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

‘A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind’ is a poem by which courtier of Charles II, who has been portrayed on film by Johnny Depp, and whose debauched lifestyle earned him the reputation of ‘the wickedest man in England’?

      24. When the Republic of China was declared in 1912, who was named its first provisional President?

      25. In which city in France was Joan of Arc burned at the stake in 1431?

      26. In the Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night, which Irish-born actor, by then already familiar from television, was cast as the grandfather?

      27. The area known as The Hamptons, in Suffolk County, an exclusive summer retreat for wealthy Americans, is at the eastern end of which island?

      28. From Doon with Death, first published in 1964, was the first novel of which British crime writer?

      29. Which year of the 20th century saw the start of the First Arab-Israeli War, the publication of the Kinsey report into Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi?

      30. Which common three-letter word was originally an abbreviation of a two-word Latin phrase meaning ‘excitable crowd’, a meaning which it often retains?

      31. According to tradition, who was shot dead at Mann’s saloon in August 1876, holding, in a poker game, two eights and two aces, the combination of cards becoming known as ‘the dead man’s hand’?

      32. Which branch of mathematics was developed by John Von Neumann with later collaboration by Oskar Morgenstern?

      33. Which director-general of the BBC introduced on air the radio broadcast of the abdication speech made by Edward VIII on 11th December 1936?

      34. Which district of New York City is situated north of 96th Street in Manhattan?

      35. Which transition metal, which shares its name with a major London theatre, has atomic number 46 and atomic mass of 106.4?

      36. Which force created to preserve public order in London, originally numbering only six men, was founded by Henry Fielding in the 1740s, and lasted until being finally disbanded in the 1830s?

      37. At 636 metres, which is the highest point in the Peak District?

      38. The composer Richard Rodgers had two astronomically successful partnerships in his career. Can you name the two lyricists with which he scored his major hits?

      39. What is the name of the man-eating water monster who plagues the hall of King Hrothgar in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf?

      40. The so-called ‘underground cathedral’, housed in a former mine in Wieliczka in South-Eastern Poland, consists of a series of large-scale sculptures in which material?

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Quiz 13

      1. The British singer Brinsley Forde, who fronted the reggae band Aswad, began his showbusiness career as a teenager as part of the ensemble cast of which children’s TV programme?

      2. The vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape are in the valley of which major French river?

      3. The world’s first purpose-built airport, officially opened in 1920, was located in, and named after, which London suburb?

      4. In the human body, the masseters are pairs of muscles, located where?

      5. Which Scottish-born novelist, who died in 2006, based her best-known fictional character on a real person named Christina Kay, who was her schoolteacher when she was eleven?

      6. Which name is shared by the 18th century author of The State of the Prisons in England and Wales and the man who served as Prime Minister of Australia between 1996 and 2007?

      7. What name was given between 1925 and 1961 to the Russian city which had previously been known as Tsaritsyn and would later be called Volgograd?

      8. Which American journalist and sage, in a publication entitled A Book of Burlesques, defined Puritanism as ‘the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy’?

      9. Shostakovich’s opera Katerina Ismaylova, produced in 1962, was a revised version of which earlier work, which had been condemned and banned by Stalin in the 1930s?

      10. In physics, what name is given to the principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg, that states the impossibility of specifying precisely both the position and simultaneous momentum of a particle?

      11. If something is described as amygdaloid, it means it is shaped like what?

      12. A John Masefield novel of 1926, called Odtaa, is an adventure story set in a South American state during a revolution. What do the five letters of its title, ODTAA, stand for?

      13. Which character in Shakespeare has the most lines in a single play without being the character named in its title?

      14. In a survey in the early 2000s to find the most frequently played pop songs ever on British radio, both the top place and the runner-up spot were taken by songs containing the word ‘Fandango’ in their lyrics. Can you name them both?

      15. Which one of the castles that form the group known as the ‘Iron Ring’, built in the 13th century by Edward I on the Welsh coast, stands on the island of Anglesey?

      16. The last two individuals of which species of seabird were thought to have been discovered in June 1844 on Eldey Island, south-west of Iceland, by a group of Icelandic fishermen who subsequently killed them?

      17. The word ‘myriad’ is derived from the ancient Greek for a specific number. Which number?

      18. Which Finnish athlete, nicknamed the ‘Flying Finn’, won gold medals in both the men’s 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres, at two successive Olympic Games in 1972 and 1976?

      19. Someone called Mr Chicken was the last known private resident of which famous address?

      20. Which Italian fashion designer coined the term ‘shocking pink’?

      21. In a 1946 newspaper article, who wrote about an imaginary pub called ‘The Moon Under Water’, which for him summed up the ideal features of an English public house?

      22. Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Line of Duty are among the hit TV series created by which British television writer, producer and former doctor?

      23. Which Johannesburg suburb – the location of Lilliesleaf Farm, where African National Congress leaders were arrested in 1963 – lent its name to the trial of Nelson Mandela and others, who were charged with 221 acts of sabotage?

      24. Where in the human body would you find Bowman’s capsules, named after the 19th century English surgeon and histologist Sir William Bowman?

      25. Eustasy is a phenomenon currently much occupying oceanographers and environmentalists.