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

Koplik’s Spots, occurring in the mouth as bluish-white specks on the inner side of the cheeks, are an early symptom of which viral disease?

      40. What was the name of the successor to Mohammed, known as al-Siddiq or ‘the Upright’, who became the first caliph of the Muslim world in the year 632?

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Quiz 18

      1. Alexei Leonev was the first man, and Edward H. White the first American, to do what?

      2. Which two actors played the Likely Lads, Terry and Bob, in the BBC television sitcoms of the 1960s and 70s?

      3. Only one whole square number under 100 is the sum of the preceding two square numbers. Which number?

      4. Which small tool, used for boring holes, shares its name with a cocktail containing lime juice and either gin or vodka?

      5. In Scandinavian mythology, Urd, Verdandi and Skuld were three giant goddesses who presided over the fates of both men and gods. How were they known collectively?

      6. Although usually known for her roles in musical extravaganzas, which actress won her only Best Actress Oscar for her dramatic role in the film Kitty Foyle in 1940?

      7. The art movement exemplified by 20th century Dutch artists such as Piet Mondrian, Gerrit Rietveld and Theo van Doesburg, is often known by what Dutch name?

      8. Firzan, meaning ‘counsellor’, was the original Arabic name for which chess piece?

      9. In October 2008, the first UN-sanctioned auction for nearly ten years took place in Southern Africa – of which substance?

      10. The serial killer Patrick Bateman is the narrator of which controversial and globally-successful novel of 1991?

      11. Which soft felt hat, with a low crown and wide brim, supposedly derives its name, in a punning way, from the fact that it doesn’t have a ‘nap’?

      12. Including the innermost, how many rings are there in a standard archery target?

      13. In the 1975 ITV dramatisation of The Naked Civil Servant, which actor played Quentin Crisp?

      14. The ‘Big Three’ meeting at Yalta in the Crimea in February 1945, between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, was the second conference between these three wartime leaders. Which Middle Eastern city hosted the first of their meetings in 1943?

      15. The former John Street, in Hampstead in London, was renamed to reflect the street’s association with which major poet who lived there between 1818 and 1820?

      16. Blaisdon Red, Early Laxton, and Rivers’ Early Prolific are varieties of which fruit?

      17. What did the initials of the writer P. G. Wodehouse stand for?

      18. Which Scottish border town gives its name to a regiment first mustered in 1650, which is the oldest Corps by continuous existence in the British Army?

      19. To which great French cinema director did Steven Spielberg give a bit-part as a UFO expert, in the 1977 science-fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

      20. Which English noun can mean both conscientious and industrious attention to a task, and a type of stagecoach?

      21. In towns up and down the British Isles there are thoroughfares and squares with the street name ‘The Butts’. Traditionally, this indicates that which activity once went on there?

      22. In the opening chapters of which of Charles Dickens’ novels is the corpse of a man named John Harmon found floating in the Thames, ‘in an advanced state of decay, and much injured’?

      23. Can you name the method of music education developed in the early 20th century by Emile Jacques Dalcroze, which uses movement to help the appreciation of music, and which gave its name to a pop group many decades later?

      24. In botany, what defines a leaf, flower or fruit described as ‘sessile’?

      25. The so-called Black Box, the unit containing an aeroplane’s flight and voice recorders, is usually painted what colour?

      26. What’s the family relationship between the writer of the screenplay of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the writer of the recipe book Voluptuous Delights – The Art of Eating a Little of What You Fancy, published in 2008?

      27. The Great White Hope, a 1970 film which starred James Earl Jones as a black boxer hounded for his relationship with a white woman, was based on the life of which real heavyweight champion?

      28. What’s the design on the jersey worn in the Tour de France cycle race by the rider designated ‘King of the Mountains’?

      29. Which state of the USA is the setting for Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

      30. What’s the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet?

      31. Reclaimed by India, by military force, fifty years ago in December 1961, the state of Goa was previously an enclave governed by which European country?

      32. Which cocktail – made with white rum, lime juice and sugar syrup – takes its name from a beach resort near Santiago on the south coast of Cuba?

      33. With a capacity of 150,000, the Rungrado May Day Stadium is reputedly the largest sporting venue in the world, and is situated in which East Asian country?

      34. According to Daniel Defoe’s Tour of the Whole Island of Great Britain, which town in County Durham contains ‘nothing remarkable but dirt’?

      35. According to How To Be An Alien by the Hungarian-born writer George Mikes, ‘Continental people have sex lives; the English have…’ what?

      36. From 1821, Liberia was established by American interests as an African colony for freed slaves. Which African country was settled by the British for a similar purpose?

      37. The writer and socialite Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, born in 1766, became one of the most celebrated figures in Paris before the French Revolution. Diplomats, writers, philosophers and even the Duke of Wellington fell under her spell. By what name does posterity remember her?

      38. Of which Lerner and Loewe musical did Noel Coward say, ‘It’s about as long as Parsifal and not as funny’?

      39. In a famous speech to the United States Congress in January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt outlined four basic freedoms: ‘freedom of speech and expression’, ‘freedom of worship’, ‘freedom from want’ – and which other?

      40. What form of food poisoning gets its name from the Latin for a sausage?

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