Welcome once again to the Thursday quiz, which is normally written by Tuesday lunchtime and thus is somewhat reluctant to include much topical content at the moment, as even a simple question such as “Who is British home secretary” might have a different answer by the time it gets published. You face 15 questions, a few in-jokes and then some increasingly petulant replies from the quiz master in the comments if you quibble or point out typos. There are no prizes, it really is just for silly fun, but let us know how you got on.

The Thursday quiz, No 78

1.WE’LL MISS YOU, ROBBIE: We’ll miss Robbie Coltrane, who we sadly lost last week. Everyone knew his character in Cracker as Fitz, but what was the character’s full name?

2.PERICOMBOBULATION: In Blackadder III, Coltrane played Samuel Johnson in the process of completing his English dictionary (pictured). When was Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language first published in the real world?

Dr Samuel Johnson's dictionary

3.57 VARIETIES: Just Stop Oil protestors threw a can of some delicious Heinz soup over the pane of glass that was carefully protecting one of Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings. But what variety was the soup?

Heinz cans

4.GCSE SCIENCE WITH RON FROM SPARKS: I Predict is a 1982 song by Sparks where they predict you’ll get wet if you walk in the rain. But if you were to dip some litmus paper into a dilute of sulfuric acid, what pH do you predict it would most likely indicate?

Ron Mael

5.ENSEMBLE CASTS: Carolyn Jones, John Astin and Jackie Coogan (not pictured) were integral members of the cast of which 1960s US sitcom?

People watching the television

6.BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS: Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the Booker prize for fiction, with his second novel. What is it called?

Shehan Karunatilaka

7.TAMMY’S TEASER: Tammy Wynette is an absolute star who had a hit single with D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968. But which V is a small moon of Jupiter?

Tammy Wynette

8.IT’S A DOG’S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, deep in thought. You measure the height of a dog up to the area above their shoulder. Willow is worried you don’t know the name for that part of a dog. What is it?

Willow, the official dog of the Guardian's Thursday quiz

9.1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions not related to football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup awarded to Qatar, which has been accused of imposing ‘chilling’ restrictions on media coverage of the tournament. The 1994 World Cup was held in the US, but when did the US purchase Alaska from the Russian empire?

Carlos Dunga (Brazil) with the cup

10.SPORT, BUT A LONG TIME AGO: Angered by the exclusion of women from the Olympic movement, a five-day multi-sport event organised by Alice Milliat (not pictured) known as the 1921 Women’s Olympiad, took place where?

Women playing football in the 1930s

11.SCOTTISH THINGS: The incredible stone-built Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae is on which island of the Orkney archipelago?

Skara Brae

12.JEWEL IN THE CROWN: The Koh-i-noor diamond was ceded to the British in 1849 as one of the conditions of what is often known as “the last treaty of … ?”

The Koh-i-noor in a British crown

13.IN THE ARMY NOW: One of the most famous and successful K-pop boy bands in the world has announced this week that their members will be going off to do military service in South Korea. Which band?

South Korean army soldiers

14.NEW FACE IN AI HELL: Here is what happened when the Thursday Quiz asked an AI to draw King Charles III with Liz Truss, who was still prime minister at the time of writing. But which sci-fi fandom has banned AI art in its Reddit community?

Liz Truss and King Charles drawn by the Dall-E drawing program for the Thursday quiz

15.AND FINALLY AND THIS IS NOT A THURSDAY QUIZ IN-JOKE: Robbie Coltrane genuinely starred as the protagonist in which 2011 music video by Kate Bush (not pictured)?

Kate Bush fans

If you 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 final, and often quite sharp.


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