Monday 15th February 2016
Set by Taxes (Wirral)

Round 1
1a Who has won Best Leading Actor Oscars for his roles in ‘Milk’ and ‘Mystic River’?
Sean Penn
1b In which town in Kent is the Shepherd Neame brewery located?
Faversham
2a Which country staged the final of the 2012 EUFA European Championship?
Ukraine (Olympic Stadium Kiev)
2b ‘All American Prophet’, ‘Baptize Me’ and ‘l am Africa’ are songs from which musical, currently playing at the Prince of Wales theatre?
The Book of Mormon
3a Which Irish-born ballerina, who died aged 102 in 2001, founded the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet?
Ninette de Valois (allow Edris Stannus)
3b Which English engineer (1907-1996) is usually credited with inventing the jet engine?
Sir Frank Whittle
4a Which is the third most populous city in Scotland after Glasgow and Edinburgh?
Aberdeen
4b Who was on the thrones of England and Scotland at the time of the Act of Union in 1707?
Anne

Round 2
1a What is the capital of the former USSR republic of Tajikistan?
Dushanbe
1b Hamilcar Barca was the father of which famous general, born in 247BC?
Hannibal
2a Denis Waterman is the only original cast member still starring in which TV series about the Met’s Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad?
New Tricks
2b Which comedy group appeared in 10 sell-out shows at the 02 Arena in July 2014, 45 years after their first TV show was broadcast?
Monty Python (accept Pythons)
3a Name any year when Tiger Woods won Golf’s Open Championship in Britain.
2000 (St Andrews) 2005 (St Andrews) 2006 (Hoylake)
3b How many strings are there on a standard violin?
Four
4a In which city can you see the original statue of Michelangelo’s David?
Florence
4b Which is the world’s largest antelope?
(Giant) Eland

Round 3
1a Who wrote the 1848 novel 'Vanity Fair’?
William Makepeace Thackeray
1b In the SI system of units, which prefix indicates a unit 1,000 times smaller than the basic unit?
Milli- (e.g. millimetre)
2a Name one of the two colours that appear on the national flag of Bangladesh?
Green, Red (accept Orange)
2b Widowed at 25, Martha Custis, nee Dandridge, later married which future American president?
George Washington
3a Adapted by Richard Bean from a 1743 original work by Goldoni, which play became a West End hit in 2011, and on Broadway in 2012, starring James Corden?
One Man, Two Guvnors
3b Which building society, demutualised in 1997 and acquired by Santander in 2008, was once advertised by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie using a slogan claiming to attract to ‘a smarter investor’?
Alliance & Leicester
4a The British and Irish Lions’ only ever series victory in New Zealand was in 1971. Name either the Welshman who coached that side or the Welsh centre who captained it.
Carwyn James or John Dawes
4b Which Scottish pop band has had to date 17 Top 40 hit singles between 1987 and 1994, including Dignity, Real Gone Kid and I’ll Never Fall in Love Again?
Deacon Blue

Round 4
1a At the 2012 London Olympics, Mexico won only one gold medal - at which sport?
Soccer
1b The album ‘1989’ which became the biggest selling album in the USA in 2014 and produced 5 top ten singles is by which Brit award-winning singer/songwriter?
Taylor Swift
2a Whose book 'The Luminaries’ won the Man Booker Prize of 2013?
Eleanor Catton
2b In Physics, GUT is an acronym in which the T stands for theory. What does the G stand for?
Grand (Unification/Unified)
3a K2 is the highest peak in which mountain range centred on the historic region of Kashmir? It is considered a sub-range of the Himalayas and one of the Greater Ranges of Asia.
Karakoram
3b Which Cabinet member is the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green?
Ian Duncan Smith
4a Dicky Mint, Mick the Marmalizer and Nigel Ponsonby-Smallpiece were puppet characters associated on TV with which comedian?
Ken Dodd (Diddy Men)
4b HDL and LDL, standing for high- and low-density lipoproteins, are popularly known as the good and bad forms of which organic molecules?
Cholesterol

Round 5
1a Which country will host the UEFA Euro team championship tournament in 2016?
France
1b In which town in Cumbria is Jennings Brewery located ?
Cockermouth
2a Who has won Best Leading Actress Oscars for her roles in ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Boys Don’t Cry’?
Hilary Swank
2b Which Cabinet member is the MP for Runnymede and Weybridge?
Philip Hammond
3a Name one of the two colours that appear on the national flag of Macedonia.
Red/Yellow
3b Which English engineer (1910-1999) is usually credited with inventing the hovercraft?
Sir Christopher Cockerell
4a Thackeray took his novel’s title ‘ Vanity Fair’ from which author’s work The Pilgrim’s Progress’?
John Bunyan
4b How many strings are there on a classical guitar?
Six

Round 6
1a Whose book The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ won the Man Booker Prize of 2014?
Richard Flanagan
1b Deacon Blue took their name from ‘Deacon Blues’, a song on the album ‘Aja’ by which American jazz/rock duo?
Steely Dan
2a Which golfer won the Open Championship at Hoylake in 2014?
Rory Mcllroy
2b Which singer gave her first headline live performance in 35 years at the Hammersmith Apollo in August 2014?
Kate Bush
3a Trevor Eve and Sue Johnston worked for the Cold Case unit in which police procedural TV series that ran from 2000-2011?
Waking the Dead
3b Whose accession to the throne of England created the Union of the Scottish/English Crowns in 1603?
James VI and I (allow either number)
4a Tirich Mir is the highest peak in which mountain range of central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, which is considered a sub-range of the Himalayas and one of the Greater Ranges of Asia?
Hindu Kush
4b Which is the largest species of mammal indigenous to the UK?
Red deer

Round 7
1a Which is the third most populous city in Wales after Cardiff and Swansea?
Newport
1b In the SI system of units, which prefix indicates a unit one million times bigger than the basic unit?
Mega-e.g. Megahertz
2a One of two English dancers, along with Margot Fonteyn, to be recognised as a ‘prima ballerina assoluta’, who founded the English National Ballet in 1951?
Alicia Markova (allow Lillian Marks)
2b Stylised as a lower case x, the album ‘Multiply’, which topped the UK charts for 8 weeks in 2014, is by which Brit award-winning singer-songwriter?
Ed Sheeran
3a Which Scot has coached the British and Irish Lions on a record 4 tours, starting with victory in Australia in 1989?
Sir Ian McGeechan
3b Which building society, mutualised in 2000 and nationalised and part sold to Abbey National in 2008, used a bowler hats logo in its marketing?
Bradford and Bingley
4a What is the name of the Sky TV comedy sports panel game hosted by James Corden with Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Rednapp as team captains?
A League of their Own
4b Who was the father of Alexander the Great?
Philip (II) of Macedon

Round 8
1a Which ventriloquist do you associate with Orville the Duck and Cuddles the Monkey?
Keith Harris
1b Although courted by his political opponent, Stephen Douglas, Mary Todd chose to marry which future American president?
Abraham Lincoln
2a What is the capital of former USSR republic of Kyrgystan?
Bishkek
2b In Physics, ToE is an acronym in which the T stands for theory. What does the E stand for?
(of) Everything
3a In which city can you see the original statue of the Venus de Milo?
Paris
3b ‘Solidarity’, ‘Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher’ and ‘Born to Boogie’ are numbers from which musical, currently playing at the Victoria Palace Theatre?
Billy Elliot, The Musical
4a At the 2012 London Olympics Ireland won only one gold medal - at which sport?
(Ladies) Boxing (Katie Taylor)
4bWhat is the more common name for HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol levels?
Statins

Spare Questions
1 Which card game variant takes its name from the French for ‘railway’?
Chemin de fer
2 Who was the President of the USA at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries'?
William McKinley
3 In which of the United States is Cape Cod?
Massachusetts
4 Which son of Eric the Red is considered to be the first European to land in North America?
Leif Erikson
5 Who composed a fourth symphony in 1916, which he entitled ‘The Inextinguishable’?
Carl Nielsen
6 Who created the US animated series ‘Family Guy’ in 1998?
Seth McFarlane