The news cycle goes around so fast these days I couldn’t tell whether including that slap in the quiz would generate a groan of “Not more of this!” or a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia for something that happened as long as four whole days ago. Anyway, here are 15 general knowledge and vaguely topical questions for your perusal. You will encounter Kate Bush and Ron from Sparks and plenty of references to Doctor Who this week. Let us know how you got in the comments – it is just for fun, there are no prizes.

The Thursday quiz, No 49

1.THE SLAP THAT WAS HEARD AROUND THE WORLD: We start at the Oscars. Which film did Will Smith win his best actor gong for, just after he’d clocked Chris Rock with one?

2.DOO-WEE-OOOOOOH: Which TV executive who tried their best to get Doctor Who exterminated from television in the 1980s has been announced as the UK government’s preferred candidate to oversee the media regulator, Ofcom?

3.BON VOYAGE: That is a 1974 song by Sparks where ‘trouble is about to brew on us’. But that’s not important right now. Dagny Carlsson of Sweden has died. At the age of 109, she was described as the world’s oldest what?

4.ON THIS DAY: 31 March is the anniversary of one of the largest ‘poll tax riots’ in the UK – this one in London – over the introduction of the community charge by the Conservative government of the day. But which year did the riot take place?

5.COUNTRIES IN DISGUISE: The country of Eswatini was formerly known as what in the English language?

6.OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: Prince William and his wife, Kate, endured a less-than-unanimously-popular tour of the Caribbean. Which of these countries did they NOT visit?

7.FIBONACCI NUMBERS: First described in Indian mathematics, and forming a sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, F₆ is eight. But ‘Number Eight’ was a character portrayed by Grace Park in which science fiction TV series?

8.AYES TO THE RIGHT: The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress. How many senators are there?

9.ENSEMBLE CAST: Which British kids’ TV show stars Cleo Demetriou, Ameerah Falzon-Ojo and Sophia Dall’aglio?

10.WHY THE LONG FACE?: Despite them not having any, in the UK a horse’s height is traditionally measured in ‘hands’. How many inches are there to a hand?

11.IT USED TO BE ALL FIELDS ROUND HERE: The 1946 New Towns Act in the UK set in train the development of a series of towns and cities. But which was the first to be designated?

12.ROAD SIGNS AROUND THE WORLD: A brand new regular feature with a name inspired by Super Furry Animals. This road sign from Italy means what?

13.ALLONS Y: Wikivoyage lists 23 locations visited by the fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. No 9 is Kolkata, India. But it is the capital of which Indian state?

14.THESE DAYS IF YOU SAY YOU ARE ENGLISH YOU WILL BE ARRESTED AND PUT IN PRISON: A pub in Devon has been accused of partaking in ‘woke cancel culture’ after putting what delicious sounding item on its menu?

15.MUSIC: Who had a hit in 2005 with Wake Me Up When September Ends?

  • If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email [email protected], but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and you wouldn’t want to get nominated for an Oscar for “most pointless email”, would you?


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