BREAKTIME: Fifty for Fun.

Byline: Phil Brown

1: He was the original choice to design the first Daleks, but didn't because of other calls on his time. He's now a leading Hollywood director - who is it?

2: Which actor links the films Amistad, Serenity and Kinky Boots?

3: Mix concentrated nitric acid and concentrated hydrochloric acid to get a reagent with the ability to dissolve gold - what is its name?

4: Musician Laurie Anderson asked SF author Thomas Pynchon to adapt his cult classic Gravity's Rainbow as an opera. He agreed but on what condition?

5: Which soap opera ended its original run with the central location being renamed the King's Oak Country Hotel?

6: Cholecalciferol is a form of which vitamin?

7: The iron-bearing mineral Cumberlandite is the official rock of which small US state?

8: Felpersham is a cathedral city in which long-running soap opera?

9: Australorp, Scots Dumpy and Sicilian Buttercup are breeds of which domestic animal?

10: Eilean Donan Castle is one of Scotland's most-photographed places - but what is the name of the nearby village?

11: The Hermannsdenkmal is a huge monument in Germany's Teutoburg forest, commemorating a battle in which year?

12: Which designer, mentored by fashion editor Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, set up his own label in 1968 and became a household name?

13: Loretta Swit, known for her long-running role in MASH, also had a lead role in a 1981 TV movie that became which other popular series?

14: Gordon Haller was, in 1978, the first winner of which infamously tough race?

15: Belinda and Bianca are among the moons of which Solar System body?

16: Which British film of the year 2000 brought together Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Miranda Richardson?

17: Australian Rules football is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its first organised games - in which city, still the sport's spiritual home, were they?

18: The guinea pig was domesticated as a food animal several thousand years ago in which mountain range?

19: In what part of the body would you find the scaphoid bone?

20: Complete top 10 title album for Billy Bragg, Talking With The Taxman About...?

21: William Michael Albert Broad is the birth name of which rock star?

22: Who played Lord Wessex in the film Shakespeare In Love and Shakespeare himself in TV special Blackadder: Back And Forth?

23: Pipe-smoking J R "Bob" Dobbs is the supposed founder of which satirical religious group founded in 1979?

24: Which song began as a poem by student Lenny Lipton in 1959 and was set to music by his friend Peter Yarrow, whose group would later have a major hit with it?

25: Roman praenomina - given names - were almost always chosen from a very short list. Which three account for more than half of the total names for men?

26: Which England football manager set a record it's hard to imagine being equalled by taking the team to four successive World Cup final tournaments?

27: Current Conservative Party leader David Cameron is descended from which British monarch's illegitimate daughter with mistress Dorothy Jordan?

28: A Total Guitar magazine poll suggests Celine Dion's cover of You Shook Me All Night Long as the worst cover version ever - which group's number was it originally?

29: In which 1614 Ben Jonson comedy do the characters include Littlewit, Quarlous and Puritan Zeal-of-the-land Busy?

30: The Sandwich Islands were so named by Captain Cook in 1778 after the then First Lord of the Admiralty, but the name, reverted to the native one - which is?

31: Parthenope was reputedly cast ashore on the future site of which city that saw a brief "Parthenopean Republic" in 1799?

32: Which Australian male tennis player won the Australian Open, in 1976, which still makes him the lowest-ranked man (at 212th) to take a Grand Slam tournament?

33: On which island is the "Inaccessible Pinnacle", not climbed until 1880, the only British 3,000-foot peak which requires a rock climb to reach the summit?

34: In which modern country are the ancient cities of Samarkand and Tashkent?

35: Which common gas owes its name to deposits of a chemical containing it being found in ancient times near a temple of Jupiter in Libya?

36: Which European royal figure was made colonel of a Russian regiment by the Tsar when he was not yet five years old?

37: Model Kate Moss's professional recording debut actually came as a guest artist on which band's 2002 album Evil Heat?

38: Gloucestershire engineer Edward Beard Budding invented many things, but perhaps his most enduring contribution to civilisation was a labour-saving aid he patented in 1830 - what was it?

39: Which herb is so slow to germinate that folk wisdom said the seeds had to go to hell and back several times before they began growing?

40: Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo's masterwork Concierto de Aranjuez is for orchestra and which solo instrument?

41: Horseshoe, Bridal Veil and American together make up what spectacular geographical feature?

42: In 1752, Cornelius O'Callaghan and Edmund Blake covered four miles between Buttevant and Doneraile churches in County Cork in the first recorded race of what?

43: The Nini Muni, a vicious witch who can be turned into a buxom and amorous young woman if you have 77 sweet cakes, 77 chicken dishes and 77 rice dishes to give her is a feature of which country's mythology?

44: Which rock musician recorded a debut album at the age of 11, including a cover of the Beatles' The Fool On The Hill (sung in her native language as Alfur Ut Ur Hol)?

45: Which key Scottish figure in the founding of Presbyterianism was a prisoner forced to row in French galleys in the 1540s?

46: In which year was Hanna-Barbera's futuristic cartoon sitcom The Jetsons aired?

47: Only one player, other than Roger Federer started this year's Wimbledon's men's singles had lifted the title before - who was it?

48: Which cartoonist and comedian's many achievements included co-founding Priva Eye, appearing as Plautus in TV series Up Pompeii! and voicing all the characters in cult claymation series The Trap Door?

49: On which fairy tale is the Rossini opera La Cenerentola based?

50: Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen' partner Tom Brady is quarterback for whic leading American football team?

ANSWERS

1 Ridley Scott; 2 Chiwetel Ejiofor; 3 Aqua regia; 4 The only instrument used should be the banjo; 5 Crossroads; 6 Vitamin D; 7 Rhode Island; 8 The hers; 9 The chicken; 10 Dornie; 11 In 9 AD; 12 Calvin Klein; 13 Cagney And Lacey; 14 The Ironman Triathlon; 15 Uranus; 16 Chicken Run; 17 Melbourne; 18 The Andes; 19 The wrist; 20 oetry; 21 Billy Idol; 22 Colin Firth; 23 The Church of the SubGenius; 24 Puff, The Magic gon; 25 Lucius, Gaius and Marcus; 26 Walter Winterbottom; 27 William IV; 28 AC/DC's; 29 tholomew Fair; 30 Hawaii; 31 Naples; 32 Mark Edmondson; 33 Skye; 34 Uzbekistan; 35 Ammonia; 36 Leopold, king of Belgium; 37 Primal Scream's; 38 The lawnmower; 39 Parsley; 40 Guitar; 41 Niagara Falls; 42 Steeplechase; 43 Indonesia's; 44 Bjork; 45 John Knox; 46 In 1962; 47 Lleyton Hewitt; 48 Willie Rushton; 49 Cinderella; 50 The New England Patriots.

CAPTION(S):

KATE MOSS: see question 37