Cursed ships, unlucky turkeys and a chainsaw incident – take the Thursday quiz

Thursday trundles around reliably again like that one friend that you keep trying to ghost but who always somehow pops up, with its 15 questions on topical news, silly stories, general knowledge, and the seemingly constant presence of the former UK prime minister Liz Truss. There are no prizes because it is just for fun, but we do enjoy it when you share how you got on in the comments. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 180

1. The far right won the most votes in the Austrian election. Who is the leader of the Freedom party (FPÖ)?

   1. Herbert Kickl

   2. Hubert Pickl

   3. Harald Tickl

   4. Hellmut Schtickl

2. Which city in Italy is having a hissy fit after the government mooted the idea of renaming its airport after Silvio Berlusconi?

   1. Parma

   2. Milan

   3. Brescia

   4. Pisa

3. A stir was caused this week after lone older men attending a gig by which of these acts were individually searched and questioned about why they were attending?

   1. Wet Leg

   2. Charli XCX

   3. Chappell Roan

   4. The Last Dinner Party

4. An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced on Monday to six months in federal prison for …

   1. Running an illegal crocodile farm

   2. Creating giant hybrid sheep for hunting

   3. Having trapped and killed over 25 Bald Eagles

   4. Releasing 30-50 feral hogs into the wild

5. Electricity (pictured) was generated on Monday for the last time at Britain’s last remaining coal power plant. Where?

   1. Agecroft C in Pendlebury, Salford

   2. Eggborough in North Yorkshire

   3. Stahlman B in Eastchester

   4. Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire

6. Lilly, an 8.5-metre-tall puppet of a baby (not pictured) designed to help children talk about the environment provoked a mixed response when it turned up where?

   1. Sevenoaks

   2. Rochdale

   3. Royal Tunbridge Wells

   4. Uxbridge

7. After 85 years with their names spelled wrong at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, somebody finally added the dots to Brontë. What is that two dots above the e called?

   1. Breve

   2. Dipthong

   3. Diaereses

   4. Ligature

8. We lost dear Dame Maggie Smith who entertained generations with her brilliantly waspish performances. She won a best actress Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. When?

   1. 1959

   2. 1969

   3. 1979

   4. 1989

9. Which former Arsenal goalkeeper has been fined €135,000 for having at his neighbour's garage with a chainsaw?

   1. Petr Čech

   2. Bernd Leno

   3. Łukasz Fabiański

   4. Jens Lehmann

10. New Zealand has reclaimed the world record for the largest mass haka. Who had been holding it?

    1. Papua New Guinea

    2. South Africa

    3. Uruguay

    4. France

11. This week our geography question takes us to the kingdom of Bahrain. Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, wants to know what is the capital of Bahrain?

    1. Manama

    2. Lusail

    3. Muscat

    4. Bahrain City

12. It is the anniversary of George Washington (not pictured) declaring that the first federal Thanksgiving holiday would be held in the US on 26 November, but in which year?

    1. 1749

    2. 1769

    3. 1789

    4. 1809

13. It is Jake Shears' birthday today. Happy birthday Jake! Which band does he front?

    1. Erasure

    2. Electric Six

    3. LCD Soundsytem

    4. Scissor Sisters

14. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the cruise ship (not pictured) that was stuck in Belfast for four months almost immediately having to return to Belfast because the right paperwork hadn't been completed to allow it to finally leave. But what is she called?

    1. Villa Vie Odyssey

    2. Symphony of the Seas

    3. Empress of Mars

    4. Derek

15. The Thursday quiz has vowed to keep featuring the former MP Liz Truss until the UK's shortest-serving former PM gets the hint from voters and disappears from view. This week Truss went to the Conservative party conference and said she would back which foreign leader to lead the Tories if they were standing?

    1. Viktor Orbán

    2. Javier Milei

    3. Giorgia Meloni

    4. Ron from Sparks

Solutions

1:A - Herbert Kickl campaigned using the “people’s chancellor” moniker once used to describe the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler. Rabbi Jacob Frenkel of Vienna’s Jewish Council called the election a “moment of truth”, 2:B - Giorgia Meloni's rightwing populists are looking to make a memorial to the man famous for owning AC Milan and his degenerate bunga bunga parties. Forza Inter!, 3:D - In Lincoln there was an incredible reverse of the usual situation of creepy older guys going up to young women wearing band t-shirts and demanding they name three songs. The venue has apologised, saying while it had been done with the "right intentions" due to incidents at previous gigs by the band, the result was "not acceptable". The band issued a statement saying it was done without their knowledge, 4:B - Arthur Schubarth used tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in central Asia and the US to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota, 5:D - It had opened in 1968, 6:B - One social media commenter described it as “Chucky goes north”, to which the local council replied: “Lucky the baby is a puppet or she would be upset by that comment." Lilly is off to terrify people in Hollingworth Lake next, 7:C - It is meant to indicate that the vowel is to be pronounced separately, to ensure you pronounce it "Bront-ay" or "Bront-ee" and not just "Bront". The extra dots won't stop Wuthering Heights being miserable though, 8:B - She also won a best supporting actress award in 1978 for California Suite and was by all accounts an absolute hoot in real life, 9:D - Lehmann was accused by the public prosecutor of sawing off a roof beam in the garage, 10:D - The record was broken at Eden Park rugby stadium in Auckland with 6,531 people taking part. Previously, in 2014, 4,028 people had done it for no readily apparent reason in Brive-la-Gaillarde, south-west France, 11:A - It has an approximate population approaching 300,000 and the city was mentioned by name for the first time in documents in the 14th century, although the area has been inhabited since well before then, 12:C - Washington was president from 1789 until 1797. No turkeys were pardoned during the process, 13:D - The Thursday quiz bets he feels like dancing today, 14:A - Apparently it has been stuck in Belfast for so long that one pair among the passenger roster met and got engaged during the delay, 15:B - "If Milei was standing in the Conservative leadership election, I would be backing him like a shot," she said of a man who leads a country where the former president and vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner only survived an assassination attempt in 2022 when her would-be assailant's gun jammed

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you got 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 – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not just bask in the slow-burn glory of the new song by the Cure instead?