Thursday news quiz: snarky memoirs, stylish spaniels and a debut to forget

Quiz-Illo-fish. Illustration: Anaïs Mims/The Guardian

There comes a time in life when you have to consider whether you are the enticing wriggly worm of knowledge or the carp of ignorance, blissfully unaware that you are about to get hoiked out of the lake. And that time is on Thursdays, when 15 questions on topical headlines, pop culture and general knowledge await you. As ever, we do not give prizes, but we always like to hear how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 238

1. 

   Which train station in Scotland had to be closed for a couple of days after a huge fire nearby?

   1. Glasgow Queen Street

   2. Glasgow Central

   3. Exhibition Centre Station

   4. Edinburgh Waverley

2. 

   Balendra Shah looks set to be Nepal's new PM after his party’s landslide election win. What did he do before he went into politics?

   1. Professional tennis player

   2. TV presenter

   3. Rapper

   4. Basketball player

3. 

   Nigel Farage has invested in a cryptocurrency firm chaired by which former Conservative chancellor?

   1. Kwasi Kwarteng

   2. Nadhim Zahawi

   3. Sajid Javid

   4. George Osborne

4. 

   Nymphalis polychloros (not pictured) – an elusive and enigmatic butterfly that became extinct in Britain in the last century – is a UK resident species once again. What is it better known as?

   1. Large Tortoiseshell

   2. Blue Jenny

   3. Speckled Wood

   4. Grizzled Skipper

5. 

   Which bank has got into hot water over the use of personal data after customers were offended by its 'Spotify Wrapped' style summary of their spending habits?

   1. Revolut

   2. Bunq

   3. Monzo

   4. First Direct

6. 

   A Sydney fashion designer has won her epic trademark dispute with a US pop star after a legal battle lasting almost 17 years over the name they share?

   1. Kelly Clarkson

   2. Christina Aguilera

   3. Britney Spears

   4. Katy Perry

7. 

   A clumber spaniel (pictured) has won the best in show prize at Crufts. What is his name?

   1. Merlin

   2. Archer

   3. Bruin

   4. Derek

8. 

   This week's feline interloper is once again the random cat that keeps stalking the Thursday quiz and following it home. They want to know who has purchased the Telegraph after tabling a £575m deal?

   1. Axel Springer

   2. Daily Mail & General Trust

   3. Condé Nast

   4. GlobeLink News

9. 

   Farther or nearer with Geordie Alan Shearer! This week we imagine the England soccer legend wants to know, if he leaves his hometown of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which is farther or nearer – Tunis, Tunisia or Marrakesh, Morocco?

   1. Tunis, Tunisia is nearer to Newcastle-upon-Tyne than Marrakesh, Morocco

   2. Marrakesh, Morocco is nearer to Newcastle-upon-Tyne than Tunis, Tunisia

10. 

    A 'new trend' to fake working from home has emerged, with shirkers weighing down their laptop so that it looks like they are working. What is it nicknamed?

    1. Input spoofing

    2. Keyboard jamming

    3. Presence padding

    4. Button mashing

11. 

    Liza Minnelli's memoir, called Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, sounds an absolute hoot. Who was her mum?

    1. Vivien Leigh

    2. Nancy Davis

    3. Ava Gardner

    4. Judy Garland

12. 

    Who won the men's T20 cricket world cup at the weekend?

    1. Pakistan

    2. India

    3. Australia

    4. Syldavia

13. 

    The Thursday quiz fondly remembers Keith Chegwin, so here is Cheggers plays Population! Which of these Baltic states has the largest population?

    1. Latvia

    2. Lithuania

    3. Estonia

14. 

    On this day with Brian May! And his badger! 12 March is the anniversary of the first reactor explosion at Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. The Thursday quiz imagines Queen's legendary guitarist wants you to tell him – and his badger – in which year …

    1. 2001

    2. 2006

    3. 2011

    4. 2016

15. 

    And finally … Antonín Kinský (very much pictured) had an absolute nightmare in Madrid on Tuesday where he was so bad on his Champions League debut for a woeful Tottenham Hotspur that he was substituted after how long?

    1. 17 minutes

    2. 27 minutes

    3. 37 minutes

    4. 47 minutes

Solutions

1:B - The fire is believed to have broken out in a vape shop on Union Street at about 3.45pm on Sunday, 2:C - Shah, known widely as Balen, and his Rastriya Swatantra party (RSP) secured a landslide victory in the first election since youth-led protests toppled the former government, 3:A - Kwarteng, who is best known for his his disastrous 2022 mini-budget with Liz Truss, announced he had become executive chair of Stack BTC in October last year. Stack BTC says its strategy is to accumulate bitcoin while buying businesses whose profits are reinvested in the cryptocurrency. What could possibly go wrong?, 4:A - Britain’s list of native butterflies has increased to 60 with the return of the insect after individuals emerged from hibernation in woodlands in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, 5:C - Customers did not enjoy being told 'You spent more than most on Just Eat. Did somebody say just stop?' or having the amount they had spent in Greggs highlighted. The Thursday quiz avoids all this by just storing all its mountains of cash under its mattress, 6:D - Hilariously, fashion designer Katie Taylor was born Katie Perry, while singer Katy Perry is really called Katheryn Hudson, 7:C - His owner, Lee Cox, described the four-year-old as 'a dog of a lifetime' and 'a bit of a diva'. We hope Bruin didn't hear the last bit, 8:A - Axel Springer, which owns Europe’s biggest newspaper, Bild, and the daily Die Welt, has agreed an all-cash deal for Telegraph Media Group. The wacky views of its columnists come free, 9:A - Tunis, Tunisia is only about 2,200km away from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whereas Marrakesh, Morocco is about 2,650km away, a difference of about 945,000 ancient Sumerian cubits. Top bins!, 10:B - According to a freedom of information request and public records checks by the Times, at least 50 police officers and civilian staff have been dismissed or forced to resign in the past three years for faking keyboard activity. Bobbies on the beat? More like bobbies on the cheat, eh, amirite? It's OK, the Thursday quiz will see itself out, 11:D - We are not losing our minds, the absolute treasure that is Minnelli appears to have slagged off pretty much everybody she has ever been related to, married, or worked with in the 400+ page memoir, 12:B - The tournament co-hosts retained their trophy after spanking New Zealand in the final, 13:B - That is according to the archived version of the 2026 CIA World Factbook, which has been discontinued by the Trump administration. Lithuania is listed as having a population of 2,815,687, Latvia has 1,801,246, and Estonia is the baby one, with 1,340,478, 14:C - The plant had been damaged by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami the previous day, and a recent documentary made clear how close Japan came to a much more damaging disaster, 15:A - By this stage Kinský had hilariously contrived to have already conceded three goals, two of which were direct results of him slipping up or mis-kicking the ball. The Thursday quiz was busy watching Leyton Orient beat Stevenage at the time

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had more fun than Antonín Kinský – let us know 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 and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch One Stop by Aldous Harding instead?

One Stop by Aldous Harding