1. Gottle of Gear
a. What is the derivation of the word “ventriloquism”?
b. In which film did Anthony Hopkins play a ventriloquist who believes he is being taken over by his dummy?
c. Which ventriloquist is associated with Lord Charles?
2. What a Carry On!
a. Which Coronation Street star played the title role in Carry on Cleo?
b. Harry H. Corbett appeared in only one Carry On film: which one?
c. Who was the only American actor to star in a Carry On film?
3. Dead Poets Society
a. Which poet kept a tame bear in his rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge?
b. The composition of a major work by which poet was famously interrupted by a man from Porlock?
c. Who was the first person to be buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey?
4. Bridges
a. The last two working examples in Britain of which unusual type of bridge are found in Newport (Gwent) and Middlesbrough?
b. Of which type of bridge is the Forth Rail Bridge an example?
c. What name is shared by bridges in Chester, Oxford, Cambridge, and Venice?
5. The Blues
a. Which blues musician was said to have sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads in exchange for his musical genius?
b. What do the initials “B B” in B B King stand for?
c. By which name is the blues artist Chester Arthur Burnett better known?
6. Literary Endings
Which works of literature end as follows?
a. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
b. “I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
c. “... they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.”
7. Irish History
a. Who was the first king of England also to be king of Ireland?
b. In which battle of 1690 did William II defeat James II?
c. In which decade was the Great Potato Famine?
8. Sporting Skulduggery
a. Who was the modern pentathlete who was expelled from the 1976 Olympics for rigging his epée to record hits falsely?
b. Which skater was alleged to have incited her boyfriend to attack her rival Nancy Kerrigan with a lead pipe, weeks before the 1994 Winter Olympics?
c. Who, in 1981, bowled an underarm ball to prevent New Zealander Brian McKechnie from hitting a six to win the WSC Final?