Poisoned books, hidden monsters and a bit of maths – take the Thursday quiz

This week on social media, Tom Forth mused on those incredible moments when you are attending a pub quiz, and the person asking the questions drops a clanger. He put it poetically like this: “Punters asking for clarification. Clarification isn’t going to help you mate. You’re in the hands of the gods now. Welcome to the contested and subjective nature of truth. It’s vibes all the way down. You are merely an ant in the quiz controversy universe. Let go.” Of course, the Thursday quiz never has ambiguous wording, typos or controversial errors, and that is why there is never any quibbling in the comments. So let us get on with it …

The Thursday quiz, No 158

1. The Conservative policing minister Chris Philp (pictured), talking about his government's flagship policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, appeared to confuse Rwanda with which other African nation on BBC television last Thursday evening?

   1. Zimbabwe

   2. Uganda

   3. Central African Republic

   4. Democratic Republic of Congo

2. France’s national library has removed four 19th-century books (not pictured) from its shelves whose emerald green covers are believed to be laced with what …?

   1. Polonium

   2. Arsenic

   3. Strychnine

   4. Psilocybin

3. This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, who is deeply disturbed at recent reports that a leading Republican figure in the US has told in a book how they shot an "untrainable" 14-month-old dog in the head. Who did the shooting?

   1. Governor Kristi Noem

   2. Senator Ted Cruz

   3. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene

   4. Judge Clarence Thomas

4. We lost the author CJ Sansom this week. What was the name of the series of books he wrote that also became a Disney+ series this week?

   1. Midlake

   2. Goldblake

   3. Shardlake

   4. Snowflake

5. One non-football question about every country taking part in the Euro 2024 finals this summer. This week: Spain. Which of these cities is farthest north?

   1. Valladolid

   2. Valencia

   3. Murcia

   4. Málaga

6. Thursday quiz favourite Liz Truss’s book about her 49-day stint as prime minister sold 2,228 copies in the UK during its first week on sale. Go you, Liz! That is almost as much as the number of £s you put the Thursday quiz's mortgage up by. Her publisher said it made it what number on the bestselling nonfiction book list in the UK for the week?

   1. 1st

   2. 6th

   3. 13th

   4. 49th

7. Airing nearly a full year before the rest of the first season, and before apparently "the extreme left and PC crap" ruined all comedy forever, according to him, which of these was a name given to the first episode of Seinfeld?

   1. The Pez Dispenser

   2. The Phone Message

   3. The Couch

   4. The Seinfeld Chronicles

8. You've always wanted to pass GCSE statistics, right? Try this one. What is the arithmetic mean of these values: 3, 10, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 2

   1. 4

   2. 5

   3. 6.5

   4. 8

9. You've always wanted to pass GCSE statistics twice, right? Try this other one. What is the range of these values: 3, 10, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 2

   1. 4

   2. 5

   3. 7

   4. 8

10. A toddler told her mother in North Carolina that “monsters” were in her closet. What was actually living in the walls there?

    1. A gaze of raccoons

    2. 50,000 bees

    3. An echidna that had escaped from a nearby animal park

    4. 30-50 feral hogs

11. It is time for jazz club. Nice. Which instrument was Mary Lou Williams best known for playing?

    1. Clarinet

    2. Trumpet

    3. Piano

    4. Kazoo

12. In one of the week's best-read news stories, Emma Stone has announced she would like to be referred to by her proper name Emily when people speak to her. OK, Emily, sure thing. Emma/Emily won best actress at the Oscars this year for playing which role?

    1. Alba Axminster

    2. Bella Baxter

    3. Cherry Chester

    4. Darla Dexter

13. Science! The Faraday constant is expressed as what …?

    1. Coulombs per mole

    2. Becquerels per second

    3. Daltons per kilogram

    4. Rons per spark

14. The final Thursday quiz Wombles question for a little while. What was the name of the Scottish Womble (not pictured) who sometimes rocked up in Wimbledon with their obligatory bagpipes for a visit on the TV show in the 1970s?

    1. Jock MacWomble of the Highland Womble clan

    2. Cousin Cairngorm MacWomble the Terrible

    3. Nephew Nevis MacWomble the Mighty

    4. Jamie McCrimmon McWomble from McDoctor McWho

Solutions

1:D - He was being asked if somebody fleeing the DRC and arriving in the UK due to ongoing conflicts at the border between the DRC and Rwanda would then be deported to Rwanda and Chris Philp, part of a government that has been promoting its Rwanda deportation scheme since April 2022, struggled with the basic geography, 2:B - The library said on Thursday that handling the books, which were printed in Britain, would probably cause only minor harm, but it was taking them away for further analysis. This seems like the one of the slowest long-game attacks the British have ever mounted on the French , 3:A - Noem said Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer, ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbour’s chickens, thereby earning a trip to a gravel pit to die, 4:C - Sansom was one of Britain’s bestselling historical novelists, known in particular for his mystery novels featuring the barrister Matthew Shardlake, set in Tudor England, 5:A - It is the only one of the places which is north of the capital, Madrid, and it had one of the best city art posters in the Panini sticker book for España 82, 6:B - In the Guardian's article about the sales figures, Jim Waterson observed: "By comparison, David Cameron managed to sell about 21,000 copies of his memoir in its first week, while Tony Blair’s autobiography sold 92,000 in the same timeframe. Although Truss’s figures pale in comparison, she beat both on a copies-sold-per-day-in-Downing-Street basis", 7:D - Also known as "Good News, Bad News", "Pilot", "The Premiere", or simply "Seinfeld", in the first episode Kramer was called Kessler to avoid upsetting Kenny Kramer, who he was based on, but hang on, that can't be right, because according to Jerry Seinfeld in the olden times comedians never worried about offending people … , 8:B - The arithmetic mean is calculated by adding up all the numbers in the set, and dividing by the total number of numbers in the set. Well done if you picked this option – you've got one point towards your fictitious statistics GCSE , 9:D - You subtract the smallest value (2) from the largest one (10) to get 8. Well done if you picked this option as well as got the last question correct – now you've got TWO points towards your fictitious statistics GCSE, 10:B - Can you bee-lieve that?, 11:C - Born in 1910, she was a jazz pianist, arranger and composer who wrote hundreds of compositions and recorded more than 100 records, working with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman among others, 12:B - Yes, she won the accolade for the role of Bella Baxter in Poor Things, 13:A - Wikipedia says the Faraday constant can be thought of as the conversion factor between the mole (used in chemistry) and the coulomb (used in physics and in practical electrical measurements) but the Thursday quiz is, to be honest, none the wiser, 14:B - According to The Wombles Who's Who book – and who knew that was a thing – Cousin Cairngorm MacWomble the Terrible "lives in the Scottish Burrow by Loch Ness in Scotland, where he helps to look after Nessie the Water-Womble. He often visits the Wimbledon burrow, where he drives everyone mad by playing the bagpipes"

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you get 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 you should be listening to Dig by Orlando Weeks ft Rhian Teasdale instead.