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

Which North American city is served by George Bush International Airport?

      19. Which novelty swing dance, derived from the Charleston, was named following Charles Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic in 1927?

      20. Which part of the British Isles has a parliament called the Court of Chief Pleas?

      21. Which type of theatre derives its name from a Latin word meaning ‘a player of many parts’?

      22. Apatosaurus is the name by which scientists now refer to the dinosaur formerly known as the Brontosaurus. The name Brontosaurus means ‘thunder lizard’ – but what does the name Apatosaurus mean?

      23. Windermere is the largest of the lakes in the English Lake District, and the largest natural lake in England. Which is the second largest?

      24. In Morse code, the most commonly occurring vowel and the most commonly occurring consonant are represented respectively by a single dot, and a single dash. Which letters are these?

      25. Which athlete and politician became the first person to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, in 1954?

      26. The comic playwright born Jean Baptiste Poquelin in 1622 is better known by what pen-name?

      27. Which pioneering jazz pianist, who came to prominence as part of the ‘be-bop’ movement in the 1940s, had the unusual middle name ‘Sphere’?

      28. In the care label symbols found on clothes, what is indicated by a square with a circle inside it, crossed out?

      29. A painting of 1599 by Caravaggio depicts a scene from the Old Testament, in which the Hebrew widow Judith beheads an Assyrian commander, after having calculatedly seduced him and made him drunk. What’s his name?

      30. The heavy black-brown mineral cassiterite is the principal ore of which metallic element?

      31. The toxic quinolizidine alkaloid, that became the suspected agent of poisoning in the Daphne du Maurier novel My Cousin Rachel, is present in the seeds of which tree, grown for its hanging clusters of golden flowers?

      32. Which Scottish monarch was killed at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513?

      33. In an early printed book, where would you find the ‘explicit’?

      34. Which artist did the writer Gore Vidal call ‘a genius with the IQ of a moron’?

      35. Which Latin phrase meaning ‘come with me’ is often used to describe a personal handbook, carried for use when needed?

      36. The cran, equal to 37¹/2 gallons, is used commercially to measure the volume of which commodity?

      37. The comedian Frankie Howerd’s role as Pseudolus, in the London production of Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, led to a TV comedy series which was written for him, and directly inspired by that show. What was its title?

      38. The four American Presidents whose faces are carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota are Lincoln, Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and which other?

      39. The Canadian physician Frederick Banting won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923, for his work with his colleague Charles Best, that made possible the treatment of which common condition?

      40. The Drury Lane Theatre, on 28th September 1745, saw the first recorded public performance of which now very familiar piece of music?

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Quiz 12

      1. Which English singer-songwriter, who died tragically young in 1974, released only three albums during his lifetime, Five Leaves Left, Bryter Later and Pink Moon, largely ignored at the time but all now acknowledged as classics?

      2. ‘A Cream Cracker Under the Settee’ was the title of the last of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed 1988 series of television monologues, Talking Heads. Which actress performed it?

      3. ‘Aqua fortis’, the Latin for ‘strong water’, was a name used archaically for which acid?

      4. What common process is known to botanists as ‘positive geotropism’?

      5. The viral disease epidemic parotitis, most commonly afflicting children between the ages of 5 and 15, is commonly known by what name?

      6. What name is given to the long sleeveless outer vestment worn by priests, and normally distinguished by the liturgical colour appropriate to the mass being celebrated?

      7. The Rev. Canon Chasuble D.D. is a vicar in which of Oscar Wilde’s comedies?

      8. Which naturalist and physician was responsible for giving us our biological name Homo sapiens?

      9. Alphabetically, which is the last book of the Old Testament?

      10. Which 14th century manuscript, consisting of more than fifty poems including some attributed to a bard who lived as early as the 6th century, inspired the title of an LP by the rock band Deep Purple?

      11. Claire Tomalin, whose biography of Charles Dickens was published in 2011, is also the author of an acclaimed biography of Dickens’ mistress, published twenty years earlier with the title The Invisible Woman. What was that mistress’s name?

      12. Patrick Troughton, Richard Greene, Michael Praed and Jonas Armstrong have all appeared in television dramas playing which medieval figure?

      13. Which London railway terminus is depicted in W. P. Frith’s painting of 1862, entitled The Railway Station?

      14. What term is used in archaeology to refer to the physical material – such as soil or sediment – in which cultural artefacts or fossils are embedded?

      15. The organisation CSETI, founded in the USA in 1990 by Steven M. Greer, is dedicated to the furtherance of human understanding of what phenomenon?

      16. In 1985, the zoologist Dian Fossey was murdered while making a study of mountain gorillas – in which African country?

      17. Which European capital city got its ancient name from the Latin word for mud?

      18. ‘The book of my enemy has been remaindered / And I am pleased. / In vast quantities it has been remaindered / Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized’. These are the opening lines of the title poem of which writer’s book of collected verse?

      19. In physics, what is the anti-particle to the electron called?

      20. In the 17th century, Nicholas Lanier became the first person to hold what post at the English royal court?

      21. Certain insects have ‘stridulatory organs’. Can you explain what these are?

      22. In Greek legend, what did the craftsman Epeius fashion from timbers cut from the slopes