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 8^th 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 20^th 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 11^th 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 20^th 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