Hugh’s hat, Hindu gods and the whole of the moon – take the Thursday quiz

It is Hugh Jackman. But who wanted to buy his hat? Photograph: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

December is here and it will be magic again. It is the traditional season where the Thursday quiz cannot decide whether to go all-in for Christmas silliness, or be a respite of calm from festivities. Either way, the premise remains essentially the same – 15 vaguely topical or general knowledge questions, liberally sprinkled with some in-jokes. Let us know how you get on in the comments. Don’t forget you can always bookmark and find the latest Thursday quiz on the official page for the Guardian’s Thursday quiz.

The Thursday quiz, No 84

1. 

   BABY REMEMBER MY NAME: We lost Irene Cara, who had smash hits in the 1980s with the theme tune to Fame, and which other massive movie?

   1. Footloose

   2. Staying Alive

   3. Dirty Dancing

   4. Flashdance

2. 

   WE MISS YOU JULEE: It would have been much-missed Julee Cruise's birthday today. She had a hit single with a vocal version of the theme tune from which cult TV show?

   1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer

   2. Twin Peaks

   3. The X-Files

   4. Sapphire and Steel

3. 

   WHAT AN ENIGMA: Boffins have cracked the code of an encrypted letter sent by King of Spain Charles I (not pictured) to his ambassadors in France. But when did he become Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor?

   1. 1419

   2. 1519

   3. 1619

   4. He did not

4. 

   ON THIS DAY: The Arecibo Telescope spent more than 50 years being the world's largest single-aperture telescope. It collapsed on 1 December 2020 – but where was it?

   1. Puerto Rico

   2. Peru

   3. Brazil

   4. Suriname

5. 

   HOLY MOLY: You can't move for right-wing commentators who don't go to church complaining that England and Wales no longer has a Christian majority. What percentage of the population of England and Wales put their religion down as Christianity in the 2021 census?

   1. 48.8% (28.7 million people)

   2. 46.2% (27.5 million people)

   3. 42.4%,(24.9 million people)

   4. 37.2% (22.2 million people)

6. 

   FILM FICTION: For reasons too confusing to go into, posters and reviews of a 1973 film that doesn't exist – Goncharov – have gone viral over the internet. Who is said to have directed this fictional masterpiece?

   1. Robert De Niro

   2. Robert Altman

   3. Ridley Scott

   4. Martin Scorsese

7. 

   HOW DO I GET TO THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL: Sparks have announced two massive shows next year at London's iconic Royal Albert Hall. But when did Queen Victoria first open the venue?

   1. 1861

   2. 1871

   3. 1881

   4. 1891

8. 

   SILVER MOON: Nasa has been busy pinging a rocket around the moon for fun. But what, to the nearest 1,000km, is the moon's equatorial circumference?

   1. 11,000 km

   2. 21,000 km

   3. 31,000 km

   4. 41,000 km

9. 

   OH HOW TERRIBLY VEXING WITH DIDO: Vexillology is the study of flags, and Dido had a hit with White Flag. An irresistible Thursday quiz combination. But which of these best describes the design of the national flag of Poland?

   1. Two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one red and the lower one white

   2. A bicolour, with white in the hoist and red in the fly. A representation of the George Cross is carried, edged with red, in the canton of the white stripe

   3. A horizontal triband of red top and bottom, and white

   4. Two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one white and the lower one red

10. 

    VILLAGE PEOPLE'S POSER: Young man, there's no need to feel down, Village People had a smash hit in 1978 with YMCA. But which M is the fish avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu?

    1. Mahakala

    2. Matsya

    3. Mahakali

    4. Manussa

11. 

    IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian's Thursday quiz. She knows that a Hollywood star bid $100,000 for Hugh Jackman’s hat in a charity auction after a performance of the musical The Music Man this week, but she can't remember who. Can you help her?

    1. Nicole Kidman

    2. Angelina Jolie

    3. Gwyneth Paltrow

    4. Cate Blanchett

12. 

    WILD WILD LIFE: Residents in Woburn, north-west of Boston in the US (not pictured), claim to have been subjected to a barrage of attacks and intimidation by a group of what … ?

    1. A small gang of raccoons nicknamed 'the bin wizards'

    2. Five wild turkeys led by a male bird nicknamed 'Kevin'

    3. A group of black bears nicknamed 'The Addams family'

    4. 30-50 feral hogs

13. 

    SCOTTISH THINGS: In a world first, the Scottish football association is going to ban professional Scottish football players from doing what on the day before and day after matches?

    1. Having sex

    2. Drinking alcohol

    3. Heading the ball

    4. Eating haggis

14. 

    GCSE BIOLOGY CORNER: Human beings have teeth that are classified into four types. Which of these is a type of human teeth?

    1. Canine

    2. Feline

    3. Ursine

    4. Elapine

15. 

    MUSIC: Which pop star has been granted Albanian citizenship for spreading the nation’s fame internationally through her music?

    1. Self Esteem

    2. Jesse J

    3. Dua Lipa

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:D - Flashdance … What A Feeling was an international success, co-written by Cara with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey, and it won Best Original Song at the Oscars., 2:B - Falling, featuring music composed by Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics written by David Lynch, was a No 1 hit in Australia and reached the top ten in the singles chart in the UK, 3:B - He became Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V in 1519. In fact as head of the House of Habsburg he ended up as Holy Roman Emperor, King in Germany, King of Italy, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon), Archduke of Austria, Lord of the Netherlands and Duke of Burgundy. He would have a nightmare working out who to support at the World Cup, 4:A - It was built into a natural sinkhole near Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The cumulative effects of hurricane and earthquake damage in the years preceding the collapse did for it, poor thing., 5:B - According to the most recent census data, taken in 2021 and published this year, 46.2% of the English and Welsh population say they are Christian, a decline of 13.1 percentage points since the last census in 2011. Even so, Christian remained the most common response to the religion question. “No religion” was the second most common response. London was the most religious city, while the least religious places were all in Wales, possibly explaining why the good Lord just smited Wales out of the World Cup at the first hurdle., 6:D - It has all been most entertaining and at one point Wonder Woman Lynda Carter posted two black-and-white photos of herself and Henry Winkler captioned, “Me and ‘The Fonz’ at premiere of Goncharov (1973) at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre”. Scorsese has not commented., 7:B - According to the venue's website, at the Hall’s opening ceremony on 29 March 1871, in front of nearly 10,000 people, the Queen was visibly upset and only managed to say: ‘I have to express my great admiration of this beautiful Hall and my earnest wishes for its compete success’. Sparks play the Royal Albert Hall on 29 and 30 May 2023., 8:A - It is 10,921 km, compared to the Earth's 40,075 km. We can't give you the measurement in Ancient Sumerian cubits because as far as we know the Ancient Sumerians never went to the moon., 9:D - White and red were officially adopted as national colours in 1831, the national flag was officially adopted in 1919, and since 2004, Polish Flag Day has been celebrated on 2 May. Poland has the red on the bottom, it is Monaco that has the same design but with the red on top. "A horizontal triband of red top and bottom, and white" is Austria, and it is the flag of Malta that famously incorporates the George Cross., 10:B - Matsya is described to have rescued the first man, Manu, from a great deluge and may be depicted as a giant fish, often golden in colour, or anthropomorphically with the torso of Vishnu connected to the rear half of a fish., 11:A - During an auction for the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids after the performance on Saturday, Kidman made her presence known by shouting her bid of $100,000 for the hat, which led to gasps and cheers in the crowd, then a standing ovation., 12:B - “They don’t let you out of your house,” said Meaghan Tolson, who lives in Woburn and has named the turkeys, so presumably got this querstion right. “They peck at cars, they stop traffic. They go after kids on bikes. If you’re walking or jogging, or anything like that, they come for you.”, 13:C - The guidance by the Scottish Football Association (SFA) comes after a landmark study revealed former professional footballers were three and a half times more likely to suffer from dementia and other serious neurological diseases. The guidance introduced on Monday will come into immediate effect, including the banning of exercises with repeated heading of the ball more than once a week, and a day before or after a match day, including crossing, finishing and set-piece practices., 14:A - The others are incisors, premolars and molars, and yes canines are the sharp ones named after doggy-teeth for some reason., 15:C - Albania's president Bajram Begaj said on Sunday that Lipa was granted citizenship ahead of Albania’s 110th anniversary of independence from the Ottoman empire. Begaj said he considered it an honour to do so because Lipa has made Albanians famous throughout the world. Lipa was born in London in 1995 to immigrant Albanian parents Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa from Kosovo.

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 quizmaster’s word is final, and he is most likely to be live blogging the World Cup, so your mileage may be limited.