Monkey

Quiz Monkey
What do you want to know?

You are here:

Latest Questions
7 July 2020

Latest questions: 7 July 2020

This week's questions have been gleaned from those set for use in Weeks 4 and 5 of the Interdivisional matches in the 2019–20 season in Stockport Quiz League, by the Wandering Star (Questions 1 to 13) and the Tame Valley (Questions 14 to 29).

Which historical figure was born in 1818 in Trier (tree–air – arguably Germany's oldest city), where his birthplace is now a museum? Click to show or hide the answer
The chemical compound with the formula C2H4 is produced industrially, in greater quantity than any other organic compound. What is its chemical name? Click to show or hide the answer
Who was the first Editor of Private Eye? He died in 2019, aged 81. Click to show or hide the answer
Give a year in the life of the Japanese artist and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai – best known for his 36 Views of Mount Fuji, the first and most famous of which is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Click to show or hide the answer
Which European river is crossed by the Dom Luís I bridge – completed in 1886 and designed by a former associate of Gustav Eiffel? Click to show or hide the answer
Who wrote the historical novels Fire from Heaven (1969), The Persian Boy (1972) and Funeral Games (1981) – all based on the life of Alexander the Great and his successors? Click to show or hide the answer
The Battenberg Mausoleum is the tomb of Prince Alexander I (1857–1893), the first ruler of which modern European country? Click to show or hide the answer
In poetry, what name is given to a metrical foot (i.e. a basic repeating rhythmic unit that forms part of a line) that has one stressed (or long) syllable followed by two unstressed (or short) ones? Click to show or hide the answer
Which BBC Newsnight presenter conducted an award–winning interview with Prince Andrew in November 2019, following the death by suicide of his friend Jeffrey Epstein, after which he resigned from all royal duties? Click to show or hide the answer
In which English cathedral were the remains of St. Cuthbert reinterred in the year 1104, along with the head of St. Oswald? Click to show or hide the answer
Which King of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII – resulting in the claim of his grand–daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, to the English throne? Click to show or hide the answer
What was Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's memorable method of signing off in 2013 as Commander of the International Space Station? Click to show or hide the answer
Which Irish writer settled in Paris in 1939 (aged 33) after falling out with his mother, and subsequently wrote all his works in French as well as English? Click to show or hide the answer
Who committed suicide in 1941 by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex? Click to show or hide the answer
What name, from the Quechua meaning 'great hunting land', is given to the sparsely populated, hot and semi–arid lowland region of the Rí­o de la Plata basin, divided among Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil? Click to show or hide the answer
Who wrote the narrative poem The Eve of St. Agnes – set in the Middle Ages? Click to show or hide the answer
Which poem, written by W. B. Yeats and now a standard in the Irish folk song repertoire having been set to music in 1909 by the Irish composer and folk song collector Herbert Hughes, was described by the poet as "an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, Sligo"? Click to show or hide the answer
What is the regulation weight of the men's discus, in Olympic competition? Click to show or hide the answer
In which film does Marilyn Monroe speak the immortal line, "Real diamonds? They must be worth their weight in gold!"? Click to show or hide the answer
Who said, of whom, "Hasn't she kept it clean?!" – on collecting the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, in 1972?Said by Click to show or hide the answer
Said of Click to show or hide the answer
What is the real surname of the Scissor Sister and broadcaster, Ana Matronic? Click to show or hide the answer
The 'front of house' staff of which British High Street business were known, from 1926 (according to Wikipedia) as 'Nippies', and before that as 'Gladyses'? Click to show or hide the answer
Which Russian word for an official of the Soviet Communist Party has come to be used in English (and other languages) to mean any official or bureaucrat? It can also mean a Communist spy or agent. Click to show or hide the answer
A bodger was originally a skilled craftsman, who made what specific objects from wood? Click to show or hide the answer
What name did Gerry Anderson coin for the puppetry technique that he used in his various television series? Click to show or hide the answer
Sodium azide (formula NaN3 – manufactured from ammonia) is used in which parts of a car, now a standard safety feature? Click to show or hide the answer
Which famous figure from the American Wild West refereed a boxing match between Britain's Bob Fitzsimmons and Irish–American Tom Sharkey, at San Francisco in 1896? He controversially awarded the fight to Sharkey by calling a foul against Fitzsimmons (which no one else saw) after Fitzsimmons knocked Sharkey down. Click to show or hide the answer
Which album by Elbow (their fourth studio album) takes as its title the nickname of a character in one of Damon Runyan's stories of New York gangsters? Click to show or hide the answer
Whose autobiography, first published in 2006, was entitled Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl? Click to show or hide the answer

© Haydn Thompson 2020