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Latest Questions
26 January 2021

Latest questions: 26 January 2021

This week's questions have been gleaned from, or inspired by, those set for use in the Cup and Plate finals of the 2016–17 season in Stockport Quiz League, and in the final week of the League season (Week 18). My thanks go to the Horse & Farrier, Heaton Moor Rugby Club, the Printers and the Star.

What's the only NATO member state that doesn't have a standing army? Click to show or hide the answer
What was invented in 1947 by Valerie Hunter Gordon (née Ferranti – grand–daughter of Sebastian de Ferranti, founder of the British electrical engineering firm) following the birth of the third of her six children? Click to show or hide the answer
William 'Billy' Bishop, a World War I flying ace and World War II Air Marshal, gave his name to a regional airport serving which Commonwealth city? Click to show or hide the answer
Which London Borough includes Wimbledon and the All England Lawn Tennis Club? Click to show or hide the answer
The city of Battle Creek, Michigan (population 52,347 in 2010) is best known as the home of which major company, that was founded there in 1906? Click to show or hide the answer
Whose major film appearances included Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Girl Can't Help It, The Wayward Bus, Too Hot to Handle, and Promises! Promises! – all released between 1957 and 1963? Click to show or hide the answer
Oak Ridge Cemetery, in Springfield, Illinois, is the second most visited cemetery in the United States – after Arlington National Cemetery – largely because it's the last resting place of which American icon? Click to show or hide the answer
Who narrated BBC Television's original 1970s series of The Wombles? Click to show or hide the answer
In which European city is the concert hall known as the Musikverein (literally 'Music Association') – home to the city's famous orchestra? Click to show or hide the answer
Which pop–rock group, formed in 1975, was named after the boyhood gang of folk singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie, as described in his 1943 autobiography Bound for Glory? Click to show or hide the answer
Which topical, satirical comedy programme, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 since 1998, is presented by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, and features material by Marcus Brigstock, John Holmes and Mitch Benn (among others)? Click to show or hide the answer
The statement that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" is often attributed to which eighteenth–century Anglo–Irish statesman and philosopher (despite a complete lack of evidence)? Click to show or hide the answer
The supermarket chain Aldi was founded in 1946 in which German city, whose name is literally German for 'to eat'? Click to show or hide the answer
What was the only act to appear on the first two versions of Do They Know It's Christmas? (in 1984 and 1989)? Click to show or hide the answer
In the BBC television sitcom Peter Kay's Car Share, what was the name of the radio station that John and Kayleigh always listened to? Click to show or hide the answer
John Blackthorne, an English pilot serving on the Dutch warship Erasmus, is the central character in which bestselling novel of 1975? Click to show or hide the answer
Flowers in the Rain, by The Move, was famously the first record to be played on Radio 1. But what was the first record to be played on Radio 2? Click to show or hide the answer
Tate Britain's most visited exhibition to date was a 2017 retrospective of the works of which artist? Click to show or hide the answer
Which Assyrian king (whose name means "the God of the Moon has destroyed the brothers") destroyed Babylon in 689 BC, having failed to take Jerusalem in 701 BC – as described in the Bible, and in a famous poem by Lord Byron, first published in 1815? Click to show or hide the answer
On which island in the South Shetland group (off Antarctica) did Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance land on three lifeboats in 1916, after the ship was crushed in the ice and sank? Click to show or hide the answer
Heelis – a new office building, completed in 2005 as the home of the National Trust – is in which English town? Click to show or hide the answer
The sixth largest moon of Saturn (with a mean diameter slightly over 500 km) is believed to fulfil many of the conditions necessary to support life, including an ocean of hot liquid water underneath its surface of water ice. What's the name of this body? Click to show or hide the answer
Prosecco – the village that gave its name to "the party wine of choice" – is now a suburb of which Italian city? Click to show or hide the answer
What is the world's fourth largest island, and the largest that's a single sovereign state in its own right? Click to show or hide the answer
Who wrote the "robinsonade" children's novel Masterman Ready, or The Wreck of the Pacific (first published in 1841)? Click to show or hide the answer
The "city" of Maplewood has been home to the 3M Company (an American multinational) since 1962. It's effectively a suburb of which American state capital, where the company had been based for the previous 52 years? Click to show or hide the answer
Which Greek city has been nicknamed 'the mother of Israel' by its Jews, and 'the Jerusalem of the Balkans' by others – having a large Jewish population, particularly since 1492 when Jews were expelled from Castile and Aragon? Click to show or hide the answer
Who was the elder son of Alfred the Great, and his successor as King of Wessex in AD 899? Click to show or hide the answer
What collective name, from the Greek for 'fortunate islands', is used to refer to the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and Cape Verde? Click to show or hide the answer
Which US president, under pressure from Congress in opposition to British policy regarding the impressment of British–born American citizens, declared war on the United Kingdom in 1812? Click to show or hide the answer

While researching the question that starts with "Flowers in the Rain" (see above) I came across a page on the BBC website entitled 50 Facts about Radios 1 and 2 as they Turn 50. This proved to be a veritable treasure trove of quizzable facts, five more of which I've included here:

What was the title of Radio 2's soap opera – launched in 1969, but cancelled at short notice in 1980? Click to show or hide the answer
Which band, described by NME as "John Peel's favourite band", recorded 32 Peel Sessions – more than any other act? Click to show or hide the answer
Which media personality got his start in radio as Timmy Mallet's assistant on Manchester's Radio Piccadilly, in 1983, playing a character called Nobby Nolevel, whose catchphrase was: "What I don't know – I don't know!" Click to show or hide the answer
Who took a job as a Radio 2 presenter, in the mid–1980s, after losing a libel case against Radio 4's Week Ending, on which someone said he was "so ignorant he thought erudite was a type of glue"? Click to show or hide the answer
To which Radio 1 DJ did John Lennon and Yoko Ono give what proved to be Lennon's last interview – just two days before his assassination? Click to show or hide the answer

And finally (this one has a long but definitive answer, which doesn't fit the normal format for these pages):

What role did Arthur Caiger play in the history of the FA Cup Final, from 1947 to 1962?
Click to show or hide the answer

© Haydn Thompson 2021