QUIZ: Test your knowledge set by Sussex quiz champ

Reading a novel a day and having a good memory is what has brought an international quiz champion from Littlehampton to where he is today.
Olav Bjortomt, 37, from Littlehampton hopes readers will find the book challenging, interesting or enlighteningOlav Bjortomt, 37, from Littlehampton hopes readers will find the book challenging, interesting or enlightening
Olav Bjortomt, 37, from Littlehampton hopes readers will find the book challenging, interesting or enlightening

Olav Bjortomt, 37, who now lives in London, has just released his first quiz book which is being sold on Amazon and in other stores. Take a test quiz here:

The 37-year-old, whose day job is writing quiz questions for ITV’s The Chase, said he feels ‘very proud’ to release his first book.

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He said: “It feels really great to release the book – especially that it is my own – and it is the sort of thing I want to be doing regularly.”

From the age of 16, Olav became a quiz enthusiast and used to watch Channel 4’s Fifteen to One, but realised he was ‘better than the contestants’. He managed to land a spot on the show in 2001, which led him to the grand final, eventually coming in second place.

The book includes 4,000 questions of general knowledge and specialist subjects, which have been compiled from The Times newspaper, for which he has been writing quiz questions for the past 11 years.

And his spot in the paper has become so popular with readers, that the number of questions has risen from five to 15 questions in the week, and 20 at weekends.

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Subject areas in the book include geography, music, the arts, film, literature, sport, politics and science.

The international quiz player and two-time world champion – in 2003 and 2015 – was asked to write the book by the daily national newspaper and said he hopes readers will find it ‘challenging, interesting or enlightening’.

“I have aimed for the quiz book to be fresh and current, with new information – and I hope it is challenging and people can use it to test themselves,” Olav said.

The keen reader studied History at the University of Nottingham and gained a Postgraduate Diploma in Newspaper Journalism at Nottingham Trent University. In 2001, he was joint winner of The Guardian’s overall Student Journalist of the Year award. He also acts as a question setter for University Challenge and regularly appears in amateur productions in Littlehampton, having recently appeared in a re-enactment of thirteen of the best scenes from The Wire.

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He was also crowned winner at the inaugural Quiz Olympiad, held in Athens, this month.

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