Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The melody that refused to die

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened in London in 1986 and went on to become one of the longest-running musicals in West End and Broadway history. It is based on a novel by the French writer Gaston Leroux, published in 1910, which itself drew on rumours surrounding the Paris Opera House. The story's masked antihero has since become a fixture of popular culture, far removed from his Gothic origins.

Why tin hides behind two letters

The symbol Sn for tin comes from stannum, the Latin name for the metal. Several element symbols follow this pattern, borrowing from Latin rather than English: iron is Fe from ferrum, and lead is Pb from plumbum. Tin has been alloyed with copper to make bronze since ancient times, which is why the Bronze Age carries its name.

A capital in a Himalayan valley

Kathmandu sits in a valley in the Himalayan foothills and serves as the capital of Nepal. The city is known for its dense cluster of temples, palaces and courtyards, several of which are recognised as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Its position has long made it a meeting point between Indian and Tibetan cultural traditions.

The ring that came to Kekulé in a daydream

Friedrich August Kekulé proposed that benzene's six carbon atoms form a ring, a structure that explained the molecule's unusual stability. By his own account, the idea came to him while dozing in front of a fire, where he imagined chains of atoms twisting like snakes - one seizing its own tail. Whatever the truth of the story, the ring model became a cornerstone of organic chemistry.

Wilde's most quoted comedy

Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy of mistaken identities and invented relatives, and it premiered in London in 1895. Its wit has aged remarkably well, with lines about triviality and seriousness still widely quoted. Wilde's own life soon took a dramatic turn, but the play remains his most performed work for the stage.