| Which General Election was called the ‘coupon’ election and was won by Lloyd George? | 1918 |
| Which philosopher argued against inductive reasoning by saying that ‘no matter how many white swans you see, it would be wrong to argue therefore that all swans are white’? | Karl Popper |
| Which Roman satirist coined the phrase ‘rara avis’ for something highly improbable, giving the then unknown black swan as an example? | Juvenal |
| Who are the three traitors being chewed on in the centre of Hell in Dante’s Inferno? | Judas Iscariot, Cassius and Brutus |
| Lucius Aelius Seianus was commander of the Praetorian Guard from AD 14 until his execution in 31AD on the orders of his boss, Tiberius, who decided he had become too powerful. By what name is he usually known? | Sejanus |
| When written out in words, the first appearance of the letter a is not until 101. In which number is the first occurance of the letter b? | One billion |
| Benjamin Britten’s war requiem features words by which poet? | Wilfred Owen |
| Who was the librettist for Britten’s Paul Bunyan? | W H Auden |
| Who was the librettist for Britten’s Billy Budd? | E M Forster |
| In 1990, which country marked World Environment Day by adopting three national flowers- the moon orchid, Rafflesia and the jasmine? | Indonesia |
| How many views of Mount Fuji did Hokusai famously create? | Thirty-six |
| In which city would you drink the strong alcoholic cocktail ‘Hand Grenade’? | New Orleans |
| Turritopsis nutricula is an animal that is, bizarrely, effectively immortal. Which kind of animal is it? | Jellyfish |
| In the animal kingdom, which species were Roy and Silo in Central Park Zoo? | Chinstrap penguins |
| Which phenomenon is where a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than the liquid’s boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer which keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly. This is most commonly seen when cooking; one sprinkles drops of water in a skillet to gauge its temperature? | Leidenfrost effect |
| Clarias batrachus is a kind of fish from south-east Asia famed for its ability to ‘walk’. What kind of fish is it? | Catfish |
| Which man was due to become the first cosmonaut in space but died in a launchpad accident, his existence being kept a secret until the 1980s? | Valentin Bondarenko |
| South Africa’s national flower is the largest member of which plant genus? | Protea |
| Born in 1958, whose works have included The Ongoing Moment on the subject of photography and Ways of Telling on the wirter and critic John Berger? | Geoff Dyer |
| Which is the only country in the world that is one hour behind Greenwich Mean Time? | Cape Verde Islands |
| In which decade did Japan annex Taiwan? | 1890s |
| The Max Havelaar label was used to show foods with which characteristic? | Fairtrade |
| Achilles and Priam, Joan of Arc, Les Foins 1878, Pauvre Fauvette and Les Enfants pêcheurs are all works by which French painter, 1848 to 1884? | Jules Bastien-Lepage |
| Which area of Paris gets its name as it was the site of a temple to the Roman god of war and the location of the death of St Denis? | Montmartre |