53: Competition time! Original art as a prize!

For reasons which I shall keep quite (for fear of getting my hopes up too high) I am practising question writing, and oiling my researching cogs.  These are not pub quiz questions; some are intentionally designed to be rather complicated to understand, others require obscure or specialist knowledge.  Some of them I have tried to make as google proof as possible (not easy!).

There is a prize which will be a piece of original art, by me, and perhaps something extra like an old toy or other random article.  Out of all the entries the prize goes to the person who gets the most right and supplies the most convincing blag as to why I should believe they didn’t get the answers from google.

Over the next day or two I will decide what the prize will be and post pictures up on here.  In the meantime, get answering the questions and writing your “I didn’t use google because...” blags.  Email entries to me or IM me on facebook.

1. Which US state is apocryphally said to have been discovered by Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León while searching for the mythical Fountain of Youth?
2. Born May 2^nd 1929, which guitarist pioneered the use of distortion and feedback, and is widely credited with inventing the power chord?
3. What is the word, formed from a portmanteau of two others, created after the fact from the initial letters or syllables of a phrase, and is often used in urban legend to create false etymology?
4. It is a Brazilian art form combining dance, music and martial arts, and is said to have originated as an activity in which slaves could secretively practice fighting skills.  Name the art form, and the traditional musical instrument most closely associated with it.
5. His name is given to a style of graphical representation of the movements and relationships of sub-atomic particles in quantum mechanics.  Besides physics he had a wide range of interests including playing the bongos.  Who is he?
6. Formed from a block of fermented pecorino, it has the eggs of a fly intentionally introduced so that its larvae hasten the fermentation process.  Considered to be an aphrodisiac, by the time it is ready to eat it contains thousands of the live larvae.  What are its actual, and colloquial, names?
7. What name is given to the process of intentionally creating short circuits in toy musical instruments and other low-voltage sources of digital sounds, in order to create unique musical instruments?
8. What is the name shared by a Benedictine monastery in Devon, England, a tonic wine brewed there and a honey bee bred there?    
9. He is a character from a 1984 comedy film, who claims to have “a PhD in parapsychology and psychology”.  Name the character and the film.
10. What name is given to the deadly sin which the Catholic Encyclopaedia describes as happening in the following ways: Prae-propere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose?
11. She was a popular Cambodian singer during the late 1960s and early ‘70s.  She was honoured with the title Golden Voice of the Royal Capital.  Nothing is known of her life after the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge.  Who is she?  
12. Opening in Manchester, England on the 15^th September 1830, it is a Grade 1 listed building and the world’s oldest surviving railway station.  What is it called?
13. What is the term coined by Max Müller, editor of the 50-volume set Sacred Books of the East, meaning the concept of worshipping one single god whilst still believing that others exist?
14. Which Russian mountain range is often considered a natural boundary between Europe and Asia, and whose highest peak, Mount Narodnaya, elevates to 1,894 metres?
15. Which Norwegian city and region shared the title of European Capital of Culture 2008 with Liverpool, England?
16. Name the town in Milton Keynes which is the home of the Marshall Amplification company, and is best known as being the location of Britain’s World War 2 code breaking efforts.

Good luck. :)