The Saga Magazine August pub quiz

TV ads, the Oscars and Tina Turner are in the spotlight this month – put your general knowledge to the test.

Illustration of a light bulb and question marks

By Marcus Berkmann | Published - 1 Aug 2026

Question 1

“The customer is always right” is a motto that was coined by the founder of which well-known UK department store?

Question 2

Which famous ship from British history was originally named the Pelican?

Question 3

What achievement in the history of flight was attained by American pilot Chuck Yeager on 14 October 1947?

Question 4

This drink is a syrup made from pomegranates and it’s used in many cocktails. How do we best know it?

Question 5

What is by far the most popular white wine grape used in Australian wine? Its vines cover more than 31,500 hectares of land there.

Question 6

In 1962, which David Lean film became the first film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar with no female speaking roles?

Question 7

In which fictional village does Rupert Bear live?

Question 8

In which Tennessee town did Tina Turner grow up?

Question 9

Which English novelist married a woman with the same first name as him in 1928?

Question 10

Composed in the summer of 1741 in just 24 days, possibly in Leicestershire, what received its world premiere at Neal’s Musick Hall on Fishamble Street, Dublin, on 13 April 1742?

Question 11

What is the fastest accelerating land mammal on the planet?

BBC interviewer Michael Cockerell in front of a wall of TV screens — Getty

Question 12

Journalist and documentary maker Michael Cockerell interviewed every British prime minister from Harold Macmillan to Gordon Brown. He saw only one of them use his fingers to count. Which one?

Question 13

“I was not lying. I said things that later seemed to be untrue.” Who said that in 1978?

Question 14

Who was the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom when the current king was born?

Question 15

Which city in Australia was the country’s largest until it was overtaken by Sydney in the early 1900s?

Question 16

Which product, according to the TV ads, was “as sweet as the moment when the pod went pop”?

Question 17

What hardly ever happens in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire?

Question 18

14 July is a public holiday in France. What is it called?

Question 19

What Spanish forename was shared by the cellist Casals and the artist Picasso?

Question 20

Which British writer was denied a US Presidential Medal of Freedom by the Bush administration because her books “encouraged witchcraft”?

1. Selfridges 2. The Golden Hind (Sir Francis Drake renamed it after the family symbol of his sponsor) 3. He broke the sound barrier 4. Grenadine 5. Chardonnay 6. Lawrence of Arabia 7. Nutwood 8. Nutbush 9. Evelyn Waugh (Married Evelyn Gardner) 10. Handel’s Messiah 11. The Cheetah 12.Tony Blair 13. Richard Nixon 14. Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) 15. Melbourne 16. Birds Eye Peas 17. Hurricanes 18. Bastille Day 19. Pablo 20. JK Rowling