Protected species, dodgy addresses and some monkeys on the run – take the Thursday quiz

When the Thursday quiz was first mooted, it was pitched as being a bit like a pub quiz, with topical questions and some general knowledge, but it would be at a lunchtime and everybody would be sober. Unfortunately, since that original lofty ideal, it has now turned out to mostly be a string of obscure in-jokes hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope down the pub on a Wednesday night. Still, here we all are. Have fun, and let us know how you get on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 186

1. Who had to apologise this week after accidentally including the URL of an adult website (very much not pictured) on their branded packaging?

   1. Coca-Cola

   2. Morrisons

   3. Mattel

   4. The BBC

2. Social media influencer Matthew Choi got himself disqualified from the New York marathon after he did what?

   1. Had a camera crew on e-bikes in tow as he was running the course

   2. Replaced the official sponsor branding on his vest number with adverts people paid for via TikTok

   3. Obstructed other athletes by taking selfies just ahead of the finish line

   4. Stopped halfway through to eat as many hot dogs as he could in 10 minutes as part of a Twitch livestream challenge

3. England’s troubled HS2 railway (pictured) from somewhere near London to somewhere near the Midlands spent a cool £100m on covering a section of track with a shed to protect a woodland species of what?

   1. Bat

   2. Shrew

   3. Owl

   4. Feral hog

4. Which of the approximately one billion celebrities to have recently written a children’s book has had to withdraw it after the book was condemned in Australia for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and ‘trivialising the complex and painful histories’ of the First Nations communities?

   1. John Torode

   2. Gordon Ramsay

   3. James Martin

   4. Jamie Oliver

5. World Cup Golden Boot winner and crisp enthusiast Gary Lineker has been told to do one from his Match of the Day presenting duties. Who first presented the show in 1964?

   1. Jimmy Hill

   2. Kenneth Wolstenholme

   3. David Coleman

   4. Ronald Mael

6. Police had to be called in Hampshire after queues lasting four hours developed during a warehouse sale offering discounts on what?

   1. Nike trainers

   2. Nespresso coffee machines

   3. Le Creuset cookware

   4. Very naughty miniature dachshunds

7. This is Willow, who looks rather like a very naughty miniature dachshund, but is actually the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. Talking of lookalikes, someone won "€20, or three pints" in a Dublin contest seeking lookalikes of which Irish actor?

   1. Paul Mescal

   2. Cillian Murphy

   3. Liam Neeson

   4. Ardal O'Hanlon

8. Authorities in Zhengzhou, China, have placed a restriction on night cycling after tens of thousands of students started doing 31-mile (50km) rides in search of what?

   1. Rare sightings of the nocturnal Bengal slow loris

   2. A specific spectacular selfie spot on a bridge at sunrise that was becoming a health and safety risk

   3. Oversized soup dumplings

   4. Better mobile phone signal

9. Mark Cavendish signed off on his extraordinary record-breaking cycling career with a victory in which race at the weekend?

   1. The Tour de France ­AIG Bangkok Time Trial

   2. The Tour de France ­Prudential Singapore Criterium

   3. The Tour de France Aviva Hong Kong Omnium

   4. The Tour de France ­Axa Jakarta Road Race

10. Here is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge with his opening lines. This week the Thursday quiz imagines the German soccer legend would like to know which Douglas Adams novel opens: "The story so far: In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

    1. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

    2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

    3. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

    4. Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen (with additional writing by friend of the Thursday quiz James Goss)

11. It is scores on the doors with Swindon’s Diana Dors. This week the statue wants to ask you about hurling. You get one point for thwacking the sliotar through the big sticks, but how many points do you get for scoring a goal, when it goes into the net?

    1. Two points

    2. Three points

    3. Four points

    4. Five points

12. Who recently got into hot water for suggesting that yoga and Dungeons and Dragons were "examples of occult activity"?

    1. Georgia's congressional rep Marjorie Taylor Greene

    2. A co-founder of a Luton-based Christian charity

    3. Permanently online psychologist Jordan Peterson

    4. The head of North Cumbria integrated care NHS foundation trust

13. Some adorable rhesus macaques are enjoying a late brat summer after escaping from a research facility in South Carolina. How many escaped?

    1. 10-30

    2. 30-50

    3. 50-70

    4. 70-90

14. Samantha Harvey has won the Booker prize for her novel which is described as "beautiful and ambitious" by the judging chair Edmund de Waal. But what is it called?

    1. Orbital

    2. Leftfield

    3. Underworld

    4. Squarepusher

15. The lovely Kate Bush has been nominated for two Grammy awards this year, including for "best boxed or special limited edition package", which doesn’t feel like a real category to be honest. But how many Grammy awards has Kate Bush previously won?

    1. None

    2. One

    3. Two

    4. Three

Solutions

1:C - They put the wrong 'Wicked' URL on the Wicked musical movie-themed editions of Barbie. Oops, 2:A - Doofus, 3:A - HS2 chair Sir Jon Thompson described the structure as a 'blot on the landscape' built with 'no evidence' that bats were at risk from the trains, 4:D - Oliver said: ‘I am devastated to have caused offence and apologise wholeheartedly,’ while publishers Penguin Random House UK said: ‘It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion’, 5:B - Wolstenholme was the main man from 1964 to 1967 and never once tweeted about politics or had a podcast, 6:C - Prices of its signature casserole dish – normally costing between £200 and £400 – were slashed in the two-day event which caused traffic chaos for local residents, 7:A - To be honest, the lad who won it, Jack Wall O’Reilly, looks like he basically threw on a tracksuit as the extent of his effort, 8:C - Apparently the ancient city of Kaifeng serves the best, 9:B - Who even knew that was a thing?, 10:B - It is the second book. The first one opens: 'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy' – and then the fun begins …, 11:B - It is three times as valuable, partly because there's somebody standing in the way who almost certainly has a death wish to want to be keeping goal in hurling, 12:B - The Scottish government was forced to abandon plans to work with the charity when the comments by Ruth Robb came to light, 13:B - 43 of them got out, and hopefully have teamed up with some feral hogs to go on a crime spree, 14:A - Harvey’s tale of six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station was unanimously chosen as the winner, 15:A - Heathens

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 and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch Fast Boys & Factory Girls by Port Sulphur instead?