BBC Radio 4 Brain of Britain Ultimate Quiz Book. Russell Davies

an isotope of which metal?

      3. Le Manège Enchanté was the original French title of which classic children’s television series?

      4. What financial enterprise began in a coffee house in Tower Street, London, in the 1680s, before moving to bigger premises near Lombard Street?

      5. Which itinerant ballet company, directed by Sergei Diaghilev and widely regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century, performed in many countries between 1909 and 1929?

      6. In which range of hills are the Wookey Hole caves?

      7. Which British actor and comedian directed his first Hollywood feature in 2009, called The Invention of Lying?

      8. What is the chemical formula for Ozone?

      9. In 1981, a book by twelve-year-old Patrick Bossert became one of the fastest selling books of all time. Its contents provided a means of solving which problem?

      10. Recorded as an entry in his diary, ‘God grant my eyes may never behold the like,’ is a sentiment reflecting John Evelyn’s reponse to which historical event?

      11. The Rainbow Bridge, a natural arch of pink sandstone, crosses Lake Powell in which US state?

      12. In the Hindu religion, what is a Sadhu?

      13. Bob Paisley steered which football club to six league titles and three European Cups during nine years as manager?

      14. According to the humorous book of British history 1066 and All That, by Sellar and Yeatman, which Parliament was ‘so-called because it had been sitting for such a long time’?

      15. The sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped takes its title from the girl the hero David Balfour falls in love with. What’s its title?

      16. What stretch of water separates the Isle of Anglesey from the Welsh mainland?

      17. The host used in the sacrament of Holy Communion, the Indian chapati, and the matzo traditionally eaten during the Jewish feast of the Passover, are all forms of what type of bread?

      18. Which old fashioned phrase for nudity, familiar from a song featured in a film with Danny Kaye, is thought to have been first popularised by its use in George du Maurier’s novel Trilby in the 1890s?

      19. Which chemical element has as its symbol the single letter P?

      20. Delphi, home of the Oracle of legend, lies on the slopes of which Greek mountain, which was itself sacred to the Muses?

      21. The Treaty of Paris in March 1856 formally ended which war?

      22. The Morrison Formation, a geological feature of the western United States, is the American continent’s richest source of fossil remains of what type of creatures?

      23. The swimwear known as a bikini acquired its name because the word ‘bikini’ was in the news at the time of its introduction in 1946. Can you explain why?

      24. Buteo buteo is the taxonomic name of which large bird of prey, widespread in Britain and Europe?

      25. The film known simply as Star Wars on its first release in 1977 became Episode 4 in the eventual sequence of films, and acquired a subtitle. Can you give me the subtitle?

      26. What two-word term is used for ‘a synthetic androgen that selectively enhances the growth of skeletal muscle’?

      27. The branch of chemistry known as organic chemistry involves the study of the compounds of which element?

      28. In popular fiction, what profession is common to both Irene Adler, the New Jersey-born beauty who outwits Sherlock Holmes in Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia, and Bianca Castafiore, the victim of jewel theft in the Tintin adventure The Castafiore Emerald?

      29. Which body was created in the UK in 1995 to assume many of the roles and responsibilities formerly undertaken by the National Rivers Authority, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution and the waste regulation authorites of England and Wales?

      30. The carbonated soft drink generally known in the US as cream soda is flavoured with pods from plants of which genus?

      31. In 1964, the American theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined which word for a group of subatomic particles regarded, along with leptons, as basic constituents of matter?

      32. Bhadrapada, Asvina and Kartika are months in the calendar of which religion?

      33. For what sort of event would an epithalamium be written?

      34. What two-word term is widely used as the US equivalent to what the British would call ‘positive discrimination’?

      35. Jane Eyre is the best-known of Charlotte Brontë’s four completed novels. Can you name ONE of the other three?

      36. Two of the United States of America have names which, in common pronunciation, end with a silent ‘S’. Which two?

      37. What was the traditional subject of the type of wall painting, often seen in medieval churches, known as a ‘Doom’?

      38. Known for his drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts and emphasizing the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic, who was the first art editor of The Yellow Book, an influential literary periodical published in London in the 1890s?

      39. In English folklore, a ‘tod’ is a traditional name for which animal?

      40. The name of which Italian dairy product means ‘recooked’?

       Click here for Quiz 8 answers.

       Click here for the main index.

Quiz 9

      1. What name is given in reproductive biology to a certain type of cell, two of which merging with one another produce a zygote – examples being sperm and egg cells?

      2. The five ‘Leatherstocking Tales’ of the 19th century American novelist James Fenimore Cooper are The Pioneers, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer and which other novel, first published in 1826?

      3. In 1598, the Edict of Nantes finally defined freedom of worship for which French religious group, who had to suffer its revocation in 1685 by Louis XIV?

      4. Which term – first used in 1976 in Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene – is used to refer to a so-called ‘unit of cultural information’ passed between minds through imitated use?

      5. At approximately 192 km, which is the longest river in Scotland?

      6. According to Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Annus Mirabilis’, in which year did sexual intercourse begin?

      7. Which British actor’s prominent roles encompass Lennie Price in Two Way Stretch in 1960, and Wilf Mott in Dr Who in the