The Sunday Family Quiz
Have a go around the lunch table, or share with friends and relatives online
Like a conversation around the table, the Family Quiz follows a thread and everyone can join in. We start with a question about this weekend, and then each question – sort of – leads to the next until we finish up (this week) at the South Pole. Some questions suit younger quizzers, but really it’s a free-for-all. Don’t all shout at once!
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The March equinox – this weekend – marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere of Earth, and the beginning of which season in the southern hemisphere?
(a) Summer
(b) Winter
(c) Autumn
In which of Shakespeare’s plays does the stage direction “Exit – pursued by a bear” appear?
(a) A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(b) The Winter’s Tale
(c) Twelfth Night
From which country does Paddington Bear originate?
(a) Darkest Peru
(b) Deepest Brazil
(c) Jolliest Japan
What is inaccurate, in a botanical sense, about the name of the Brazil nut?
(a) It is not from Brazil
(b) It is not a nut
(c) It is neither a nut nor from Brazil
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In the Ice Age movies, what is the name of the nutty prehistoric sabre-toothed squirrel who spends his whole life pursuing an acorn?
(a) Scrat
(b) Splat
(c) Snout
James Bond’s “icecold” martini, as ordered by the spy in the first novel of his adventures, Casino Royale, is shaken of course, not stirred. But which ingredients, along with “a large, thin slice of lemon peel”, does it contain?
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? (a) A little vodka and lashings of lemonade
(b) Two parts gin to one part vermouth (c) Three parts gin to one of vodka and a half of vermouth
What was the profession of the real-life James Bond whose name Ian Fleming appropriated for his novels?
(a) Ophthalmologist
(b) Ornithologist
(c) Explorer
What is the name of Dora the Explorer’s talking monkey companion?
(a) Boots
(b) Hattie
(c) Cap
William Boot is the hero of which of Evelyn Waugh’s novels?
(a) Brideshead Revisited
(b) Vile Bodies
(c) Scoop
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Auberon
Evelyn
What was the name of Evelyn Waugh’s first wife?
(a) Sybil
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What did the farmer’s wife do to the three blind mice?
(a) Found them three guide dogs
(b) Cut off their tails with a carving knife
(c) Put them in a pie
What was the name of the first Mickey Mouse film to be distributed, which became the most popular cartoon of its day?
(a) Steamboat Willie
(b) Tugboat Mickey
(c) Sailboat Minnie
A public online poll to choose a new name for a polar exploration ship in 2016 resulted in a landslide win for “Boaty McBoatface”. Which name – fourth in the poll – was the ship eventually given?
(a) Horatio Nelson
(b) Dame Ellen MacArthur
(c) Sir David Attenborough
What is the name of the first book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which is largely set in the polar regions of the Arctic?
(a) Northern Soul
(b) Northern Lights
(c) Northern Line
Booming-voiced actor Brian Blessed claims to have been the oldest man to reach the North Pole. Who is the oldest man to have visited the South Pole?
(a) Brian Blessed, of course
(b) Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon
(c) Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon