Test your knowledge of news, sport and pop culture in this special 75-question edition of Marty Smith’s Brainwaves quiz

To celebrate his 75th birthday, Marty Smith has prepared 75 tantalising, and for the most part, impossible, questions outside his regular Brainwaves quiz from SAWeekend. Take it at your peril!

Marty Smith's 75 questions quiz. Artwork: Steve Grice

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** Test your pop culture and current affairs knowledge with this week’s Brainwaves Quiz. Decide your answer then click on the answer button to see if you were correct. We’ll tally your score as you go. **

question: Name the only international airline whose name is three consecutive letters of the English alphabet.

option: KLM

answer: 1

question: In The Advertiser in 2004, local Channel 7 weather presenter Melody Horrill said she couldn’t live without what?

option: Her hair straighteners

answer: 1

question: In 1998, a Melbourne baker was ordered to pay almost $5300 after a woman found what kind of rodent baked in a loaf of bread?

option: Mouse

answer: 1

question: The Museum of Modern Art in New York City once hung a painting by which French artist upside down - and left it in that position for 45 days?

option: Henri Matisse

answer: 1

question: According to the organisers of the Quest for the World’s Largest Cockroach, the best way to catch a cockroach is to smear petroleum jelly around the inner lip of a jar and put banana or what else in the bottom?

option: Dog food

answer: 1

question: King Henry VIII of England owned how many crumhorns?

option: 25

answer: 1

question: As a child, which moonwalking US astronaut had the recurring dream that by holding his breath he could hover over the ground?

option: Neil Armstrong

answer: 1

question: When Coles released Fresh Stikeez collectables in 2019, what was the first name of the broccoli figure?

option: Brodie

answer: 1

question: What is the complete seven-letter-and-number postcode of Buckingham Palace?

option: SW1A 1AA

answer: 1

question: A protester dressed as what kind of animal hugged Australian prime minister John Howard in Perth in 2004?

option: Sheep

answer: 1

question: To cure a wart, what did Mark Twain’s character Huckleberry Finn take to a cemetery at night?

option: Dead cat

answer: 1

question: In 1993, Woman’s Day published a picture of which US actor dressed as a Christmas tree?

option: Michelle Pfeiffer

answer: 1

question: About what did Advertiser columnist Rex Jory write in 1999: “Civilised life, as I know it, has ended. After a long, futile battle, I have capitulated to the inevitable”?

option: Owning a mobile phone

answer: 1

question: According to the book Mrs Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words, what is a quipu?

option: Ancient Incan counting device

answer: 1

question: In 1990, the British weekly magazine Punch endeavoured to appoint an advertising agency for which dictator?

option: Saddam Hussein

answer: 1

question: What was the most number of successive pie floaters Omar, a customer at the Norwood Pie Cart, ate during a single visit in 1995?

option: Eight

answer: 1

question: US fashion designer Calvin Klein once appeared in public wearing what backwards?

option: His pants

answer: 1

question: What was the average age at which women married in Australia in 2001?

option: 29

answer: 1

question: According to the website definitions.net, what kind of person is a pantomath?

option: Someone who wants to know or knows everything

answer: 1

question: Italian fashion designer Franco Moschino once decorated a dinner suit with real what?

option: Cutlery

answer: 1

question: Italians wear what colour underwear on New Year’s Eve to bring good luck for the coming year?

option: Red

answer: 1

question: US actor Helen Hayes overcame tension by curling her what?

option: Toes

answer: 1

question: What is the longest, commonly-used English word without a vowel?

option: Rhythms

answer: 1

question: In the 1950s, Australian advertising for Palmolive soap promised a lovelier complexion in how many days?

option: 14

answer: 1

question: Operatic soprano Dame Joan Sutherland’s old-fashioned Christmas pudding recipe required how many eggs?

option: Nine

answer: 1

question: Irish author James Joyce considered the completion of how many perfect sentences as a full day’s work?

option: Two

answer: 1

question: Where did Rosalie Lawson, of Florida, once see an image of Jesus?

option: On a potato crisp

answer: 1

question: According to the magazine Scientific American in 1909, what had “practically reached the limit of its development”?

option: Car

answer: 1

question: In 1938, Thomas Garson, of Illinois, won a $40 bet by eating how many hamburgers in 25 minutes?

option: 22

answer: 1

question: According to the website slangdefine.org, what is zymocenosilicaphobia?

option: Fear of an empty beer glass

answer: 1

question: US film producer Joe Pasternak ate spaghetti with his what?

option: Hands

answer: 1

question: In 2010, US actor Jennifer Love Hewitt said she wore what while having a bubble bath?

option: Tiara

answer: 1

question: Claiming it dried faster than any other colour, English author Charles Dickens preferred writing with what colour ink?

option: Blue

answer: 1

question: In 2003, an article in The New York Times claimed you could get all the calcium you need by eating how many sardines a day?

option: 35

answer: 1

question: In 2004, which US actor did Sunday Mail columnist Peter Goers call the “most gorgeous woman in the world”?

option: Drew Barrymore

answer: 1

question: How many pegs did Gary Stretch, of England, once attach simultaneously to his face?

option: 158

answer: 1

question: In The National IQ Test on Channel 9 in 2003, what was the score of the sixth-placed real estate agents?

option: 99

answer: 1

question: At the time of his death in 1988, transvestite actor Divine owned a biscuit tin in the shape of which small animal?

option: Piglet

answer: 1

question: Name the eight-year-old dolphin with which Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova swam for 20 minutes at Sea World on Queensland’s Gold Coast in 2000.

option: Zac

answer: 1

question: What was the year of the Romulan ale given to James Kirk (William Shatner) as a birthday present from Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?

option: 2283

answer: 1

question: For a dare while attending university, US entrepreneur Ted Turner drank a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky in how many minutes?

option: 10

answer: 1

question: Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen kept a pet what on his desk for inspiration?

option: Scorpion

answer: 1

question: Which English author-poet painted his golf balls red so he could play in the snow?

option: Rudyard Kipling

answer: 1

question: Described as a “rich toothsome confection”, Butterscotch Jack had the shape of which bird when sold by John Martin’s department store in Rundle St, city, in 1931?

option: Kookaburra

answer: 1

question: Actor Betsy Drake, the third wife of fellow performer Cary Grant, claimed she could hypnotise someone in how many seconds?

option: 30

answer: 1

question: Tuhkimo is the Finnish name for which fairytale character?

option: Cinderella

answer: 1

question: US singer-actor Barbra Streisand once owned a table clock in the shape of whose hairstyle?

option: Cleopatra’s

answer: 1

question: When Johnny Whitaker successfully auditioned for the role of Jody Davis in the 1960s US television situation comedy series Family Affair, how many freckles did he tell the producers he had spanning the bridge of his nose?

option: 3251

answer: 1

question: US actor Zac Efron wore eccentric what to school?

option: Hats

answer: 1

question: In the newspaper New York Mirror in 1958, Hungarian-born US actor Zsa Zsa Gabor said every woman should have how many husbands?

option: Three

answer: 1

question: Prune whip was the favourite dessert of which US president?

option: Dwight Eisenhower

answer: 1

question: In which country did drivers run over 6626 deer in 1987?

option: Switzerland

answer: 1

question: The father of US actor Julie Harris was an expert on which rodent?

option: Squirrel

answer: 1

question: Which Swedish singer-songwriter once owned a suit decorated around the hem with miniature metal London taxis?

option: Neneh Cherry

answer: 1

question: “Testing ... testing ... is this thing on?” was the first tweet by which US actor?

option: Tom Hanks

answer: 1

question: In 1991, Britain’s RSPCA protested after a man in Wales ate dozens of live what from his garden to raise money for charity?

option: Worms

answer: 1

question: In a leap year, January always begins on the same day of the week as which other two months?

option: April, July

answer: 1

question: According to a survey in 2004, which US actor had the world’s most beautiful nose?

option: Halle Berry

answer: 1

question: In the 1969 hit In the Year 2525 by US pop-folk duo Zager and Evans, what is the fifth year in the order in which future years are mentioned?

option: 6565

answer: 1

question: In 1883, a man pedalled a water tricycle across which body of water in less than eight hours?

option: English Channel

answer: 1

question: In 2005, The Advertiser reported allergy sufferers might find what safer to eat if they were not red?

option: Strawberries

answer: 1

question: At how many degrees Fahrenheit did reclusive US author J. D. Salinger roast his lamb?

option: 150

answer: 1

question: Which dog breed is most susceptible to gout?

option: Dalmatian

answer: 1

question: How many weeks after birth does a platypus open its eyes?

option: 11

answer: 1

question: Owen Totten, of Illinois, once wore a suit with 5600 what?

option: Buttons

answer: 1

question: English author Olivia Laing once spent a night in New York City dreaming of a cat with what tangled in its fur?

option: Raspberries

answer: 1

question: According to his autobiography Life As I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin’ Good, Colonel Harland Sanders, creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), was also an amateur what?

option: Obstetrician

answer: 1

question: In 2003, The Advertiser reported US singer Barry Manilow had walked into a wall in his bedroom and broken what?

option: His nose

answer: 1

question: At his death in 1925, French composer Erik Satie owned 84 identical what?

option: Handkerchiefs

answer: 1

question: How many votes did a candidate called Donald Duck poll in Sweden’s general election in 1985?

option: 291

answer: 1

question: In 1983, which British singer told the Melbourne weekly paper Scene: “Girls sometimes arrive on my doorstep with their overnight bags ready to stay the weekend”?

option: Cliff Richard

answer: 1

question: Which US horror film actor once demonstrated on television how to poach a fish in a dishwasher?

option: Vincent Price

answer: 1

question: In 1369, King Charles V of France dedicated a monument to his personal chef for creating what?

option: Recipe for pickled fish

answer: 1

question: In 1995, a private jet carrying English singer Rod Stewart was forced to make an emergency landing at an airport in Sweden after what was sucked into one of its engines?

option: Goose

answer: 1

question: In 1984, US president Ronald Reagan was given a 15.9kg bust of himself made entirely of what?

option: Chopped liver

answer: 1