Hippo names, GPS claims and a question of degree – take the Thursday quiz

This week’s quiz is suffering a little bit from a Halloween hangover, as you face 15 mostly topical questions, with a smattering of general knowledge and some niche pop culture thrown in for good measure. What counts as a good score? Judging from the comments it appears to vary from week to week, but the most important thing is that everybody has fun. Especially the person who wrote it. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 185

1. Collins dictionary chose which as its word of the year for 2024?

   1. Rawdogging

   2. Brat

   3. Looksmaxxing

   4. Raxacoricofallapatorius

2. In which European city did thousands of people throng the streets for a Halloween parade that didn't exist?

   1. Belfast

   2. Dublin

   3. Paris

   4. Brussels

3. Angry people from areas flooded in Spain pelted King Felipe VI and his wife with mud and hurled insults at them. What is the name of the queen consort of Spain?

   1. Queen Valeria of Spain

   2. Queen Isabella of Spain

   3. Queen María of Spain

   4. Queen Letizia of Spain

4. Terry Rosoman claims to have drawn the world's largest GPS penis (not pictured) across Bannau Brycheiniog (pictured, and looking lovely) for charity. For which cause was he raising money?

   1. Men's mental health issues

   2. Prostate cancer awareness

   3. Royal national lifeboat institution

   4. Eton college

5. Farm-owners Jeremy Clarkson and James Dyson were furious about tax changes affecting farms but didn't get cross about this announcement. How much is the UK government raising the maximum cap for university tuition fees to in England?

   1. £8,535

   2. £9,535

   3. £10,535

   4. £11,535

6. Talking of university, what did the new Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, study?

   1. Computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex

   2. Philosophy, politics and economics at Merton College, Oxford

   3. History at St John's College, Cambridge

   4. Media studies at Felpersham University

7. Chris Martin of Coldplay made an unplanned stage exit through a trapdoor at a Melbourne venue just weeks after which pop star also had a trapdoor mishap on one of the city's stages?

   1. Chappell Roan

   2. Billie Eilish

   3. Olivia Rodrigo

   4. Kate Bush

8. Passengers awaiting an early morning flight at New York’s LaGuardia airport were surprised by the sudden arrival of what falling through the ceiling?

   1. A raccoon

   2. A goose

   3. A wasp nest

   4. One very naughty miniature dachshund

   5. 30-50 feral hogs

   6. Chris Martin from Coldplay

9. Edinburgh zoo has announced the birth of a pygmy hippo, which they hope will be as popular as Thailand’s internet hit, Moo Deng. What have they called her?

   1. Sporran

   2. Drookit

   3. Haggis

   4. Bampot

10. It is scores on the doors with Swindon’s Diana Dors. This week the statue wants to know, if you are playing snooker, how much is potting the brown ball worth?

    1. Two points

    2. Three points

    3. Four points

    4. Five points

11. Time again for Karl-Heinz and his opening lines. This week the Thursday quiz imagines the German soccer legend would like you to identify the TV series whose first episode opens with the main character giving his name and address, and then saying: "To all law enforcement entities, this is not an admission of guilt."

    1. Breaking Bad

    2. The Sopranos

    3. The Wire

    4. Sesame Street

12. A publisher in which country has announced it is to conduct a limited trial of using AI to translate books into English?

    1. Poland

    2. Belgium

    3. Italy

    4. Netherlands

13. Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, wants you to tell her who is releasing a cover version of the Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You for Children in Need this year?

    1. All Saints

    2. Girls Aloud

    3. Sugababes

    4. Little Mix

14. The quiz master recommends Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara, a documentary about the internet stalker/hacker who has wreaked havoc in their fandom. But what is Tegan and Sara's surname?

    1. Quin

    2. Fleck

    3. Wayne

    4. Gordon

15. Who said last week that the whole of the UK was suffering from PTSD after the Liz Truss era?

    1. The paymaster general, Nick Thomas-Symonds

    2. The attorney general, Richard Hermer KC

    3. The chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones

    4. Ronald Mael from Sparks

Solutions

1:B - Charli xcx's album was the sound and zeitgeist of the summer, 2:B - Details of last year's event had been copied on to a popular listings website by mistake with hilarious consequences, 3:D - The former journalist was born in Oviedo and married Felipe in 2004, 4:A - It was part of his effort for Movember. He was hoping to raise £5,000 with his record-breaking 75-mile GPS image of a penis on the exercise app Strava , 5:B - It's not cheap, that's for sure. The Thursday quiz is old enough that it was actually paid to go to university in the 1990s, rather than the other way round, 6:A - When people used to say the nerds would take over, this wasn't what the Thursday quiz had in mind, 7:C - Is Melbourne just trying to kill famous people?, 8:A - A spokesperson for the Port Authority said an investigation was under way into how the raccoon got there. The Thursday quiz can help them out here, we think it got there for the LOLs, 9:C - Jonny Appleyard, hoofstock team leader at Edinburgh zoo, said: “Haggis is doing really well so far," but neglected to add whether a pygmy hippo is as delicious as the traditional Scottish dish, 10:C - It is indeed four points, unless you are playing in black and white, in which case all bets are off, 11:A - It opens with Walter White giving his New Mexico address, the disclaimer, and then the fun begins …, 12:D - Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK) – the largest publisher in the Netherlands – is “using AI to assist in the translation of a limited number of books”, which, it says, are limited to "commercial fiction". We were going to ask ChatGPT to write a punchline for this answer, but lost the will to live along the way, 13:B - One of the most successful British chart acts of all time, Girls Aloud's first single since 2012 is a new version of their cover that poignantly features only the vocals of their late and much-missed bandmate Sarah Harding, who died in 2021, 14:A - Indentical twins Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin were born in September 1980, and some creepy weirdo spent years impersonating Tegan on the internet in order to strike up relationships with their fans, 15:C - He made the comments after market jitters following the budget

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you got on in the comments

If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers – and can show your working and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch the new Sharon van Etten single Afterlife instead?