Questions: 1st October
1. What is the missing subject in the old saying: 'Dry your... in October, or you'll always be sober?’
2. Name the pigment which trees stop producing, thus causing leaves to lose their green colour?
3. A reminder about which event, which happens every October, is provided by an alternative word for autumn?
4. In what year did the Gunpowder Plot take place?
5. Why should you wait for the first frost of autumn before picking your sloe berries to make sloe gin?
6. Maple, ash and sycamore trees produce seeds with which nickname, due to the way they fly through the air?
7. Which bright red berry gets its name from an old German word meaning 'to redden’?
8. Hedgehogs begin hibernating at this time of year. What is a baby hedgehog called — a hedgenipper, a hoglet or an ickle-prickle?
9. Fawkes gave a false name when he was caught - what was it?
10. On which day did the Autumn Equinox fall on in 2020
Answers: 1st October
1. Barley. Otherwise you won't have any to make beer with.
2. Chlorophyll. The reduced sunlight means photosynthesis loses its benefits — it costs a tree more energy to support a leaf than the leaf gives back. Autumnal colours then result from other chemicals in the leaves.
3. Fall. The end of British Summer Time. 'March forward, fall back' reminds you which way the clocks move.
4. 1605
5. So the skins will break, thereby allowing the flavour out. Folklore also suggests using a silver needle.
6. Helicopter seeds.
7. Rowan berry
8. Hoglet
9. John Johnson
10. 22nd September 2020
Questions: 8th October
1. Dulles International Airport serves which major US city?
2. Ayers Rock in Australia is known by what other Aboriginal name?
3.Which popular car manufacturer's name translates into English as "The People's Wagon"?
4. What nationality is the Formula One driver Max Verstappen?
5. The Spanish city of Ceuta is situated on which continent?
6. What is Britain known as in the George Orwell novel 1984?
7. What type of pastry are profiteroles made from?
8. Which famous boxer could "float like a butterfly" and "sting like a bee"?
9. Which is the only city to have hosted the Summer Olympic Games on three occasions?
10. Taphophobia is the irrational fear of what?
Answers: 8th October
1. Washington D.C.
2. Uluru
3. Volkswagen
4. Dutch
5. Africa
6. Airstrip One
7. Choux pastry
8. Muhammad Ali
9. London
10. Being buried alive