Quiz 17 Flashcards
The films Strangers On A Train, and The Talented Mr Ripley are based on stories by which American writer?
Patricia Highsmith
The boxer James L Corbett, who won the World Heavyweight title in 1892 from John L Sullivan, was known by what nickname?
Gentleman Jim
The singer Jim Reeves was killed in a plane crash near Nashville in the summer of 1964. Two years later an unreleased recording had had made was dusted off with a new instrumental backing to give him a posthumous No 1 hit. What was the song’s title?
Distant Drums
What’s the name of the plumed serpent god of the Aztec and Toltec civilisations, associated with the morning and evening star?
Quetzlcoatl
What term is applied to the average period of the Earth with respect to fixed stars, a unit of time longer than a conventional year by twenty minutes and twenty three seconds?
Sidereal year
A Love Supreme, Crescent and Giant Steps are among the albums of which jazz saxophonist, who died in 1967?
John Coltrane
Rising to just over 1,700 feet, the hill known as Dunkery Beacon is part of which English national park?
Exmoor
The French film director Claude Berri won many awards for his two part interpretation of the novels of Marcel Pagnol in the 1980s. The first part was entitled Jean de Florette, what was the title of the second?
Manon des Sources
Trouble at Willow Gables is the title of a pastiche novel set in a girls’ school, written, but never published during his lifetime, by which respected poet and novelist?
Philip Larkin
In the electromagnetic spectrum, what is found between X-rays and visible light?
Ultra violet
Assault on a Queen was a 1966 adventure film starring Frank Sinatra, that was a critical and box office flop. Who, or what, was the Queen mentioned in the title?
RMS Queen Mary
Mary Queen of Scots’ motto, “En ma fin git me commencement!, which she embroidered on her cloth of estate, is echoed by a final line in a poem of 1940 - by which writer?
TS Eliot
Lipase, an enzyme which catalyses the breakdown of fats into fatty acids and glycerol in the small intestine, is secreted by which organ of the body?
Pancreas
What was the name of the London thoroughfare, renamed Milton Street in 1830, which Dr Johnson described as having been home to writers of small histories, dictionaries and temporary poems?
Grub Street
In which European city did the architect Walter Gropius found the Bauhaus school of design in 1919?
Weimar
In medicine, what is measured by a spirometer?
Lung capacity
In Iran, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates unite before they flow into the Gulf. What is the name of the waterway formed by their union?
Shatt-al-Arab
How Tom Brangwen Married A Polish Lady is the title of the opening chapter of which 20th century English novel?
The Rainbow
Which word, meaning a handsome and promiscuous man, was originally the name of a character in Nicholas Rowe’s play of 1702, The Fair Penitent?
Lothario
In 2010 a man known as Comrade Duch became the first person to be convicted for the systematic and horrifying crimes against humanity committed in the 1970s, in which country?
Cambodia
What, specifically, is feared by those who have the condition acrophobia?
Heights
To which writer is the quotation attributed: “An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have - the older she gets the more interested he is in her?”
Agatha Christie
In fish, the lateral line system is a sensory organ used by the fish for what purpose?
Movement
Rising to 14,500 feet, in the Sierra Nevada of California, which is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States?
Mount Whitney
