Corned beef, bread and misplaced nostalgia – take the Thursday quiz

Corned beef in a can – but can you answer questions about the terrible poem it inspired? Photograph: Dan Matthews/The Guardian

Is there anything worse on the internet than those terrible faux-nostalgia poems designed to get older people to forward them on like grim chain letters about how everything was better back in the day – provided you ignore the disease, poverty and cruelty of the age? It turns out that there is something worse than that on the internet – a quiz based on one because the quiz master is on holiday. Have fun!

The Thursday quiz, No 122

1. 

   I REMEMBER THE CORNED BEEF OF MY CHILDHOOD: Corned beef, a product still readily available in supermarkets today and also for several centuries before this terrible poem was written, is often made by Fray Bentos. Where does Fray Bentos get its name from?

   1. A town in Colombia

   2. A regional district in Chile

   3. A mountain in Argentina

   4. A port in Uruguay

2. 

   AND THE BREAD THAT WE CUT WITH A KNIFE: Who starred as Benoit Blanc in Knives Out?

   1. Rian Johnson

   2. Daniel Craig

   3. Michael Shannon

   4. Chris Evans

3. 

   WHEN THE CHILDREN HELPED WITH THE HOUSEWORK: Who is credited by the Hoover company for inventing the "suction sweeper" that launched the company in the early 1900s?

   1. Murray Spangler

   2. Emmett Brown

   3. Egon Spengler

   4. Eric Stahlman

4. 

   AND THE MEN WENT TO WORK, NOT THE WIFE: Unpaid labour is still labour. But what was Australian band Men at Work's biggest international hit?

   1. The Safety Dance

   2. Down Under

   3. Live It Up

   4. Beds Are Burning

5. 

   THE CHEESE NEVER NEEDED A FRIDGE: What is the biggest selling brand of cheese in the US?

   1. Land O'Lakes

   2. Borden

   3. Kraft singles

   4. Plastic

6. 

   AND THE BREAD WAS SO CRUSTY AND HOT: Bread again. A thing which still has crusts, can be heated, and exists in 2023. But who wrote the British TV sitcom Bread, which ran from 1986 to 1991?

   1. Carla Lane

   2. Jimmy Perry and David Croft

   3. Craig Cash and Phil Mealey

   4. Caroline Aherne

7. 

   THE CHILDREN WERE SELDOM UNHAPPY: Unless they were really ill with diseases that can now be prevented. Which year did the World Health Organization declare that smallpox had been eradicated?

   1. 1970

   2. 1980

   3. 1990

   4. 2000

8. 

   AND THE WIFE WAS CONTENT WITH HER LOT: Lot's wife, on the other hand, was turned into a pillar of salt in which book of the Old Testament?

   1. Exodus

   2. Leviticus

   3. Genesis

   4. Marillion

9. 

   I REMEMBER THE MILK FROM THE BOTTLE: Milk still comes from cows (and goats, sheep, soya and almonds too of course) but is it the official state beverage of New York?

   1. True

   2. False

10. 

    WITH THE YUMMY CREAM ON THE TOP: Willow, the official dog of the Thursday quiz, is slightly miffed she has never had a puppuccino, which is a small cup of whipped cream. But the band Cream featured bassist Jack Bruce, guitarist Eric Clapton and which drummer?

    1. Keith Moon

    2. Mitch Mitchell

    3. ‎Norman "Dinky" Diamond

    4. Ginger Baker

11. 

    OUR DINNER CAME HOT FROM THE OVEN: Which of these metals has the highest boiling point?

    1. Tungsten

    2. Copper

    3. Manganese

    4. Beryllium

12. 

    AND NOT FROM A FREEZER, OR SHOP: What were you putting in the oven that didn't come from a shop unless you owned a farm? Talking of farms, what is the name of the inspirational pig that preaches a revolution in George Orwell's Animal Farm but dies before it comes to pass?

    1. Sgt Rock

    2. Old Major

    3. Plantagenet

    4. Wise Ol' Tom

13. 

    THE KIDS WERE A LOT MORE CONTENTED, THEY DIDN’T NEED MONEY FOR KICKS: How many pennies were there in a pre-decimal pound sterling?

    1. 20

    2. 60

    3. 120

    4. 240

14. 

    JUST A GAME WITH THEIR FRIENDS UP THE ROAD, AND SOMETIMES THE SATURDAY FLICKS: Hang on, if you didn't need money for kicks [see question 13], how were you getting into the movies without paying? You sound like juvenile delinquents. Anyway, which movie won the Oscar for best picture earlier this year?

    1. Everything Everywhere All at Once

    2. All Quiet on the Western Front

    3. Tár

    4. Triangle of Sadness

15. 

    I REMEMBER THE SHOP ON THE CORNER: Ah yes, shops, another thing the modern world has done away with. What was the name of Cornershop's biggest hit single in the UK?

    1. Dub Be Good to Me

    2. The Rockafeller Skank

    3. Brimful of Asha

    4. Caravan of Love

Solutions

1:D - It is one of Uruguay's most important harbours, on the Uruguay River and close to the border with Argentina., 2:B - it is indeed the erstwhile James Bond who takes the lead role in the highly acclaimed ensemble piece., 3:A - Hoover's corporate history claims that W. H. "Boss" Hoover bought the patent from Murray Spangler in 1908, after the latter had invented a device to try and remove dust from the process of sweeping up as it aggravated his asthma, 4:B - "I come from a land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder" – this is marginally worse as poetry than the theme of the quiz to be honest., 5:C - According to Statista, world experts on cheese, in 2020 Kraft singles vastly outsold any other brand of US cheese, a format of food which the Thursday quiz has previously established it holds no truck with., 6:A - You can begin to see that the Thursday quiz thought this was a hilarious joke at the time but is finding it increasingly hard to write the questions., 7:B - The last person recorded to die from smallpox was in 1978, and WHO made the declaration two years later. Did you know that there are, according to the US government, only two locations that officially store and handle the variola virus – one in Atlanta, Georgia and one in Koltsovo, Russia. That is actually some monkeypox in the picture because neither of those places let random quiz writers in to take photographs., 8:C - Lot's wife doesn't get given a name in the scripture, but she disobeyed instructions and turned round to witness the destruction of Sodom and was punished for it. , 9:A - The Thursday quiz has got absolutely no idea why you'd even need to legislate that there is an official state beverage, but in 1981 New York passed a law saying just that. In fact, 21 US states legally specify milk as their official beverage. That's as silly as a quiz having an official dog., 10:D - Formed by members of previously successful bands, they are often regarded as the first "supergroup". And to be fair, they probably didn't ever have a puppuccino either. , 11:A - 5,550C apparently. Phew, what a scorcher. The others all boil in the 2,000s., 12:B - Old Major explains his dream of an animal-controlled society three nights before his death and teaches the animals the revolutionary song Beasts of England., 13:D - There were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound in a system that made less sense than this quiz converting units of measure into ancient Sumerian cubits., 14:A - Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, AKA “the Daniels”, Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as a laundromat owner who stumbles into alternate universes as she tries to deal with tax and marital difficulties. It sounds like a regular day round the quiz master's house to be honest., 15:C - It originally reached number 60 in August 1997, but then given a remix and a spruce up by Norman Cook – who was also involved in all the other hits mentioned – it reached No 1 the following year. Anyway the corned beef poem continues to drone on inaccurately like this for approximately another 100 ancient Sumerian cubits, but that's your lot for questions this week.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had more fun with the questions than you had reading the poem!

• If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember, the quiz master’s word is final, even if you use your iPhone. And he is on holiday anyway, hence this week’s ridiculous format.