Question: What characterises the Holocene Period?
Answer: Relatively stable climate

Question: In plays performed "in the round" where does the audience sit in relation to the playing area?
Answer: On all sides

Question: From 1971 to 1992 who was awarded the Ballon d'Or in football the most times?
Answer: All three were first equal

Question: In parts of the UK what does "tethera" mean?
Answer: Three

Question: Over the course of 17 years from 1985 to 2002 what did actor Whoopi Goldberg complete, one of only twelve people to do so?
Answer: Egot

Question: If a forest fire reaches a hill how does it change?
Answer: It accelerates

Question: What is the name of the simplified Roman alphabet-based phonetic system of Chinese script adopted in 1958 at the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress in mainland China?
Answer: Hanyu Pinyin

Question: What effect does an analgaesic have?
Answer: Relief from pain

Question: What Scottish patriotic song, used frequently at special occasions and sporting events, was written by a member of the folk group The Corries in 1967?
Answer: Flower of Scotland

Question: Which TV series starred Richard Dean Anderson as a secret agent for the fictional Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles, who is able to solve a wide range of problems with his Swiss army knife?
Answer: MacGyver

Question: What does the Tokyo-based Project Persephone focus on?
Answer: Evolvable biotechnology in space

Question: French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) is particularly known for work in chemistry and biology including discoveries that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same, and what?
Answer: The role of oxygen in combustion

Question: When Queen Victoria died in January 1901 how long had she been on the United Kingdom's throne?
Answer: Over 63 years

Question: What is the name of the holy book of te Sikh faith?
Answer: Guru Granth Sahib

Question: Who, aged 54, married 18 year old Oona O'Neill, the daughter of American playwright Eugene O'Neill, in June 1943?
Answer: Charlie Chaplin

Question: According to the World Resources Institute which country has the longest coastline?
Answer: Canada

Question: Who created the character of Harold C. "Rabbit" Angstrom who appears in the stories "Rabbit, Run", "Rabbit Redux", "Rabbit Is Rich", "Rabbit at Rest" and "Rabbit Remembered"?
Answer: John Updike

Question: What was highlighted in 2016 as a possible result of a pregnant woman's being infected with the zika virus?
Answer: Restricted cranium size, and brain development, in the baby in the womb

Question: In what sport could male competitors, from 1968 to 1985, be awarded the Air Canada Silver Broom trophy?
Answer: Curling

Question: Which actor won the 2012 Golden Raspberry Award for both the worst actor and the worst actress in a 2011 film?
Answer: Adam Sandler

Question: What are Duke Nukem, Frogger and Lemmings?
Answer: 1990s arcade and home computer games

Question: The lights were turned off in the Empire State Building for 15 minutes in August 2004 to mark the death of whom?
Answer: Fay Wray

Question: The H Chi Minh Trail was known as what by the people who actually used it?
Answer: The Trng Sn Strategic Supply Route

Question: What are the structures known in Lindisfarne in the UK as St Cuthbert's beads, or in Germany as St Boniface's pennies?
Answer: Fossilised disc-shaped parts of the stems of a type of marine echinoderm

Question: What year were the films "Eyes Wide Shut", "Sixth Sense", "Toy Story 2", and "Fight Club" released?
Answer: 1999

Question: In sport what does "OBP" measure?
Answer: How often a baseball batter reaches base for any reason other than various specific errors

Question: Who was Grigori Rasputin popularly linked with?
Answer: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia

Question: A two-wheeled self-powered and self-balancing vehilce unveiled in 2001 is called what?
Answer: Segway

Question: By what name is Vincent Damon Furnier better known?
Answer: Alice Cooper

Question: What is common between the UK television series "Unforgiven" (2009), "Happy Valley" (2014), and "Last Tango in Halifax" (2012)?
Answer: Writer and playwright Sally Wainwright

Question: What, according to the stories, did the Spartans reply to Philip II of Macedon when he sent them a threat of war saying "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta"?
Answer: """If"""

Question: What word had as one of its early meanings "to shoot an arrow short or wide"?
Answer: Drib

Question: Who was the first person to win a Tony Award, an Academy Award and an Emmy Award in the same year, and the only person to have won all 3 awards in the category of "Best Director"?
Answer: Bob Fosse

Question: On what continent are the following found: Mt Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro Crater (the worlds largest unbroken caldera), Nile River, Okavango Delta, Red Sea Reef, Sahara Desert, and the Serengeti Migration?
Answer: Africa

Question: What is the title of the unfinished novel by Robert Louis Stevenson?
Answer: The Weir of Hermiston

Question: Which country is led in 2016, in fact though not in name, by someone held by the country under house arrest for almost 15 of the 21 years from 1989 to 2010?
Answer: Myanmar/Burma

Question: When Warren Hastings, returning from a term as Governor-General in 1786, was impeached (and acquitted) where had he been in office?
Answer: India

Question: What phrase is frequently heard in London Underground stations?
Answer: Mind the gap

Question: A form of invasive toxic freshwater algal bloom known as blue-green is caused by what?
Answer: Cyanobacteria

Question: What or who are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi?
Answer: The names of the last three books of the Christian Bible's Old Testament

Question: Why was Muhammad Ali stripped of his 1964 world heavyweight boxing title?
Answer: In 1967 he refused to be conscripted into the US army

Question: The mural-size canvas painted in oils, known as "Guernica", was painted by whom?
Answer: Pablo Picasso

Question: What usually completes the phrase "to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of ..."?
Answer: Tar

Question: On 22 January 1955 sportsman Joe Davis scored the first officially recognised what?
Answer: Maximum break in a snooker game

Question: Which naval battle took place in December 1939, the second naval battle in the events for the Second World War?
Answer: Battle of the River Plate

Question: What would you expect to find in the Materials Library, opened at UCL in London, UK, in March 2013?
Answer: A collection of the most unusual materials in the world, and a studio for hands-on research

Question: What is the subject matter of the occasional TV series "Luther", starring the actor Idris Elba?
Answer: Crime detection

Question: After death in 1199, whose brain was buried at Charroux Abbey in Poitou, their heart at Rouen in Normandy, and the rest of their body at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou?
Answer: Richard the Lionheart (King Richard I of England)

Question: In 2015 there was an upsurge of inaugural national championships in what sport?
Answer: Drone racing

Question: Which 19th century French novelist wrote books about "The Three Musketeers"?
Answer: Alexandre Dumas

Question: The virus myxomatosis has been deliberately introduced into agricultural areas to achieve what?
Answer: Slaughter of the local rabbit population

Question: Who had hit records with "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly Miss Molly"?
Answer: Little Richard

Question: The Scandinavian drink, Lillehammer Berry Liqueur, is made from what berries?
Answer: Lingonberries

Question: Three Americans, artist Samuel F. B. Morse, physicist Joseph Henry, and machinist and inventor Alfred Vail, developed what in the 1830s?
Answer: An electrical telegraph system

Question: Which film, using characters called Jason, Plato and Judy, dealt with the problems of urban, high school age children of well to do middle class parents?
Answer: Rebel Without A Cause