Quiz Monkey
What do you want to know?
|
|
Quiz Monkey |
| Latest Questions |
| 12 March 2012 |
If you like my website, and/or if you've found it useful, please consider making a small donation to my Just Giving page, which I've set up just for this purpose. To begin with I'm collecting for a charity whose work I have benefitted from myself (and continue to do so): the British Heart Foundation. It would be great to raise £100 in the first month.
If you have already donated ... Thank You!
| Commonly known as a germ, what is the scientific term for an infectious agent (such as a virus or a bacterium) that causes disease in its animal or plant host? | Pathogen |
| What is the record time for a transatlantic flight (from Heathrow to JFK) - set by Concorde in February 1996? | 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds |
| Who left Tomorrow's World in 1977 after being described by the programme's new editor, Michael Blakstad, as a "dinosaur"? | Raymond Baxter |
| What is the familiar name for the science of matter? | Chemistry |
| How many times is the water jump encountered in a 3,000 metre steeplechase? | 7 |
| How many teams have contested the Rugby League Super League each season, since 2009? | 14 |
| Who has been BBC Radio's racing correspondent, since taking over from Peter Bromley in 2001? | Cornelius Lysaght |
| Don Murray-Henderson (1962-72), Jim Pope (1972-2001) and Roger Tilling (since 2001) have successively been the announcers on which long-running TV programme? | University Challenge |
| Which distinctively-shaped mountain in Wyoming features in the climactic scenes of the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind? | Devil's Tower |
| In which city was the writer Anthony Burgess born? | Manchester |
| Running Bear, in 1959, was the first hit and only No. 1 for which US singer? | Johnny Preston |
| On which British canal are the Bingley Five Rise Locks? | Leeds & Liverpool |
| In which US state are the Bonneville Salt Flats? | Utah |
| Which hugely successful and highly acclaimed 1989 miniseries, starred Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones as former Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call? | Lonesome Dove |
It was based on a Pulitzer-prizewinning novel by Larry McMurtry - a fictionalised account of a real-life (1868) cattle drive by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving.
| Who commanded the Texian (sic) forces that defended the Alamo against Santa Anna's Mexican force in 1836? | William B. Travis |
| Which eccentric Texan saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace, of the 1880s, styled himself "the Law West of the Pecos"? | Roy Bean |
| In 1965, which racecourse became the first in the UK to use starting stalls? | Newmarket |
| Who played the title role in the Bridget Jones films (Bridget Jones' Diary 2001, and Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason 2004)? | Renée Zellweger |
| Who died of dysentry off Portobelo, Panama, in 1596, aged 55 and was buried at sea in a lead coffin? | Sir Francis Drake |
| Which modern European country seceded from the Netherlands in 1830? | Belgium |
| Which island in the Thames at Twickenham, accessible only by a footbridge (or by boat), was known in the 1960s as a music venue? | Eel Pie Island |
| Who is the presenter and choirmaster in the BBC TV series The Choir (from 2006 - including The Choir: Military Wives, 2011)? | Gareth Malone |
| Which Anglesey town has a name that comes from the French for "beautiful marshes"? | Beaumaris |
| Who sang with The Pogues on Fairytale of New York, in 1987? | Kirsty MacColl |
The credit was simply to The Pogues.
| Whose third wife was (and still is) Wilnelia Merced, the 1975 Miss World, whom he met while they were both judging the 1980 competition? | Bruce Forsyth |
The third Mrs. Forsyth is from Puerto Rico. She is almost 30 years younger than her husband.
| What is the title of the poem, written in 1927, whose first line is "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste"? | Desiderata |
Desiderata became famous after being found near the deathbed of Adlai Stevenson in 1965; long thought to date from 1692 (which was in fact the foundation date of a church in Maryland whose rector included it in a compilation), it later proved to have been written as recently as 1927 by one Max Ehrmann, whose heirs were able to cash in on its belated popularity and claim royalties.
| What's the surname of the astronaut played by Charlton Heston in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes? | Taylor |
Roddy McDowell played an ape called Cornelius.
| "Los descamidos" (the shirtless) was a term, originally derogatory but later used with pride, for the followers of which national leader? | Juan Peron |
| Which Shakespeare play contains the line, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"; and also (three lines later) "This above all: to thine own self be true"? | Hamlet |
| Which historic Spanish coin was worth two escudos? | Doubloon |
| Which dance originated in New York around 1927 and is named after a famous aviator? | The Lindy Hop |
| Which mythical character is depicted in a famous weathervane at Lord's Cricket Ground? | Old Father Time |
| What is the famous nickname of Nick Freeman, an English solicitor born in 1956? | Mr. Loophole |
© Haydn Thompson 2012