Turnbull’s hobby, the Fall’s pope song, and Stevie Nicks’ atomic number – take the Thursday quiz

Bill Turnbull when he was working with Classic FM. Photograph: Classic FM/PA

The fates have conspired to strike a vicious blow against the Thursday quiz, but despite being incapacitated, the quiz master has bravely mustered the strength from his sickbed to write 15 general knowledge and vaguely topical questions for your entertainment. There will be Kate Bush. There will be hidden references to Doctor Who. There will be jokes that people will then fact-check in the comments for some reason. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on.

The Thursday quiz, No 72

1. 

   THANK YOU BILL: We lost the lovely BBC Breakfast and Classic FM presenter Bill Turnbull last week. But what was the name of the book he published about one of his hobbies?

   1. How To Build a Motorbike

   2. The Bad Beekeepers Club

   3. Weathering for Railway Modellers

   4. Fly the Wing – Hooking into Hang-gliding

2. 

   DEAD LETTER OFFICE: Which music star has decided after many years to sue the FBI to see the contents of the files kept about them?

   1. Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Hollies

   2. Todd Rundgren of Nazz, solo artist, and the producer of the first Sparks album

   3. Micky Dolenz of the Monkees

   4. Lindsey Buckingham of Buckingham Nicks and Fleetwood Mac

3. 

   I'M SORRY DAVE I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT: Which country's digital minister is trying to eliminate the floppy discs that are still required for 1,900 government-related procedures such as submitting applications and other documents?

   1. Japan

   2. Slovakia

   3. India

   4. Argentina

4. 

   BORK, BORK, BORK!: The Swedish prime minister sent congratulations to the wrong Liz Truss on Twitter, and my how we all laughed at this mistaken identity. Who is Sweden's prime minister?

   1. Sanna Marin

   2. Mette Frederiksen

   3. Ann Linde

   4. Magdalena Andersson

5. 

   ON THIS DAY: 8 September 1504 is often given as the date the Renaissance sculpture masterpiece David was unveiled to the public outside the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Who sculpted it?

   1. Leonardo da Vinci

   2. Michelangelo

   3. Sandro Botticelli

   4. Donatello

6. 

   WE MISS YOU, GARY: It would have been the birthday of the much-loved and much-missed Welsh footballer Gary Speed today. With which team did he win the English First Division championship in 1991–92?

   1. Leeds United

   2. Newcastle United

   3. Everton

   4. Bolton Wanderers

7. 

   HEY! LUCIANI: Immortalised in the song Hey! Luciani by the Fall, and recently beatified by Pope Francis, for how long was John Paul I the pope in 1978?

   1. 13 days

   2. 23 days

   3. 33 days

   4. 43 days

8. 

   GCSE SCIENCE WITH STEVIE NICKS: Gold Dust Woman was written and sung by Stevie on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album. But what is the atomic number of gold?

   1. 19

   2. 39

   3. 59

   4. 79

9. 

   THE VINYL COUNTDOWN: What does the EMI stand for in the name of the record label EMI?

   1. English Music Industries

   2. Electrogram and Magnetic Industries

   3. Electric and Musical Industries

   4. Electric and Music Incorporated

10. 

    1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions that aren't about football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar, a country that David Beckham has described as "perfection". The 1974 Fifa World Cup was held in West Germany. But with Berlin divided, what was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990?

    1. Bonn

    2. Bremen

    3. Düsseldorf

    4. Frankfurt am Main

11. 

    WEIRD WORDS: Which of these words, according to the Collins dictionary online, means 'an ornament at the top of a piece of furniture'

    1. Frobly-mobly

    2. Flarnecking

    3. Fanon

    4. Finial

12. 

    TAMMY'S TEASER: Tammy Wynette had a hit single with D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968. But which O was in the Wombles ?

    1. Odesa

    2. Orinoco

    3. Orcini

    4. Okanogan

13. 

    IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME: Nasa has been trying to launch its Artemis mission. But in Greek mythology, who was the father of the goddess Artemis?

    1. Zeus

    2. Alpheus

    3. Dionysus

    4. Apollo

14. 

    IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME (SLIGHT RETURN): The Tunnel of Eupalinos is considered one of the great achievements of ancient engineering. On which Greek island is it?

    1. Crete

    2. Kefalonia

    3. Ithaca

    4. Samos

15. 

    IT IS TOO EARLY FOR ALL THAT XMAS NONSENSE: Who (not pictured) this week announced they would be releasing their first dedicated Christmas album in nearly two decades?

    1. Sir Cliff Richard

    2. Michael Bublé

    3. Michael Ball

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:B - Turnbull’s love of bees was one of his justifications for leaving BBC Breakfast, as he claimed he had been “neglecting my bees for far too long". His 2011 book tells of the time he had to take a day off work as he got a bee stuck in his suit which stung him, and his head swelled up giving him "Shrek-like symptoms"., 2:C - The last surviving member of the Monkees is suing the FBI over a “secret dossier” he believes the agency holds on him and his former bandmates, having been convinced to do so by Mark Zaid, a freedom of information specialist and music fan who told Rolling Stone magazine it would be “fun”., 3:A - Japan’s digital minister, Taro Kono, said he would expand his quest to phase out discs and move administrative procedures online. Kono has previously had fax machines and hanko personal seals in his sights., 4:D - The new British PM tweets as @TrussLiz, but the owner of the @LizTruss account is in for a fun couple of years of international social media diplomacy. Ann Linde is Sweden's foreign minister, while Sanna Marin and Mette Frederiksen are the leaders of Finland and Denmark respectively , 5:B - It is, of course, Michelangelo's David – although Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli did apparently take part in discussions about where it should best be located, 6:A - Gary played for all those teams but he won the English league title with Leeds in 1991–92, the final season before the creation of the Premier League. He later went on to manage his country, and died in 2011, and we all miss him very much, 7:C - Albino Luciani, who took the name John Paul after being elected pope on 26 August 1978, was found dead in bed at his Vatican apartment on 28 September that year. Although the Vatican said he died of a heart attack, it gave conflicting versions as to the circumstances in which his body was discovered, leading to a host of conspiracy theories, or as Mark E Smith succinctly put it: "They said you were of peasant stock, and one day the curia murdered you." , 8:D - It is 79 - regardless of whether you've turned it into dust or not. Gold is a transition metal, and a group 11 element, and one of the least reactive chemical elements, and a hit single by Spandau Ballet which serves as the calling song of non-league Walthamstow FC. "Wal-tham-stow. STOW! Always believe in your soul etc etc", 9:C - It was founded in 1931 and became defunct in 2012, releasing a lot of records by Cliff Richard and Kate Bush in the intervening years. This photo is taken in Reckless Records in Soho, where the quizmaster used to ply his shopkeeping trade., 10:A - One of Germany's oldest cities and the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven, it was also formerly the capital of the Electorate of Cologne. Incidentally, in the days before Fifa draws became increasingly more complicated and orchestrated, East Germany and West Germany got drawn into the same group at this world cup to play their only ever match against each other (pictured). East Germany won that game 1-0, but West Germany went on to win the tournament itself., 11:D - It can also refer to an ornament on top of a spire, gable, especially in the form of a foliated fleur-de-lys. Oooh get you. Frobly-mobly is to be merely “indifferently well”, flarnecking is the vulgar flaunting of success. Fanon, also known by the term "headcanon", are fan explanations of things in a fictional work that haven't been clearly and explicitly stated on screen or on the page., 12:B - All the Wombles picked their names by pointing randomly at Great Uncle Bulgaria's English-language atlas, and young Orinoco pointed at one of the longest rivers in South America, 13:A - Apollo was Artemis's twin brother, hence Nasa naming the successor moon programme to Apollo after her. Most sources tend to say Artemis was the child of Zeus and Leto. Presumably Zeus had turned himself into a swan or 30-50 feral hogs or something in order to make that union., 14:D - The tunnel running through Mount Kastro in Samos is more than 1,000 metres long and was built about 6th-century BC to serve as an aqueduct. It was dug from both ends and the designing engineer Eupalinos used a geometrical method to ensure the two ends met in the middle., 15:A - Christmas With Cliff will be out in November and includes a mixture of his interpretations of some old classics alongside some new festive bangers. "I hope that we add a little something special to your Christmas season," said Sir Clifford of Richard.

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 quizmaster’s word is final, and genuinely he is off work with a fractured ankle so he won’t care.