Thursday night pub quiz

Well, we’re back!

A lot of conventioneers show up on the Thursday night before the Convention and it has become traditional to hold a pub quiz to keep them entertained that night. After all, we’ll be spending a lot of time over the next few days making our own entertainment.

But the problem is that Discworld fans tend to be very very good at quizzes and so the pub quiz was handed over to a warped soul who dug deep into the twisted recesses of her mind (and Wikipedia) to produce a work of torture that was greeted with loud groans, death threats and much gratuitous heckling.

With that in mind, it’s time to share the pain. This year, there was a Roundworld question loosely based on each Discworld book, excluding the Young Adults and spin-offs. The maximum number of points varied and are listed in brackets after the book title. The answers will appear in a couple of days.

This is no ordinary pub quiz. This is the Discworld Convention 2008 Pub Quiz.


1. The Colour of Magic (7)
Name the colours of the rainbow.

2. The Light Fantastic (4)
Name the four planets that the Voyager probes have done fly-bys of.

3. Equal Rites (1)
Who was the first woman to be elected to the UK House of Commons?

4. Mort (1)
In Greek Mythology, what was the name of the ferryman on the Styx?

5. Sourcery (1)
What city has the tallest completed freestanding building in the world?

6. Wyrd Sisters (1)
In Hamlet, what is the name of the play performed by the Players?

7. Pyramids (1)
What was the original name of jelly babies?

8. Guards! Guards! (2)
Name the magistrate brothers who founded the Bow Street Runners

9. Eric (1)
Who was Dante's guide through hell?

10. Moving Pictures (1)
Who has won the most number of Oscars ever?

11. Reaper Man (3)
What band recorded the song "Combine Harvester", in what year was it released, and what was its highest point in the UK charts?

12. Witches Abroad (1)
Name the man commonly credited with inventing the package holiday, which began with an 11-mile journey in 1841.

13. Small Gods (2)
How many Theses were there in "The Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" and what door did he nail them to?

14. Lords and Ladies (1)
In the town of Kilorglin, Kerry, what is a puck?

15. Men at Arms (1)
Which police force, still in existence, is commonly reckoned to be the UK's first organised police force and has been based on the same site since 1798?

16. Soul Music (1)
What was Kirsty MacColl’s first single to reach the charts in the UK?

17. Interesting Times (1)
How many World Heritage Sites does Unesco list as being in China?

18. Maskerade (1)
Which opera, first performed in 1728, was said to have made its writer rich and its producer gay?

19. Feet of Clay (1)
Which English monarch founded the College of Arms?

20. Hogfather (1)
Who was a frequent visitor to Number Seventeen, Cherry Tree Lane?

21. Jingo (1)
Which novel, adapted into a film starring Peter Sellers, described the war between the USA and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick?

22. The Last Continent (2)
What pet did Matthew Flinders take with him on his circumnavigation of Australia, and what was its name?

23. Carpe Jugulum (1)
Name the eponymous vampire in Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel.

24. The Fifth Elephant (2)
Which British politician said: "Only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein Question. The first was Albert, the Prince consort and he is dead; the second is a German professor, and he is in an asylum: and the third was myself - and I..." How did he complete the sentence?

25. The Truth (1)
Which UK national newspaper was founded to campaign against the Duke of Cambridge becoming commander in chief of the British Army?

26. Thief of Time (1)
Who invented the marine chronometer?

27. The Last Hero (1)
What was the name of the 1902 film commonly reckoned to be the first science-fiction film ever?

28. Night Watch (2)
What were "Winchester Geese" and where would you find them?

29. Monstrous Regiment (2)
When was the most recent FIFA Womens' World Cup and who won it?

30. Going Postal (1)
"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed". Herodotus said that of the postal service of which country?

31. Thud! (1)
What is the rank below Grandmaster as awarded by the Federation Internationale des Echecs?

32. Making Money (1)
In what year were women first admitted as members of the London Stock Exchange?