The Sunday family quiz
Have a go around the lunch table, or share with friends and relatives Like a conversation around the table, the Family Quiz follows a thread and everyone can join in. Some questions suit younger quizzers, but really it’s a free-for-all. Don’t all shout at
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Seventy years ago today, the first scheduled transatlantic passenger flights commenced, between Heathrow and Idlewild (now JFK) airport in New York. The airline involved is still flying. Which one?
(a) British Airways
(b) American Airlines
(c) El Al
The land that was to become Heathrow was bought by the aircraft manufacturer Richard Fairey in 1930 for £15,000. From whom?
(a) The Vicar of Harmondsworth
(b) The Royal family
(c) The Earl of Carnarvon
In which popular television series did the ancestral home of the Earls of Carnarvon achieve national fame under an assumed name?
(a) To the Manor Born
(b) Downton Abbey
(c) The Pursuit of Love
Hugh Bonneville, who stars in Downton Abbey, also plays the adoptive father of an unusual refugee from the animal kingdom who is startlingly
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(a) Lassie
(b) Black Beauty
(c) Paddington Bear
Euclid of Alexandria, known as the “father of geometry” was asked by one of his pupils what the use of his studies might be. How did Euclid indicate the value of learning to this student?
(a) Gave him threepence
(b) Gave him a golden set square
(c) Gave him a clip round the ear
The UK decimalised its currency just over 50 years ago. What would be the equivalent value, in current money, of a pre-decimalisation threepenny bit?
(a) 1.25p
(b) 0.0125p
(c) 12.5p
One pre-decimal coin, the florin, long survived decimalisation day, remaining in common and legal usage until 1992 at the same value as its successor. Which was …?
(a) 5p
(b) 50p
(c) 10p
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The florin was named after an ancient coinage originating in which great trading centre?
(a) Florida
(b) Flanders
(c) Florence
Whereabouts in the state of Florida will you find Main Street, USA, a popular site for parades?
(a) Miami Beach
(b) Disney World
(c) Busch Gardens
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? 461 Ocean Boulevard (in Golden Beach, Florida) was both the recording location and the name of a best-selling album by which musician?
(a) Bob Marley
(b) Aretha Franklin
(c) Eric Clapton
Jacob Marley appears in ghostly form in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. What was the character’s cause of death?
(a) Nobody knows
(b) Toothache
(c) Spontaneous combustion
Which of these has the most teeth?
(a) Great white shark
(b) Garden snail
(c) Saltwater crocodile
What was the name of the snail in the peculiar but successful children’s television series The Magic Roundabout?
(a) Brian
(b) Speedy
(c) Slowcoach
The MAGIC website contains a vast pool of UK government information on which general topic?
(a) Internal security
(b) Air traffic control
(c) Geography
MI5 is the UK’s Security Service, and MI6 gathers intelligence overseas. MI7 no longer exists – officially, at least – but what did it do in the past?
(a) Interpretation of aerial reconnaissance
(b) Creation and distribution of propaganda
(c) Unconventional weapons development