Perfect Pub Quiz (25 page)

Read Perfect Pub Quiz Online

Authors: David Pickering

BOOK: Perfect Pub Quiz
5.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Jackpot

Who is the only living US playwright to have a Broadway theatre named after him?

 

Quiz 93

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. What was the Spice Girls’ début single?
  2. Who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film
    Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
    ?
  3. Which is the most popular tourist attraction in Britain?
  4. The word gamelan refers to a species of alligator, a small game bird or a form of Indonesian music?
  5. Who persuaded Shakespeare’s Othello that his wife was being unfaithful?
  6. What lamp with an innovative stand imitating the human arm was first marketed in 1933?
  7. In which television comedy did Leonard Rossiter play the seedy landlord Rigsby?
  8. What did Private Teruo Nakamura discover in December 1974?
  9. What material did the jeweller René Lalique specialise in?
  10. Where is the dong the main unit of currency?

Round 2: Executions

  1. What has among its nicknames Old Smoky, Sizzling Sally and Gruesome Gerty?
  2. In which year did Ruth Ellis become the last woman to be hanged in Britain?
  3. What was the original career of Joseph Ignace Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine?
  4. Who was the last official Chief Hangman for the United Kingdom?
    93
  5. In which film did Susan Sarandon win an Oscar as a nun who befriends a man on Death Row?
  6. Who was known as ‘the Hanging Judge’?
  7. In eighteenth-century Britain the death penalty applied to 222 offences – true or false?
  8. Which US murderer was the first to be executed when capital punishment was resumed in 1976?
  9. Whose execution in 1918 brought about the end of the Russian monarchy?
  10. Which character goes to the guillotine in
    A Tale of Two Cities
    saying ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known’?

Half-time teaser

The world’s largest millipede is an African giant black millipede owned by Jim Klinger of Coppell, Texas – how many legs does it have?

Round 3: Sport and Leisure

  1. From which sport comes the saying ‘three strikes and you’re out’?
  2. Which BBC commentator delivered the immortal line ‘They think it’s all over’ during the 1966 Wembley World Cup final?
  3. Which country was admitted to rugby union’s Five Nations Championship in 2000, making it the Six Nations Championship?
  4. By what name did the Jules Rimet Trophy become better known?
  5. The English cricketer C. B. Fry was once offered the throne of which country?
  6. Which US football club did David Beckham leave Real Madrid for in 2007?
  7. Which British Formula One driver was killed at Hockenheim in 1968?
  8. What innovation in dress did Bunny Austin introduce to Wimbledon in 1933?
  9. In three-day eventing, what is the first day devoted to?
  10. Which sportsperson was the first BBC Sports Personality of the Year?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. ‘Leopard’ and ‘panther’ are different names for the same animal – true or false?
  2. In which country did the Ayatollah Khomeini seize control in 1979?
  3. What was the name of the character played by Frankie Howerd in
    Up Pompeii
    ?
  4. Who was prime minister at the time of the ‘I’m backing Britain’ campaign?
  5. Which Buddy Holly single was named after the girlfriend of the drummer with the Crickets?
  6. Who was worried about her pussy in the sitcom
    Are You Being Served
    ?
  7. What was the political and military organisation founded in 1958 by Yasser Arafat?
  8. Members of which branch of the British army are known as the Red Devils?
  9. Which long-running children’s story programme was revived on television in 2006?
  10. Who wrote the book on which Steven Spielberg based
    Jurassic Park
    ?

Jackpot

What musical instrument was patented by Anthony Faas of Philadelphia in 1854?

 

Quiz 94

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. On which mountain is Noah’s Ark traditionally supposed to have come to rest?
    94
  2. What does the acronym CAMRA stand for?
  3. What does an aeroplane’s altimeter measure?
  4. Who was Marie Antoinette’s husband?
  5. Joseph Stalin was once a trainee priest – true or false?
  6. Which British Olympic medal-winner famously received his gold medal by post?
  7. Which guidebook was allegedly used to direct German air raids on historic British cities in World War II?
  8. Where does the Buran wind blow?
  9. Which actress married both Frank Sinatra and André Previn?
  10. Who was run down by a tram in
    Coronation Street
    ?

Round 2: Animals

  1. Which animal comes in grey and timber varieties?
  2. What is the world’s largest venomous snake?
  3. Cobb, Kerry Hill and Scottish Blackface are all breeds of what?
  4. What kind of animal is a miller’s thumb?
  5. How many horns does an Indian rhinoceros have?
  6. What is a beaver’s home called?
  7. What kind of animal is a bobolink?
  8. What is a black and white horse called?
  9. Apart from humans, which is the only animal to suffer from sunburn?
  10. What kind of animal comes in hairstreak and meadow brown varieties?

Half-time teaser

William Henry ‘Fatty’ Foulke holds the record as the heaviest footballer to play for England – how heavy (in kilograms) was he?

Round 3: Nicknames

  1. Which British monarch was nicknamed ‘Farmer George’?
  2. Which snooker player earned the nickname ‘Interesting’ for his dull public persona?
  3. What is the nickname of the third battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland?
  4. What was the nickname of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm in 1991?
  5. Who was Brandy Nan?
  6. Which English monarch had the nickname ‘Old Rowley’?
  7. What is the nickname of the Scottish football club Celtic?
  8. Which US general was nicknamed ‘Old Blood and Guts’?
  9. What is the nickname of the New Zealand rugby league team?
  10. Which British footballer was known as ‘the White Ghost’ or ‘the Preston Plumber’?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. In which city was there an Easter Rising in 1916?
  2. A Persian Blue is a variety of what?
  3. Who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape Scotland disguised as her maid?
  4. Which country includes among its rivers the Arno and the Po?
  5. Who was the lead singer of INXS who apparently killed himself in Sydney in 1997?
  6. Which flying insect spreads sleeping sickness?
  7. In which country was Greenpeace founded – France, Germany or Canada?
  8. From 1982 to 1993 only two women claimed the Women’s Singles title at Wimbledon – Martina Navratilova and who else?
  9. Which footballer became, in 2002, the subject of the first thirty-million-pound transfer?
  10. What was the title of the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about Watergate?

Jackpot

Which military force was founded by David Stirling?

 

Quiz 95

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. In which war did the Battle of the Atlantic take place?
  2. What did US writer Elbert Hubbard summarise as ‘one damned thing after another’?
  3. Which evangelical and charitable organisation was founded by William Booth in 1865?
  4. On which earlier tune was the song ‘Danny Boy’ based?
  5. Who had the nickname ‘Old Groaner’?
  6. Which battle on British soil claimed the most lives?
  7. How many balls do you need to play a game of snooker?
  8. What was the name of the spinster witch played by Angela Lansbury in the Walt Disney film
    Bedknobs and Broomsticks
    ?
  9. What do the initials ECT stand for?
  10. To which historical figure did Beethoven dedicate his third symphony?

Round 2: British Television

  1. Which television sitcom written by Jimmy Perry was set in India and Burma during World War II?
  2. What nickname of the BBC reflects what many people have seen as its cautious, conservative nature?
  3. Who wrote the music that is used as a theme tune for television’s
    The Sky at Night
    ?
  4. Which cult television programme starred a motley band of resistance fighters opposed to the Terran Foundation?
  5. On which long-running television talent show did such stars as Mary Hopkin, Bonnie Langford and Freddie Starr get their big break?
  6. For what television programme is ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ the theme tune?
  7. What is the name of the Yorkshire village in which the television drama series
    Heartbeat
    is set?
  8. Who for many years presented the television pop music programme
    Old Grey Whistle Test
    ?
  9. Which television programme of the 1960s had the slogan ‘The weekend starts here’?
  10. What was the name of the fictional village in which the television comedy series
    The League of Gentlemen
    was set?

Half-time teaser

How far is it in miles from Birmingham, England to Birmingham, Alabama?

Round 3: Shopping

  1. Which street in Soho, London, became a focus for fashionable youth in the 1960s?
  2. What phrase describes the activity of looking at things for sale without planning to buy them?
  3. Which British businessman lost his job after publicly scorning the products of his own leading high-street company?
  4. Which brand of soup was immortalised in paintings by Andy Warhol?
    95
  5. According to a VAT tribunal ruling of 1991, is a Jaffa cake a cake or a biscuit?
  6. In which year did Smarties first go on sale – 1927, 1937 or 1947?
  7. What product is sold with the help of the biblical slogan ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’?
  8. Which is the world’s largest hypermarket chain?
  9. Which supermarket chain was created by the merger in 1965 of the Asquith chain of supermarkets and Associated Dairies?
  10. Who provided a slogan for shoppers with her song ‘A little of what you fancy does you good?’

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. Complete the following quotation: ‘Are you sitting comfortably? …’
  2. Which choral work written by Carl Orff during the Nazi period has become a popular standard of modern concert performances?
  3. In which city is the famous al-Aqsa mosque?
  4. Who wrote the 1951 play
    The Rose Tattoo
    ?
  5. Which Beatles album included the tracks ‘Got to get you into my life’, ‘Taxman’ and ‘Here, there and everywhere’?
  6. Which two countries fought the so-called Soccer War of 1969 after violence erupted following a football match between their national teams?
  7. Which US president summarised his foreign policy in the phrase ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’?
  8. Who created the concept of ‘oneupmanship’ in a 1952 book of that title?
  9. Which town in Britain has the highest divorce rate?
  10. What do golfers call the ‘nineteenth hole’?

Jackpot

Who wrote the opera
Der Rosenkavalier
?

 

Quiz 96

Round 1: Pot Luck

  1. From which country does retsina come?
  2. Which three South American countries does the equator go through?
  3. Which British writer became subject to an Iranian fatwa in 1989?
  4. Which pop celebrity in 2004 had a marriage that lasted just 55 hours?
  5. What colour is Sonic the Hedgehog?
  6. Which English county has the heaviest rainfall?
  7. Which board game started life as Lexico?
  8. What kind of meat is used to make Bombay duck?
  9. Where did Boddington’s brewery close in 2005?
  10. In which sport was Charles McCoy, the original ‘real McCoy’, a world champion?
    96

Round 2: Europe

  1. Which bay lies off northern Spain and south-western France?
  2. What is the Latin name for Switzerland?
  3. In which country do Ajax play domestic football?
  4. In which country is the westernmost point of mainland Europe?
  5. Of which European country is Vaduz the capital?
  6. Who is ‘the Muscles from Brussels’?
  7. How many times has a British football side won football’s European Nations Championship?
  8. Latvia and Lithuania are two of the Baltic states – which is the third?
  9. On which river does Budapest stand?
  10. Which country has finished last most times in the Eurovision Song Contest?

Half-time teaser

How many hours did the longest competitive tennis match on record last?

Round 3: Minority Sports

  1. The Stanley Cup is contested in which sport?
  2. In which sport do teams play chukkas lasting seven and a half minutes?
  3. In which sport might one use a besom?
  4. Which sport is James Gibb credited with inventing in 1890 – table-tennis, billiards or ski-jumping?
  5. Essendon, Port Adelaide, Collingwood and West Coast Eagles are all leading teams in which sport?
  6. Who is the only cyclist to have won the Tour de France seven times?
  7. From which sport comes the phrase ‘the moment of truth’?
  8. Which sport is associated with the Circus Tavern, Purfleet?
  9. In which sport do teams contest the Iroquois Cup?
  10. What term describes a surfer falling off his board?

Round 4: Pot Luck

  1. Which ingredient is present in beer but missing in ale?
  2. The death of which iconic figure occurred five days after that of Princess Diana?
  3. Which is furthest south – Bhutan, Cambodia or Thailand?
  4. Which US general was known by his detractors as ‘the American Caesar’?
  5. What was the name given to the temporary steel bridges put up by the Allies during World War II?
  6. Who is the only person to have won the PFA Player of the Year two years running?
  7. Which Caribbean island was devastated by hurricane Hugo in 1989?
  8. What object stands in the middle of the Place de la Concorde in Paris?
  9. Which writer was played by Anthony Hopkins in the film
    Shadowlands
    ?
  10. Which singer had a hit in 2001 with ‘It’s raining men’?

Other books

The Night Caller by Lutz, John
Ignatius MacFarland by Paul Feig
SEALed at Midnight by Cat Johnson
The Ghost by Robert Harris
Rubber Balls and Liquor by Gilbert Gottfried
Brain Droppings by George Carlin
House of Angels by Freda Lightfoot
Evil Intent by Robert Olsen
BlindHeat by Nara Malone
The Big Picture by Jenny B. Jones