor Boys?

Ipswich Town

4.

Which English Football League club is nicknamed The Chair Boys?

Wycombe Wanderers

5.

The last words of which 20th century Latin American revolutionary, assassinated in 1923, are said to have been:

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something”?

Pancho Villa

(but some suggest that as he had been shot three times in the head with dumdum bullets it is unlikely he said anything at all)

6.

The last words of the king of which European country, assassinated in 1900, are said to have been:

"These are the risks of the trade"?

Italy

(Umberto 1)

7.

What is the American slang term, derived from the game of Pool, used to describe the situation of a complete loser?

Behind the 8 ball

8.

What is the American slang term, derived from a prominent feature in many Native American settlements, to describe someone of little or no status?

Low man on the totem pole

Sp.

On 10 December 1941 two British battleships were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Singapore.  One was HMS Prince of Wales.  What was the name of the other?

HMS Repulse

Go back to Round 2 questions without answers

ROUND 3 - Hidden theme

1.

Native to New Zealand, the Kea is the only species of which bird able to live in alpine regions?

Parrot

2.

What is the surname of the title character in the 2021 biopic King Richard, starring Will Smith?

Williams

3.

Which North Yorkshire town on the River Ouse is best known for its 11th century Benedictine abbey?

Selby

4.

What is the family name of the Earls of Lucan, whose most (in)famous member disappeared in 1974?

Bingham

5.

Which man was known as the 'Voice of horse racing' until his retirement in 1997?  He commentated on all three of Red Rum’s Grand National wins.

Peter O’Sullevan

6.

Played by John Hillerman, what was the surname of the caretaker of Robin’s Nest, the beachfront estate on which the title character of the TV show Magnum PI lived rent free?

Higgins

7.

Composed around 1700 by Jeremiah Clarke, how is The Prince of Denmark’s March better known?

The Trumpet Voluntary

8.

What is the name of the music and science festival held annually at the Jodrell Bank Observatory?  It takes its name from the last two words of the title given to a famous 1990 photograph.

Bluedot festival

Sp1

In The Simpsons, what is the name of the jazz saxophonist, idol of, and mentor to, Lisa Simpson?

'Bleeding gums' Murphy

Sp2

Situated on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood and featuring prominently in films such as Rebel Without a Cause and La La Land, what is the name of the Los Angeles observatory and planetarium, and indeed, the park in which it sits?

Griffith Observatory

Theme: As a nod to the 2024 Snooker World Championships, which start this weekend, each answer contains the surname of a former champion:

John Parrott, Mark Williams, Mark Selby, Stuart Bingham, Ronnie O’Sullivan, John (and Alex) Higgins, Judd Trump, Graeme Dott, Shaun Murphy and Terry Griffiths

Go back to Round 3 questions without answers

ROUND 4 - Pot pourri

1.

A currently popular set of business principles, supposedly to be considered when investing in a company, is known by the abbreviation ESG.  What does ESG stand for?

Environmental, Social and Governance

2.

GIDS, at the Tavistock Clinic, was much in the news before it was shut down in March 2024 (and little less since).  What does GIDS stand for?

Gender Identity Development Service

3.

From around 1890 to 1914, French audiences. including initially those at the Moulin Rouge, were entertained (it was easier in those days) by Joseph Pujol, a flatulist.  What was his stage name, also the name of a character in the film Blazing Saddles?

Le Pétomane

4.

Which fictional character claimed, amongst other tales, to have shot a stag with cherry stones instead of a bullet (having run out of ammunition) and a year or two later to have encountered the same animal which by then had “a cherry tree quite ten feet high growing between his antlers”?

(Baron von) Munchausen

5.

In 1984 an advertisement directed by Ridley Scott was shown on US TV during a break in the third quarter of the NFL Superbowl final.  It featured a female athlete who throws a sledgehammer at a screen.  What did it advertise?

Apple Macintosh computer

(Apple can be omitted, but Macintosh is essential - the ad ends with the words: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.")

6.

Where would one most commonly be when experiencing hypnogogic hallucinations?

In bed

7.

What very long-running British TV series was first broadcast, in 1963, the day after President Kennedy had been shot?

Dr Who

8.

Garter Principal, Norroy and Ulster, Clarenceaux and Lord Lyon are the four what?

Kings of Arms

Sp1

Macaulay observed that the Puritans hated bear-baiting "not because it gave pain to the bear but because ....".  What?

It gave pleasure to the spectators

Sp2

What shrub, whose dried and ground berries form an astringent spice, is the palindrome of the surname of a 20th century French philosopher and author?

Sumac

Go back to Round 4 questions without answers

ROUND 5 - (not very well) Hidden theme

Beware soundalikes, etc

Questions 7 and 8 are picture-based

1.

Who was Queen of Denmark until her abdication in January 2024?

Margrethe

2.

What is the nickname for the interchange between the M6, A38 and A5127?

Spaghetti junction

3.

Who collaborated with Andrew Lloyd-Webber on musicals including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar?

Tim Rice

4.

What jocular nickname is given by mathematicians, particularly in the USA, to 14th March?

Pi day

(an approximation of π is 3.14)

5.

An American social climber, who was a Conservative MP in the UK and died in 1958, is best known for his extensive and outspoken diaries which some think well-written but according to one reviewer showed him to be “a snob, a bigot, vain, self-deceived, entranced by the trivial, a bore and a boor both”.  His first name was Henry; what were his nickname and surname?

Chips Channon

6.

Which producer, best known for his involvement with the Bond films, died in 1996?

Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli

7.

Who took this photograph, entitled Afghan girl?

Steve McCurry

8.

What is the name of this sculpture, by Rodin?

The Burghers of Calais

Sp.

Theme: Food

Go back to Round 5 questions without answers

ROUND 6 - Music

1.

Who wrote symphonies nicknamed Prague and Linz?

Mozart

2.

Who wrote symphonies nicknamed The Clock and Farewell?

Haydn

3.

In which opera by Puccini does the aria Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep) appear?

Turandot

4.

In which opera by Delibes does the Flower Duet, particularly famous for its use in advertisements by British Airways, appear?

Lakme

5.

Which 20th century composer wrote a set of 24 preludes and fugues for the pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva?

Shostakovich

6.

Who wrote Concerto for Orchestra, first performed in 1943?

Bartók

7.

Which composer’s most popular – and very well-known – work is a 15-minute ballet score consisting of a repeated short theme which is passed between instruments of the orchestra, gradually increasing in volume but with no other development?

Ravel

8.

Who wrote Music for the Royal Fireworks?

Handel

Sp1

Whose rondo for piano in G is nicknamed 'Rage over a Lost Penny'?

Beethoven

Sp2

Peter Schickele, who died this year, wrote a biography of which fictional son of J S Bach, composer of, amongst other silly works, The Short-Tempered Clavier, preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys except for the really hard ones?  (surname alone will, obviously, not suffice)

P D Q Bach

Go back to Round 6 questions without answers

ROUND 7 - Space

54 years ago today, the crew of Apollo 13 splashed down in the South Pacific.

To mark this not particularly significant anniversary, a round on the American space programme.

1.

What is the name of the air force base in California that was the site for all space shuttle landings until 1991?

Edwards Air Force Base

2.

Who was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, played by Tom Hanks in the movie of the same name?

Jim Lovell

3.

What is the name of the current NASA programme, established in 2017, which aims to send the first woman to the moon and to establish the first permanent lunar base?

Artemis

4.

What was the name of the orbiter used in the last Space Shuttle mission, in July 2011?

Atlantis

.

Who was the oldest man to walk on the moon?  He was 47.

Alan Shepard

6.

What was the name of NASA’s first manned spaceflight programme, which ran from 1958 to 1963?

Mercury

7.

What was the name of the German aerospace engineer who was co-opted to work for NASA under Operation Paperclip, and who became the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle?

Wernher von Braun

8.

Name either of the astronauts who performed the first American tethered and untethered spacewalks, in 1965 and 1984 respectively.

Ed White (tethered) or Bruce McCandless (untethered)

Sp.

What was the aim of NASA’s 2021 DART mission?

To redirect the orbit of an asteroid

(as a test to simulate what could be done to protect Earth from a Near Earth Object)

Go back to Round 7 questions without answers

ROUND 8 - Quotations

1.

What is the title of the poem which begins:

“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk”?

Ode to a Nightingale

(Keats)

2.

What is the title of the poem which begins:

“Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table”?

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

(Eliot)

3.

Who, in Hamlet, advises his son:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be”?

Polonius

(to Laertes)

4.

Who, in Romeo and Juliet, says:

“A plague o’ both your houses”?

Mercutio

5.

What is the first line of the poem which ends:

“So long as men can breathe and eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”?

"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?"

6.

What is the first line of the poem by Betjeman which ends (the last word rhymes with 'stones'!):

“Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doilies / With afternoon tea-cakes and scones”?

"Phone for the fish knives, Norman"

(How to get on in Society)

7.

Complete the quotation (4 words which are the title of the book):

“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it's a sin …”

To Kill a Mockingbird

8.

Complete the quotation (6 words):

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on earth …”

"And all ye need to know"

(Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn)

Sp1

Who wrote:

“Oh the little more, and how much it is! / And the little less, and what worlds away!”

Browning

(By the Fireside)

Sp2

In 1987, who, in the middle of a speech, said to whom:

“Mr .... , tear down this wall!"

Reagan to Gorbachev

Go back to Round 8 questions without answers

Tiebreaker

What is the total length, in metres, of Manchester Airport’s two runways?
 

6,248

(3,200 and 3,048)

Go back to Tiebreaker question without answer