Mastermind Club
Quiz 2023
Number 2
General Knowledge
Set by Maya Davis
Answers
1/ Why might Larry have waved goodbye to Dilyn in early September 2022?
The Johnsons left Downing St – Larry is the No 10 Downing St cat and Dilyn is the ohnson family dog
2/ Which is the oldest National Park in Africa ?
Virunga – founded in 1925 in what was then Belgian Congo and now in DRC
3/ Which original cast member of a long-running radio series retired in 2022 at the age of 103?
June Spencer – Peggy Archer/Woolley in ‘The Archers’
4/ In one letter dated 25 November 1846, the composer Chopin wrote: ‘Thank Marquis for missing me…’ Who or what was Marquis?
A dog adopted by Chopin and George Sand)
5/ In March 2021, during the Covid restrictions, which railway station officially replaced Waterloo as the busiest in England?
Stratford East
6/ A play by Patrick Hamilton, also filmed, gives its name to a term used to identify a type of domestic abuse. What’s the title of the play?
‘Gaslight’
7/ Which short novel by H. E. Bates has a title based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18?
The Darling Buds of May
8/ Fellows, Morton & Clayton Ltd is a company associated with what type of transport?
Canal boats
9/ Who was the first actor to play Inspector Truscott in Joe Orton’s play ‘Loot’?
Kenneth Williams
10/ Which book by Beatrix Potter is a version of a fable by Aesop found also in a poem by the Roman poet Horace?
The Tale of Johnny Town-mouse – used as part of one of Horace’s Satires/Sermones
11/ Singer Katherine Jenkins recorded a new version of a well-known song in Sussex in September 2022. What was the song?
UK National Anthem
12/ What is unusual about the penis of the male echidna?
It has 4 heads, which are used alternately in pairs
13/ What name, based in part on the ancient Greek word for ‘amber’, is given to the phenomenon in which materials become electrically charged when they rub together?
Triboelectric effect – often referred to as static electricity .
14/ Mrs Wolowitz died at the age of 35 in Edinburgh in August 2022 after being attacked. What distinction did she have in Edinburgh?
Oldest northern rockhopper penguin in Edinburgh Zoo
15/ What is the English name of a geographical feature known in its normal location as Chomolunga or Sagarmatha?
Mount Everest
16/ The windmill featured in the TV series ‘Jonathan Creek’ was once owned by which famous author?
Hilaire Belloc
17/ Which UK politician is married to Hugh O’Leary?
Liz Truss
18/ You can use some of its contents to write the words mother, sister, brother or son, but not father, uncle, aunt or grandmother. Of which well-known set of abbreviations is this statement true?
Abbreviations for names of Periodic Table elements MoThEr; SiStEr; BrOThEr, SON
19/ Which is the only Gilbert & Sullivan opera in which the Chorus does not start the first act?
Yeomen of the Guard
20/ Baroness Hemingford, who died in 2020, wrote 4 novels continuing the series about another author’s amateur detective and his wife. Which author had written the original series of books?
Dorothy L Sayers – Jill Paton Walsh married the 3rd Baron Hemingford shortly before her death
21/ What is the connection between Ramphastes toco and a well-known beverage?
Ramphastes toco is the Toco or Common Toucan, once used in advertisements for Guinness
22/ On a standard modern concert harp, what is indicated by the red-coloured strings?
The red strings are tuned to C
23/ Who was the first of the Roman emperors of 69 AD to succeed Nero?
Galba
24/ Queen Elizabeth II featured with fictional characters on film in 2022 and 2012. What name provides a literal link between those two appearances?
Bond – Paddington’s creator Michael Bond and Daniel Craig as James Bond; and a bond is a link
25/ What was the profession of Martha Gunn, who retired from her job in Brighton in 1814, aged about 80?
Dipper – i.e.one of the women who ‘helped’ women to enter the sea from a bathing hut