Karma chameleons, poisonous smells and multitudes of bees – take the Thursday quiz

For a long time this week’s Thursday quiz had been scheduled to be loosely themed around Pokémon, with 12 questions all tenuously tied to the names of the beloved little pocket monsters. However, with the sad news on Tuesday of the death of Rachael Lillis, who for years voiced Misty and Jessie among other beloved characters in the anime series, the timing became even more apposite, and an opportunity to pay tribute to someone who bought great joy to the Pokémon world for many years. Rest well Rachael.

The Thursday quiz, No 173 – Pokémon week

1. Bulbasaur is Pokémon #0001 in the Pokédex, and is a grass and poison type. Which poison is sometimes said to smell of bitter almonds?

   1. Arsenic

   2. Strychnine

   3. Ricin

   4. Cyanide

2. Charmeleon is #0005 in the Pokédox. Who wrote Culture Club's worldwide smash hit Karma Chameleon?

   1. Boy George, John Keeble, Steve Norman, Rusty Egan, Phil Pickett

   2. Boy George, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Phil Pickett

   3. Boy George, Jon Moss, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay, Phil Pickett

   4. Boy George, Ivan Doroschuk, Sho Murray, Sahara Sloan, Phil Pickett

3. Blastoise is #0009 in the Pokédex. The largest human-made blast was detonated in October 1961, with a force estimated to be 3,800 times greater than that used at Hiroshima. Who detonated it?

   1. Soviet Union

   2. US

   3. China

   4. San Marino

4. Butterfree is #0012 in the Pokédex, and the episode Bye Bye Butterfree, in which Ash releases it, is one of the most emotionally scarring pieces of art made in the 20th century. But when was "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" launched as a product?

   1. 1981

   2. 1991

   3. 2001

   4. 2011

5. Beedrill is #0015 in the Pokédex. There are about 20,000 different species of bee in the world. How many of them – roughly – are native to the US?

   1. About 2,000

   2. About 4,000

   3. About 6,000

   4. About 8,000

6. Exeggutor is #0103 in the Pokédex, and appears to be a walking palm tree that grows eggs with faces instead of coconuts. That's Pokémon for you. But which came first, the chicken or the egg?

   1. The chicken

   2. The egg

   3. Don't be silly

7. This is a picture of Mew, #0151 in the Pokédex. Particle physics is incredibly complicated, so to make it simpler, scientists use Greek letters to describe it. Which of these – PUN ALERT – is the symbol for the muon mass?

   1. γ

   2. η

   3. λ

   4. μ

8. Easily the worst Pokémon is Mr Mime, #0122 in the Pokédex. What was the name of the character that Marcel Marceau famously played in his mime act?

   1. Bobo Fantastique

   2. Bip the Clown

   3. Bibbledy Bob

   4. Le Porc Sauvage et Silencieux

9. Unown is a psychic type Pokémon, Pokédex number #0201, that comes in 28 different forms, all uncannily resembling letters and punctuation. Probably the kind of symbols used in the famous complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir. What commodity is the world's oldest known customer complaint about?

   1. Gold

   2. Bronze

   3. Copper

   4. A shipment of copies of Ten Years To Save The West by Liz Truss

10. Smeargle is #0235 in the Pokédex, and sounds very much like Sméagol, the original name of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. But what is the name of Sméagol's friend, whom Sméagol murders to get hold of the One Ring when his friend finds it in the River Anduin?

    1. Déagol

    2. Néagol

    3. Véagol

    4. Béagol

11. Piplup is a penguin-like Pokémon that is #0393 in the Pokédex. Where does the children's animation Pingu come from?

    1. Sweden

    2. Canada

    3. Germany

    4. Switzerland

12. This is Quaxly, a starter Pokémon in the Paldea region and a whopping #0912 in the Pokédex. What do ducks eat?

    1. Ducks are carnivores

    2. Ducks are herbivores

    3. Ducks are omnivores

    4. Ducks only eat cake and only drink fine wine

Solutions

1:D - The US CDC says "Cyanide is sometimes described as having a 'bitter almond' smell, but does not always give off an odor, and not everyone can detect this odor", 2:C - The band co-wrote it with Phil Pickett, co-founder of Sailor and their live keyboardist at the time, 3:A - Officially known as RDS-220, it was about 8 metres long and packed full of the bad stuff. San Marino is not known to be a nuclear power, although it does look like the kind of place where it would be great to set up a Bond villain-esque secret HQ, 4:A - The official website of the brand states that its launch was "an event we often describe as 'the best thing to happen in the eighties'", which is quite a bold claim considering Depeche Mode released Stripped in 1986, 5:B - None of them come equipped with drills, 6:B - Dinosaurs and fish were laying eggs long long long before the chicken became domesticated about 10,000 years ago, 7:D - That is Mu, not to be confused with Mew, 8:B - Marceau was born Marcel Mangel in 1923. Mr Mime is absolutely useless as a Pokémon; however, the scene where a Mr Mime is being interrogated in the Detective Pikachu movie is well worth checking out, 9:C - In the clay tablet from 1750-ish BCE, a merchant named Nanni berates Ea-nāṣir for the poor quality copper they have been fobbed off with. Naturally, having been found in modern-day Iraq, you can see the tablet on display in the British Museum in London, 10:A - He was played by Thomas Robins in the 2003 Peter Jackson movie The Return of the King, 11:D - It started running in Switzerland in 1990 before going on to international acclaim, 12:C - They will eat snails, slugs, worms and fish eggs, as well as plants

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Gotta catch 'em all!

If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, or several missing regular in-jokes, you will have to keep it to the comments, as the quiz master is otherwise occupied. Why not enjoy the official Magikarp song instead? At least until Pidgeotto carries it away …