Ancient pharaohs, weird science and lovely Liza Minnelli – take the Thursday quiz

Liza Minnelli around 1965 – but who wrote one of her hits from the eighties? Photograph: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

Here comes the Thursday quiz, representing all that is good in the world against a backdrop of unfolding chaos. Fifteen questions that are vaguely topical or general knowledge or generally just a bit weird. There are no prizes, but you can pick up one extra bonus point if you can spot a hidden reference to Doctor Who and mention it in the comments, where we’d love to find out how you got on. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 62

1. 

   WORLD LEADER PRETEND: The G7 summit was this week, but which venue was hosting?

   1. Bavaria in Germany

   2. Lombardy in Italy

   3. Hautes-Alpes in France

   4. Andalusia in Spain

2. 

   WORLD LEADER PRETEND II: It was also the Nato summit this week. But where was that?

   1. Munich in Germany

   2. Milan in Italy

   3. Montpellier in France

   4. Madrid in Spain

3. 

   PHEW WHAT A SCORCHER: Thanks to a climate crisis-induced heatwave, the mayor of Castenaso, near Bologna in Italy, is imposing a €500 fine for doing what with water?

   1. Putting out bowls of water for stray cats and dogs

   2. Companies using water in public fountains and water features

   3. Hairdressers and barbers shampooing their customers’ hair twice

   4. Boiling pasta for longer than seven minutes

4. 

   DEUCE: It is Wimbledon this week. What is the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club testing to try and broaden the appeal of the sport?

   1. Larger-sized tennis racquets

   2. Hybrid plastic grass

   3. A new tie-breaking system when sets are level at 6-6

   4. Genetically-modified giant strawberries with giant cream

5. 

   SENT HIM HOMEWARD TAE THINK AGAIN: The SNP has announced it will hold a Scottish independence referendum. Flower of Scotland celebrates a Scottish victory over Edward II of England, but who was monarch when the Acts of Union came into effect to form Great Britain in 1707?

   1. King James VII of Scotland and II of England

   2. King George I

   3. Queen Anne

   4. Queen Mary II

6. 

   WEIRD WORDS: According to the Cambridge online dictionary, what does ballute mean?

   1. A type of inflatable device resembling a cross between a parachute and a balloon, designed to slow descent rapidly

   2. A joke or a line in a script intended to get a laugh

   3. A bone found within the penis of certain mammals, including many primates, rodents and bats

   4. A heavy coarse napped cotton or wool fabric

7. 

   WEIRD SCIENCE: What is the name of the substance that spiritualists believe is exuded physically by some mediums when they are contacting the dead?

   1. Alembroth

   2. Mesothorium

   3. Phlogiston

   4. Ectoplasm

8. 

   ENSEMBLE CASTS: Which of these animated children's shows was narrated by Richard Briers on its original BBC run in 1974, and again when it was revived by Channel Five in 2005?

   1. Roobarb and Custard

   2. Mr Benn

   3. The Clangers

   4. The Mr Men

9. 

   GOLDEN SLUMBERS: Tutankhamun was the last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. When is his reign believed to have begun?

   1. 1532 BCE

   2. 1332 BCE

   3. 1132 BCE

   4. 932 BCE

10. 

    UNDER THE TABLE WITH HER: That's a 1975 Sparks song where 'nobody misses diminutive offspring'. But that's not important right now. In which province of South Africa can Table Mountain be found?

    1. Western Cape

    2. Northern Cape

    3. KwaZulu-Natal

    4. Gauteng

11. 

    IT'S A DOGS LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian's Thursday quiz. She is a dachshund. What does dachshund mean in German?

    1. Squirrel dog

    2. Pigeon dog

    3. Rat dog

    4. Badger dog

12. 

    1966 AND ALL THAT: An exciting weekly series of questions that aren't about football, leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in that famously football-loving bastion of human rights, Qatar. The 1934 Fifa World Cup was held in Italy. But what currency would Italy have been using in 1934?

    1. Piastra

    2. Florin

    3. Lira

    4. Grotzits

13. 

    I THINK ABOUT YOU: Pet Shop Boys were a Glastonbury highlight for many of those more inclined to being middle-aged, and they played Losing My Mind, a hit for Liza Minnelli when they recorded it with her in 1989. Who wrote it?

    1. Stephen Sondheim

    2. George and Ira Gershwin

    3. Cole Porter

    4. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe

14. 

    ALLONS-Y: The website Wikivoyage lists 23 locations visited by the fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days, none of them by hot air balloon. No 22 is Dublin, Ireland. But which of these is an Irish name for that city?

    1. Baile Átha Cliath

    2. Doire Cholm Cille

    3. Tír Eoghain

    4. Dún Chaoin

15. 

    THIS WOMAN'S WORK: Kate Bush enjoyed her two well-deserved UK No 1 singles an incredible 44 years apart. But which of these pairs of events were also 44 years apart?

    1. Elvis Presley died and Prince Harry got married to Meghan Markle

    2. Elvis Presley died and the first impeachment trial of the US president Donald Trump started

    3. Elvis Presley died and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was badly damaged by a fire

    4. Elvis Presley died and 12 European football clubs announced they were founding a European Super League™

Solutions

1:A - The 48th G7 summit was held in Schloss Elmau, Krün, in the Bävarian Älps. We love an unnecessary umlaut on the Thursday quiz, 2:D - It was Spain's capital city that was hosting the Nato jamboree, 3:C - Apparently a common practice for lustrous hair, Carlo Gubellini said thousands of litres of water was squandered each day through double-shampooing. It is Milan which has been turning off water features such as fountains – unless the survival of fish depends upon them, 4:B - Neil Stubley, Wimbledon’s head of courts and horticulture, said officials were piloting the weaving in of artificial fibres with real grass to be able to recreate the surface in different climates, with trials taking place at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club’s grounds at Raynes Park, two miles away, 5:C - Anne was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and became Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 May 1707 after the English and Scottish parliaments passed their respective Acts of Union, 6:A - Well there you go. Who knew?, 7:D - Often faked using cheesecloth or gauze, there is no scientific evidence that ectoplasm exists. The other terms in the options are old words used in medieval chemistry, although they do also all sound like they could have been Doctor Who monsters, 8:A - It was the anarchic adventures of green dog Roobarb and pink cat Custard to which Briers loaned his voice, 9:B - He is thought to have ascended to the throne aged eight or nine, and then reigned for about nine years. Presumably he'd be quite cross about the way his stuff is scattered all over the world in museums now, 10:A - Known as Huriǂoaxa in the Khoekhoe language and as Tafelberg in Afrikaans, Table Mountain overlooks Cape Town, which is the capital of Western Cape province. You can tell by the look on his face that Ron from Sparks thinks you should have known that, 11:D - The name means badger dog. The breed was specially developed to hunt badgers out of their setts, and to discover and exploit any structural weakness you might have in your furnishings or home. You can tell by the look on her face that Willow thinks you should have known that. Possibly before you got her, 12:C - The lira was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002, having been first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 and gradually adopted as the unification of Italy progressed, 13:A - It was originally written for the 1971 musical Follies, and reached No 6 in the UK single charts when Liza with a zee recorded it with Pet Shop Boys for her 1989 album Results. What a result, 14:A - It means 'town of the hurdled ford'. Dublin itself derives from the Irish word Dubhlinn, meaning black or dark pool. Your other options are known in English as Derry, Tyrone and the village of Dunquin in Co Kerry , 15:D - Elvis Presley died in August 1977, and 44 years later in 2021, twelve proud founding member clubs including Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal decided the middle of a pandemic was the perfect time to set the rest of the footballing world adrift before having to make a swift u-turn, in the process making their creation a Thursday quiz favourite

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

• If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and he’s still busy watching Glastonbury sets on iPlayer.