Hemingway’s fish, Pioneer’s planet and Zendaya’s past – take the Thursday quiz

Hemingway’s fish, Pioneer’s planet and Zendaya’s past – take the Thursday quiz

by

The quiz master has been away, but the moment has been prepared for. Trained otters were spotted in the canal by the Guardian’s London office earlier this week, signalling 15 not particularly topical questions in semaphore up at the windows so that you, dear reader, don’t have to go without a quiz, not even for one week. There are no prizes. It is just for fun. Let us know how you get on in the comments, where you can also complain about regular features being missing.

The Thursday quiz, No 71

1.ON THIS DAY: Before heading out into deep space to become very cold and lonely, on 1 September 1979 the space probe Pioneer 11 made its closest approach to which planet?

2.LITERATURE: Today also marks the anniversary of the publication of Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a Cuban fisherman and his days-long struggle to land a prize marlin. What is it called?

3258

3.HAPPY BIRTHDAY: It is Zendaya’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Zendaya! As well as appearing in Dune and the Spider-Man movies, she was the main star of which Disney Channel sitcom?

3002

4.HAPPY BIRTHDAY (SLIGHT RETURN): Do you know who else has a birthday today? Bruce Foxton. Happy birthday Bruce. But who did he used to play bass guitar for?

5184

5.SWEET BABY CHEESES: Which one of these options is NOT a variety of cheese produced in Ireland?

2000

6.GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: The electrolysis of copper sulfate solution makes two products, one at each electrode. The negative electrode gives off copper. What does the positive electrode give off?

5306

7.AYES TO THE RIGHT: The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia. How many senators are there?

2652

8.1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions that aren’t about football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar, which can’t be held at the time of year they actually won the bid for. The 1970 Fifa World Cup was in Mexico. The Mexican national anthem is known by its opening line. What is it?

2480

9.WEIRD WORDS: According to the Collins dictionary online, which of these words is used in botany and zoology to describe something as ‘having dartlike spines’?

2163

10.TAMMY’S TEASER: Tammy Wynette had a hit single with D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968. But which V is a graphic novel by Alan Moore ?

4831

11.GREAT FIRE BURNING: How many metres high is the Monument to the Great Fire of London at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill?

1992

12.LITERATURE (AGAIN): Who wrote the 2003 novel The Kite Runner?

4598

13.PLEASE JUST WRITE ‘QUIZ MASTER’ ON THE CUP: Global anti-union bland-coffee chain Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle. When?

8192

14.THAT’S NOT MY NAME: That was a hit for the Tings Tings (pictured – well one of them anyway). But which legendary showman was born as Erik Weisz?

2769

15.IT’S A DOG’S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian’s Thursday quiz. This is her face after she has just listened to Old Shep, a song about a dog who has ‘gone where the good doggies go’. Who famously recorded it in 1956?

4032

  • 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 genuinely, it is actually his first day back after a couple of weeks away so he has probably deleted all of his unread email on the basis that if it was that important, people will get back to him. And people quibbling about questions is not high on his list.

Source link

Leave a comment