Faithful dogs, distant stars and big ears – take the Thursday quiz

Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, has a question for you this week about Homer. Photograph: Martin Belam/The Guardian

All hail the Thursday quiz! The kind of quiz where we can pass time in the comments debating what should be the precise wording of a GCSE-level science multiple choice question while making the world a better place. Fifteen questions on recent news and general knowledge, with a few punchlines and regular characters thrown in for good measure. There is no prize. It is just fun. You can pick up a bonus point if you spot an oblique reference to Doctor Who along the way. Have fun!

The Thursday quiz, No 64

1. 

   'ERE WE GO: A kid goat called Simba with extraordinarily long ears has become famous. Where does it live?

   1. Iran

   2. India

   3. Afghanistan

   4. Pakistan

2. 

   BOO WILBURY: A new one-off recording by Bob Dylan was auctioned for $1.5m last week. Which song did he record?

   1. Like a Rolling Stone

   2. Blowin’ in the Wind

   3. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

   4. We Like To Party! (The Vengabus)

3. 

   AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE: We lost the great James Caan, who starred in the Godfather. But which iconic Corleone did he play in the 1972 epic?

   1. Sonny Corleone

   2. Vito Corleone

   3. Michael Corleone

   4. Wario Corleone

4. 

   EURO 2022: On Monday night, England's women set a new record for scoring the most goals in a single game in a European Championship finals match. How many did they net against Norway?

   1. Six

   2. Seven

   3. Eight

   4. Nine

5. 

   ALL YOU EVER THINK ABOUT IS SEX: That's a 1983 Sparks song where they get 'busted by that nun'. But that's not important right now. Which pests in the UK might be given oral contraceptives by scientists to stop them multiplying and being a nuisance?

   1. Pigeons

   2. Rats

   3. Grey squirrels

   4. Tory leadership candidates

6. 

   SWEET BABY CHEESES: Which of these options is NOT a variety of cheese produced in Germany?

   1. Hirtenkäse

   2. Romadur

   3. Cambozola

   4. Whimbrel

7. 

   IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian's Thursday quiz. But what was the name of Odysseus' faithful dog in Homer's Odyssey?

   1. Cerberus

   2. Sirius

   3. Argos

   4. Dogmatix

8. 

   SECRETS OF THE STARS: Nasa's brand new James Webb Space Telescope gizmo has taken one of the greatest astronomy photographs of all time (pictured). How far back in time do scientists say the furthest light in it originates?

   1. 13bn years

   2. 18bn years

   3. 21bn years

   4. 26bn years

9. 

   THE LIVES OF SAINTS: St David is the patron saint of Wales. Which of these miracles is attributed to him by those who wrote about him in medieval times?

   1. He owned a copy of the Bible which it was said anybody could understand, even if they did not know how to read

   2. When people at the back couldn't hear him preaching, a small hill rose underneath him so his words would carry further

   3. Daffodils were said to spring up where he had preached, leading to them becoming a national emblem for Wales

   4. He managed to get a train going from Cardiff to London later than 9.30pm on a weekday evening

10. 

    WEIRD WORDS: Which of these words, according to the Collins online dictionary, means 'a soft boot, usually of sealskin, worn by Inuit people'?

    1. Mukluk

    2. Murrhine

    3. Tharil

    4. Tussore

11. 

    A WORK OF ART: A gang has been caught faking an entire sporting league – even live streaming it on YouTube – to con money out of Russian gamblers. Which league?

    1. US college football league

    2. Japanese baseball league

    3. Indian cricket league

    4. European Super League™

12. 

    ALLONS-Y: The website Wikivoyage lists 23 locations visited by fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days. But obviously he also had to get home again, so number 24 is London once more. Which of these is the Latin motto on the coat of arms of the City of London?

    1. Cui servire regnare est (Whom to serve is to reign)

    2. Victoria concordia crescit (Victory through harmony)

    3. Domine dirige nos (Lord guide us)

    4. Romanes Eunt Domus (People called Romanes they go the house)

13. 

    1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions that aren't about football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar which is subject to multiple bribery allegations. The 1950 Fifa World Cup was held in Brazil. What is the name of the currency Brazil uses today?

    1. The Brazilian real

    2. The cruzado novo

    3. The cruzeiro novo

    4. The Brazilian dollar

14. 

    VIDEO GAMES: In some translations of the original Pac-Man video game, three of the ghosts were called Blinky (red), Pinky (pink) and Inky (cyan). What was the orange ghost called in that translation?

    1. Dinkley

    2. Clyde

    3. Lloyd

    4. Ron

15. 

    THIS WOMAN'S WORK: Kate Bush enjoyed her well-deserved UK No 1 singles 44 years apart. Which of these sets of events were also 44 years apart?

    1. Disney's Bambi and Michael Curtiz's Casablanca both have their premieres, and Steve Jobs launches the original Apple Macintosh personal computer

    2. Disney's Bambi and Michael Curtiz's Casablanca both have their premieres, and the Live Aid concerts take place

    3. Disney's Bambi and Michael Curtiz's Casablanca both have their premieres, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster happens

    4. Disney's Bambi and Michael Curtiz's Casablanca both have their premieres, and Terry Waite is kidnapped in Beirut

Solutions

1:D - Simba is living a pampered existence in Karachi, where he was born last month with ears that have grown to reach 54cm (21in, or about one ancient Sumerian cubit), 2:B - The Guardian's music editor described the new format of auctioning off bespoke one-off pieces of vinyl as 'grotesque' and 'the lobotomised brainchild of producer T Bone Burnett'. Say what you mean, Ben. Say what you mean, 3:A - Marlon Brando was Vito and Al Pacino was Michael, in the film which won best movie award at the 45th Oscars, 4:C - England won their second group game 8-0 against Norway in Brighton, ensuring that the Lionesses will be in the quarter-finals next week, 5:C - To stop other species ingesting the medication, scientists have designed a special feeding hopper. It has a weighted door that will exclude most other species of wildlife while allowing more than 70% of local grey squirrel populations to access and eat from them. You can tell by the look on his face that Ron thinks you should have known that, 6:D - A whimbrel is actually a wading bird, one of the most widespread of the curlews, that lives over most of Europe including Germany. Hirtenkäse is a German cow's-milk cheese produced in the Allgäu region; Romadur is considered a specialty of Bävaria (with an unnecessary umlaut); and Cambozola is a cross between camembert and Gorgonzola which sounds ungodly to be honest, 7:C - A frail and neglected Argos recognises his master when he returns home in disguise, but Odysseus is unable to greet his old friend for fear of giving himself away. So the dog ends up dying without ever finding out who Odysseus thinks is a good boy. Cheerful stuff, 8:A - Bill Nelson, the administrator of Nasa, said the image showed the light of galaxies bending around other galaxies, traveling for billions of years before reaching the telescope. 'We are looking back more than 13bn years,' he said, adding that more images to be released by the space agency would reach back further, to about 13.5bn years, close to the estimated start point of the universe itself, 9:B - Hill-making isn't a particularly common superpower in comics or a popular miracle among saints, but it was said this happened, and then a dove settled on him to show that he had the favour of God, 10:A - They say it comes from the Inuktitut muklok, meaning large seal, 11:C - The criminal gang broadcast footage using local labourers in real IPL kits, dubbed crowd noises onto the stream, and used an umpire with an earpiece being informed which bets had been placed to accordingly instruct players to pretend to hit sixes, fours or get out. While the Guardian does not in any way condone financial crime of this sort, you have to admire the dedication to the scam and to providing the Thursday quiz with this week's European Super League™ punchline, 12:C - It is Domine dirige nos, which appears alongside some dragons, famously native to London. This really is the end of this round now, 13:A - It is the Brazilian real, introduced in July 1994, and not to be confused with the old Brazilian real which was the currency from 1747 to 1942. At the time of the 1950 World Cup, the country was using the first Brazilian cruzeiro. The picture shows Uruguay scoring against Brazil in the final match played in that tournament, 14:B - It was, inexplicably, Clyde, at least in some English translations. His original name in Japan was Otoboke. Some US editions of the game called him Pokey, 15:C - The movies first appeared in 1942, although Casablanca didn't get its full theatrical release until early the following year, and 1986 was the year that Nasa's Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after takeoff

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

• 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 remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and please, please, please, do check you aren’t about to make a fool of yourself first.