Latest questions: 3 September 2024

These questions were inspired by those set for use in Week 6 of the 2023–4 season in Macclesfield Quiz League, by the Park Taverners, and in the first round of the Cup competition (by an external setter).

What title did Rudyard Kipling give to his collection of stories for children, telling how various animals acquired their distinctive characteristics – for example, How the Leopard got his Spots?		The Just So Stories
The fastest fish in the sea is probably the sailfish, or else another member of the family Istiophoridae. What's the common name for fishes in this family?		Marlins
Which region of Nepal, on the south side of Mount Everest, shares its name with Nepal's largest glacier (also the world's highest), and the icefall formed at the point where it emerges from Everest's Western Cwm, which is the first major obstacle in the route up Everest from the Nepalese side?		(The) Khumbu
Which chemical element is used as a mood stabiliser, particularly in treating bipolar disorder?		Lithium
What word, for a type of soldier, originally referred to an infantryman who used a horse for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot, and later came to mean a conventional cavalryman, trained for combat with swords and firearms from horseback?		Dragoon
Which basketball team was roundly booed in 1971 when they committed the cardinal sin of beating the Harlem Globetrotters?		Washington Generals
Who played the title role in the ITV courtroom drama series Kavanagh QC (first broadcast between 1995 and 2001)?		John Thaw
Which Prime Minister took the UK into the EEC in 1973?		Edward Heath
The Roman conquest of Britain began with the invasion led by Aulus Plautius, in which year?		AD 43
With an estimated 70,000 breeding pairs, what is Britain's most abundant bird of prey?		The buzzard
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" is an extract from a published collection of sermons by whom?		Martin Luther King
Which BBC boxing commentator, active from the 1950s until his retirement in 1994, was immortalised in Frank Bruno's catchphrase?		Harry Carpenter
Who was appointed as Prime Minister of New Zealand in November 2023, after his National Party inflicted a crushing defeat on Chris Hipkins's Labour?		Christopher Luxon
Which of Canada's provincial capital cities shares its name with the river that flows through it, and also with the country's sixth–largest lake?		Winnipeg (Manitoba)
In ancient Egypt, who immediately preceded Tutankhamun as Pharaoh, and was probably his father? He changed his name from Amenhotep in the fifth year of his reign; his consort was Nefertiti, and he is also noted for attempting to establish a monotheistic religion.		Akhenaten
Who wrote and directed six episodes of Worzel Gummidge, broadcast on BBC One between 2019 and 2021, and also played the title character?		Mackenzie Crook
Which chain of islands stretches from Hokkaido (Japan) to the Kamchatka peninsula (Russia)? The southernmost islands in the chain are subject to an ongoing territorial dispute between the two countries.		The Kuril Islands
Who played the title role in the 2004 film Vera Drake (written and directed by Mike Leigh)?		Imelda Staunton
Which UK motorway runs from the M6 in Staffordshire, to Telford in Shropshire – roughly following the path of the Roman road known as Watling Street?		M54
Which US President was elected in the year during which the Great Depression started?		Herbert Hoover
Which British newspaper was launched in 1986 by three former Daily Telegraph journalists (all of whom had left towards the end of Lord Hartwell's ownership – i.e. before it was taken over by Conrad Black)?		The Independent
Name the current General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union, who has become a spokesperson and symbol for the wider trade unionist movement since the beginning of the high–profile rail strikes in 2022.		Mick Lynch
Which online delivery service was founded in London in 2013 by William Shu and Greg Orlowski?		Deliveroo
The Churchill Barriers were built during World War Two, to protect the eastern entrances to which natural harbour, after the battleship Royal Oak was sunk there by a German U–boat in October 1939?		Scapa Flow
Which 1944 "survival film" earned Alfred Hitchcock his second Oscar nomination, and starred Tallulah Bankhead in one of her rare award–winning film roles (if not her only one)?		Lifeboat

© Haydn Thompson 2024