In botany, the adjective ‘nyctanthous’ describes what type of plants?
40. The 1980s television sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo parodied characters and situations from which slightly earlier BBC drama series, set in Nazi-occupied Belgium?
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1. In which book of the Bible will you find the story of Samson and Delilah?
2. In physics, what name is given to the fourth state of matter, which displays distinct properties that are quite different from those of solids, liquids and gases?
3. Because of an association with a particular piece of Handel’s music, the main character Pip in Dickens’ Great Expectations is given the nickname ‘Handel’ by his friend Herbert Pocket. Which piece of music is it?
4. The peculiarly-named thoroughfare ‘Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate’ is to be found in which English city?
5. Which two politicians’ names were combined in the word ‘butskellism’, a term denoting a pragmatic agreement over a policy between two opposing parties?
6. ‘Woke up one morning half asleep, with all my blankets in a heap’ are the opening words of which pop song, the first ever to be played on Radio 1?
7. What’s the name of the soldier with whom Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina falls in love, their affair tragically ending in her death?
8. Which term for a megalith is derived from the Welsh words for ‘long stone’?
9. In physics, which term is used to describe a particular temperature and pressure at which three different phases of one substance – normally solid, liquid and gas – can co-exist?
10. The Marquis de Sillery has been credited with being the first man to ship which drink to London, some time in the 17th century?
11. Decaying uranium finally becomes an isotope of which metal?
12. Which English horse racecourse at one time alternated with Silverstone as the venue for the British motor racing Grand Prix?
13. Legend has it that the weather on St Swithin’s Day determines the weather for the next forty days. On which date does St Swithin’s Day fall?
14. Edith Cavell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Raoul Wallenberg, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Dame Cicely Saunders and Aung San Suu Kyi are the eight subjects of Courage: Eight Portraits, a book published in 2007 by which politician?
15. Two of the best-remembered poets of the First World War, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, met in 1917 whilst being treated for shell-shock at which hospital in Edinburgh?
16. In physics, the term ‘magic numbers’ refers to the numbers of protons or neutrons generally present in a stable nucleus. What are the first two magic numbers?
17. Thomas Gainsborough’s painting of the young Jonathan Buttall, now to be found in the Huntington Art Gallery in California, is usually known by what name?
18. Which incident in a Shakespeare play prompted Dr Johnson to write that he was ‘so shocked by [it] that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor’?
19. ‘Hidden beneath a layer of creamy, golden-crusted haricot beans in a deep, wide earthen pot, [it] contains garlicky pork sausages, smoked bacon, salt pork, a wing or leg of preserved goose, perhaps a piece of mutton, or a couple of pig’s feet, or half a duck, and some chunks of pork rind.’ This rich-sounding concoction is how Elizabeth David described which rustic traditional French dish?
20. Linus Pauling is the only man to have won two Nobel Prizes in different disciplines. Which two?
21. Pianosa, an island off the west coast of Italy, is the setting for which novel first published in 1961?
22. Which English word meaning ‘self-denying’ or ‘temperate of appetite’ is unusual in containing all five vowels, used once each, in alphabetical order?
23. What was the stage-name of the music hall star born George Edward Wade in Herne Hill in 1869, and most closely associated with the song ‘If You Were The Only Girl In The World’?
24. While he was in prison for his part in a riot, in the 1780s, William Addis fashioned the first commercially successful example of a now-common household implement, out of bone and animal hair. What implement?
25. ‘Ol’ Blood and Guts’ is a nickname associated with which US Army General of the Second World War?
26. The only time tanks have been deployed against the public in mainland Britain was in January 1919 in George Square – in which city?
27. The singer and broadcaster Guy Garvey fronts which British rock band?
28. Although it’s not the state capital, which is the largest city in the US state of Nebraska?
29. ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’, an affectionate term for the Bank of England, was coined in a caption to a cartoon of 1797 by which satirical artist and illustrator?
30. In the 1930s Mahatma Gandhi led a symbolic protest march against the government’s tax on which commodity?
31. Following the death of its composer, which unfinished opera was completed in 1926 by Franco Alfano?
32. Which technological innovation, invented in 1876, was described by Ambrose Bierce as ‘an invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance’?
33. In a phrase coined by the 18th century poet Edward Young, what do you do if you ‘join the great majority’?
34. In September 2008, the US government announced it was taking control of two huge mortgage companies in order to help shore up the economy: one was called Fannie Mae, what was the other called?
35. In 1911, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was questioned as a suspect by French authorities investigating which major crime?
36. Garrulus glandarius is the Latin name
