Quote:
What are the right answers?
These are:
1. The cobalt salts of aluminium/aluminum oxide produce what colour/color in ceramics, glass, etc., notably ancient Chinese porcelain?
Blue
2. Henry Poor's 1800s railroad manuals and Luther Blake's Standard Statistics Bureau of non-railroad corporate information merged in 1941 to become what famous two-letter US financial services/index brand?
S&P (Standard and Poor, e.g., the S&P500 listing)
3. Who painted The Starry Night, Sorrowing Old Man and Self-Portrait Without Beard?
Vincent Van Gogh
4. To what very common consumer items do the IEC codes R6 and R03 and equivalent ANSI codes AA and AAA refer?
Batteries (portable dry cell batteries - IEC is International Electrotechnical Commission and ANSI is the corresponding American National Standards Institute, responsible for battery codes/specifications)
5. What dangerous material occures in white, brown and blue forms respectively from Chrysotile, Amosite, and Crocidolite minerals?
Asbestos
6. A mollymawk is an Australian/NZ word for what creature, strongly linked with maritime superstition?
Albatross (derived from Dutch 'mal mok', foolish gull)
7. What silver-grey/gray metallic element used in high strength steels has the symbol Mo?
Molybdenum
8. Brimstone is an old word for which chemical element?
Sulphur
9. What typically pluralized instrument is named from Spanish 'chestnut'?
Castanets (from 'castana', chestnut, being the woood traditionally used to make them)
10. In 2014 German coastal authorities reportedly introduced various bans and dimensional limits of max 4m x 0.5m for what?
Sand castles
11. What character was named by George Lucas after his 'Radio' and 'Dialogue' film rolls used in making American Graffiti?
R2D2 (of Star Wars - the rolls were abbreviated to R and D)
12. Macular refers to which sensory organ?
Eye (macula is a central spot in the eye's retina with the keenest vision)
13. The medieval occupation and derived surname Scullion was a basic worker where?
Kitchen
14. What controversial accusation is shared by the albums: Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy; Blind Faith's Blind Faith; and Nirvana's Nevermind?
Child nudity/pornography (on the covers)
15. What term refers to a style of fatalistic or menacing cinema, coined first by French critics in describing US thrillers of the 1940s?
Film Noir ('Black Film')
16. Posset is a late-medieval curdled drink of alcohol and which other liquid?
Milk (the verb 'to posset' separately refers [from the 1800s] to infant regurgitation of a milk feed)
17. The traditional Queen of Puddings dessert typically comprises a bread/egg/jam base topped with what?
Meringue
18. Barack Obama's incongruous 2013 expression 'Jedi mind-meld' upset fans of which two major movie franchises?
Star Wars and Star Trek
19. Hilary Mantel's controversial 2014 fictional story is "The Assassination of (Which controversial leader?)" ?
Margaret Thatcher
20. What was the tallest type of construction in the world for over 3,800 years before Lincoln Cathedral's completion in 1311?
Pyramid (specifically the Great Pyramid of Giza)