Simon's Christmas Quizzes

Christmas Quiz 2020

1. What is Labia minor?

An earwig. [The smallest European earwig.] [Accept insect.] (Not to be confused with the labia minora.)

2. When might you use uvular fluttertonguing?

When playing a wind instrument. [It’s a method for trilling.]

3. Which British bird famously includes mistletoe in its diet?

Mistle thrush

4. If Gordon is 4 and Edward is 2, who is 1?

Thomas (the Tank Engine) [Engine numbers.]

5. If Gordon is 4 and Scott is 1, who is 2?

Virgil [Designated pilots of Thunderbird vehicles.]

6. Who or what had a designation change from 466/64 to 220/82?

Nelson Mandela. (Often reverentially called Prisoner 46664.)

7. Which C20th author coined the term 'Jazz Age', and married a woman called Zelda who was later confined to mental institutions?

F Scott Fitzgerald

8. What was Susie Orbach's famous anti-diet guide of 1978?

Fat is a Feminist Issue

9. Who is widely regarded as Russia's greatest poet?

(Alexander Sergeyevich) Pushkin

10. What was the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith?

The Wealth of Nations [An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations]

11. What is the capital of the North Macedonia?

Skopje

12. Who overthrew King Idris in 1969?

Colonel Gaddafi [Muammar Gaddafi]

13. What do all the episode titles of the TV series Endeavor have in common?

All single words.

14. Named for a C19th British physician, what do we call the 'false labour' contractions typically associated with the later stages of pregnancy?

Braxton Hicks contractions

15. Who declared war on Great Britain in June 1812?

United States

16. In which professional sport do neither the contestants nor the audience normally know the score until the event is completely finished?

Boxing

17. Betelgeuse and Rigel are the brightest stars in which constellation?

Orion

18. What is the main ingredient of Baba Ghanoush?

Aubergine (Egg plant)

19. Which country elected a female Head of Government in 1999 to replace the incumbent female Head of Government, and now has a third female Head of Government?

New Zealand [Jenny Shipley 1997-1999; Helen Clark 1999-2008; Jacinda Ardern 2017-]

20. How many psalms are there in the Old Testament book of Psalms?

150 [Western tradition only. Eastern Orthodox churches include Psalm 151. Some versions used in Syriac churches include Psalms 152–155.]

21. How did the band 'America' get "through the desert" in a hit song of the 70s?

On a horse with no name

22. Which word originally related to the study of Aristotle because he taught while walking around, and is now used to describe a teacher who travels between educational establishments?

Peripatetic

23. How does Rumpole of the Bailey refer to his wife?

"She who must be obeyed"

24. Who was the Italian Baroque painter who was raped in 1611, and subsequently painted several depictions of Judith slaying Holofernes?

Artemisia Gentileschi [Artemisia Lomi]

25. What is the name for the central space along the length of a church, often flanked by aisles, along which a bride traditionally processes?

The nave

26. Which two chemical elements are liquid at standard temperature and pressure?

Mercury and Bromine

27. Who shocked the French public with the painting 'Le déjeuner sur l'herbe' depicting two fully clothed men casually picnicking with a completely naked woman?

Édouard Manet

28. On which continent have all the Australopithecus fossils been found?

Africa [The word means southern ape.]

29. Ergot is a fungus affecting which major cereal crop?

Rye

30. What was the name of Roy Rogers' famous golden palomino?

Trigger

31. "Do you know the Bishop of Norwich?" is a polite way of asking someone to do what?

Pass the port

32. What would you be doing if you were using a Bogota or a DeForest Diamond?

Picking a lock [A Bogota is a popular rake pick, and a DeForest Diamond is used for single-pin picking.]

33. Who wrote a famous poem containing the line "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife", from which Thomas Hardy took the title of his fourth novel?

Thomas Gray [Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751)]

34. Who did Beethoven describe as "not a brook, but a sea"?

J S Bach (Bach is German for brook.) [Usually translated as "Not brook, but sea should he be called because of his infinite, inexhaustible richness in tone combinations and harmonies."]

35. In what language did Henrik Ibsen write his plays?

Danish

36. Who in a film asks, "Are you a pig, Amanda?"

Agatha Trunchbull (Matilda, 1996) [Accept Miss Trunchbull]

37. Which grape variety is particularly associated with Alsace and yields wine that smells of lychees?

Gewürztraminer

38. In which European capital is the historic C14th Charles Bridge?

Prague, Czech Republic [crossing the Vltava river]

39. Which American president gave the order to drop the atomic bombs on Japan?

Harry S Truman

40. Who wrote The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner?

Alan Sillitoe

41. Discovered in 1907 what was the first synthetic plastic?

Bakelite

42. What often happens when reciting the line "An' cut you up wi' ready slicht"?

The knife is plunged into the haggis.

43. What is the main hormone involved in the production of breast milk?

Prolactin (Also accept Oxytocin)

44. A terminal moraine marks the limiting edge of what?

Glacier

45. What is the area of an A4 sheet?

One sixteenth of a square meter. [A0 has an area of 1 square meter. Each subsequent size halves it.]

46. If you'd never seen Star Trek Discovery, what might you not suspect about the main character, science specialist and xenoanthropologist, Michael Burnham?

Her gender.

47. Which country became the largest in Africa in 2011?

Algeria [when South Sudan gained independence from Sudan]

48. Who is called "rex quondam rexque futurus", "the once and future king"?

King Arthur (from Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur)

49. Which 1990 film features the character Marko Ramius?

The Hunt for Red October

50. What did the Christian theology scholar, Don Cupitt, call the Disneyfication of Christianity?

Christmas