01 Where were the Olympic Games held in 1948 ? London 02 In what sport could you once be stymied ? Golf - when your opponent's ball on the green lies in a direct line between yours and the hole 03 In sailing what is a sheet ? A rope 04 What is onomatopoeia ? The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named, e.g. A snake hisses 05 What would you do with a canapé ? Eat it - an hors d'oeuvre 06 What is a palindrome ? A word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards e.g. Mum, Level 07 How many in a baker's dozen ? 13 08 In cockney slang what is a "pony" ? £25 09 In cockney rhyming slang what is "apples and pears" Stairs 10 In what game might you find a dummy ? Bridge 11 In what game is a castle the same as a rook ? Chess 12 Who wrote a poem about Slough ? Sir John Betjeman 13 The Latin "Ars magna" means major art. What is an anagram of "Ars magna" ? "Anagrams" 14 What is the significance of the title of Samuel Butler's book "Erewhon" ? It is "Nowhere" rearranged 15 Never twice the same colour. To what does this refer (rather cynically) ? NTSC - the United States colour television standard 16 What does PAL stand for ? Phase Alternate Line - The European television standard 17 What is 2 to the power of zero ? One 18 What is 10 to the power of zero ? One 19 Americans call it a double eagle. What do we call it ? An albatross 20 Who "stoppeth one of three" ? The Ancient Mariner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 21 To what name did the Russian city of Leningrad revert in 1991 ? St Petersburg 22 How many cricket pitches are there in a furlong ? Ten - a furlong is 220 yards 23 To what question can a person never truthfully answer "Yes" ? "Are you dead ?" 24 What are Macgillycuddy's Reeks ? Mountains in S.W. Eire, near Killarney 25 What was the name of Basil Fawlty's wife in the TV series ? Sybil 26 ... and where did Manuel, the waiter, come from ? Barcelona 27 ... and in what town was the hotel "Fawlty Towers" located ? Torquay 28 How many bytes are there in a Megabyte ? One million 29 What does ASCII stand for ? American Standard Code for Information Interchange 30 Why did the chicken cross the road ? Because it wanted to get to the other side 31 What is the most southerly point in England ? The Lizard 32 What is the most westerly point in Wales ? St David's Head 33 Name a place in England beginning with Z Zennor in Cornwall, Zeals in Somerset 34 Where is Yell ? Shetlands 35 What is the nearest town to the point where the Greenwich meridian leaves the east coast of England ? Withernsea 36 ... and where it leaves the south coast ? Peacehaven 37 In what country is Zanzibar ? Tanzania 38 In what ocean is Cocos Island ? Indian Ocean 39 In what ocean are the Galapagos Islands ? Pacific Ocean 40 In what year was Puerto Rico made a state of the United States ? It never was 41 Is the year 2000 a Leap Year ? Yes, because it is exactly divisible by 400 42 What would you do with a panama ? Wear it - a hat 43 If you travel through the Panama Canal from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, through how many minutes west in longitude do you move ? (to the nearest 30 minutes) None, you move east in longitude 44 What is -2 squared ? 4 45 What is the square root of -9 ? Square roots of negative numbers do not exist 46 How long does it take your voice on the telephone to reach Australia from London by communications satellite (to the nearest half second) ? About half a second 47 Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo ... what comes next ? Foxtrot - the phonetic alphabet 48 ... then we have Golf. What next ? Hotel 49 What is a mnemonic ? An aid to memory 50 Billy Brown Revives On Your Gin But Prefers Good Whisky. What is this ? A mnemonic for the resistor colour code: Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Grey, White 51 Run Off You Girls, Boys In View. What is this ? A mnemonic for the colours of the rainbow. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet 52 Where is Noel Coward's "Noon Day Gun" ? Hong Kong 53 What language, formerly known as Mandarin, is now the official language of the People's Republic of China ? Putonghua 54 Where in poetry is "far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife" ? It isn't - a common misquotation. "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife" is in Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a country church-yard" 55 "The .... homeward plods his weary way". Who ? ploughman (from the same poem) 56 Who "has that lean and hungry look" ? Cassius - Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare 57 Who wanted his pound of flesh ? Shylock - The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare 58 What is better than two in the bush ? A bird in the hand 59 Who said "let them eat cake" ? Marie Antionette 60 ... on hearing what news ? That there was no bread and the poor were starving