Quiz #49

In which Chinese city do the areas of Pudong and Puxi – literally ‘East of the Pu’ and ‘West of the Pu’ – sit on opposite banks of the Huangpu, which is also the name of the main downtown area?

Question 2

Established to aid global peace and security, the United Nations is celebrating what anniversary in 2025?

Question 3

What American reality TV show, based on a 2010 film and the title of which is now used to refer to the act of using fake social media profiles to trick people in the online dating world, was cancelled on September 22 after nine seasons?

Question 4

According to data from governing body FIFA, which North American country has the most professional football players in the world, with over 9000?

Question 5

Subgrade, subbase, base, and surface are the four components of what constructed item?

Question 6

What type of behaviour is stotting, or pronging, that is carried out by gazelles to warn predators that they will be difficult to catch?

Question 7

Although it has historically used meats such as beef or pigeon, what are now deemed the two composite parts of the meal toad in the hole?

Question 8

In snooker, what three coloured balls are collectively known as the baulk colours?

Question 9

What four herbs appear in the title of a 1966 Simon and Garfunkel album, as well as within the lyrics to the album’s opening track?

Question 10

Make the longest word possible from the following letters: AAEGIMNRR

Round 1 points
(Maximum: 24)

Round 2

Question 1

In literature, what are Soma, Melange, Black Meat, Moloko Plus, and Substance D?

Question 2

The longest direct passenger ferry journey between two points in the UK is the 12 hour journey between Aberdeen and what location?

Question 3

The S&DR200 Festival has been running throughout 2025 to celebrate the first ever steam locomotive public railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened on September 27 1825 when Locomotion No.1 travelled at 13km/h for roughly 14km. Although the railway carried passengers, the transport of what goods item was the primary purpose of the line, including on that first journey?

Question 4

What name is given to the checked markings seen on emergency vehicles in the UK and several other European nations due to its supposed resemblance to a type of cake?

Question 5

Last held at the Saemangeum site in South Korea in 2023, when it hosted 40000 young people and volunteers, and next due to be held on an island near Gdańsk in Poland in 2027, for which over 21000 people have already signed up, what is believed to be the world’s largest organised event for 14-17 year olds?

Question 6

Constructed in 1986 and the world’s only undersea laboratory, Aquarius Reef Base is situated 19m below the sea approximately 9km from which US state?

Question 7

What two foodstuffs are created by overwhipping heavy cream (double cream) until it separates, as can be done in a food processor or by shaking a mason jar?

Question 8

One of the UK’s largest breakdown service companies is the RAC. Although now known simply as the RAC, for what did the letters RAC originally stand?

Question 9

Although not specifically named as such in the Bible’s book of Revelations, what are considered the identities of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – although one has subsequently been culturally widely replaced with Pestilence?

Question 10

In their full names, meaning both the area the team is from and its chosen team name (e.g. ‘New York Giants’, not only ‘Giants’), what eight colours appear in the names of sports teams in the ‘Big 4’ US sports leagues – those being the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL? Note that one colour is a shade of a more well-known colour, but the two teams using it are named for colour not the animal that appears in their logos.

Round 2 points
(Maximum: 23)

Total points
(Maximum: 47)

Round 3

Question 1

What trait links the birds pitohui, blue-capped ifrit, spur-winged goose, arafura strikethrush, brush bronzewing, and common quail?

Question 2

What drink is Brazil’s national cocktail?

Question 3

Which Tunisian-born Italian actress, who appeared in major European films 8 ½, Rocco and his Brothers, The Leopard, The Day of the Owl, and Girl with a Suitcase, as well as English-language films Once Upon a Time in the West and The Pink Panther, passed away on September 23 at the age of 87?

Question 4

What 1950 musical, adapted into a 1955 film starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and Jean Simmons, involves two New York gamblers making a bet over one’s ability to persuade a missionary to travel with him to Havana for dinner?

Question 5

The name of what type of pasta comes from an Italian word meaning ‘little tongues’?

Question 6

Last week, Scottish football team Inverness Caledonian Thistle revealed their new mascots, Nessie and Nessa. What was the name of the previous mascot, now retired, which was based on the name of a world famous player?

Question 7

What was the only event at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in which a new world record was set? And what country did the athlete who set the record represent?

Question 8

The World Athletics Championships also saw eight people win multiple gold medals, with seven athletes winning two golds, and one winning three. Which three countries saw athletes – all women – win multiple golds in non-relay events? One athlete won the 100m and 200m, plus the 4x100m; one athlete won the 5000m and 10000m; and one athlete won the 20km walk and 35km walk.

Question 9

Frequently appearing on the internet to highlight how quickly warfare has changed, and the possession of the Oklahoma Historical Society, a photograph from the Kent Ruth Collection taken in the 1940s shows four men from the town of Geary, Oklahoma in the military uniforms from the respective wars in which they fought. In which four wars involving the US did the men fight, one of whom was born in 1849, one in 1872, one in 1895, and one in 1923?

Question 10

Although they are fruit flavoured and contain no alcohol, what are the five types of wine written on the front of Maynard Bassett wine gum sweets?

Round 3 points
(Maximum: 20)

Total points
(Maximum: 67)

Round 4

Question 1

The lawyer Robert Bilott , who was played by actor Mark Ruffalo in the film Dark Waters, rose to prominence when he brought legal action against which prominent international chemicals company between 1999 and 2021 for its dumping of ‘forever chemicals’ that contaminated drinking water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio?

Question 2

Big Major Cay in the Bahamas has become a tourist attraction and popular subject for internet videos and photographs due to the presence of what type of livestock animals which can be seen going for swims in its tropical waters?

Question 3

Complementing work done by Eliot’s wife Vivienne, which American poet helped create the final version of T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Waste Land by extensively editing the original manuscript, including famously cutting out large chunks of text to better allow the reader to make their own linguistic connections and interpretations?

Question 4

What is the name of the companion social media robot which has ‘gone wrong’ in the title of a 2021 children’s animation film, with it broken circuitry teaching a boy that it is better to have genuine friends than those chosen by an algorithm, much to the annoyance of a Steve Jobs-style villain?

Question 5

Scientific studies have found that the gait of what animal, often perceived as comical by humans, is actually highly energy efficient, with an ‘inverted pendulum’ effect meaning as much as 80 per cent of energy put into a step can be transferred into the next step – well above the 65 per cent achieved by humans?

Question 6

Which former leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats political party, who was once the UK record holder for the 100m and said he once finished second in a US college race behind Tommie Smith and ahead of OJ Simpson, passed away on September 26 at the age of 84?

Question 7

What are the names of the two species of beaver, both named for the land mass on which they are native?

Question 8

In the 1920s, Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova toured which two countries, leading to the creation of a meringue-based dessert in her honour and an ongoing debate between the two nations as to which of them invented it?

Question 9

The four Jane Austen novels published during her lifetime were Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma, in which the heroines are respectively Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Fanny Price, and Emma Woodhouse. What are the names of the four men the heroines marry at the end of the novels?

Question 10

All widely tied to the US conservative or Christian right to various degrees, which six people – one recently killed – have podcasts in either Spotify or Apple’s top ten podcast charts and have interviewed Donald Trump on either their podcast or a Fox News television show?

Round 4 points
(Maximum: 20)

Total points
(Maximum: 87)

Round 5

In Round 5, there is only one answer. The less clues you need to get it, the more points you receive. If you need only one clue, you receive 10 points; if you require two clues, you will receive 9 points, and so on.

However, you may only answer once. If you answer incorrectly, you receive zero points for the round.

What surname is shared by all of the following people?

Clue 1

Clue 2

Clue 3

Clue 4

Clue 5

Clue 6

Clue 7

Clue 8

Clue 9

Clue 10

Round 5 points
(Maximum: 10)

Total points
(Maximum: 97)