Welcome to the MS Christmas quiz – 82 general knowledge questions with a few mortgage related ones just to keep you honest.
All the answers are at the bottom – good luck and no Google searching!
Happy Christmas!!
1 Who directed the films Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Dune?
2 Which UK singer and guitarist was born John Graham Mellor in August 1952?
3 Which famous sports venue has the post code M16 ORA?
4 Which famous British comedian said: “I went to the University of Life and was chucked out.”
5 Which of these actors is the odd one out: Dame Maggie Smith, John Hurt, Sir Ian McKellan, Warwick Davies, Alan Rickman, John Cleese and Julie Walters?
6 The oldest club in the Premier League right now was founded in 1865 – which team is it?
7 When was the Stamp duty land tax (SDLT) first introduced?
8 Which band was at number one in the charts in Christmas 1973?
9 Which country performed the first moon landing and in which year?
10 Who was born Robert Alan Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941?
11 Which former Premier League manager said: “There’s a reason that God gave us two ears, two eyes, and one mouth. It’s so you can listen and watch twice as much as you talk.”
12 Which British actress, a Dame, said: “When I was about 25, I went to a hand reader, this Indian guy in a funky neighbourhood. He said: The height of your success won’t happen until you’re in your late 40s.”
13 In what year did the UK Chancellor hand control of the setting of the base interest rate to an independent Bank of England?
14 Whose autobiography first published in 2010 was titled The Devil in the Kitchen?
15) What is a Bogo-Indian Defense?
16 Which Beatle notched up three number one hits in the space of just eight weeks in December 1980?
17 Who is the oldest actor to have won an Oscar?
18 Which former US president said: ‘A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.’
19 And which other US president a century earlier said: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
20 Which sports star has the highest career earnings Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan?
21 Which athlete famously ran in the 1984 3,000 metres Olympic final in bare feet?
22 There have been a total of three FA Cup finals decided by a penalty shootout. When was the first and who were the teams involved?
23 Mortgage Interest Relief at Source MIRAS saw a steady reduction in the rate of relief over a number of years but which UK chancellor completely abolished it?
24 Which football player holds the record for scoring the most penalties in the Premier League?
25 Before joining the euro currency, two other countries other than the UK used ‘pounds’. Which were they?
26 Who was the first US president to take up residence at the White House?
27 Which Essex-born guitarist was christened David Howell Evans?
28 Which actor said these words, and in which 1966 film?
“There are two types of people in the world: those with a gun, and those who dig.”
29 Two female British athletes won medals for javelin at the 1984 Olympic Games. Can you name them?
30 What was the average UK house price in 1925? (To the nearest £50!)
31 Robbie Williams had a mega-hit with the song, ‘She’s the One’. Who wrote it?
32 What do the Kray twins and Rudolf Hess have in common?
33 Who famously said: “I’ve been through more cold turkeys than there are freezers.”
34 The biggest selling book of the 20th century has sold over 150 million copies. What is the title?
35 Which music legend in April 1965 bought a house for £40,000 at 7 Cavendish Avenue in St John’s Wood, London? And what is the property worth today?
36 Which 1979 film includes the line: “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream. That’s my nightmare.” And which actor said it?
37 Which team won the Premier League in its inaugural season (1992-1993)?
38 Who is recorded as the fastest ever bowler in test cricket?
39 Put these Royal Palace in order of worth (most expensive first).
Kensington, Windsor, Hampton Court, Balmoral, Sandringham
40 During the dotcom bubble which major company saw its stock fall 90% across two years, from a high of $107 to a low of $7.
41 Which well-known football manager said: “Beckham? His wife can’t sing and his barber can’t cut hair.”
42 “Larry, I’m a cop…..I’m so sorry”’ is a famous quote from the last scene in a 1993 Hollywood classic. What is the film and which actor said the line?
43 What do the Pantheon in Rome and the Sydney Harbour Bridge have in common?
44 The first performance of which famous composer’s requiem was at his own remembrance ceremony?
45 Which was the first UK bank to offer a credit card and in what year?
46 The earliest modern British cheque that we know of was made payable to a Mr Delboe for £400, approximately £76,000 in today’s money.
The payment was made by a merchant Nicholas Vanacker, to be drawn on City bankers Messrs Morris and Clayton. But what year was it – to the nearest 50?
47 Which famous UK bands were originally called On a Friday, and Seymour?
48 What did the players wear in the FA Cup Final of April 1933 for the very first time?
49 ‘I believe in America. America has made my fortune’. These are the first lines from which Oscar winning Hollywood film?
50 Before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 what percentage of the adult population owned their own home?
Was it 15%; 20% or 30%?
51 Which global cities were previously named Bearbrass; Anslo, Port Natal, Mancuniam?
52 Which New York-born author wrote: “Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for”.
53 Which English author wrote: “I’ve had the sort of day that would make St. Francis of Assisi kick babies.”
54 At the age of 22 in 1957 Elvis Presley bought Graceland a colonial-style mansion on 13.8 acres in Memphis, Tennessee.
What did he pay for it? To the nearest $50k
55 Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles was made famous in two major films – one from 1955 and the other from 2016. Can you name both films?
56 Which famous US rock star who holds a black belt in karate said: “You’ve got to stand up for something or you’ll fall for anything”.
57 Which of these chefs has never been awarded a Michelin star.
Marco Pierre White, Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein
58 What sports-related connection do Zurich, HSBC and Standard Life have?
59 In order of average weight put these big cats in order of size.
Leopard, Tiger, Jaguar, Lion, Puma
60 What year were women finally given the same voting rights as men in the UK?
61 The following post codes are for famous UK locations – can you name them?
SW1A 2AA, SW19 5AE, L4 0TH, EH1 2NG
62 In which monarch’s reign was stamp duty on property transactions first introduced?
63 Which of the these have NOT at any time been subject to taxation?
Beards, windows, wallpaper, trees, hats, clocks
64 Mix grenadine, tequila, triple sec, orange juice and a cocktail cherry – what do you get?
65 Who was the last British athlete to win an Olympic 800m gold medal?
66 Which sporting legend once said: “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”
67 What (to the nearest thousand) was the average UK house price in 1980?
68 The concept of mortgages in England can be traced back centuries – but to what century specifically?
69 There are a quite a few football managers who have managed the same club twice but only one manager has returned to two different premiership clubs. Who is he?
70 Which famous politician said: “Dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed – but they can never be appeased.”
71 Who was the first Beatle to have a solo number one single in the UK chart? And what was the song?
72 Which of these UK cathedrals is the largest, Westminster Abbey, Liverpool Cathedral or St Pauls?
73) Name the film that ends with the line “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads?”
74 Who was the last of the Stuart monarchs of Great Britain and Ireland who united England and Scotland under one flag and coinage?
75 What is the oldest London Underground line?
76 Which famous New York landmark was constructed in 1983 on the former site of the Bonwit Teller flagship store?
77 Which Hollywood giant said: “How can money be the root of all evil when shopping is the cure for all sadness?”
78 Which of these films is the odd one out and why? Citizen Kane, Shakespeare in Love; Vertigo; The Graduate, Apocalypse Now; and Saving Private Ryan.
79 What is taken to every FA Cup final but never used?
80 Which US author wrote in 2006: “You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” In 2008, a film adaptation of one of his books won best picture Oscar.
81 What is the longest river in the UK?
82 The first building society was founded 250 years ago – what was it called?
ANSWERS
1 David Lynch; 2 Joe Strummer; 3 Old Trafford; 4 Peter Cook; 5 Sir Ian McKellan is the only one not to have played a character in a Harry Potter film; 6 Nottingham Forest; 7 2003; 8 Slade with Merry Christmas Everybody
9 The Soviet Union with Luna 2 in 1959; 10 Bob Dylan; 11 Alex Ferguson, 12 Helen Mirren 13 1997; 14 Marco Pierre White; 15) a chess move;16 John Lennon
17 Anthony Hopkins aged 83 for The Father; 18 Dwight D. Eisenhower;19 Abraham Lincoln; 20 Michael Jordan; 21 Zola Budd; 22 It was in 2005 – Arsenal vs. Manchester United; 23 Gordon Brown
24 Alan Shearer; 25 Ireland and Cyprus; 26 John Adams; 27 The Edge; 28 Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; 29 £440; 30 Karl Wallinger (formerly of the Waterboys) 30 £447, 31 Karl Wallinger
32 All three were temporarily imprisoned in the Tower of London; 33 Keith Richards; 34 Lord of the Rings; 35 Sir Paul McCartney and approx. £16.5m; 36 Apocalypse Now and Marlon Brando; 37 Manchester United; 38 Shoaib Akhtar
39 Hampton Court, Windsor, Kensington, Sandringham, Balmoral ; 40 Amazon; 41: Brian Clough; 42 Reservoir Dogs and Tim Roth; 43 Both are made of concrete; 44 Mozart; 45 Barclaycard and 1966
46: 1659; 47 Radiohead and Blur; 48 Both teams wore shirt numbers; 49 The Godfather; 50 15%; 51 Melbourne, Oslo, Durban, Manchester; 52 Joseph Heller; 53 Douglas Adams;
54 Presley paid $102,500 for Graceland; 55 Rebel Without a Cause, and La La Land; 56 Chrissie Hynde; 57 Rick Stein; 58 They were all shirt sponsors of the British & Irish Lions; 59 Tiger, Lion, Jaguar, Leopard, Puma; 60 1928
61 Downing Street; Wimbledon Tennis Club, Anfield, Edinburgh Castle; 62 Queen Victoria (1853); 63 Trees; 64 Tequila Sunrise; 65 Keely Hodgkinson 66 Muhammad Ali; 67 £23k; 68: 12th century; 69 David Moyes; 70 Margaret Thatcher, 71 George Harrison and My Sweet Lord; 72 Liverpool Cathedral; 73 Back to the Future; 74 Queen Anne;
75 The Metropolitan Railway (now Metropolitan Line); 76 Trump Tower ; 77 Liz Taylor; 78 Shakespeare in Love is the only film to win an Oscar for best picture. 79 The losing team’s ribbons for the cup; 80 Cormac McCarthy; 81 The River Severn; 82 Ketley’s Building Society,
