Arty outrage, ancient sweets and Abba’s nuptials – take the Thursday quiz

At least two questions this week involve sugary treats … Photograph: Anya Semenoff/Denver Post/Getty Images

We bring you the exciting news that there are just 12 Thursday quizzes to go after this one until Christmas. Where does the time go, you may ask yourself? Have I achieved anything this year, you may ponder. And you may even ask yourself, as David Byrne did, “Am I right, am I wrong?”. Well at least after tackling these mostly topical silly news-based questions you will find out the answer to the latter. There are no prizes because it is just for fun, but let us know how you got in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 179

1. 

   A new huge sculpture of Oscar Wilde’s head lying on its side, his face sliced into segments, has been condemned as “absolutely hideous” by who?

   1. Stephen Fry, television personality

   2. Lisa Nandy, culture secretary

   3. Oscar Wilde's grandson, relative of Oscar Wilde

   4. King Charles III, the king

2. 

   Where have prudes (pictured) demanded the removal of an artwork by Poppy Baynham from a gallery because she has had the audacity to actually paint something that shows the human body?

   1. Chair gallery, Hay-on-Wye

   2. Couch gallery, St Ives

   3. Credenza gallery, Hebden Bridge

   4. Cabinet gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon

3. 

   Everybody, but everybody, loves Abba, and 79-year-old Björn Ulvaeus optimistically got married for the third time this week. Who presided over the ceremony?

   1. Björn's former wife and fellow Abba member Agnetha Fältskog

   2. Sweden's prime minister Ulf Kristersson

   3. Television personality Sandi Toksvig

   4. Heir to the Swedish throne Crown Princess Victoria

   5. Television personality Ulrika Jonsson

   6. Björn's fellow Abba member but not former wife Anni-Frid Lyngstad

   7. Ronald Mael from Sparks

4. 

   What forced a Scandinavian Airlines flight from Oslo to Málaga to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen last week?

   1. The pilot lost a contact lens and couldn't see the instruments properly

   2. A drunk passenger refused to stop vaping

   3. A mouse crawled out of someone's meal

   4. 30-50 feral hogs went on the rampage

5. 

   Archaeologists have discovered a 'Stonehenge' under which late novelist's house in Dorset?

   1. George Eliot

   2. Thomas Hardy

   3. Graham Greene

   4. Mary Shelley

6. 

   Which discontinued confectionery in the UK is getting a limited brand revival?

   1. Opal fruits

   2. Spangles

   3. Marathon

   4. Nick O'Teen candy cigarettes

7. 

   Talking of sweets, today is the anniversary of the end of sugar rationing in the UK after the second world war. In what year did sugar rationing end in the UK?

   1. 1947

   2. 1950

   3. 1953

   4. 1956

8. 

   It is also the anniversary of the first ever televised debate between presidential candidates in the US. Who did Richard Nixon debate in it?

   1. Lyndon B Johnson

   2. Canton Everett Delaware III

   3. George McGovern

   4. John F Kennedy

9. 

   What interrupted the final practice for the Singapore F1 Grand Prix at the weekend?

   1. A lizard got on the track

   2. A partial solar eclipse which organisers had failed to plan for meant the session had to be split in two

   3. A flock of birds roosted in the pit lane

   4. A very naughty miniature dachshund ran amok

10. 

    No maths or science this week, but we are heading to Uzbekistan for today's geography question. What is the capital of Uzbekistan?

    1. Baku

    2. Tashkent

    3. Almaty

    4. Klow (formerly known as Zileheroum)

11. 

    Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, was really worried until she heard that a missing capybara was safely back home at Shropshire zoo. Remind Willow of the capybara's name …

    1. Cinnamon

    2. Sylvester

    3. Willow

    4. Precious

12. 

    Another podgy animal going viral this week was a baby king penguin at the Sea Life aquarium in Melbourne who outweighs both of his foster parents combined. What is he (not pictured) called?

    1. Alfredo

    2. Pesto

    3. Pomodoro

    4. Derek

13. 

    Emerald Fennell is adapting the world's most miserable novel – Wuthering Heights (pictured) – for the big screen. Who has been announced as playing cheery old Catherine Earnshaw?

    1. Lady Gaga

    2. Scarlett Johansson

    3. Morfydd Clark

    4. Margot Robbie

14. 

    The Cure have announced their first new song for 16 years. Be still the Thursday quiz's gothic old heart. But what was the name of the first Cure album to be released?

    1. Boys Don't Cry

    2. Three Imaginary Boys

    3. 17 Seconds

    4. 10 Very Long Gloomy Songs and One Inexplicably Poppy One about Cats or a Spider or Something that gets in the Charts

15. 

    And finally, how did Thursday quiz favourite, former MP and short-lived prime minister Liz Truss spend 23 September, the second anniversary of her disastrous mini-budget that ultimately led to her rapid ejection from Downing Street?

    1. She kept herself to herself, hoping people would gradually forget about it and reassess her contribution to British politics more favourably over time

    2. She issued a strident, nearly four-minute-long video saying she had been right all along and it was everybody else who was wrong

Solutions

1:C - Merlin Holland tactfully said: "I’m all for any sort of innovations in modern art. But this does seem to me to be unacceptable. It looks absolutely hideous.", 2:A - The owner of the Chair gallery in the town has been warned by police that she could be committing a public order offence after exhibiting a painting of a naked woman in the front window of her high street shop, 3:C - She did, alongside Anne Linnet and Kaya Brüel who were also special guests. You should go and see that Abba Voyage show if you get the chance, by the way, 4:C - That sounds bad from a food point of view, of course, but the emergency landing was in case before it started nibbling on the pre-packed meal, the mouse had snacked on any of the plane's electrical wiring, 5:B - Hardy wrote his books while unknowingly he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than Stonehenge but whether that makes them any less dull is, the Thursday quiz contends, open to question, 6:C - Some Snickers bars are going to come packaged with the old Marathon name, which was discontinued in 1990. To head the 1,057 pedants off at the pass, Nick O'Teen was an anti-smoking campaign character, and there were never any actual Nick O'Teen candy cigarettes, 7:C - Those boomer Facebook memes about how great it was back in the day never mention that rationing carried on for nearly a decade after the war, do they?, 8:D - Famously Nixon's sweaty appearance in the opening debate was blamed as a factor that swung the election away from him, and there wasn't another TV debate for the next 16 years, 9:A - A massive monitor lizard went for a stroll and held up the session, which also apparently happened last year too, suggesting that whoever has "Stop letting lizards on the track" as their job in Singapore isn't very good at it, 10:B - First settled in the 3rd century BC and once destroyed by Genghis Khan, it was formerly the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union after a major rebuilding programme following a 1966 earthquake, 11:A - After a huge search operation – involving 20 people and a thermal drone – and being missing for a week, the 25kg (55lb) rodent was found just 250 metres from her paddock, suggesting it wasn't the most ambitious escape attempt of all time, 12:B - Inexplicable really, but he is indeed named after the Genoese garlic, basil and cheese and olive oil sauce. Rumours that penguins are simply angry upright ducks remain unproven, 13:D - It's her. Cathy. Robbie and Fennell have worked together before, and they will be joined by Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, previously played on the stage by none other than Cliff Richard in one of life's unlikelier turn-ups, 14:B - Three Imaginary Boys came first, then rather curiously there was a compilation called Boys Don't Cry with much of the same material, and then 17 Seconds was their second "proper" album. The new album, Songs of a Lost World, will only be their fourth LP since 1996, and the Thursday quiz has already seen a few of the songs from it played live, and can't wait, 15:B - The Thursday quiz would not have even noticed the anniversary if she hadn't made such a spectacle of herself, although millions of people in the UK probably get a monthly reminder whenever they pay their mortgage these days

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – let us know how you got on in the comments!

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