Welcome back to week 4! Huge thanks for joining me on this journey of quiz revision — I really hope you enjoy it. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend having a quick read of my introductory post ( https://substack.com/home/post/p-161751014?source=queue) where I say something about the philosophy of these weekly quizzes and why I’ve structured them in the way I have.
As with previous weeks, you’ll find the answers to each round immediately after said round, rather than all together at the end. And if a question begins “[PICTURE]” then it relates in some way to the image included at the beginning of the round: there will be one such question in every round.
Feel free to post your scores in the comments, and especially to share answers you’re proud of, frustrating misses, facts you found interesting, or extra information — I’m keen for this to be an active community so conversation is encouraged, provided you all keep it friendly and respectful.
Round 1 — Warm-Up
[PICTURE] Queen Elizabeth I was the final English monarch to represent what dynasty? After she died childless in 1603, the English throne passed to the Scottish House of Stuart.
What verb can either refer to a method of cooking eggs where the whites and yolks are beaten together before heating, or a rapid deployment of military aircraft in response to a crisis?
The chorus of what 1976 hit by ABBA describes the title figure as “young and sweet, only seventeen”?
In the abbreviation SATB, referring to the standard four-part system of notation for choral music, the letter S stands for what word, designating the highest-pitched singing voice?
The TV personalities Carol Vorderman, Rachel Riley, and Susie Dent all found fame as assistant presenters on what beloved British daytime game show, broadcast on Channel 4 since 1982?
Scottish physician Alexander Fleming originally gave the name “mould juice” to what very famous antibiotic whose properties he discovered by accident in 1928?
Also the name of a luxury watch brand which uses the letter as its logo, what is the last letter of the Greek alphabet?
Which UK Prime Minister, in office from 2016 to 2019, was much mocked for her increasingly hollow boasts of providing “strong and stable” leadership, and for a 2017 interview where she claimed the naughtiest thing she had ever done was irritating local farmers as a child by “running through fields of wheat”?
Bundled with the Microsoft Windows operating system from the early 1990s until 2012, what logic puzzle video game features a board of clickable tiles which the player has to clear, using numerical clues to avoid certain tiles which, if clicked, will detonate an “explosion”?
Both in the Atlantic Ocean, Madeira and the Azores are autonomous regions of what European country?
What frozen food brand is named after the American pioneer of fast-freezing technology, with the first name Clarence, who established the company in 1922? Clarence bore no resemblance to the white-bearded West Country mariner who serves as this brand’s mascot in the UK.
What kind of animal is addressed as “Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie” in a poem by Scots bard Robert Burns? Another line in the same poem inspired the title of a 1937 novella by John Steinbeck.
Wales’s Barry John, England’s Jonny Wilkinson, and New Zealand’s Dan Carter are considered among the greatest players of all time in what rugby union position? The player in this position wears the number 10 and is usually responsible for co-ordinating the team’s back line.
In which 1942 movie, one of the best-known works of Classic Hollywood cinema, does Ingrid Bergman’s character ask the piano player Sam to “play As Time Goes By”?
The second-busiest railway station in Paris, after the Gare du Nord, is named after what other major French city which this station serves?
What three words begin the titles of several successful podcasts produced by Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger media company, preceding (in two examples) the words “Politics” and “Entertainment”?
Basketball legend Michael Jordan won six NBA Championships with the Bulls, a team based in what US city?
One of the most iconic artworks by Andy Warhol is a series of 32 canvases depicting different flavours of canned soup manufactured by what American company?
The title of what award-winning anthology TV series created by Charlie Brooker references the appearance of an electronic device’s screen when the device is switched off?
What word, meaning the remnant of a prehistoric organism preserved in rock, can also precede “fuel” to denote certain non-renewable energy sources?
Round 1 — ANSWERS
Tudor
Scramble
Dancing Queen
Soprano
Countdown
Penicillin
Omega
Theresa May
Minesweeper
Portugal
Birds Eye
Mouse (the Steinbeck novel being Of Mice and Men)
Fly half (alternatively known as stand-off or first five-eighth)
Casablanca
Lyon
The Rest Is …
Chicago
Campbell’s
Black Mirror
Fossil
Round 2 — The Fundamentals: Lifestyle
The lifestyle category is both beloved and notorious as one of the great levellers in competitive quiz, and (not coincidentally) is also the category most resistant to establishing a stable canon of essential facts. I’ve learned first-hand that no amount of studious revision can defend you against a lifestyle question where the answer-line may never have appeared in a quiz before, and may not even have a Wikipedia page, but, for your opponent, is quite literally a household name. However, for that very reason, I’ve also found the gradual process of improving my lifestyle knowledge to be an especially enjoyable facet of quiz revision, encouraging me to be more alert and receptive to the world around me rather than simply burying my nose in past papers. To give just one example, I’d surely walked past the display of a certain high-end brand of ready meals hundreds of times in the supermarket before I got a question about them wrong in a quiz, but the next time I saw them I was finally primed to pay attention — fast-forward a year or so and I enjoyed one of their Thai red curries this week!
An alien named Snoo is the mascot for what popular social media platform, whose content is organised across hundreds of thousands of user-created communities with names like “r/ShowerThoughts” and “r/ExplainLikeImFive”?
Meaning “shaded” in French, what word is widely used in both hair-styling and interior design (as well as many other contexts) to refer to the effect of gradually blending one colour into another?
Also a rather old-fashioned boy’s name, what is the acronymic name of the random-number-generating machine used for the UK government’s monthly Premium Bond lottery?
Named after an American gynaecologist, Kegel exercises are also known as PFE, with the letters PF standing for what muscular structure at the base of the abdomen?
“We can go to the moon — so why can’t we stop my glasses sliding down my nose?” is one of countless inimitable headlines from which broadcaster’s regular column in The Guardian, which has gained a devoted audience for its genial coverage of the mundanities of everyday life? The author is currently married to Katherine Viner, The Guardian’s editor-in-chief.
A popular rite-of-passage holiday destination for British teenagers, as depicted for example in The Inbetweeners Movie, the party hotspot of Malia is located on which Mediterranean island?
[PICTURE] Developed from the Chinese yo-yo, what name is usually given to the juggling prop often used by circus performers which consists of two connected cups forming an hourglass shape which can be thrown, spun, and caught on a string held between two sticks?
Which French culinary term refers to the technique of chopping leafy vegetables or flat-leaf herbs (e.g. spinach or basil) into thin strips, by stacking the leaves, rolling them tightly, and slicing perpendicular to the roll?
Initially specialising in car suspension systems, British industrial designer George Carwardine is most famous for creating what enduringly popular model of reading lamp, patented in 1932, whose spring-balanced mechanism was inspired by the structure of the human arm?
With a name derived from the Italian for “stained”, what coffee drink consists of a shot of espresso topped with a small splash of foamed milk?
First launched in 1995, what is the name of the audiobook and podcast service which since 2008 has been wholly owned by Amazon, and can be seamlessly synchronised with a Kindle reader via its WhisperSync feature?
Historically worn by peasants in the Basque Country and Catalonia, what style of casual shoe consists of a simple canvas upper with a flexible sole made from rope fibres?
Associated with the Japanese “kawaii” (cuteness) aesthetic, what three-letter palindromic word denotes an emoticon of two closed eyes on either side of a cat-like mouth, used to convey a sense of blissful (perhaps rather smug) happiness?
What brand name completes this iconic, although empirically questionable, UK advertising jingle: “Washing machines live longer with…”?
Which American actress and style icon made fashion headlines with her choice of a black ruffled gown, bought off the peg, for her 1997 wedding to Matthew Broderick? The nuptials as a whole were notably low-key, with all the guests having simply been invited to attend a “party”.
What consumer electronics brand, now most synonymous with high-quality headphones and speakers, was founded 100 years ago in 1925 by two Danish engineers with the forenames Peter and Svend?
With a name translating as “grilled bird”, what popular Japanese street food dish, resembling a Middle Eastern shish kebab, consists of small pieces of chicken attached to a skewer and grilled over charcoal?
Founded in 2004 by British entrepreneur Paul Lindley, and named after his infant daughter, what popular brand of baby and toddler food is best known for their range of squeezable pouches, decorated with childish colourful pictures of their fruit and vegetable ingredients?
After an item of military equipment, what name is given to the standard fitting mechanism for light bulbs in the United Kingdom and several former members of the British Empire, in contrast to the Edison screw fitting that is more common in North America and continental Europe?
In what ubiquitous genre of YouTube videos do the creators film themselves slowly extracting brand-new consumer products, most commonly electronic gadgets, from their packaging?
Round 2 — ANSWERS
Reddit
Ombré
ERNIE
Pelvic floor
Adrian Chiles
Crete
Diabolo
Chiffonade
Anglepoise
Macchiato
Audible
Espadrilles
UwU
Calgon
Sarah Jessica Parker
Bang & Olufsen
Yakitori (accept kushiyaki, which is a more general term not specific to chicken)
Ella’s Kitchen
Bayonet
Unboxing
Round 3 — A Deeper Dive: Classical Music (post-1900)
As I’m going to try to do fairly often with Round 3, this week I’m testing an area of knowledge which is likely to fall quite far outside the wheelhouse of a lot of readers, including a lot of experienced quizzers. In this case, I’m very much including myself in that camp: despite several years of enthusiastic choral singing at school, and my annual briefly sustained attempts to get into the habit of watching the Proms on TV, I have yet to develop any proper relationship with classical music. Indeed, I confess that I still often skip past the classical audio rounds on ‘University Challenge’. My own jejune palate and deplorable attention span notwithstanding, however, it goes without saying that this a topic that any serious programme of quiz revision needs to address, and I’m aware that there’s a lot of terrific music out there which perhaps this round might guide some of you towards. I doubt that the 30-second audio files I often attach to my classical music flashcards represent the best path towards falling in love with the art-form, but one day there may be hope even for me!
The instantly recognisable opening glissando from George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is performed by what woodwind instrument?
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen and Deep River were among the five African-American spirituals incorporated by British composer Michael Tippett into which secular oratorio, written in response to the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938?
The model for many other national youth orchestras around the world, El Sistema is a state-financed musical education programme in what country? Conductor Gustavo Dudamel is its most famous alumnus.
First performed as part of the Three Choirs Festival in 1910, one of the most beloved pieces by Ralph Vaughan Williams is a Fantasia on a tune from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, written by which 16th-century English composer?
Featuring a recurring 5/8 motif suggestive of the beating of oars, which symphonic poem by Sergei Rachmaninoff was inspired by a painting of the same name by Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin?
A major influence on The Velvet Underground’s John Cale, which American minimalist composer and pioneer of drone music wrote the text-based series Compositions 1960, one of whose pieces instructs the performer to bring a bale of hay onto the stage for the piano to eat?
What order of nuns is named in the title of a 1957 opera by Francis Poulenc, based on a true story from the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror? In the opera’s stunning finale, the chorus of nuns sing Deo Patri sit gloria, progressively more quietly, as they are guillotined one by one.
Which British patriotic hymn is set to Gustav Holst’s tune Thaxted, which originated as part of the ‘Jupiter’ movement from The Planets?
Which Finnish composer’s opera L’amour de loin, based on the life of medieval troubadour Jaufré Rudel, was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 2016, making her the first female composer since 1903 (and the second in history) to have an opera staged by the Met?
The unusual 1962 composition Poème symphonique by György Ligeti is scored for 100 of what devices, which are often used in classical music but rarely as instruments?
Written to accompany a 1934 film of the same name, which suite by Sergei Prokofiev makes prominent use of jingling sleigh bells in its very recognisable ‘Troika’ movement?
The first opera specifically composed for US television, the Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, broadcast live on NBC on Christmas Eve 1951, was written by what Italian-American composer, who had a four-decade-long relationship with fellow composer Samuel Barber?
From a Greek word for “wailing”, what unusual word for a mourning hymn was most famously used by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki in the title of his string piece [BLANK] to the Victims of Hiroshima?
[PICTURE] Featuring cumbersome Cubist costumes designed by Picasso, the 1917 ballet Parade was a collaboration between choreographer Léonide Massine, writer Jean Cocteau, and what composer?
What leading Japanese composer of the 20th century, also known for his many film scores, included traditional Japanese instruments like the biwa and shakuhachi alongside Western orchestral instruments in works such as 1967’s November Steps?
Based on a play by Karel Čapek (best known for coining the word “robot”), what 1926 opera by Leoš Janáček centres on an opera singer who uses an elixir of immortality to prolong her career indefinitely, adopting numerous aliases over the centuries while retaining the initials E.M.?
Six of the pieces performed at the 2023 coronation of King Charles III featured new arrangements by which English composer of choral music, the founder of the Cambridge Singers, whose most popular works are probably his numerous modern Christmas carols?
The final movement of what A minor symphony by Gustav Mahler features three strokes from a giant mallet, representing the crushing “hammer blows of fate”? You may answer either with the symphony’s number or its common nickname.
What surname was coincidentally shared by the first African-American female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra (in 1933), and the opera singer who was the first African-American prima donna to perform at Milan’s La Scala (in 1960)?
Written in a German POW camp in 1941 and first performed by his fellow inmates (supposedly with the cello missing one of its strings), the chamber piece Quartet for the End of Time was a work by what French composer?
Round 3 — ANSWERS
Clarinet
A Child of Our Time
Venezuela
Thomas Tallis
Isle of the Dead
La Monte Young
Carmelites (as in Dialogues of the Carmelites)
I Vow to Thee, My Country
Kaija Saariaho
Metronomes
Lieutenant Kijé (you’ll definitely know the tune from the ‘Troika’ movement if you listen to it — among many other pop culture appearances, it is quoted in Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas)
Gian Carlo Menotti
Threnody
Erik Satie
Tōru Takemitsu
The Makropulos Affair
John Rutter
Symphony No. 6, or the Tragic Symphony
Price (composer Florence Price and singer Leontyne Price)
Olivier Messaien
Round 4 — Themes and Trends: London
When I first got into UK-level quiz, I was living in Glasgow but (like, I suspect, many others) I primarily looked to the Quiz League of London both for my most valuable repository of past papers and for my more holistic sense of what an elite quiz league was. While QLL has gone from strength to strength in recent years, the advent of Zoom quizzing during lockdown has resulted in London becoming less obviously the centre of gravity for UK quiz than was the case even in 2019 — a shift which I think has also manifested in today’s normative quiz curriculum being far less London-centric than in recent memory. In fact, I noticed some speculation earlier this year among London quizzers that the QLL question sets could if anything afford to include a HIGHER proportion of specifically London-based content than they do at the moment. In an effort to redress this balance, I’ve had a stab at writing a decidedly and affectionately London-centric round, but one which hopefully still holds some interest for my fellow provincial bumpkins!
What is the geographically southernmost station on the London Underground network? It is the south terminus of (ironically) the Northern line.
What 1949 Ealing Comedy film concerns the attempts of a group of residents in the namesake area of London to exempt themselves from the bureaucracy of the British state, including from post-war rationing, by legally declaring themselves subjects of the medieval duchy of Burgundy?
Until its replacement in 2017, for 112 years the main hall of London’s Natural History Museum displayed a vast replica skeleton of what genus of herbivorous dinosaur, with a name derived from Greek words meaning “double beam” in reference to the chevron-shaped bones of its tail?
What homelessness charity was founded in Soho in 1969 by Anglican priest Ken Leech, who pointedly named the charity after a Modernist tower block in Central London (one of the city’s first skyscrapers) whose developer left it unoccupied for nine years after its completion in what Leech saw as “an affront to the homeless”?
The most famous winner at the 1948 London Olympics was what Dutch track-and-field star, dubbed “the Flying Housewife”, who won gold in four of the nine women’s athletics events on the programme?
What rocksteady-influenced track from the album London Calling by The Clash, whose title also references an area of London, was sampled by Norman Cook for the 1990 chart-topper Dub Be Good to Me by Beats International?
Inspiring the name of a high-end restaurant chain with three London branches, what thin pancakes made from fermented rice batter and coconut milk, and cooked in a deep wok-like pan whose shape they often retain, are a common feature of South Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine?
What neighbourhood in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, part of the constituency represented by Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, is perhaps best known as the setting for classic sitcom The Good Life?
The Marshalsea, the notorious debtors’ prison in Southwark where Charles Dickens’s father once resided, was immortalised as the birthplace of the protagonist in which Dickens novel?
Located on the site of what is now Cannon Street station, the Steelyard was the principal kontor (trading post) in England for what German-based mercantile confederation between the 13th century and their expulsion from the city by Elizabeth I in 1598?
The 2011 film Attack the Block, in which aliens invade a South London council estate, provided the debut film role for what London-born actor, who later won a Golden Globe for portraying Metropolitan Police officer Leroy Logan in Steve McQueen’s Red, White, and Blue?
[PICTURE] Which French artist, the co-leader of the Fauvist movement alongside Henri Matisse, created several popular paintings of London landmarks including one of Charing Cross Bridge?
The first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her, which English choreographer collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on several of his most successful musicals including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera?
With its administrative headquarters at Romford, which of London’s 32 boroughs extends the furthest east? Its name is suggestive of a Scots-derived verb meaning to prevaricate or talk nonsense.
First staged in 2018, what annual music festival is held over two weekends every summer in London’s Victoria Park? Acts booked for the 2025 edition include Chase and Status, RAYE, and The Maccabees.
What thoroughfare in Bethnal Green, closely associated with London’s Bangladeshi community, provided the title for the Booker-shortlisted 2003 debut novel by Monica Ali?
Uncovered by builders in 1954, an ancient Roman underground temple in Walbrook (now in the heart of London’s financial district) was dedicated to what originally Iranian deity whose cult was hugely popular among Roman soldiers until it was edged out by Christianity?
What football stadium in Hounslow was the home ground of Brentford F.C. from 1904 until they moved to the boringly named Gtech Community Stadium in 2020? Its name referred to the logo of Fuller’s Brewery, the owners of the land on which the stadium was built.
Which Trinidad-born political activist and founder of the West Indian Gazette, Britain’s first major Black newspaper, is most famous as the “mother of the Notting Hill Carnival”, having organised a similar event in 1959 in response to the Notting Hill race riots of the previous year?
I’m sorry to say that the London dispersion force has nothing to do with the city but is named after German physicist Fritz London. It is the best-known example of what short-range intermolecular forces, also named after a physicist, which are weaker than chemical bonds and arise from the interaction of electric dipoles?
Round 4 — ANSWERS
Morden
Passport to Pimlico
Diplodocus
Centrepoint
Fanny Blankers-Koen
The Guns of Brixton
Appam (aka Hoppers, which is the name of the restaurant chain)
Surbiton
Little Dorrit
Hanseatic League
John Boyega
André Derain
Gillian Lynne (the Gillian Lynne Theatre in Covent Garden was formerly called the New London Theatre)
Havering
All Points East
Brick Lane
Mithras
Griffin Park
Claudia Jones
Van der Waals forces
Round 5 — No Pain, No Gain
Which current Queen of the Netherlands, the consort of King Willem-Alexander, is (rather awkwardly) the daughter of an Argentine politician who served as Secretary of Agriculture during the murderous junta of General Jorge Rafael Videla?
What American indie pop band collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers on the 2021 single Silk Chiffon, a euphoric queer love song whose music video was inspired by ’90s lesbian rom-com But I’m a Cheerleader?
Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport, the first airport in South America, was built in 1919 in what major Colombian port city, located at the mouth of the Magdalena river on the Caribbean Sea?
[PICTURE] Similar to the dibatag, what long-necked East African antelope with a Somali-derived name is popularly known as the “giraffe gazelle” due to its distinctive ability to feed from tall branches by standing erect on its hind legs?
In what 2012 indie puzzle-platform game is the player-character Gomez able to rotate between four two-dimensional views of a three-dimensional world, as if viewing four faces of a cube? Gomez accesses this third dimension by donning the titular item.
A fascination of Ted Hughes, what independent Brythonic kingdom, based in the Calder Valley of modern-day West Yorkshire, is believed to have been one of the last Celtic polities to hold out against Anglo-Saxon colonisation, surviving until the early 7th century AD?
Which man won a surprise gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, becoming the first (and so far only) Olympic champion to represent Luxembourg? His namesake stadium was the home of Luxembourg’s national football team until 2021.
What two-word Italian term refers to a type of musical cryptogram, common in Renaissance masses, where the solfège notes that make up the central theme echo the vowel sounds of a particular phrase? Josquin des Prez most famously used this technique to encrypt the name of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara.
The 1970s American sitcom Maude, a spin-off from All in the Family about Edith Bunker’s “limousine liberal” cousin, itself spawned what subsequent spin-off, whose central character Florida was first introduced as Maude’s African-American housekeeper?
With a similar urbane demeanour to Arsène Lupin, although more overtly malevolent, what Parisian criminal mastermind was created in 1911 by pulp fiction authors Allain and Souvestre? The novels and silent films featuring this character were beloved by the early Surrealists, with Guillaume Apollinare describing the series as “one of the richest works that exist” and René Magritte depicting a scene from one of the stories in his painting The Menaced Assassin.
What English TV personality became famous as the receptionist and client co-ordinator on E4’s Celebs Go Dating, and in 2022 published his first book On the Tip of My Tongue, inspired by his love of eccentric words and phrases?
The best known work by Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney, inspired by his own thwarted passion for Lady Penelope Rich, was what sequence of 108 love sonnets whose two title characters are cryptically named as a “star” and a “star-lover”?
Which American actress played the murder victim Erin McMenamin in the HBO mini-series Mare of Easttown and in 2023 won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role as Priscilla Presley, alongside Jacob Elordi’s Elvis, in Sofia Coppola’s biopic Priscilla?
Which retired all-rounder became in 2011 the first man ever to umpire an ICC Cricket World Cup final having previously competed in the final as a player? He was a member of the Sri Lankan side who won the tournament in 1996.
Also an obsolete word for a drinking cup, what five-letter word refers in sewing to a piece of fabric in the shape of a circular sector which is sewn into a dress or skirt to add volume and create a flaring profile?
Practicing a matrilineal system of social organisation and inheritance, what Indonesian ethnic group are native to a namesake Highland region of western Sumatra? The meat stew rendang, one of Indonesia’s national dishes, originates in this people’s cuisine.
The best-selling gospel song of all time is which American vocalist’s 1947 recording of Move On Up a Little Higher? This legendary performer sang the national anthem at John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Ball and collaborated with Duke Ellington on the album Black, Brown, and Beige.
One of the “five points” laid down by Le Corbusier in his manifesto for a New Architecture, what specific name did he give to stilt-like columns used to support a building above ground or water? These architectural elements were central to Le Corbusier’s famous Villa Savoye.
Named after a Japanese physicist, what eponymous “effect” refers to the change in a metal’s electrical resistance at very low temperatures, due to a scattering of conduction electrons by magnetic impurities in the metal?
Described by film critic Mark Kermode as the “Citizen Kane of rock musicals”, what 1975 film starred the glam rock band Slade as a fictional band whose sensational rise and fall the movie charts? The soundtrack album included the hit single (and Slade’s best song) How Does It Feel.
Round 5 — ANSWERS
Queen Máxima (born Máxima Zorreguieta)
MUNA
Barranquilla
Gerenuk
Fez
Elmet
Josy Barthel
Soggetto cavato
Good Times
Fantômas
Tom Read Wilson
Astrophel and Stella
Cailee Spaeny
Kumar Dharmasena
Godet
Minangkabau
Mahalia Jackson
Pilotis (plural of the singular piloti)
Kondo effect
Slade in Flame (also known as Flame)
And that’s your lot. Hope you had fun. Feel free to share your best gets and most annoying misses in the comments. I’ll see you next Saturday, but for now I’ll leave you with Leonard Bernstein conducting Mahler’s Tragic Symphony: you’re welcome to skip to the 1:09:14-ish mark if you just want to see how the massive hammer fits in, although please don’t let me stop you watching the whole thing as even I can tell that it’s bloody good stuff!
Slightly later to this than others. My overall score was not especially impressive (there were a number of things on the tip of my tongue that I just couldn't quite get to) but I did manage a full house on the classical music, all of which I thought were very good questions. A Child of Our Time is possibly my favourite piece of music! I would just draw you up on the Mahler 6 question - while he originally composed it with three hammer blows, he later took the third out and most performances have two, although Bernstein always put the third back in.
20, 8, 8, 11 and zero (featuring 1, OK i have heard of and 19, wtaf). I guess I can take some solace in that, thanks to about the only topic I've been studying this year, the 8 would have been a 5 at the start of the year. But not much solace.