The idiot’s apostrophe, West Wing words and 55,000 Bibles – take the Thursday quiz

There was some correspondence about last week’s quiz as to whether the phrase “having at”, as in “having at a neighbour’s garage with a chainsaw”, was the correct usage of English or not. The quiz master contends that if the phrase “have at you” was good enough for Shakespeare, it is probably acceptable in a light-hearted quiz filled with questions on topical news, general knowledge, and one man’s weird niche pop culture obsessions. So why don’t you all have at this week’s version? Let us know how you get on in the comments. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 181

1. Which nation appears to have given up fighting what it calls "the idiot's apostrophe" and accept that its language has adopted the English usage of the possessive apostrophe?

   1. Italy

   2. France

   3. Poland

   4. Germany

2. Which world leader has been accused of plagiarising parts of their speech at the UN general assembly from the West Wing?

   1. Javier Milei

   2. Geert Wilders

   3. Viktor Orbán

   4. Giorgia Meloni

3. In an entirely unsuspicious move, which state has put out to tender the purchase of 55,000 Bibles with specifications curiously identical to the ones that Donald Trump sells?

   1. Montana

   2. Texas

   3. Kentucky

   4. Oklahoma

4. Which British TV personality was thought to have been shot at while in the back of a taxi last week, but it turned out the vehicle's window had shattered by itself?

   1. Richard Osman

   2. Carol Vorderman

   3. Ian Hislop

   4. Lorraine Kelly

5. Excitable traffic wardens began putting parking tickets on prop vintage 1980s cars in Chester (not pictured) where who is making a comeback movie, having previously announced they were retiring?

   1. Ben Kingsley

   2. Anthony Hopkins

   3. Daniel Day-Lewis

   4. Samantha Fox

6. Pope Francis announced he was appointing 21 new cardinals, who will get to vote on naming his successor. Including the new ones, how many cardinals are there?

   1. 72

   2. 142

   3. 188

   4. 224

7. An exciting new regular round. Welcome to scores on the doors with Swindon’s Diana Dors. That is a tongue-twister. Anway, this week the statue of Diana Dors wants to know how many points you score for potting the green ball in snooker?

   1. Two

   2. Three

   3. Four

   4. Five

8. Another exciting new innovation. It's Karl-Heinz and his opening lines. This week the Thursday quiz imagines the cigar-smoking German soccer legend would like you to point out which Star Wars movie opens with the lines "We're not clear yet! There's still 30 pallets of cannon shells in C bunker"?

   1. Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

   2. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

   3. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

   4. Star Wars: Episode II – The Wrath of Khan (1982)

9. A boy who once got into trouble at school for performing a play without clearing the copyright first is now going to appear in a production of the same play in London's West End (not pictured). Which play?

   1. The Mousetrap

   2. Wicked

   3. Les Misérables

   4. The Phantom of the Opera

10. This is Willow, the official dog of the Thursday quiz, and she has a geography question for you. Which is these countries does NOT border Paraguay?

    1. Argentina

    2. Brazil

    3. Bolivia

    4. Uruguay

11. This is also Willow, and she is the official guest dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz this week after the quiz master met her in the pub. She wants to know which unlikely band just became only the 20th act to ever score two UK No 1 albums in a calendar year?

    1. Ocean Colour Scene

    2. Shed Seven

    3. Echobelly

    4. John Smith and the Common Men

12. It is the anniversary of the Windscale nuclear accident, which was initially covered up by the British government in 1957. The plant has now been renamed to help people forget this ever happened. What county is Windscale in?

    1. Northumberland

    2. Cumbria

    3. Dumfries and Galloway

    4. Argyll and Bute

13. To the arts! A careless cleaner accidentally threw away a piece of modern art titled All the Good Times We Spent Together at the LAM museum in Lisse in the Netherlands. What did it consist of?

    1. A banana stuck to the wall with duct tape

    2. A small pile of broken egg boxes

    3. Two discarded and dented beer tins

    4. 30-50 tiny models of feral hogs enjoying a rampage

14. The former prime minister Boris Johnson popped up to flog his book, and while he was at it complained about the deal to offer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The African country was, he said "a long way away" from the islands. Not as far away as London. How far are the Chagos Islands from London?

    1. About 3,800 miles

    2. About 5,800 miles

    3. About 7,800 miles

    4. About 9,800 miles

15. Talking of former prime ministers, what happened last week to pay respects to the lettuce that outlasted Thursday quiz favourite Liz Truss?

    1. The Daily Star announced a DVD box-set of the entire live stream of the lettuce outlasting Liz

    2. Somebody hung a portrait of the lettuce in the National Portrait Gallery in London

    3. A fake blue plaque was put up outside the Tesco in Walthamstow where the lettuce was purchased

    4. Sparks performed a new song in Los Angeles called The Liz Truss Lettuce Strut

Solutions

1:D - The new edition of the Council for German Orthography’s style guide, which prescribes grammar use at schools and public bodies, has relaxed restrictions on the use of apostrophes in phrases such as Rosi’s Bar or Kati’s Kiosk, despite it being against standard German usage. The Thursday quiz, no stranger to an errant apostrophe itself, approves, 2:A - There is no little irony in the rightwing libertarian populist adopting words first uttered by the fictional Democratic party president Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, 3:D - It is sure to just be a conicidence that the state wants Bibles that also include the Declaration of Independence and US constitution – not commonly found in Bibles – but which are included in one hawked by the convicted felon Trump, 4:C - Metropolitan police confirmed a mechanical failure as the most likely explanation, although the man who has been Private Eye editor since 1986 has, in fairness, made approximately 1,057 mortal enemies during that time, 5:C - Day-Lewis has come out of retirement to feature in a film directed by his son, but someone obviously didn't fill out the right parking permit forms somewhere along the line, 6:B - Usually there are roughly about 120, but this new intake sees the number of cardinals at among the highest it has been in recent years, 7:B - It is three points. Unless you are playing on a black and white TV in which case anything goes, 8:A - Not the most memorable dialogue, it must be said, 9:A - Somehow lawyers got wind that the school had put the play on when Alasdair Buchan was 11 in 1997 and sent a stern letter to the headmaster. He has now been cast as Mr Paravicini, 10:D - The north-east tip of Argentina prevents Uruguay touching Paraguay's border, 11:B - They never had any No 1 albums in their heyday, but since reforming a canny mobilisation of their fanbase has seen them hit the top spot twice in 2024, 12:B - Pedantry alert, Windscale was built in Cumberland in the 1950s, but is now called Sellafield and sits in the reorganised county of Cumbria which was established in 1974, 13:C - They weren't just any old discarded beer cans, like you might find piles of lying around the quiz master's home, they were in fact meticulously hand-painted with acrylics, according to the museum, which luckily managed to fish them out of the bin, 14:B - That is about 9,350km in new money. In 2000 the UK's high court found Britain had acted illegally when it forced all the islanders off the Chagos Islands in the 1960s but according to Johnson apparently the deal was all about "political correctness", 15:C - Some miserabilist took it down within hours, suggesting they enjoyed the joke about as much as Liz Truss seems to have

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 – you can have at it in the comments below. But why not watch the delightfully self-effacing Quiz Show Clue by Maxïmo Park instead?