Q 01/05

Which 1955 ballad, in the Righteous Brothers' recording, plays over the pottery-wheel scene in the 1990 film Ghost?

A) Unchained Melody

B) Stand by Me

C) Earth Angel

D) Only You

Answer · why

A) Unchained Melody

Unchained Melody was composed by Alex North with lyrics by Hy Zaret, and Ghost uses Bobby Hatfield's 1965 Righteous Brothers vocal. The wheel scene ha...

Q 02/05

Which Japanese art mends shattered ceramics with urushi lacquer dusted in powdered gold, silver or platinum?

A) Shibori

B) Kintsugi

C) Netsuke

D) Kirigami

Answer · why

B) Kintsugi

Kintsugi means 'golden joinery', and one theory traces it to shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who sent a damaged tea bowl to China and got it back crudely s...

Q 03/05

Which football club, founded in 1863 among the bottle ovens that made Britain's tableware, is nicknamed The Potters?

A) Port Vale

B) Derby County

C) Stoke City

D) Burnley

Answer · why

C) Stoke City

Stoke City took The Potters from the Staffordshire pottery industry around it, having started life as Stoke Ramblers in 1863. Stanley Matthews, who gr...

Q 04/05

What does 'terracotta', the name for the porous reddish clay of the Qin emperor's buried army, mean in Italian?

A) Red earth

B) Raw clay

C) Burnt stone

D) Baked earth

Answer · why

D) Baked earth

Baked earth, from the Latin terra cocta, is fired low enough to stay porous, so unglazed terracotta is never watertight. Etruscan sculptors preferred ...

Q 05/05

Marco Polo's word for Chinese porcelain, porcellana, was the Italian name for the shell of which sea creature?

A) Nautilus

B) Cowrie

C) Scallop

D) Conch

Answer · why

B) Cowrie

Cowrie shells share porcelain's smooth, translucent white surface, and Polo's Il Milione is the first European mention of the material, in the 13th ce...