Dolly covers, Scottish kings and a chocolate surplus – take the Thursday quiz

Dolly Parton. Which of her songs has Beyoncé covered? Photograph: Valérie Macon/Getty Images

Someone said that having the clocks change, Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day all in one 35-hour period in the UK made last weekend feel like some kind of season finale. Luckily there is no season finale in sight for the Thursday quiz, which ploughs on regardless of having an hour stolen from it. Fifteen questions on topical news, general knowledge and obscure weirdness await you. It is just for fun, but let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 154

1. 

   Sainsbury's has horrified meal deal shoppers in the UK by declaring that what is now considered a main dish?

   1. A banana

   2. Peperami

   3. Yoghurt

   4. One very naughty miniature dachshund

2. 

   This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, thinking about how she can't eat chocolate, even though there is a lot going spare in Orkney. Why?

   1. The owner of a small shop ordered 80 cases of Easter eggs by mistake instead of 80 Easter eggs

   2. A ferry carrying a delivery of a year's supply of chocolate for a competition winner crashed on the beach

   3. The local minister has declared Easter eggs as against the spirit of Jesus, and insisted nobody eat them, so the shops are full

   4. Because a Tardis full of chocolate landed there

3. 

   On her new country-tinged album, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé has covered which of Dolly Parton's famous songs?

   1. Coat of Many Colors

   2. I Will Always Love You

   3. 9 to 5

   4. Jolene

4. 

   Formula One’s US-based owner, Liberty Media, has announced a takeover of which other sport (not pictured)?

   1. MotoGP

   2. 24 Heures du Mans

   3. The Speedway European Championship

   4. Fédération Bruissement des 30-50 Porc Sauvages

5. 

   Speaking of sport, in the Conti Cup final at the weekend the midfielder Frida Maanum collapsed on the field. She recovered enough that she was conscious, stable and talking to medical staff, and the match continued. Maanum's team went on to win. What team was it?

   1. Chelsea

   2. Arsenal

   3. Manchester City

   4. Aston Villa

6. 

   One question about every country taking part in the Euro 2024 finals this summer. This week: Scotland. Who was the monarch of Scotland before Macbeth? They reigned from 1034 to 1040.

   1. Banquo

   2. Duncan

   3. Lulach

   4. Malcolm

7. 

   Talking of Macbeth, according to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a witness account by Dr Simon Forman, the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare was first performed in public in which year?

   1. 1591

   2. 1611

   3. 1621

   4. 1631

8. 

   In science, a mole contains 6.02214076×10^23 elementary entities, which is an awful lot of elementary entities if you ask the Thursday quiz. What constant is that number known as?

   1. Avogadro constant

   2. Boltzmann constant

   3. Coulomb constant

   4. Stahlman constant

9. 

   Which Republican-held US state senate has passed a bill banning the government "intentionally dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere"?

   1. Arkansas

   2. Montana

   3. South Carolina

   4. Tennessee

10. 

    Which UK government minister tried to clarify new legislation by saying "no, people should not be arrested just if they smell"?

    1. Kemi Badenoch

    2. Penny Mordaunt

    3. Lucy Frazer

    4. Gillian Keegan

11. 

    Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has threatened to send what to Germany?

    1. 20,000 giraffes

    2. 20,000 buffaloes

    3. 20,000 elephants

    4. 20,000 zebras

12. 

    According to a recent study, song lyrics in modern music are getting …

    1. Nastier, more aggressive, violent and self-obsessed

    2. Raunchier, more sweary, explicit and self-obsessed

    3. Simpler, more repetitive, angry and self-obsessed

    4. More likely to have been written by Ron from Sparks

13. 

    The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has issued a notice to its members warning against the continued use of which photo in academic articles?

    1. A picture of Taylor Swift allegedly making a satanic hand symbol during a concert

    2. A picture of Boris Johnson dangling from a zipline holding British flags

    3. A picture of Harambe the gorilla, killed in Cincinnati zoo in 2016

    4. A 1972 Playboy centrefold picture of Lena Forsén

14. 

    Thursday quiz favourite Liz Truss added once again to the general gaiety of the nation with her Easter message on social media. She posted a picture of what?

    1. A very self-deprecating picture of her tending to a crop of lettuces

    2. What appeared to be an AI-generated image of her with the Easter bunny in which she appeared to have six fingers on one hand

    3. Her wrangling a lamb while standing outside an abandoned church

    4. A stern-faced picture of her sitting at a desk, writing on a piece of paper that appeared to be a printed out spreadsheet with the typo "Ester Eggs" on it in large writing

15. 

    Which of these absolute bits of nonsense have the rightwing press and an MP been untruthfully describing as "woke" this week?

    1. The bones used in a display at the V&A

    2. The drones used by the Ministry of Defence

    3. The scones sold by the National Trust

    4. The phones sold by Marks & Spencer

Solutions

1:C - It used to be considered the snack part alongside a sandwich in the meal deal. What is the country coming to?, 2:A - Dan Dafydd turned his mistake into a charity raffle fundraising opportunity and a chance for everyone to laugh about it, 3:D - The Thursday quiz doesn't quite remember the line "I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man, Jolene, I know I’m a queen" from the original but the album is being very well received, 4:A - The competition is the highest class of motorcycle racing and involves more than 20 grands prix around the globe each year, 5:B - Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0 in extra time with a late winner from Stina Blackstenius in front of 21,462 fans at Molineux, 6:B - Donnchad mac Crinain, usually referred to as Duncan I, was killed in action by Macbeth and his men at the battle of Bothnagowan in 1040. Turns out that Shakespeare's plays are full of historical inaccuracies. Who knew?, 7:B - It is thought that it would have been performed privately at court earlier than that, and was probably written around 1606, as it contains some allusions to the gunpowder plot to kill King James VI/I, 8:A - It is named after Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro, Count of Quaregna and Cerreto, who was presumably really into big numbers, 9:D - Proponents of the debunked chemtrails conspiracy theory believe the cloudy white lines created by aeroplane emissions are chemicals being released into the atmosphere by the government, the Illuminati, big pharma, aliens or all four. This is not happening, scientists say. But it is going to be banned in Tennessee anyway, 10:D - Police in England and Wales are to be given powers to fine or move on rough sleepers deemed to be causing a “nuisance”, and the clearly well-written bill defines “something that is a nuisance” in relation to a person who “causes or does something capable of causing damage” and elsewhere defines damage as including “excessive noise, smells”, hence her being asked if rough sleepers should be arrested if they smell, and a fear that the entire nation's teenagers might end up behind bars, 11:C - Masisi is critical of Germany's proposed trophy hunting import ban, arguing that conservation efforts have led to an explosion in the number of elephants and that hunting is an important means to keep them in check, 12:C - Who knew anybody had been listening to the quiz master's most recent demo tape?, 13:D - The picture of Forsén, cropped to show her only from the shoulders up, has been frequently used as a reference photo since first being scanned as a digital image by a male scientist in the 1970s. Other publications have previously banned its repeated use, 14:C - She was outside St Mary’s church in Beachamwell, which was devastated by a fire two years ago, and the lamb appeared to be doing its very best to squirm out of her grasp. It was all very odd, 15:C - A flurry of news articles appeared saying the scones had gone "woke" because they used a vegan recipe. The Tory MP Bill Cash said: "There’s far too much wokery going on at the National Trust; this is just the latest example." The National Trust says it has been using the same dairy-free recipe for many years

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 – feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember the quiz master’s word is final and he has no regrets.