Pub Quiz

Evening folks! Usual Pub Quiz rules apply today, 20 Regular Questions, 2 Super Questions, no looking at your phones under the table. When I post "Category is: **CATEGORY**", that means to shut up since I'm asking a question on the next line. :3. CATEGORY may only be tangentially related to the actual topic being discussed, depending pretty solely on my mental state at the time of writing the individual question. To quote Athena, they are... "something"!

I can guarantee at this point that there are no Image questions! I can also confirm that Athena gave me a hand checking the SQs, and they got about 2/3rds of the regular Qs before I decided to make a few just a smidgen trickier. Mainly removing some in-built hints. Enjoy =)

Category is: **A Capital Display**
Q: What country is Hanoi the capital of? [Vietnam]
A: The answer is **Vietnam**! Computer Science students will probably recognise the "Towers of Hanoi" game from their algoritms lectures.

Category is: **A Famous First**
Q: Which actress was a First Lady from 1946 to 1952?
A: I'm accepting both **Evita** and **Eva Peron** - of course, she was the First Lady of Argentina. She died at the age of 33 after a bout with cervical cancer, and was declared "Spiritual Leader of the Nation".

Category is: **Mandatory Gay Music Competition**
Q: Which country at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest placed 8TH with the song "La Forza"?
A: It is of course **Estonia** who brought opera to Eurovision! They were in my mind robbed when they didn't hit Top 5... but then again, they weren't anywhere near as robbed as Latvia and Switzerland were.

Category is: **Surrealism (See Also: Modern Politics)**
Q: In Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory", how many clocks are there?
A: **4**! Of which 3 are melting, and the 4th appears to be swarmed with ants. *Charming*.

Category is: **Geological Anger Issues**
Q: In what decade did Mount Vesuvius most recently erupt?
A: Most recently it erupted in the **1940s**! Though perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that there was signifigantly less damage than when Pompeii was rather forcefully removed from existance.

Category is: **Proper Rugby**
Q: How many players are on the field for each side in a Rugby League Match?
A: In the only true Rugby, **13** players are on the field for each side. DF's opinions on the imposter "Rugby Union" are [REMOVED TO CONFORM WITH LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL CENSORSHIP LAWS]

Category is: **That's not a moon! It's a...**
Q: In the Solar System, which is the largest moon?
A: Beating out Titan, **Ganymede** is the largest, orbiting Jupiter, with it's diameter just over 100m larger than that of Titan, 400m larger than the 3rd placed Callisto, and 1600m larger than 4th placed Io.

Category is: **Distances as the Crow Flies**
Q: Which Capital City lies closest to Tripoli, the capital of Libya?
A: Although Libya' land borders include Egypt, Tunisia, and Sudan, none of their capitals are as close as **Valetta**, the capital of Malta!

Category is: **Mascot Fever**
Q: Which Pokemon was originally going to be the main mascot for Pokemon?
A: It was **Clefairy**! However, it was swapped prior to the release of the Anime due to being seen as "too girly", and the last minute change gave us our adorable yellow ~~rat~~ mouse!

Category is: **Vogon Poetry**
Note: This question requires filling in the blank, marked with "\_\_\_\_\_\_ ".
Q: In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, *So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish* was published as the \_\_\_\_\_\_ book. Fill in the blank!
A: Of course, in this six book trilogy, it's no surprise that this is the **Fourth** book. Dolphins were kind enough to leave us the book title as a message to humanity, before fleeing Earth.

Category is: **SUPER QUESTION - Dialling Scotland**
Q: In Bjork's "Declare Independence", how many words does she sing, excluding backing vocals?
A: Declare Independence clocks in at **201** words (if only she didn't lead in with an "and" on that chorus...). Bjork has historically dedicated the song to Tibet, Kosovo, and Catalonia. Because she's cool like that.

Category is: **Home, Sweet Home**
Q: "The Lodge" is the primary official residence for the head of government in which country?
A: It's **Australia**! Alas, given how rapidly they are going through Prime Ministers at the moment, it would not surprise me if every Australian citizen gets a shot by 2030

Category is: **Robot Apocalypse Incoming...**
Q: What was the name of the first computer to defeat a reigning Chess World Champion in an official game?
A: Whilst Deep Blue is far more famous, **Chess Genius** happens to have pipped it to the punch, beating Kasparov in a rapid chess tournament. Deep Blue, however, was more impressive due to success in standard speed chess, rather than Genius' victory in Rapid Speed Chess.

Category is: **Lordy Lordy**
Q: Prior to being elected, Pope Francis used to be the Archbishop of... where?
A: We're looking for **Buenos Aires**! Pope Francis's CV includes both that role as an Archbishop, and time as a nightclub bouncer. The Lord works in mysterious ways, indeed...

Category is: **Ode to the Vagina**
Q: PYNK is a song recorded by which American singer and songwriter?
A: Whilst the song featured Grimes, the song was recorded by **Janelle Monae** as part of her album Dirty Computer. And yes, the category is quite accurate, you should give the music video a watch!

Category is: **An International Palette**
Q: Of the six primary and secondary colours, which appears in the lowest number of national flags?
A: Due to it's association with royalty, **Purple** is incredibly rarely seen, most notably in Nicaragua's Rainbow and Dominica's Parrot. Orange is also pretty rare, but is seen in Ireland, Cote D'Ivoire, Armenia, Bhutan, and India, to name a few!

Category is: **Good Cop, Bad Cop**
Q: The alchemical symbol for copper was also the symbol for which deity and planet?
A: Those of quick wit might've noticed that I opted for the gender-neutral 'deity', since the only goddess in the planets is **Venus**, and that'd have given it away a wee bit. One would almost think that it was men who actually decided how many gods and goddesses there were...

Category is: **The Eternal Campaign**
Q: In what year will, assuming all goes to schedule, Austria next vote in their Presidential Elections?
A: It's scheduled for **2022**, 6 years after the 2016 election which saw Green Alexander Van der Bellen elected as President, beating out Right-Wing Populist Norbert Hofer. Did you know that in that election, one of the votes was annulled and was rerun?

Category is: **np: Fergie - London Bridge**
Q: The *Seven Bridges of Königsberg* Problem was demonstrated to have no solution by which mathematician in the 1700s?
A: We're looking for **Leonard Euler**. The Seven Bridges Problem required the development of Graph Theory in order to solve it, and if you're like me you can spend several hours tracing out each crossing and figuring out where the routes failed.

Category is: **Bean there, done that...**
Q: Cacao beans were used as a form of currency for which empire, that existed in the 14th, 15th, and 16th century?
A: The **Aztec Empire** takes this slightly bizarre honour! The beans were used as small change, and were believed to be a gift from Quetzacoatl.

Category is: **Build a Wall!**
Q: Which suited Mahjong tile is most commonly represented as a bird?
A: It is the **1 Bamboo** tile! The tiles are not intended to be Bamboo, however, but instead to be strings of rope, threaded through coins.

Category is: **SUPER QUESTION - Money Money Money**
Q: Excluding minting errors, the rarest 50p design in the UK had how many coins minted?
A: If you guessed 210,000, which is the mintage of the Kew Gardens 50p, you'd be... wrong! Whilst it's the rarest in circulation, the true rarest 50p has now been demonetised due to being of the older size, but the EC Single Market 50p coin had just **109,000** minted, and takes the crown!