Thursday 11 February 2016

Buzzer Quiz Questions

You may or may not have watched the Lightspeed Quiz videos I have been posting up by now. Either way here are the questions I asked at the event. I found it tricky writing sets for a crowd of 16 eager buzzers, and as you will have seen most got answered very quickly indeed.



1.       This country is the world’s largest producer of Uranium. In 1991, it was the last of the Soviet Republics to declare independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the current President of the nation has been in power since. Which nation, the largest landlocked country in the world by area, is also associated with the Sacha Baron Cohen character Borat?

Kazakhstan

2.       On this day in 1835 the first assassination attempt against a serving US President was carried out by Englishman Richard Lawrence. Legend has it that when Lawrence’s pistols misfired, the President attacked him with his cane. Which President, nicknamed “Old Hickory” was the target of this attack?

Andrew Jackson

 

3.       Launched in October 2010, this free mobile app had 400 million users by December 2015. The service was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion dollars. Created by Kevin Systrom and with a camera as its logo, which mobile photo sharing service is the 8th most downloaded app of all time?

Instagram

 

 

4.       What number links –  the number of studio albums released by the Beatles, the number of strikes needed for a perfect game in ten pin bowling, the number of people who have walked on the moon, the number of stars on the flag of Europe, the atomic number of Magnesium and the number of Angry Men in the title of a 1957 film?

12

 

 

5.       Released in January 2016, his latest novel is  “The Noise of Time”.  He has written crime novels under the name Dan Kavanagah. He has been nominated for 4 Booker Prizes  for works including Arthur and George and England England. Which British author won the 2011 Booker Prize for the “Sense of an Ending”?

Julian Barnes

 

 

 

6.       In 1967 this comedy duo won the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks, followed by success on New Faces in 1974. In 2009 they celebrated the 20th anniversary of their most famous TV series and in 2010 they won the Channel 4 series “Celebrity Coach Trip”. Born with the surname Elliot, which Comedy Duo hosted the Children’s game show “To Me to You” based on their most famous catchphrase?

The Chuckle Brothers

 

7.       Winning the 1985 Bafta Award for Best Picture, which Woody Allen film follows the story of Tom Baxter, a character within a movie who pops out of the Cinema screen into the real world and begins a romance with Mia Farrow?

Purple Rose of Cairo

 

8.       This classical composer won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for “On the Transmigration of Souls” which was a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11th attack.  He is perhaps most known for his operatic works including Doctor Atomic in 2005 and Nixon in China in 1987. Name this American composer born in 1947 who shares a name with an American President?

 

John Adams

 

9.       In  November 2013, this painters work entitled “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” sold for a then record $142 million dollars at auction. His 1944 triptych “Three Studies for Figures at the base of a crucifixtion” sealed his reputation as a bleak chronicler of the human condition. Born in Ireland in 1909, name this painter described by William Kooning as the “most  important painter of the disquieting human figure in the 20th century”?

Francis Bacon

 

10.   In which decade did the following events occur – the last Emperor of Germany began his reign, Coca Cola was invented, Robert Louis Stevenson published Treasure Island, President Garfield was assassinated and Robert Ford assassinated Jesse James?

 

1880s

 

11.   Which romantic drama series, first aired on BBC One in 2012, follows the story of two childhood sweethearts, who reunite over Facebook following 60 years apart? The programme stars Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi, and the title contains the name of a Dance as well as the town we are currently all sitting in!

Last Tango in Halifax

 

12.   Hitting number 1 in May 1988 as part of a double a side, a cover of which Beatles song gave Billy Bragg his first and to date only UK Number 1 single?

 

Shes Leaving Home

 

13.   Currently the assistant coach at Derby County, who is the only Englishman to win the European Golden Shoe, a feat achieved in the 1999-200 season when  he netted 30 goals for Sunderland? 

 

Kevin Phillips

 

14.    One of the few people to have won an Osacr, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, who is the only female singer to have had No.1 albums in the USA in six different decades, her first being “People” in 1964 and her latest being “Partners” in 2014 with her first Oscar win coming in 1969 for the film “Funny Girl”?

 

Barbara Streisand

 

15.     Name this island. On average 1.5 million tourists visit this island every year which is a greater amount than the actual population.  The flag of this island country is the only one in the world to contain an outline of the country on it and in 1974 Nikos Sampson led a famous coup here. Popular destinations on the island include Larnaca and Limassol and its capital is Nicosia.

Cyprus

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Sunderland Echo Quiz League Set - 4/4

The Final instalment in my set of questions for the Sunderland Echo Quiz League a number of weeks back. Hopefully they have been some use to you....


Round 4

1.       At which battle of May 1455 was King Henry VI captured, leading to Richard Duke of York being declared Lord Protector?
St Albans
2.       Gary Player is one of three golfers to win both the Open and the Senior Open. New Zealander Bob Charles and which American, a five-time Open winner in the 1970s and 1980s are the others?
Tom Watson
3.       Which band, formed in Newcastle, had the highest selling British album of 1972?
Lindisfarne
4.       In March 1990 which was the first Soviet Republic to declare itself independent and in 2015 became the 19th member of the Eurozone?
Lithuania

 

Set B - Round 5

1.       Sir John Simon, Sir Kingsley Wood and John Anderson all held which major cabinet post during World War II?
Chancellor of the Exchequer
2.       Which American model spent 25 years as the face of “Covergirl” magazine, but perhaps more famously, was the subject of her former husband’s song “Uptown Girl”?
Christine Brinkley
3.       Of the seven English cities beginning with the letter L, which comes first alphabetically?
Lancaster
4.       Which sporting figure founded the charity “Livestrong”   in Austin, Texas to help people affected by cancer?
Lance Armstrong

 

Round 6

1.       Who is the only individual to win both a Turner Prize and an Oscar for Best Director?
Steve McQueen
2.       Rugby Union: With 557 points, which Irishman  has scored the most points in the history of the 5 (now 6) Nations?
Ronan O’Gara
3.       Which fictional amusement park, made famous in a film, is situated off the coast of Costa Rica?
Jurassic Park
4.       Michael Fassbender played which prominent Irish republican and short lived Member of Parliament in the 2008 film “ Hunger”?
Bobby Sands

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Lightspeed Quiz - January 2016 - Video 3

The third video from the opening round of the January 2016 Lightspeed Quiz event in Halifax. Tough going again...

Saturday 6 February 2016

Sunderland Echo Quiz League Set - 3/4

Again, more from the set I put together for the Sunderland Echo Quiz League a few weeks ago. This is the first half of Set B....

Questions B

Round 1                                                                                                                        Answers

1.       Which website, the 7th most visited during last year, celebrated its 15th Birthday in January 2016?
Wikipedia
2.       “Love or Mummy” was the title of the first episode of which 1980s sitcom?
Sorry!
3.       Which is the largest lake found on the course of the River Rhone?
Lake Geneva (Lac Leman)
4.       Felix Cane is a multi-time world champion of which “performance art”, a feat which earned her a permanent position in Cirque Du Soliel’s first ever “adult themed show”?
Pole dancing

 

Round 2

1.       What name connects a member of The Seekers, a diocese of the Church of England served by Justin Welby and the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 to 1999?
Durham  (Judith Durham, Durham,  Jeremy John Durham Ashdown
2.       What is the world’s most populous landlocked country?
Ethiopia
3.       Which striker, now playing in the Premier League, scored even more goals than Jamie Vardy in English League Football during 2015?
(ie Premier League and/or Football League)
Odion Ighalo
4.       Which European capital city stands at the confluence of the River Sava and the River Danube?
Belgrade

 

Set B - Round 3

1.       If a British MP applies for the “Chiltern Hundreds” what is he or she doing?
Resigning
2.       Which cast member of the Vicar of Dibley wrote an American number one hit single in the 1960s?
Trevor Peacock  (wrote Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter)
3.       Queen Berengia is the only Queen of England never to have lived or even visited England. Which King did she marry in 1191?
Richard I
4.       With more than four million members, which charity has the largest membership in Britain?
National Trust

 

Thursday 4 February 2016

Sunderland Echo Quiz League Set - 2/4


Following on from a post a few days ago here is the second half of Set A from my Sunderland Echo Quiz League Questions.

Round 4

1.       Who was the first (and only) tennis player born in the 1990s to have won a Grand Slam, a feat she achieved for the first time in 2011?
Petra Kvitova
2.       Frank Blackmore introduced which specific features to UK roads in 1969. They were so confusing to drivers that he initially stood by the side of the road with a loudspeaker to direct traffic?
Mini Roundabouts
(Do not accept roundabout)
3.       Who is the only person to win 2 unshared Nobel prizes in 2 different fields?
Linus Pauling
4.       Which band, formed in the 1980s in Sheffield, took their name from a fictional band in the novel “A Clockwork Orange”?
Heaven 17

 Set A - Round 5

1.       Name EITHER of the two countries that joined the EEC at the same time as the UK in 1973
Denmark or Republic of Ireland
2.       Which composer’s 1st Symphony is nicknamed “Winter Daydreams”?
Tchaikovsky
3.       The top Test wicket takers are Mutiah Muralitharan with 800 and Shane Warne on 708. Which Indian leg spinner is third with 619 wickets in 132 test matches?
Anil Kumble
4.       The answer is not sausages. In the 1980s, a national newspaper launched the “Save our Sizzlers” campaign to prevent a ban on what?
Page Three (The Sun)
Accept: Topless Models

 

Round 6

1.       Which former Soviet state is the only European country in which capital punishment is still practised with more than 250 executions since 1992?
Belarus
2.       Which Ayrshire golf course has both the longest and shortest holes on the Open Championship roster and will stage the event this year?
Royal Troon
3.       Which is the largest island in the Outer Hebrides?
Lewis and Harris
4.       Which Queen of England married Louis VII, King of France in 1137 before marrying Henry II of England in 1152?
Eleanor of Aquitaine

 

 

 

 

Lightspeed Quiz 2016 - Halfiax

Another excellent day on Saturday at the first Lightspeed Quiz event of the season. 16 players descended on Dirty Dicks in Halifax Town Centre, the largest gathering I have played in on the buzzer, and the standard was incredibly high. Over the next few days I will post up the videos taken from the event.

Here are the first two tilts with a question that stumped us all and some incredibly quick buzzing!

 

Tuesday 2 February 2016

League Sets - Sunderland Echo Quiz League


A few weeks ago it was my turn to set the questions for the Sunderland Echo Quiz League. Something I always enjoy doing!

Over the next few days Ill post up the content of the sets of you to have a read through and hopefully enjoy. The quiz itself runs on a team basis so all these questions will have had six brains working on them so there had to be some degree of challenge.

This is the first half of Set A


Round 1                                                                                                                        Answers

1.       The title of which Beach Boys song is also the title of the autobiography of Jacqueline Gold, the founder of Ann Summers?
Good Vibrations
2.       Which Government organisation is housed in a building known as the “Doughnut”?
GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters)
3.       Lady Isobel Barnett, considered one of the first TV celebrities,  became a household name on which show?
What’s My Line?
4.       Which landlocked country lies between Ukraine to the North and Romania to the South?
Moldova

 

Round 2

1.       Which daily newspaper was launched in 1986 by Andreas Whittam Smith?
The Independent
2.       When Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to England in the early 1600s, which King wrote a pamphlet arguing against its use?
James I
3.       There are only two British Female Solo Artists to have 5 number 1 hit singles in the UK. Name either?
Jess Glynn
OR
Cheryl Fernandez Versini (Accept Cheryl on its own, Cheryl Cole or Cheryl Tweedy)
4.       Flowing through France, Germany and Luxembourg which river joins the Rhine at Koblenz?
Moselle

 

Set A - Round 3

1.       In 1982, who went missing for 6 days during the Paris/Dakar rally?
Mark Thatcher
2.       Much in the news in January 2016, which famous model and actress appeared on the cover of Roxy Music’s album “Sirens” dressed as a mermaid?
Jerry Hall
3.       Since the addition of Italy, which team have won the 6 nations title on the most occasions?
France
         Which current Labour MP is married to the former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thronging Schmidt?
Stephen Kinnock