Thursday news quiz: Superheroes, AI zeroes and a very lost shark

This shark has some questions for you. And they might just bite. Photograph: Ron & Valerie Taylor/Bruce Coleman Inc/Alamy

Swapping the glitz and glamour of last week’s visit to Istanbul for non-league football, your humble quiz master spent Saturday soaking up the sunshine while watching Walthamstow FC put a mere nine goals past a hapless Lowestoft Town. A quick sympathetic exchange with the shellshocked Lowestoft keeper – “Oh mate, long Saturday afternoon for you” – yielded the weary reply: “Long Saturday? Long fucking season.” Bless him. We hope you feel somewhat more optimistic about tackling these 15 questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 267

1. 

   In a story tailor-made for the Thursday news quiz, a man in a Batman costume (not pictured, that's the toilets in the Dog and Duck) chased down a suspected handbag thief. Where?

   1. Peterborough

   2. Norwich

   3. Mansfield

   4. Gosport

2. 

   A large shark (not pictured) has become an unlikely tourist attraction after getting trapped in a narrow city canal for more than a week, the inept weirdo. Where?

   1. Busan, South Korea

   2. Osaka, Japan

   3. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

   4. Klow, Syldavia

3. 

   The usual culture warriors have got their knickers in a twist after it was reported that who (not pictured) had been cast as Aslan (not pictured) in Greta Gerwig’s (not pictured) forthcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew?

   1. Nicole Kidman

   2. Anne Hathaway

   3. Meryl Streep

   4. Jennifer Lopez

4. 

   Donald Trump (not pictured) has signed an executive order declaring that from now on, artificial intelligence will be called what?

   1. Ultraintelligence

   2. Cyberintelligence

   3. Superintelligence

   4. Trumptelligence

5. 

   California is rushing to prepare for a predicted sea level rise caused by a type of wave called …?

   1. Ronald

   2. Fernand

   3. Nestor

   4. Kelvin

6. 

   A new museum dedicated to The Sound of Music has opened in the city where much of the movie was filmed. Where?

   1. Linz

   2. Vienna

   3. Salzburg

   4. Szohôd

7. 

   Which dead film icon has been revived by AI in order to advertise ball bearings?

   1. Audrey Hepburn

   2. Greta Garbo

   3. Ingrid Bergman

   4. Joan Crawford

8. 

   This week's guest canine is Darcy, who – reader Edwin Rose tells the Thursday quiz – recently won the waggiest tail award at a village charity dog show. She wants to know which artist's painting of his dog Stanley is expected to fetch £2.5m?

   1. David Hockney

   2. Peter Blake

   3. Grayson Perry

   4. LS Lowry

9. 

   This week's guest feline was in the Hagia Sophia and, frankly, seemed a little bit oblivious to the historic significance of the location. She wants to know who won Fat Bear Week?

   1. Dancing Queen

   2. Holly

   3. Backpack

   4. Derek

10. 

    Which TV personality has said British broadcasters should merge into one big "Britflix" to survive in the streaming era?

    1. Jeremy Clarkson

    2. Eamonn Holmes

    3. Julia Hartley-Brewer

    4. Floella Benjamin

11. 

    Which pop goddess (very much not pictured) performed at the AFL grand final at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday?

    1. Kate Bush

    2. Natalie Imbruglia

    3. Kylie Minogue

    4. Delta Goodrem

12. 

    Which of these was a real headline on the Guardian website this week?

    1. National Trust removes plaque linking ornamental garden layout to 'cultural appropriation'

    2. Royal Horticultural Society removes guide linking peat-free compost to 'classist gatekeeping'

    3. English Heritage removes panel linking medieval moat construction to 'feudal aggression'

    4. BBC removes article linking bare nails trend to 'white supremacist standards of beauty'

13. 

    Which entrepreneur is planning to launch a London-wide news operation as part of a "rescue" of one of the capital’s most highly regarded local newspapers, the Camden New Journal?

    1. Dale Vince

    2. Peter Jones

    3. Theo Paphitis

    4. Julian Richer

14. 

    Who won video of the year at the MTV VMAs?

    1. Sabrina Carpenter with Tears

    2. Bruno Mars with I Just Might

    3. Sparks with Do Things My Own Way

    4. Taylor Swift with The Fate of Ophelia

15. 

    How many people were arrested after a £320,000 trial of live facial recognition in London train stations, using almost 100 police hours?

    1. None

    2. Zero

    3. Zip

    4. Nada

    5. Nobody, but press this one to get the point

Solutions

1:B - The man was attending a friend’s fancy dress party when he witnessed a handbag being snatched after a row in a queue for a nightclub. Not all heroes wear … oh no, hang on, 2:A - More than 600,000 people are estimated to have visited a waterfront park since the 3.5-metre shark – nicknamed Bukang-i – was first spotted, 3:C - Apparently it is fine to have Jesus portrayed as a CGI lion, but *only* with a male voice, 4:C - Sigh, 5:D - It is the scientific name for a massive underwater band of warm water, driven by El Niño conditions, that moves across the Pacific before colliding with the South American coastline and surging north, 6:C - It is one of the favourite things of the Thursday news quiz, which used to live there, 7:B - A rather unimpressed Peter Bradshaw described it as "a Hallmark-greeting-card parody of the icy hauteur, distraite sensuality and deadpan comedy that Garbo projected in life", 8:A - Dog Painting 17 of a very naughty looking dachshund is believed to be one of only six of works from Hockney's Dog Series in private hands and the first to be auctioned, 9:C - Backpack, a 20-year-old quiet giant known for sitting in solitude for long periods on his rock in the Brooks River in Alaska, won by barely 5,000 votes in the close-fought public tournament, 10:A - If only, say in 2008, somebody had proposed something called Project Kangaroo (Ed note: Google it) …, 11:C - The crowd were so lucky, 12:D - No idea, 13:A - Vince said: "I think London is missing a local paper now," with the daily London Evening Standard a distant memory, 14:D - Swift won in three categories overall, 15:E - Not so much a final quiz question as a WTF?

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun! Let us know how you got on in the comments, unless you were trying to arrest people with facial recognition

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 Swerve by Trentemøller instead?

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