Election winners, fashionable horses and a tour of stately homes – take the Thursday quiz

This horse has got some questions for you. Photograph: Cabalar/EPA

Welcome once again to the Guardian’s Thursday quiz, which is tentatively approaching its century like a tail-ender in a Test match unexpectedly having the best innings of their career. Fifteen vaguely topical or general knowledge questions await you, liberally dosed with some in-jokes and sarcasm. There are no prizes, but you can score bonus points if you spot any references to Doctor Who. Let us know in the comments how you got on.

The Thursday quiz, No 98

1. 

   BALTIC VOTES: The prime minister of Estonia's party secured first place in the weekend's elections. Who is the prime minister of Estonia?

   1. Sanna Marin

   2. Mette Frederiksen

   3. Anneke Wills

   4. Kaja Kallas

2. 

   STATELY HOMES: Sarah Merker has completed a 10-year quest to do what at 244 different National Trust sites?

   1. Sample a scone at the tearoom

   2. Rate and review the accessible toilets

   3. Install a hedgehog hibernation box

   4. Perform a poem by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings

3. 

   SWEET BABY CHEESES: An appeals court in Richmond, Virginia ruled last week that cheese manufacturers in the US could happily label produce as which famous Swiss variety?

   1. Raclette

   2. Emmentaler

   3. Gruyere

   4. Toblerone

4. 

   HAPPY BIRTHDAY: It is Barbie's birthday today. The doll was first introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York City on 9 March, 1959. Who is playing Barbie in the upcoming Barbie movie being directed by Greta Gerwig?

   1. Katy Perry

   2. Emilia Clarke

   3. Ariana Grande

   4. Margot Robbie

5. 

   WHAT WOULD KATHARINE HEPBURN SAY?: That is a 1993 song Sparks wrote for Christi Haydon. But what was Katharine Hepburn's real name?

   1. Katharine Houghton Hepburn

   2. Norma Jeane Mortenson

   3. Laura Horowitz

   4. Katheryn Hudson

6. 

   THE GIRL IS CRYING IN HER LATTE: That is the new single by Sparks. But which of these is how Costa Coffee describes their latte on their website?

   1. Rich and good-looking – an expert combination of rich espresso and velvety milk, signed off with a beautiful florette handcrafted by your barista.

   2. Famously frothy – special treat made out of intense espresso, foamed milk and decadent chocolate dusting, if that's how you like it. Enjoy it hot or ice cold.

   3. Loved by everyone – we combine our signature espresso with a creamy milk or dairy alternative of your choice for the ideal drink to sip when it's served hot or cold.

   4. A little luxury – it all starts with the purest essence of espresso and textured milk. We even sign it off with a little heart, from us to you.

7. 

   THE DIRECTOR NEVER YELLED CUT: That is a 2008 song by Sparks where the director eventually said "that was your best performance yet". Cate Blanchett stars in the video for the new Sparks single, but which film did she win her first Oscar for, as best supporting actress in 2004?

   1. Notes on a Scandal

   2. The Aviator

   3. I'm Not There

   4. The Parting of the Ways

8. 

   EQUATOR, EQUATOR: Because of the lyric in Sparks' song Equator – "Surely we set it for 3pm, surely we said it was March the 10th" – tomorrow is celebrated as Equator day by Sparks fans. How many countries does the equator of the Earth pass through?

   1. 13

   2. 15

   3. 17

   4. 19

9. 

   GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: Which of these is not magnetic?

   1. Nickel

   2. Copper

   3. Iron

   4. Cobalt

10. 

    DO-YOU-THINK-SHE-SAURUS: Fossil collector and palaeontologist Mary Anning died on this day in 1847. But where was she born, where she collected many of her fossils?

    1. Hastings, East Sussex

    2. Dawlish, Devon

    3. St Austell, Cornwall

    4. Lyme Regis, Dorset

11. 

    WHY THE LONG FACE: Which fashion designer had horses as part of their show in Paris this week?

    1. Molly Goddard

    2. Stella McCartney

    3. Grace Wales Bonner

    4. Victoria Beckham

12. 

    MATHS WITH GOTHS: Siouxsie wants to know which of the following operations is not reversible in solving an equation?

    1. Adding the same non-zero value to both sides of the equation

    2. Multiplying both sides of the equation by the same value

    3. Subtracting the same non-zero value from both sides of the equation

13. 

    FRIENDS OF DOROTHY: Dorothy on Sesame Street is a goldfish. But who owns her?

    1. Big Bird

    2. Count von Count

    3. Bert & Ernie

    4. Elmo

14. 

    THE LEFTWING ECONOMIC ESTABLISHMENT WITH LIZ TRUSS: Who is the current Governor of the Bank of England?

    1. Andrew Bailey

    2. Sam Woods

    3. Mervyn King

    4. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

15. 

    POP STARS IN PARLIAMENT: Deputy leader of the opposition Sussan Ley dressed up as which singer in the Australian parliament as part of 'a dare' that raised $200,000 for cancer care?

    1. Rihanna

    2. Tina Turner

    3. Lady Gaga

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:D - Reform won an election in 2019 but was then kept from power as three smaller parties formed a government. It collapsed in 2021, allowing Kallas to create a coalition and take charge. Results with 98% ballots counted showed the far-right EKRE party in second place, with 16.1% versus 31.5% for Kallas’ liberal group., 2:A - Sarah Merker, 49, from Isleworth, west London, tasted scones at 244 National Trust sites across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Merker ranked and reviewed each scone on her blog, nationaltrustscones.com. She shared some of the journey with her husband, Peter, who died from cancer in 2018. “It’s all very emotional, it’s been a weird experience,” Merker said., 3:C - The US Food and Drug Administration does set some standards for gruyere cheese, such as the existence in it of “small holes” and that such cheese is aged at least 90 days. But it does not establish criteria on geographic origin. Or whether it will taste any good., 4:D - Robbie has the lead role in a movie whose teaser trailer was a parody of the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and which also features Emma Mackey, Helen Mirren, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell and Ncuti Gatwa., 5:A - Katheryn Hudson is Katy Perry, Norma Jeane Mortenson is Marilyn Monroe, Winona Ryder's real name is Winona Laura Horowitz, but Katharine Hepburn stuck to her original name. By the look on his face, Ron Mael – real name Ronald David Mael – thinks you should have known that, 6:C - This is the description for the latte. The flat white is "rich and good-looking", the cappuccino is "famously frothy" and the cortado is "a little luxury". They all sound like they were written by ChatGPT. When not on tour, Sparks like to visit the same coffee shop in LA every single day., 7:B - She was nominated as best supporting actress for both Notes on a Scandal and I'm Not There, but won the award for The Aviator, where she played … Katharine Hepburn., 8:A - It is, according to most sources, 13: Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati. Some sources say 11, as they don't count the Maldives or Kiribati. But the Thursday quiz shuns those sources, and didn't offer 11 as an option., 9:B - Technically, as someone will no doubt point out in the comments, if you have a sufficiently strong magnetic field, all matter is magnetic. But for general day-to-day purposes – and for answering GCSE questions – copper is considered diamagnetic, as it doesn't have any intrinsic atomic magnetic moment. When placed in a magnetic field it will weakly repel the field, resulting in a small negative magnetic susceptibility. Materials like water, copper, nitrogen, barium and sulfate are diamagnetic., 10:D - Anning’s lifetime of discoveries – including finding the first ichthyosaur skeleton at the age of just 12 – profoundly shaped the emerging science of palaeontology, and a statue now stands in her memory in Lyme Regis, where she was born in 1799, 11:B - It was the first time the British designer had shown living animals on the catwalk. “There is so much leather, fur and feathers on these runways, particularly in winter. I just wanted to show that you could show animals in a different way,” she said., 12:B - Siouxsie knows that while multiplying both sides of an equation by the same non-zero value is a valid operation, it is not reversible if the value being multiplied is zero. In this case, any solution to the original equation is lost., 13:D - According to the Muppet fandom wiki, she is a good friend to Elmo, who can understand what she's saying through her goldfish bowl. Dorothy is inquisitive and possesses an active imagination. When represented in books or toys Dorothy often has a feminine appearance, including prominent eyelashes, which the wiki helpfully notes, is not typical for your average goldfish. , 14:A - The son of a sixth form college principal from Leicester, Bailey attended Wyggeston boys school, which was in those days still a grammar school, before studying history and then an economics PhD at Queens’ college, Cambridge. The Liz Truss mini-budget cost the country something like £30bn, a figure which Bailey was able to count., 15:B - Ley, the member for Farrer in southern NSW, says she had been challenged by a local radio announcer to don the costume.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

If you 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 it has been scientifically proven that 99% of the email he receives about the quiz are people fact-checking jokes.