the symbol for Mothering Sunday?
3. ‘Le Freak’ was one of the best-known songs of which American group of the disco era, led by musicians Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards?
4. Which annual publication that first appeared in 1864 has been edited over the years by Charles Pardon, John Woodcock and Matthew Engel, among others, and featured an entry on the trial of Charles I in its first edition?
5. What’s the name of the mythological snake, also sometimes called a cockatrice, an example of which is killed by Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?
6. Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are protozoan parasites that cause which disease, most common in the tropics and subtropics?
7. Which jazz trumpeter was the subject of the 1988 film documentary Let’s Get Lost, released the year of his death?
8. In 1844, the architects Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus were given the job of restoring which famous building?
9. Mount Toubkal, rising to 13,670 feet or 4,167 metres, is the highest peak of which mountain range?
10. Which team sport, that can be played indoors or outdoors, was devised by William Morgan in 1895, supposedly for middle-aged men who found basketball too vigorous?
11. Many German princes were known as Electors, such as Elector of Hanover – a title that referred to what special privilege or duty?
12. In which English county is the prehistoric monument known as the Rollright Stones?
13. Harald, son of Gorm the Old, who was King of Denmark in the 10th century, was known by what surname?
14. If a painting is described as a ‘tondo’, what shape must it be?
15. Which public-school-educated policeman, who made his debut on radio, also appeared in the Eagle comic during the 1950s?
16. A Möbius strip is a band or ribbon with only one face. What name is given to a bottle which is formed by passing the neck through the side to join a hole in the base, thus effectively creating a single side with neither an inside or an outside?
17. Which item of food is thought to have been first displayed in England in the London shop window of Thomas Johnson on 10th April 1633?
18. The names of which two signatories are generally used to identify the manifesto issued in London in July 1955, calling for scientists of the world to address together the problems of nuclear proliferation?
19. In which TV series of the 1980s – set ‘20 minutes into the future’ – did the seriously injured investigative reporter Edison Carter have a copy of his mind downloaded onto a computer?
20. Maud Gonne was a muse to which poet and visionary writer, his love for her inspiring some of his best known works?
21. What is the name of the 264m tall volcanic neck in Wyoming in the USA, consisting of solidified lava, which was prominently featured in the Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
22. What name, derived from the Hebrew meaning ‘formless thing’ or ‘shapeless mass’, is given in Jewish legend to an artificially created life being brought to life by supernatural means, and is also the title of a 20th century Gothic novel by Gustav Meyrinck?
23. Who commanded the joint French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar?
24. What is the English alternative name for the Ruwenzori mountain range in East Africa?
25. Derived from an old Norse word, a Cleg is another name for which insect?
26. The Guardian’s obituary of the film director Irvin Kershner, who died in November 2010, begins with the following sentence: ‘Chosen to direct [X], he turned in one of the best sequels – and highest box-office earners – of all time’. Which film title have we left out?
27. From Fred Perry in 1936 until 1997, no British male tennis player had reached a Grand Slam singles final. Which player broke that sixty-one-year drought?
28. Having four valence electrons, which element forms the most known compounds?
29. ‘Clunton and Clunbury / Clungunford and Clun / Are the quietest places / Under the sun,’ are lines from a poem published in the 1890s, naming villages in which English county?
30. With which Foreign Secretary did Lord Castlereagh, the then Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, fight a duel on Putney Heath in 1809?
31. Modern Tanzania consists of the former state of Tanganyika, along with three islands. Pemba and Mafia are two; which is the third?
32. Which TV weather forecaster was the subject of a novelty hit song by the Wearside band A Tribe of Toffs in 1988?
33. Which battle of the Vietnam War, fought by the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnamese forces from 10th May until 20th May 1969, was made into a John Irvine directed film of 1987?
34. The Arctic gets its name from Arktikos, the ancient name for a constellation, which in turn derives its name from the Greek word arktos – meaning what?
35. Which Russian composer died on the same day as Joseph Stalin in 1953?
36. What name is given to the specific speed an object must achieve as a minimum, if it is rising against the pull of gravity, so that it will not return to the object exerting the gravitational field?
37. Which supposedly mystical word of seven Greek letters was used in ancient engravings on precious stones and amulets, and was also used as an album title by the rock group Santana?
38. Which word, taken from a name for the divine intoxicating drink of the gods in Hindu mythology, was used by Aldous Huxley for the drug that subdues the populace in the novel Brave New World?
39. In the game of backgammon, how many playing pieces are on the board at the beginning, in total?
40. In 1955, which Dutch artist created the children’s character known in English as Miffy the rabbit?
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1. What kind of performer would be most likely to use a swazzle?
2. LHOOQ is a bawdy title given to an artwork of 1919 by Marcel Duchamp, consisting of a reproduction of a very famous portrait, on whose face he had drawn a beard and moustache in pencil. Which portrait?
3. The dormant volcano Mount Rainier, and the National Park that bears its name, are to be found in which state of the USA?
4. The 1896 novel Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz, and the film adaptation of 1951, are set in Rome in the time of which Emperor?
5.