style="font-size:15px;"> 40. The so-called ‘underground cathedral’, housed in a former mine in Wieliczka in South-Eastern Poland, consists of a series of large-scale sculptures in which material?
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1. The British singer Brinsley Forde, who fronted the reggae band Aswad, began his showbusiness career as a teenager as part of the ensemble cast of which children’s TV programme?
2. The vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape are in the valley of which major French river?
3. The world’s first purpose-built airport, officially opened in 1920, was located in, and named after, which London suburb?
4. In the human body, the masseters are pairs of muscles, located where?
5. Which Scottish-born novelist, who died in 2006, based her best-known fictional character on a real person named Christina Kay, who was her schoolteacher when she was eleven?
6. Which name is shared by the 18th century author of The State of the Prisons in England and Wales and the man who served as Prime Minister of Australia between 1996 and 2007?
7. What name was given between 1925 and 1961 to the Russian city which had previously been known as Tsaritsyn and would later be called Volgograd?
8. Which American journalist and sage, in a publication entitled A Book of Burlesques, defined Puritanism as ‘the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy’?
9. Shostakovich’s opera Katerina Ismaylova, produced in 1962, was a revised version of which earlier work, which had been condemned and banned by Stalin in the 1930s?
10. In physics, what name is given to the principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg, that states the impossibility of specifying precisely both the position and simultaneous momentum of a particle?
11. If something is described as amygdaloid, it means it is shaped like what?
12. A John Masefield novel of 1926, called Odtaa, is an adventure story set in a South American state during a revolution. What do the five letters of its title, ODTAA, stand for?
13. Which character in Shakespeare has the most lines in a single play without being the character named in its title?
14. In a survey in the early 2000s to find the most frequently played pop songs ever on British radio, both the top place and the runner-up spot were taken by songs containing the word ‘Fandango’ in their lyrics. Can you name them both?
15. Which one of the castles that form the group known as the ‘Iron Ring’, built in the 13th century by Edward I on the Welsh coast, stands on the island of Anglesey?
16. The last two individuals of which species of seabird were thought to have been discovered in June 1844 on Eldey Island, south-west of Iceland, by a group of Icelandic fishermen who subsequently killed them?
17. The word ‘myriad’ is derived from the ancient Greek for a specific number. Which number?
18. Which Finnish athlete, nicknamed the ‘Flying Finn’, won gold medals in both the men’s 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres, at two successive Olympic Games in 1972 and 1976?
19. Someone called Mr Chicken was the last known private resident of which famous address?
20. Which Italian fashion designer coined the term ‘shocking pink’?
21. In a 1946 newspaper article, who wrote about an imaginary pub called ‘The Moon Under Water’, which for him summed up the ideal features of an English public house?
22. Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Line of Duty are among the hit TV series created by which British television writer, producer and former doctor?
23. Which Johannesburg suburb – the location of Lilliesleaf Farm, where African National Congress leaders were arrested in 1963 – lent its name to the trial of Nelson Mandela and others, who were charged with 221 acts of sabotage?
24. Where in the human body would you find Bowman’s capsules, named after the 19th century English surgeon and histologist Sir William Bowman?
25. Eustasy is a phenomenon currently much occupying oceanographers and environmentalists. What is eustasy?
26. When it started as a single division in 1888, how many teams contested the very first English Football League?
27. Dirty, Snoopy, Biggo-Ego and Awful are among the names considered, but rejected, for which group of cartoon characters?
28. Which actress, having the good fortune to be bilingual, was able to dub her own voice for her character, Fiona, in the French release of the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral?
29. According to the American humourist Will Rogers, ‘The Income Tax has made more liars out of the American people than…’ what?
30. What were Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise’s real surnames?
31. The ornate pink 18th century palace known as Hawa Mahal, or the Hall of the Winds, is a landmark of which Indian city?
32. The pioneering British scientists Sir Joseph Banks, Sir William Herschel and Sir Humphry Davy all died within a few years of one another – in which decade?
33. Which bestselling novel, first published in 1972, includes chapters entitled ‘The Departure’, ‘The Crow and the Beanfield’ and ‘The Story of the King’s Lettuce’?
34. The sum of the internal angles of a triangle is 180 degrees: what is the sum of the internal angles of a hexagon?
35. The first winner of the Booker Prize, on its inauguration in 1969, was a writer who also happened to be the Controller of BBC Radio Three at the time. The winning novel was called Something to Answer For. Who was the writer?
36. Arundel Castle in West Sussex is the principal seat of which member of the nobility?
37. On a standard grand piano keyboard of 88 keys, how many are black?
38. If Eros is no.433, Vesta is no.4,
