Early exits, ugly dogs and melting points – take the Thursday quiz

Just seven days to go and then on 4 July this terrible nightmare will end for all of us once and for all. Yes, on that day there will be a new Thursday quiz, and you can stop fretting about your score on this week’s one. Sixteen questions wait for you on topical news, general knowledge, and quite a lot of animals this week, assuming you count Wombles as animals. There are no prizes. Do let us know how you get on in the comments. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 166

1. Whose artwork has been hung in the ladies' restrooms at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art?

   1. René Magritte

   2. Mark Rothko

   3. Andy Warhol

   4. Picasso

2. We lost Donald Sutherland. He became an internet meme for one shot of him pointing and screaming in a 1978 adaptation of which novel by Jack Finney that had previously been made as a 1956 science-fiction horror film?

   1. It Came From Outer Space

   2. The Body Snatchers

   3. Them!

   4. This Island Earth

3. Two astronauts have got themselves stuck on the ISS after a fault developed with the Boeing craft that had carried there. What is the vehicle called?

   1. Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starburst spacecraft

   2. Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft

   3. Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Startrack spacecraft

   4. Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Startlingly One-Way Only spacecraft

4. This is Willow. The official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. Someone this week said to her "I know you from the internet" and Willow just ignored them. Rude. Anyway, what is the name of the eight-year-old pekingese who won the 2024 World’s Ugliest Dog contest?

   1. Wild Thang

   2. Foxy Lady

   3. Beaver O’Lindy

   4. Waterloo Sunset

5. Talking of dogs, and here is Willow again, a fishing expedition rescued 38 dogs from drowning in a lake this week. Where?

   1. Minnesota

   2. Missouri

   3. Montana

   4. Mississippi

6. Diesel the escaped pet donkey (not pictured, that is a donkey seemingly cheerfully celebrating Easter) has been living his best life in California. Having been missing for five years, he was spotted living with a herd of …

   1. Deer

   2. Bison

   3. Elk

   4. 30-50 feral hogs

7. Today is the anniversary of the 1358 founding of the Republic of Ragusa. Very topical. Which European city was the territory based around?

   1. Bratislava

   2. Dubrovnik

   3. Kaliningrad

   4. Tirana

8. What was the name of the first ever Star Trek episode broadcast (not pictured, that's a fan-made costume of a later vintage)?

   1. The Man Trap

   2. Where No Man Has Gone Before

   3. The Enemy Within

   4. Ron from Sparks in Space!

9. You've always wanted to pass GCSE drama, right? Try this one. Which of these describes using a traverse stage?

   1. The audience move around the performance area

   2. The audience are in a circle around the stage

   3. The audience sit on both sides of the stage facing each other

   4. The audience talk loudly and fiddle with their phones all the way through

10. One of a long series of geography questions about countries that aren't in Euro 2024. This week, Cuba. Havana is Cuba's biggest city. Which of these is its second city?

    1. Santiago de Cuba

    2. Guantánamo

    3. Santa Clara

    4. Manzanillo

11. And now a question about Euro 2024. Which country was the first to be eliminated from the tournament, after results in their first two games made it mathematically impossible for them to progress to the knockout rounds?

    1. Scotland

    2. Iceland

    3. Poland

    4. Syldavia

12. Which of these metals has the highest melting point – tungsten or nickel?

    1. Tungsten has the highest melting point

    2. Nickel has the highest melting point

    3. It is a trick question, uniquely both metals have the same melting point

13. The BBC Radio 4 Today programme is going to stop doing what after 47 years?

    1. The pips

    2. Daily horse racing tips

    3. Thought for the day

    4. Having Nigel Farage on all the time

14. The Tour de France starts on Saturday. Where is this year's Grand Départ?

    1. France

    2. Italy

    3. Belgium

    4. Andorra

15. The Thursday quiz recently visited the exhibition about Ladybird books in St Albans, which it thoroughly recommends, even if the Thursday quiz didn't get a mention in the Ladbybird story of newspapers book. What were the names of the two children in the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme books?

    1. Edmund and Susan

    2. Lucy and Caspian

    3. Peter and Jane

    4. Renée and Renato

16. A bonus Wombles question! What is the name of the new Wombles single, their first for decades?

    1. Wombling USA

    2. Womblin' Down Under

    3. Wombling at the Euros (It's Coming Home)

    4. Wimbledon Common Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us

Solutions

1:D - The museum was forced to close an exhibition that only women were allowed to access as part of an experiment in making men feel as excluded as women often are. Naturally, a man complained and took them to court, so now they've taken to sticking art up in the women's loos, 2:B - Despite having inspired several films, it is good to see that the Wikipedia page for the novel has a huge section devoted to "the novel's scientific incoherence". This is why we can't have nice things, 3:B - The Starliner was designed to accommodate seven passengers, or a mix of crew and cargo, for missions to low-Earth orbit, presumably also with the intention of bringing them back at some point , 4:A - Organisers of the World’s Ugliest Dog competition have been holding the event annually for nearly 50 years, although there were apparently only eight dogs in the final, presumably because all dogs are beautiful good boys and good girls, even the very naughty miniature dachshunds, 5:D - It was in Grenada, Mississippi, about 100 miles south of Memphis. The 38 dogs had plunged into the lake while chasing a deer when they were being used for fox hunting, 6:C - He was spotted earlier this year when Max Fennell, a hunter in northern California, filmed a group of wild elk hanging out with Diesel, who appeared to be a member of the herd, 7:B - It controlled a slice of what is now the coast of Croatia, and lasted from 1358 until 1808, 8:A - The Enemy Within was the fifth episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before went third, and the show opened with The Man Trap, where a shape-shifting alien in the guise of a beautiful woman survived by extracting essential salts from men, 9:C - A traverse stage, also known as a corridor stage or catwalk, predominantly has the audience on two sides facing each other, 10:A - Havana in the north-west has a population of 2.1 million people, and Santiago de Cuba in the south-east is the second largest city with a population of about 430,000, 11:C - Poland’s defeat to Austria in group D on 21 June meant it was impossible for them to avoid finishing bottom of the group, even before Scotland did a Scotland, 12:A - Tungsten melts at about 3,400C (6,190F) but nickel melts at the lower temperature of about 1,450C (2,640F), 13:B - The show will only do racing tips for big meetings in future. The decision to scrap them was described by the Racing Post as a “significant blow for the profile of the sport". No horses have commented on the changes, 14:B - Stage one is a 206km trot from Florence to Rimini, 15:C - There were 36 books in the series, and the exhibition The Wonderful World of the Ladybird Artists is well worth a visit if you are of a certain vintage, 16:A - A jolly fun Beach Boys-esque pastiche in the mould of Back in the USSR but with more references to wombling

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you got on 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 – feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember the quiz master’s word is final and there is a new single from Desperate Journalist you would be better off watching instead.