Apologies for the lack of activity on this site recently. Have been busy with other things (usually including crashing computers) but will post more regularly from the middle of next week. Anyway, here's one to keep you going:
1. The 17th Century German-born scientist Franciscus Sylvius is usually credited with the invention of which spirit?
2. Which island and UNESCO World Heritage Site, lying off the coast of Queensland, is the world's largest sand island?
3. Three years before his assassination in 1923, the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa ended his revolutionary activity after negotiating a peace deal with which Mexican President?
4. Designed by Antoni Gaudí, by what name (meaning 'the quarry' in Catalan) is the Casa Milà in Barcelona otherwise known?
5. The Angkor Wat in Cambodia was built as a symbolic representation of which mythical mountain?
6. What first name did the medical student Jean Marc Gaspard Itard give to the 'The Wild Boy of Aveyron' who was found in the woods near Saint Sernin sur Rance in France in 1797 and who, it would seem, spent almost his whole childhood alone in the woods?
7. Which author coined the word 'factoid', that appears in the 'Oxford English Dictionary' as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true", in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe?
8. Which is the southernmost city (population 216,473) of Canada and the only Canadian city to lie due south of the 48 contiguous United States?
9. Which scientist, born in 1776, held the title Count of Quaregna and Cerreto?
10. Which historic European city was formerly known in English as Ragusa, and is still known by that name in Italian?
11. At 4,700 years old, what name has been given to the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine that has held the record of the world's oldest tree since another Bristlecone, called Prometheus, was cut down by an over-eager graduate student in 1964?
12. Which arcade game, released by Nintendo in 1981, is notable for providing the first appearance of Super Mario (then known as Jumpman)?
13. The British Captain Arthur Roston was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and invited to dine with President Taft as a result of his ship saving 705 people from the Titanic after responding to a distress signal. What was the name of his ship?
14. Released in June and October 2007 respectively, which Anglo-Swedish rock group's first two singles, 'Worried About Ray' and 'Goodbye Mr A', both peaked at number 5 in the UK charts?
15. Born in 1980, 1983 and 1985 respectively, how are Isaac, Taylor and Zac collectively known?
16. Which Slovakian tennis player, thought by many as the greatest player never to have won a Grand Slam, was Ivan Lendl's opponent in the 1986 US Open final, the last Grand Slam final to see a player still using a wooden racket?
17. Luis Buñuel's 1965 film 'Simón del desierto' is loosely based on the life of which Christian ascetic?
18. Which Danish linguist, who was also involved in the creation of Ido and Interlingua, introduced the constructed international auxiliary language Novial in his 1928 book 'An International Language'?
19. A silhouette of an American bison (or buffalo) appears on the flag of which of the United States?
20. (I can't resist this one) There are two subspecies of American bison - the Plains bison and the Wood bison. What is the wonderful zoological name for the Plains bison?
21. Which South African became only the third cricketer ever to hit six sixes from one over in first-class cricket at the 2007 World Cup against the Netherlands?
22. And which Indian became only the fourth cricketer ever to hit six sixes from one over in first-class cricket at the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 against England?
23. What was the stage-name of the Canadian-born American actress Ellen Evangeline Hovick, the younger sister of Gypsy Rose Lee, whose last film role was as Aunt Clara in the 1987 movie 'A Return to Salem's Lot'?
24. A compound of the Greek word for 'solid' and the Latin word for 'ray' or 'beam', what name is given to the SI unit of solid angle?
25. Published in 'Comics Review' in 1965, the short story 'In a Half-World of Terror', later renamed as 'I Was a Teenage Grave Robber', was the first published work by which novelist?
26. Which Russian male high jumper set a new championship record and personal best at the 2006 European Championships with a jump of 2.36 metres and jumped a new personal best of 2.37 metres a week later in Monaco?
27. Which American city, which according to a 2001 study is the most commonly misspelled city in the USA, stands on the Allegheny Plateau where the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form the Ohio River?
28. In 1913, which Bengali novelist and playwright became the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?
29. Founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, what was the name of the group of writers and mathematicians who sought to create works using constraining writing techniques such as lipograms and palindromes?
30. The annual World Series of Roshambo is the premier event for 'professional' players of roshambo. By what name is this game commonly known?
The answers:
1. GIN
2. FRASER ISLAND
3. ADOLFO DE LA HUERTA
4. LA PEDRERA
5. MOUNT MERU
6. VICTOR
7. NORMAN MAILER
8. MADISON
9. AMEDEO AVOGADRO
10. DUBROVNIK
11. METHUSELAH
12. DONKEY KONG
13. RMS CARPATHIA
14. THE HOOSIERS
15. HANSON
16. MILOSLAV MEČÍŘ
17. SIMEON STYLITES
18. OTTO JESPERSEN
19. WYOMING
20. BISON BISON BISON
21. HERSCHELLE GIBBS
22. YUVRAJ SINGH
23. JUNE HAVOC
24. STERADIAN
25. STEPHEN KING
26. ANDREY SILNOV
27. PITTSBURGH
28. RABINDRANATH TAGORE
29. OULIPO
30. ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS (or PAPER, SCISSORS, STONE etc.)
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