Nell’s king, dragon flags, and a cute film groundhog’s name – take the Thursday quiz

It is Thursday once more, and so there are 15 vaguely topical or general knowledge questions for you to tackle. You will find them liberally sprinkled with a few poor dad jokes plus the inevitable appearance of some of our regular cast of characters – look out for Ron from Sparks, Kate Bush, Willow the official dog of the Guardian’s Thursday quiz, and hidden references to Doctor Who. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 93

1. CZECH ELECTION: Who is the new president of the Czech Republic after winning a landslide victory?

   1. Theodore Benik

   2. Andrej Babiš

   3. Karel Diviš

   4. Petr Pavel

2. YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING THESE DAYS: The Associated Press Stylebook apologised after tweeting a list of terms it thought could be considered dehumanising that included which phrase?

   1. "The French"

   2. "The Germans"

   3. "The Spanish"

   4. "The usual Thursday quiz crowd of weirdos"

3. NO THANKS: Which actor (not pictured) announced on their 58th birthday last week that they were giving back their OBE?

   1. Michael Sheen

   2. David Harewood

   3. Alan Cumming

   4. Jim Broadbent

4. ON THIS DAY: On 2 February 1585, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway's twin children (not pictured) were baptised. What were they called?

   1. Macneth and Juliet

   2. Othenno and Jessica

   3. Prosnero and Jayne

   4. Hamnet and Judith

5. ON THIS DAY (SLIGHT RETURN): It is also the anniversary of the birth of Eleanor Gwyn, better known as Nell Gwyn and famous for being one of the first women to act on stage in England. She was also known for being a companion to which king?

   1. James I (James VI of Scotland)

   2. Charles I

   3. Charles II

   4. James II (James VII of Scotland)

6. GCSE SCIENCE WRITTEN BY AN AI: The Thursday quiz asked ChatGPT: "Write a multiple-choice question for an online quiz about GCSE chemistry," and it said: "What type of chemical bond is formed between two atoms when they share electrons?"

   1. Ionic bond

   2. Covalent bond

   3. Metallic bond

   4. Hydrogen bond

7. GROUNDHOG DAY AGAIN: It is Groundhog Day. What is the name of the groundhog in the 1993 film starring Bill Murray?

   1. Punxsutawney Phil

   2. Punxsutawney Paul

   3. Punxsutawney Pete

   4. Punxsutawney Ron from Sparks

8. VEXILLOLOGY: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei and Cambodia all have symbols in the middle of their flags. But on which of them is the symbol a dragon?

   1. Bangladesh

   2. Bhutan

   3. Brunei

   4. Cambodia

9. ANTIQUES ROADSHOW: The English painter John Craxton (not pictured) bought what for £250 in the 1960s that is now expected to sell for as much as £7m at auction?

   1. A rare early dress by the Italian designer Gianni Versace

   2. A rare early edition of a DC Batman comic with a misprinted cover

   3. A rare chandelier by the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti

   4. A rare painting by the Dutch painter Vincent Van Klomp

10. HIGHER OR LOWER WITH TONY YEBOAH: This week the Leeds United legend wants to know which of these cities in Norway is furthest north.

    1. Tromsø

    2. Stavanger

    3. Molde

    4. Bodø

11. MATHS WITH GOTHS: The bouncer at Le Phonographique in Leeds will only let you in if you can spot which of these is a correct chain of conversions of fractions, decimals and percentages. Which is it?

    1. 0.3 = 30% = 3/100

    2. 0.72 = 72% = 18/25

    3. 0.6 = 6% = 6/10

    4. 0.35 = 35% = 6/20

12. KANGAROO ANUS: How much of his £320,000 fee for appearing on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! has the health secretary during the pandemic, Matt Hancock (not pictured), donated to the charity he said he did it to raise awareness for?

    1. 100%

    2. 50%

    3. 25%

    4. 3.125%

13. IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, playing Pokémon Go. But which Pokémon is she meeting here?

    1. Liepard

    2. Espurr

    3. Meowth

    4. Rockruff

14. HER HIPS DON'T LIE (AND THE LAWYERS HAVE CHECKED THIS): It is Shakira's birthday today. Happy birthday Shakira! But what was the name of the song she sang for the 2010 Fifa World Cup?

    1. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)

    2. Arriba Arriba (This Time for Africa)

    3. Together Together (This Time for Africa)

    4. Glory Glory (This Time for Africa)

15. NOW THAT'S A BREAK-UP: Who has smashed Spotify’s one-week streaming record with more than 96m streams of her new track Flowers, which is aimed at her ex?

    1. Shakira

    2. P!nk

    3. Miley Cyrus

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:D - The retired general and former senior Nato commander swept to the Czech presidency with a landslide victory over the former prime minister Andrej Babiš in an election overshadowed by rows over Russia's war in Ukraine. With nearly all the votes counted, returns showed Pavel prevailing by the emphatic margin of 58.3% to 41.68%, the largest ever recorded in a Czech presidential poll., 2:A - The organisation tweeted advice not to use generic labels for groups of people who share a single common trait, giving as examples the poor, the mentally ill and the college-educated. It also included grouping together everyone from the European nation under the same banner. The writer Sarah Haider said: “Nothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French. Rather, such individuals should be thought of as ‘suffering from Frenchness’ and deserve our compassion and prayers.”, 3:C - In a post on Instagram, the Scottish actor talked about how he had recently “opened his eyes” to the “toxicity” of the British Empire. He said his soul-searching was prompted by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the conversations that the event sparked. Sheen has also given his OBE back, in 2020, to call for the abolition of handing the title of Prince of Wales to the heir apparent to the English throne. So that went well., 4:D - Hamnet died aged 11, while his sister lived to the ripe old age of 77, dying in 1662. I mean, it is sad he died so young but … Hamnet. HAMNET., 5:C - The affair between the two is believed to have begun around 1668, and Gwyn's two sons James and Charles are thought to have had the king for their father. They really liked the names James and Charles back then, didn't they?, 6:B - Asked to explain the correct answer, ChatGPT said: "Something went wrong, please try reloading the conversation." So now we will never know., 7:A - Murray portrays Phil Connors, while the groundhog was played by a critter called Scooter. The Thursday quiz hero award this week goes to whoever added this line to Wikipedia: "While the tradition remains popular in the 21st century, studies have found no consistent association between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather.", 8:B - Bangladesh has a red circle, Brunei has a red crest and Cambodia has a depiction of Angkor Wat. Bhutan's flag was adopted in 1969 and features "a white dragon holding four jewels in its claws centred along the dividing line and facing away from the hoist". So the hoist is well positioned to sneak up on it and steal those jewels. , 9:C - When Craxton first spotted the unique light fitting in a shop on Marylebone Road in the 1960s, he believed it had been commissioned by his late friend, the art collector Peter Watson. Confident about his purchase, Craxton – who died in 2009 – hung it in his home in Hampstead, north London, for 50 years, content to reflect on the piece’s extraordinary place in cultural history. It is now up for auction with a reserve price of £1.5m and is expected to fetch much more., 10:A - It is Tromsø. In December 2021 their football team released a third kit that incorporated a QR code that when scanned took you to information about human rights abuses in Qatar, before that country hosted the 2022 Fifa Word Cup., 11:B - That's the ticket. Down the spiral staircase you go, and sounds like they've got Bauhaus blasting out on the decks already., 12:D - £10,000 out of the £320,000 has gone to a charity., 13:D - It is clearly a dog-based Pokémon, and so couldn't have been Liepard (Leopard), Espurr (Purr) or Meowth (Meow), all of which are cat-based Pokémon with appropriate feline puns in their names. So it must be Rockruff (Ruff! Ruff!). Honestly, you never have to have seen a Pokémon in your life – the names are simply cryptic crossword clues. But with a cute Pokémon attached., 14:A - It is a banging tune, but there was some criticism at the time that Fifa hadn't chosen an African artist to be the musical face of the first, and so far only, Fifa World Cup to be hosted on the continent., 15:C - In Flowers, Cyrus says she can buy herself flowers, write her own name in the sand, take herself dancing, and hold her own hand. What a show-off. Shakira's recent diss track of her ex Gerard Piqué recently became the most watched Latin song on YouTube. Kate Bush's diss track wasn't so much about an ex as about the horrors of nuclear war – "Chips of plutonium are twinkling in every lung"

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you got on in the comments!

If you do 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 he isn’t at work on Thursdays.