Quz 2

A somewhat easier quiz this time around: 36 is the score to beat!

Round 1: Words

Each of the answers to this round are palindromic, i.e. they are the same word read backwards as forwards.

1. Flat and even. (Level)

2. A system by which electromagnetic waves are used to detect objects. (RADAR)

3. A musical note twice the length of a crotchet. (Minim)

4. An Eskimo canoe with a skin cover on a light framework. (Kayak)

5. To have made a God of. (Deified)


Round 2: Dragons

1. What is the common name for flowers of the genus Antirrhinum? (Snapdragon)

2. Who flew the Welsh Dragon as his personal banner in 1485 as he marched his army towards Bosworth Field? (Henry Tudor)

3. According to local legend, the Lambton Worm was a malevolent dragon that could reattach severed pieces of itself and so was almost impossible to dispatch. By what method did John Lambton eventually kill it? (By donning spiked armour)

4. Who voiced the dragon somewhat unimaginatively named Draco in the film Dragonheart? (Sean Connery)

5. Doragon sake is a drink made by fermenting a mixture of water, koji mold, and what other ingredient? (Rice)


Round 3: Mushrooms

1. How are psilocybin mushrooms better known? (Magic mushrooms)

2. In 1976 Professor Linda R Caporael suggested the consumption of rye tainted by ergot, a fungus which grows on wheat and can cause hallucinations, may have been responsible for the hysteria which led to and surrounded which events of 1692 and 1693? (The Salem Witch Trials)

3. In the original Lewis Carroll story, who or what does Alice find in Wonderland smoking a hookah and sitting on a mushroom? (A caterpillar)

4. Which mustachioed tradesman is regularly required to save the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom, especially Princess Peach, from invasion by Bowser, in a series of video games that span from 1985 to today? (Mario (or Luigi))

5. The Alba truffle is so named because it is most famously found in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy, and particularly in the area around the city of Alba. By what other name is the Alba truffle commonly known? (White truffle)


Round 4: Comic Strips

1. Often considered one of the most popular and important comic strips the medium has produced, which strip did Charles Schulz draw and write for fifty years, leading to it being described as “arguably the longest story ever told by one human being?” (Peanuts)

2. Cartoonist Jim Davis’ creation Jon Arbuckle has two pets. One is a yellow dog named Odie, what is the name of the other? (Garfield)

3. Since its second issue, released in 1977, the comic character Judge Dredd has appeared in almost every issue of which science-fiction and fantasy comic anthology? (2000 AD)

4. Which comic book writer and editor co-created the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man and Spiderman, receiving cameo roles in each of their associated first movies? (Stan Lee)

5. Active between 1929 and 1976, how is the comic book artist Georges Prosper Remi better known? (Herge)


Round 5: The Moon

1. Where on the moon did Apollo 11 touch down in 1969? (Sea of Tranquility)

2. Which writer, who is behind only Agatha Christie as the most commonly translated author in history, wrote the novel “From the Earth to the Moon”, which was first published in 1865? (Jules Verne)

3. The 2009 film “Moon”, starring Sam Rockwell, was directed by Duncan Jones, who is the son of which British musician, born in Brixton in 1947? (David Bowie)

4. Which of Beethoven’s sonatas is popularly known as the “Moonlight Sonata”? (14th/Opus 27 No.2)

5. A 17th Century Wiltshire legend in which smugglers sunk brandy barrels into a lake claimed to be raking in the moon’s reflection when caught by the authorities led indirectly to the coining of which same for illegally distilled corn whiskey? (Moonshine)


Round 6: Granada

1. In the 14th century the Moors built a fortress palace atop the hill of the Assabica in south-east Granada. What is its name, which in the original Arabic translates as “Red Fortress”? (Alhambra)

2. What is the capital city of Andalucia, the region of Spain which contains Granada ? (Seville)

3. In what century did the Umayyad general Tariq the One-Eyed invade the Iberian peninsula, leading to over 500 years of Andalucia being ruled by a series of Muslim states? (8th)

4. Granada lies in the foothills of which mountain range, which contains Mulhacen, the highest point in mainland Spain? (Sierra Nevada)

5. Granada was one of the many places visited by a young French boy and his Pyrenean mountain dog in their eponymous 1980’s children’s TV show based on which mid-twentieth century novel by Madame Cecil Aubrey? (Belle & Sebastian)


General Knowledge

1. What was stolen from outside Sir Henry Baskerville‘s room at the Northumberland Hotel? (His boot)

2. CIA Agent Kermit Roosevelt was head of Operation Ajax, launched in 1953, which contributed to a successful cout d’etat in which country? (Iran)

3. Which filmmaker lost his wife in 1969 when she was murdered in LA by members of the Manson family? (Roman Polanski)

4. In which Commonwealth country is the University of Waikato? (New Zealand)

5. Which chess piece was known as the vizier until the end of the 10th century? (The Queen)

6. Abel, Baker, Charlie, Dog. What comes next? (Easy)

7. Which newspaper ran an April Fool's article last week suggesting Labour were launching a new ad campaign featuring Gordon Brown's face and slogans such as "Step Outside, Posh Boy", "Do You Want Some Of This", and "Vote Labour, Or Else."? (The Guardian)

8. Which series of sculptures were purchased at the end of the 18th
Century from the Ottoman Empire by Thomas Bruce, and are now on display in the Duveen Gallery in the British Museum? (The Elgin Marbles)

9. The alphabet of which language runs from Aleph to Tav? (Hebrew (or Phonecian))

10. Aside from field hockey (in which one can wield the stick in the left hand even if left-handed sticks themselves are forbidden), which is the only sport which you cannot play left-handed? (Polo)