It is the seventh day of the seventh month, and what better way to celebrate it than by doing a quiz written by the seventh son of a seventh son? Unfortunately we don’t have one of those, so you will have to make do with the regular old Thursday quiz instead. Fifteen vaguely topical and general knowledge questions with a few jokes chucked in along the way. You will meet Ron from Sparks, Kate Bush, and of course you have a hidden Doctor Who reference to spot. There are no prizes. It is just for fun. Please don’t fact-check the punchlines.

The Thursday quiz, No 63

1.BOBSPEED YOU GENTLEMINIONS: Teenagers are being turned away from the cinema for being dressed too smartly as part of the baffling #Gentleminions trend – but what is the correct name of the film they are trying to see?

2.WE’VE GONE CASHLESS, SORRY: Which African nation’s central bank is introducing a new gold coin called the Mosi-oa-Tunya coin, named after the famous waterfall that also carries the colonial name Victoria Falls

3.X MARKS THE SPOT: What is being offered to young people in Japan this week to encourage them to turn out for elections?

4.MONA HAMMOND: Described as a ‘trailblazer’ and ‘pioneer’, we lost Mona Hammond this week. Her best-known role was as Blossom Jackson in EastEnders, but what was the name of the Channel 4 sitcom she starred in as Auntie SuSu?

5.APPLIED MATHEMATICS, BUT TO PIZZA: A thread about the relative areas of pizza went viral on Twitter last week. Which of these purchases gives you more pizza by area?

6.GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: Which of these metals can be found abundantly on planet earth in its natural state?

7.WHY THE LONG FACE?: Black Beauty was immediately successful when published in 1877 and is seen as a forerunner of the ‘pony book’ genre. But who wrote it?

8.WEIRD WORDS: According to the Collins online English dictionary, what does ‘octothorp’ mean?

9.DICTATOR’S SON: That is a 2015 song featuring Sparks where someday “he’ll return with a rebel force”. But that’s not important right now. Ferdinand Marcos Jr praised his dictator father while being sworn in as Philippines president. What year did his father get deposed?

10.FERRIC OXIDE: What, according to a leaked report this week, is riddled with rust and in need of repair?

11.EURO 2022: The women’s Uefa European football championship has started in England. The Netherlands are the reigning champions. But which year was the first official Uefa women’s championship final held?

12.1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions that aren’t about football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup, which is being held in a country which won’t be safe for LGBTQ+ fans. The 1938 Fifa World Cup was held in France. But which of these is the original title of the French national anthem before it came to be known as La Marseillaise?

13.MANET OR MONET: Who painted this?

14.ALLONS-Y: The website Wikivoyage lists 23 locations visited by fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days, none of them by hot air balloon. No 23 is Liverpool, England. In 2008 it was named as what?

15.THIS WOMAN’S WORK: Kate Bush’s two well deserved UK No 1 singles were 44 years apart. But which of these pairs of events were also 44 years apart?

  • 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 he gets enough trolling as it is.


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