Britt’s birthday, banned adverts and Brummie insults – take the Thursday quiz

Britt Ekland lived on what island in the movie The Wicker Man? Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Welcome once again to the Thursday quiz, which is proud to be nothing if not eclectic, and particularly pleased never to have trashed the economy during its first few weeks into a job. You face 15 questions, some of which are topical, some of which are general knowledge, and at least one of which requires you to just have a wild stab in the dark about what is inside the twisted mind of an AI drawing tool. There are no prizes, but you can earn bonus points by spotting tenuous links to Doctor Who and boasting about it in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 76

1. 

   ELECTION RUNOFF: Jair Bolsonaro will be involved in a runoff election to remain Brazil's president after neither he nor his main rival could muster more than 50%. Who will the runoff be against?

   1. Simone Tebet

   2. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

   3. Ciro Gomes

   4. Fernando Haddad

2. 

   WHY THE LONG FACE?: The chess world has been engulfed in a sensational row about cheating sparked by the contests between which two players?

   1. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri

   2. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Sergey Karjakin

   3. Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann

   4. Anatoly Sergievsky and Frederick Trumper

3. 

   RUDE: A health campaign in New Zealand against hepatitis C (pictured, probably) has come a cropper after it was branded "deeply offensive". What were actors doing in it?

   1. Raising their middle finger

   2. Raising two fingers

   3. Baring their buttocks

   4. Singing Deeply Dippy by Right Said Fred

4. 

   MONEY MONEY MONEY: The Royal Mint has unveiled the first 50p coin design of the era of Charles III (not pictured). But what does it say around the obverse side?

   1. Charles III F D 50 Pence MMXXII

   2. Charles III D G Rex F D 50 Pence

   3. Charles III 50 Pence 2022

   4. Charles III D G BBC 50 Pence

5. 

   GCSE BIOLOGY WITH TOM BAILEY FROM THE THOMPSON TWINS: The Thompson Twins enjoyed international success with the song Lay Your Hands On Me in the 1980s, but which of these types of bones is NOT found in the human hand?

   1. Phalanges

   2. Metacarpal

   3. Carpal

   4. Malleus

6. 

   GEOGRAPHY BUT WITH TOTO: We all know, thanks to the 1980s soft rock anthem, that Mount Kilimanjaro 'rises like Olympus above the Serengeti'. But what country is Mount Kilimanjaro in?

   1. Tanzania

   2. Zambia

   3. Uganda

   4. Kenya

7. 

   ENSEMBLE CASTS: Which detective show has featured Ben Miller, Sara Martins and Don Warrington among its regular cast?

   1. Silent Witness

   2. Line of Duty

   3. Vera

   4. Death In Paradise

8. 

   TAMMY'S TEASER: Tammy Wynette had a hit single with D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968. We are back round to the beginning again, so which D is the lead singer of Depeche Mode, who announced this week their first LP and tour for five years?

   1. Dave Stewart

   2. Dave Gahan

   3. Dave Ball

   4. Dave Grohl

9. 

   ON THIS DAY: Everybody knows that the Great Fire of London took place in 1666. But in which year, on 6 October, did the great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead take place?

   1. 1754

   2. 1813

   3. 1854

   4. 1913

10. 

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY: It is Britt Ekland's birthday today. Happy birthday, Britt! She starred in 1973 folk horror classic The Wicker Man. But what island was it set on?

    1. Summerisle

    2. Saint Eustace

    3. Seaheaven

    4. Sinnoh

11. 

    IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. This week she is worried because nobody ever told her what a capercaillie is. Why not cheer her up by telling her that it is …?

    1. A type of rare black orchid

    2. A type of endangered bird

    3. A type of ancient Celtic musical instrument

    4. A type of delicious Cornish cake

12. 

    PEAKY BLINDERS: Daniel Grainger, the chair of Young Conservative Network, was told to leave the Conservative party conference in Birmingham after he called the city what in a tweet?

    1. A dump

    2. A sewer

    3. A cesspit

    4. A hellhole

13. 

    WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN: The Rosetta Stone features the same rather dull proclamation in three different texts – Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, and which other language?

    1. Ancient Sumerian

    2. Ancient Latin

    3. Ancient Mesopotamian

    4. Ancient Greek

14. 

    GANGSTA'S PARADISE: We lost the rapper Coolio. His biggest hit was, of course, international smash Gangsta's Paradise. But whose original track – Pastime Paradise – did it sample?

    1. Stevie Wonder

    2. Marvin Gaye

    3. Al Green

    4. Kate Bush

15. 

    NEW FACE IN AI HELL: The Thursday quiz asked the Lambda Text-to-Pokémon AI service to draw two people as Pokémon. This is what it drew. Who are they?

    1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Giles

    2. Debbie Harry and Ron from Sparks

    3. Sue Barker and Richard Osman

    4. Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Solutions

1:B - With more than 99.5% of votes counted, the leftist veteran – known as Lula – had secured 48.3% of the vote, not enough to avoid the 30 October showdown with his rightwing rival. Bolsonaro significantly out-performed pollsters’ predictions. Lula was president from 2003 until 2010., 2:C - Allegations of cheating – including wild speculation involving vibrating anal beads – have rocked chess to its core. It started when Magnus Carlsen pulled out of a tournament for the first time in his career and then later stunned the sport again by resigning a game after just one move. Both times Carlsen was faced with the same opponent, the 19-year-old American Hans Niemann., 3:A - The campaign included videos, outdoor posters and online material featuring actors raising their middle finger to another person, while smiling. The advertisement then goes on to show an actor having his middle finger pricked for a blood test, to determine if he has the blood-borne virus, 4:B - It stands for 'Charles III, dei gratia rex fidei defensor, 50 pence', 5:D - You have 14 phalanges in your fingers and thumb, four metacarpal bones in the middle of the hand, and eight carpal bones that make up the wrist. The malleus is actually in your ear, which helps you listen to Lay Your Hands On Me, which was a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and one of the songs that Tom Bailey still performs live to this day., 6:A - It is in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa, and has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. Notwithstanding that people will inevitably argue about the measuring of things in the comments, at about 10,000 ancient Sumerian cubits high, Kilimanjaro is in fact significantly taller than Mount Olympus, so in the song it isn't actually that good a comparison., 7:D - It is Death in Paradise, which first aired in 2011 with Miller in the role of the main British or Irish detective character inexplicably posted to sunnier climes in order to justify it being a French-British co-production. Kris Marshall, Ardal O'Hanlon and Ralf Little have all followed in his footsteps. The quiz can't understand what attracts them to head off filming in Guadeloupe for a few months each year., 8:B - Gahan joined the Basildon-based band as their lead vocalist in 1980, and this week he and Martin Gore announced that the band would be continuing despite the recent death of the founding member Andy Fletcher, leaving them as a duo., 9:C - A fire that started in the Wilson & Sons worsted mill on the banks of Gateshead set off a chain reaction of fires, leading to an explosion, the flaming debris of which then set light to buildings in Newcastle on the other side of the river. The fire is thought to have killed 53 and injured hundreds of people., 10:A - Christopher Lee memorably plays Lord Summerisle, which would have also given you a clue to the location's name if you had recalled that. Ekland's most famous scene in the song features her singing 'Willow's Song' to Edward Woodward's character in an attempt to seduce him, although the vocals on the recording used were actually supplied by Rachel Verney. Katy J Pearson recently did a brilliant version of it, without even trying to burn anyone to death, and you should check that out., 11:B - It is one of the UK’s most elusive and threatened woodland birds. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said the latest population survey found its estimated population had fallen from roughly 1,114 in 2015-16 to about 542 birds last winter, putting it at a critically low level., 12:A - Grainger tweeted 'Birmingham is a dump' after arriving in the city for the event, and was promptly told 'Off you pop then, and take anyone with the same views with you' by Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands. Birmingham has always seemed perfectly nice when the Thursday quiz has visited it., 13:D - The fact that the same text was in the three languages and people still knew how to read one of them helped unlock the secrets of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts. The proclamation reads that stones like this should be set up in temples throughout the land. Not once does it mention going up in the British Museum though, where it has been on display since the early 1800s, and is currently subject to a petition to return it to Egypt., 14:A - Gangsta's Paradise received several awards, including Best Rap Solo Performance at the Grammys and Best Rap Video and Best Video from a Film at the MTV video music awards, and featured a sample from Stevie Wonder's legendary album Songs In The Key Of Life., 15:D - It was the Conservative politicians, whose Pokémon special moves would presumably be something like 'high profile tax u-turn' and 'sneering slouch' respectively. To be honest, the Thursday quiz is not entirely convinced the AI had ever seen a picture of Jacob Rees-Mogg before drawing this.

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 final, and you wouldn’t want to find you are next for the giant burning wicker man.