Mastermind Club
Quiz 2023
Number 13
Subject General Knowledge
Set by Maya Davis
Answers
1/Where in the UK did a Norse god stop the New Year 2023 celebrations? (Scarborough – firework display cancelled to protect a walrus nicknamed Thor)
Scarborough (Firework display cancelled to protect a walrus named Thor)
2/What four-letter word links all the following: dog, weed, roarer, ion, doze?
Bull – can precede all of those. A bull-roarer is a ‘musical instrument and ‘bull-weed’ is an alternative name for [Greater] Knapweed)
3/Which British ‘astronaut’ represented the ESA on the Artemis 1 moon mission which returned to Earth in December 2022?
A Shaun the Sheep toy
4/ What title is shared by a painting by Carel Fabritius, a piece of music by Vivaldi and a novel which won the Pulitzer prize?
The Goldfinch
5/ Who was famously attacked by an emu live on prime-time television?
Michael Parkinson
6/In August 2023, which constituency was represented by the new ‘baby of the House’?
Selby & Ainsty on the election of Kier Mather in July 2023
7/The Cattedrale Metropolitana Primaziale di Santa Maria Assunta on the Field of Miracles is famous for a structure which Mussolini wanted to destroy. What is this structure?
Its campanile – the Leaning Tower of Pisa
8/The Fantastic Flying Journey and The Mockery Bird are works of fiction by which eminent naturalist?
Gerald Durrell
9/Although his first name was Arthur, this British author, who died in 1966, married a woman whose first name was the same as his middle name, which he preferred to use. What was his middle name?
Evelyn [Waugh]
10/In Greek mythology, how many female full siblings did Erato have?
Eight -she’s one of the 9 muses
11/Which government office, now incorporated into the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was held in the past by Sir Isaac Newton and William Ewart Gladstone?
Master of the Mint
12/Why is 10th September a significant date in Gibraltar?
National Day – annual celebration of the referendum in which Gibraltarians voted overwhelmingly to remain British
13/Which wine has a name whose literal meaning is ‘black laurel’?
Mavrodaphne/Mavrodafni – a very sweet dark red Greek wine associated with Patras
14/The words ‘Light is therefore colour’ can be seen on which UK banknote?
Bank of England £20 depicting JMW Turner
15/In which classic radio comedy series would you have encountered the author Darcy Sarto?
Hancocks Half Hour – the fictional author of a fictional crime novel, Lady don’t fall backwards, featured in the episode The Missing Page.
16/In which English-language system of writing would you have found an upward hay, logograms and grammalogues?
Pitman’s shorthand
17/What event has been explained variously as having been caused by blunt instrument trauma (dismissed), hereditary chromosomal abnormalities from closely-related parents, a bite from a ‘river horse’ or epilepsy?
The early death of Tutankhamun
18/Under what name did music critic Bruce Montgomery write crime fiction, and what was the name of his amateur sleuth?
Edmund Crispin-Gervase Fen
19/Who created the village of Portmeirion?
Clough William-Ellis
20/Who owned a horse whose name can be translated as ‘Ox-Head’?
Alexander the Great- literal translation of Boukephalos-or, as we know it Bucephalus
21/Who co-created schoolboy anti-hero Nigel Molesworth?
Ronald Sarle & Geoffry Willans
22/What is the better-known name of the Glynne Arms – a pub built over an old coal seam near Dudley.
The Crooked House – this was always its nickname, but became its official name in 2002
23/What is measured using the [Udden-]Wentworth or logarithmic Krumbein Phi scale?
Grain size – specificaly, to decide whether something is or is not officialy a ‘pebble’
24/The musical The Phantom of the Opera is derived from whose original serialised novella?
French author Gaston Leroux
25/And which novel by Terry Pratchett is in part a parody of both works?
Maskerade