Cartoons, computers and Queen Victoria’s secret – take the Thursday quiz

Queen Victoria at her writing desk, probably doing an early version of the Manchester Guardian’s Thursday quiz. Photograph: W and D Downey/Getty Images

The Thursday quiz was criticised the other week in the comments for being too down and self-deprecating in its opening blurb. What an unfair charge. So here are 15 more questions on general knowledge and topical trivia for you. You may need a cup of tea, because the repetitive in-jokes are sorely in need of some refreshment. Oh I see what they meant. Anyway, there are no prizes, it is just for fun. There is a hidden Doctor Who reference to spot for a bonus point. Let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 42

1. 

   YOUR STARTER FOR TEN: The lovely Bamber Gascoigne passed away this week. Which British comedy featured a wonderful pastiche of him running an episode of University Challenge played by Griff Rhys Jones ?

   1. Extras

   2. The Young Ones

   3. The Mighty Boosh

   4. The Fast Show

2. 

   TINTINOLOGY: The Belgian government has added illustrations from the Tintin comics to which official documents?

   1. ID card

   2. Driving licence

   3. Birth certificate

   4. Passports

3. 

   FEWER HITS: Which website reported its first ever drop in daily user numbers in 18 years last week?

   1. Facebook

   2. Google

   3. Amazon

   4. The Guardian's Thursday quiz

4. 

   ON THIS DAY: Today would have been the 181st wedding anniversary of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. How many children did they have together?

   1. Three

   2. Six

   3. Nine

   4. Twelve

5. 

   SKYNET BEGINS: Today is also the anniversary of computer Deep Blue beating a reigning chess world champion for the very first time under normal chess tournament conditions. Who did the super-computer beat in the opening game of their 1996 contest?

   1. Bobby Fischer

   2. Anatoly Karpov

   3. Mikhail Botvinnik

   4. Garry Kasparov

6. 

   BOWIE TEASER: It is the lovely Keeley Hawes' birthday today. Happy birthday Keeley. She starred in a time-travelling detective series named after which David Bowie song?

   1. Ashes To Ashes

   2. Loving The Alien

   3. Life On Mars

   4. The Laughing Gnome

7. 

   GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: To produce iron from iron ore, you need to heat it up in a furnace with which of these elements?

   1. Magnesium

   2. Boron

   3. Argon

   4. Carbon

8. 

   TRUE OR FALSE: The force of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion was so severe that weather stations all around the world were still measuring the pressure wave it made five days later?

   1. True

   2. False

9. 

   WHO AM I? Born in Michigan, and having had the surnames Judkins and Morris, I've won 25 Grammy Awards in a career which started when I released my first single in 1962 aged 12. Who am I better known as?

   1. Aretha Franklin

   2. Dionne Warwick

   3. Ray Charles

   4. Stevie Wonder

10. 

    MUM'S GONE TO ICELAND: The country of Iceland has announced that from 2024 it is going to stop what?

    1. Commercial whaling

    2. Petrol cars

    3. Seal culls

    4. Björk singing

11. 

    STATE THE OBVIOUS: The country of India is a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Constitution of India. It consists of 8 union territories and how many states?

    1. 14

    2. 28

    3. 36

    4. 42

12. 

    ALLONS-Y: Wiki Voyage lists 23 locations visited by fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. No 2 is Paris, France. But what is the current height of the Eiffel Tower according to its official website?

    1. 563 feet

    2. 1063 feet

    3. 1563 feet

    4. 2063 feet

13. 

    SENSELESS VIOLINS: That is a 1994 Sparks song where they come home and hear violins instead of 'the usual bass and drums'. But that's not important right now. In New Zealand a kleptomaniac bird senselessly and violently attacked a GoPro camera, and managed to film itself stealing it. Which type of bird?

    1. Kea

    2. Kaka

    3. Kakapo

    4. Krynoid

14. 

    SPOT THE BALL: The real position of the curling stone has been obscured in this picture of Italy in action at the Winter Olympics. Where was it?

    1. A

    2. B

    3. C

    4. D

15. 

    MUSIC: Who had UK hit singles in the late 1980s with singles including I Get Weak, Circle In The Sand and Leave A Light On?

    1. Tiffany

    2. Debbie Gibson

    3. Belinda Carlisle

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:B - It was episode seven of the show, which also featured Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Ben Elton and Emma Thompson as the team from Footlights College, Oxbridge, 2:D - From Monday, all new Belgian passports feature Tintin, the Smurfs and other heroes of Belgian comic-strip art. It is part of making passports harder to forge and … more fun?, 3:A - Facebook shares fell 25% after it was announced daily active users of Facebook fell to 1.929bn from 1.93bn. The regular user base of the Guardian's Thursday quiz remains stable at twelve plus one person in the office asking 'Are we really still doing this each week?', 4:C - It was indeed nine – Victoria, Edward VII, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice. Queen Victoria outlived three of them, but the last of her children to die was Princess Beatrice in October 1944. I may have oversold this being a 'secret' in the headline, 5:D - Kasparov went on to win the series 4-2, but the computer won overall in a rematch the following year, and ultimately went on to destroy mankind in the year 2088, 6:A - She was the star of Ashes To Ashes, set in the 1980s, which featured some of the same characters who had appeared in Life On Mars, starring John Simm, which had been set in the seventies. It couldn't have been The Laughing Gnome because that was released in 1967 so that wouldn't have worked unless they'd done one set in the sixties, 7:D - It is a bit more complicated than that, but most iron is produced under pressure in blast furnaces by reduction of iron ore – which is often a mixture of oxides – using carbon, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen, 8:A - It is true. I can't quite get my head round it but essentially, like the recent volcanic explosion near Tonga, the pressure wave kept reverberating around the earth for days and weather stations in cites were measuring it like clockwork. It was most likely the loudest event in recorded human history. It ruptured the eardrums of sailors 40 miles away. One barometer 100 miles away measured it at the equivalent of about 172dB, which is louder than a jet engine. Gadzooks!, 9:D - 'I Call It Pretty Music but the Old People Call It the Blues' was the first of three singles that failed to set the world alight in 1962 before Little Stevie Wonder had a US No 1 the following year with Fingertips – Part 2, taken from the modestly titled album 'The 12 Year Old Genius - Recorded Live'. I mean, boastful title, but they weren't wrong, were they?, 10:A - Demand for Icelandic whale meat has decreased dramatically since Japan – the main market for whale meat – returned to commercial whaling in 2019. In fact, In Iceland for the past three years, the two main licence holders have suspended their whale hunts, and only one whale has been killed in the past three years, 11:B - There are 28 states, running from those such as Nagaland and Manipur in the east, to Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west, 12:B - They say that the original height, without the antennas, was 1024 feet, which is a much nicer, rounder, and suspiciously accurate power of two, 13:A - Aotearoa’s native alpine parrot species, the kea, is known for its curious and mischievous nature – and for swiping wallets, jewellery, packed lunches, windscreen wipers and other valuables from unsuspecting tourists and visitors. You can tell by his face that Ron from Sparks thinks you should have known that, 14:B - It was B! There was some issue last week with the layout of this hugely popular new round on some phones. Hopefully the intentionally blank whitespace has fixed that, 15:C - The singles were taken from her hugely successful solo albums Heaven on Earth from 1987 and Runaway Horses from 1989. Still we await Kate being a correct answer

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

2. 5 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 also a picture of David Tennant is not a “hidden” Doctor Who reference. It is more cryptic than that.