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

C₅H₉N₃ is a chemical formula for which biogenic compound, released by the immune system during allergic reactions?

      9. Which bird, sometimes known as the ‘sea swallow’, has varieties including the Sooty, the Arctic and the Sandwich?

      10. What name is generally given to the palaeoanthropological theory – advanced by geneticists in the 1980s – that all living humans share a single ancestor, a hypothetical woman living in eastern Africa between 150 and 200 thousand years ago?

      11. Benjamin Franklin, Percival Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe and Paul Revere were all born in which city, historically known as the ‘Athens of America’?

      12. What was King George VI’s first name?

      13. What traditional custom takes place in the Derbyshire villages of Tissington and Youlgreave, amongst others, said to be associated with the worship of water deities?

      14. What is the name of the French village, outside Paris, where Monet spent the last years of his life, painting his famous Waterlilies series?

      15. George Bingham was in overall charge of the cavalry at Balaclava: he was the 3rd holder of which title, that was made infamous by the 7th holder, declared legally dead in the 1990s?

      16. Which Austrian physicist is responsible for the naming of the ‘ratio of the speed of a body or fluid to the local speed of sound’, particularly commonly applied in relation to aircraft?

      17. The invention of which perfume is credited to Giovanni Maria Farina, who moved from Italy to Germany in the early eighteenth century to manufacture it?

      18. Which musical instrument was patented in Hawaii in 1917?

      19. The Indri, aye-aye and fossa are animal species native to which country?

      20. Although credited to three different acts, the early 1970s hit songs ‘In a Broken Dream’, ‘Cindy Incidentally’ and ‘You Wear It Well’ all featured lead vocals by whom?

      21. Who was the man who ruled Cuba in the 1940s and again in the 1950s when he was overthrown by Fidel Castro?

      22. Working on principles developed by Michael Faraday, what name is given to a machine or generator that transforms mechanical energy into electrical energy?

      23. With a book and lyrics by Glenn Slater, which Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera?

      24. John Milton, Isaac Newton, Henry VIII and Benjamin Franklin are among the most famous names said to have suffered from which form of arthritis, brought on by the defective metabolism of uric acid?

      25. ‘Comparisons are odorous’ is a characteristic malapropism spoken by which Shakespearean character?

      26. Which small island in the River Thames is linked by a footbridge to the Embankment at Twickenham?

      27. Which Russian composer’s second piano concerto in C minor is heard on the soundtracks of the 1945 film romance Brief Encounter and the 1955 Billy Wilder comedy The Seven Year Itch?

      28. Which spice, used in natural or powdered form, is derived from the dried membrane that covers nutmeg?

      29. Which two-word phrase is used for the boundary of a black hole with the rest of the universe?

      30. Which mythical beast was said to have a lion’s head, a goat’s middle and a dragon or serpent’s tail?

      31. What name is given to the oldest known fossil bird of the late Jurassic period?

      32. What was the nationality by birth of Marie Antoinette, whose husband ascended the French throne as Louis XVI in 1774?

      33. Although its name derives from the Provençal word for capers, what is actually the main ingredient of the dish Tapenade?

      34. Which film directed by David Lean, based on a classic novel, did one critic say ‘does for snow what his Lawrence of Arabia did for sand’?

      35. A ‘cordwainer’ is an archaic term for an artisan who manufactured what type of goods?

      36. To distinguish him from his father the second President, the sixth President of the United States is almost always referred to using which distinctive middle name, from his great grandfather?

      37. The Ounce is an alternative name for which animal that lives in the mountains of Central Asia?

      38. Which dry apple brandy shares its name with the department of north-west France where it is made?

      39. Which international organisation, whose aims are the education and stimulation of retired members of the community, was founded in Toulouse in 1973?

      40. What name is given to non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed, which is primarily used on memory cards, memory sticks and the like?

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Quiz 10

      1. Which elementary particles, believed to be one of the basic building blocks of matter, are divided into six types: Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Strange and Charm?

      2. Which fictional villain, later the subject of a musical by Stephen Sondheim, made his first appearance in ‘The String of Pearls’, a story which first appeared in The People’s Periodical in 1846?

      3. Marie van Goethem – a 14-year-old dance student at the Palais Garnier in Paris – became the subject of an iconic work by which French artist?

      4. In which county of Ireland is Knock, the village celebrated as the site of a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in August 1879?

      5. What is a Devon rex?

      6. The ‘Otto Cycle’ is the name given to the function of which type of engine?

      7. In classical mythology, who, collectively, were Stheno, Euryale and Medusa?

      8. Which fictional group began its adventures ‘on a Treasure Island’ in 1942 and ended them ‘Together Again’ in 1963?

      9. Which country became known as ‘The Cockpit of Europe’ because it has so frequently been the battleground of Europe?

      10. What is the name for a triangle which has three sides of differing lengths?

      11. In biology, what is the name for the point of contact between one neurone and another, the junction across which a nerve impulse passes from an axon terminal to a neuron, muscle cell, or gland cell, also known as a neuronal junction?

      12. In art, what is the generally used French term for an object found by an artist and displayed as it is, or sometimes with minimal alteration?

      13. ‘Oeil de boeuf’, or