Lengthy speeches, stranded icebergs and constant alarm – take the Thursday quiz

A closeup of an iceberg which you will be asked to identify in question 15! Photograph: Andrew Meijers/AP

This week we hit a milestone, with it being the 200th Thursday quiz. That means since the very first one in April 2021 there have been approximately 3,000 questions, of which only about 2,995 of them have generated somebody in the comments going: “Well, actually, I think you’ll find …” followed by a minor quibble. Thank you so much to everybody who regularly does the quiz, and especially those of you who join in with the comments every week. It was originally pitched as an eight-week series to see if it proved popular, and here we all still are. Have fun and let us know how you get on in the comments …

The Thursday quiz, No 200

1. 

   Residents near Longships Lighthouse have been driven to distraction after a faulty fog warning sounded every 13 seconds for a week. The lighthouse is off the coast of where?

   1. Pembrokeshire

   2. Mull

   3. Cornwall

   4. Isle of Man

2. 

   Skype, having been completely eclipsed by Zoom just at the moment a pandemic hit and loads of people were working from home, is to be shuttered. It is owned by which company, who acquired it in 2011?

   1. Microsoft

   2. Google

   3. Amazon

   4. Magpie Electricals

3. 

   Scientists who are planning to unextinct the woolly mammoth (pictured, chasing a scientist) have taken steps towards that dream by genetically altering which animal to make a woolly version?

   1. Moose

   2. Mongoose

   3. Mouse

   4. Miniature dachshund

4. 

   People who find the Oscars ceremony boring had another reason to hate it at the weekend after who broke the record for longest acceptance speech?

   1. Adrien Brody, winner of best actor Oscar for The Brutalist

   2. Zoe Saldaña, winner best supporting actress Oscar for Emilia Pérez

   3. Kieran Culkin, winner best supporting actor Oscar for A Real Pain

   4. Ronald Mael, winner best original moustache Oscar for The Sparks Brothers

5. 

   A treasured possession of Isaac Newton (just out of shot, about to discover gravity) is to go on display for the first time at a Royal Society exhibition in London. What?

   1. His pipe

   2. His eyeglasses

   3. His beer mug

   4. His collection of Panini football stickers

6. 

   Eurovision – much loved by the Thursday quiz – has unveiled its first mascot for the competition (pictured), which has not, it is fair to say, been universally well received. What is it called?

   1. Lumo

   2. Humo

   3. Pumo

   4. Derek

7. 

   Scientists have been bothering the moon again by landing stuff on it. What is the name of the Firefly Aerospace craft that landed there at the weekend?

   1. Red Phantom Mission 1

   2. Black Spirit Mission 1

   3. Gold Shadow Mission 1

   4. Blue Ghost Mission 1

8. 

   Here is Karl-Heinz with his opening lines. This week the Thursday quiz imagines the German soccer legend would like to know which science fiction TV series opens its first transmitted episode with the line "Shall we pick some flowers, Doctor? When a man visits an old girlfriend she usually expects something like that"

   1. Quantum Leap

   2. Star Trek

   3. Red Dwarf

   4. Doctor Who

9. 

   It's scores on the doors with Swindon’s Diana Dors. This week the somewhat unsightly statue wants to know, if you are playing in the NFL, how many points do you get for kicking a field goal?

   1. One point

   2. Two points

   3. Three points

   4. Four points

10. 

    This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. She knows that the quiz master once painfully spelled Guatemala incorrectly at every mention during an Olympics live blog, but she doesn't know the capital of Guatemala. What is it?

    1. Villa Nueva

    2. Guatemala City

    3. Quetzaltenango

    4. Belmopan

11. 

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so the law-making International Football Association Board has decided to fiddle around with football again. From next season, if a goalkeeper holds on to the ball in their hands for more than eight seconds, the referee will do what?

    1. Add 15 seconds additional time to the end of the match

    2. Award a corner to the opposition

    3. Give the goalkeeper a yellow card

    4. The Macarena

12. 

    What was the name of the Russian who presented the first recognisable form of the periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society on this day in 1869

    1. Dikiye Svini

    2. Nikolay Semyonov

    3. Alexander Borodin

    4. Dmitri Mendeleev

13. 

    It is Alan Davies' birthday today. Happy birthday Alan! What unusual structure did his character Jonathan Creek live in?

    1. Windmill

    2. Canal boat

    3. Railway shed

    4. Police telephone box

14. 

    For some reason artist Grahame Hurd-Wood has decided to paint a portrait of everybody who lives in Britain’s smallest city by population. What is Britain’s smallest city?

    1. Ely

    2. St Davids

    3. Ripon

    4. Truro

15. 

    The world's largest runaway iceberg appears to have run aground near South Georgia. What have scientists called it?

    1. A23a

    2. C48b

    3. N52c

    4. Icy McIceface

Solutions

1:C - It is one of the lighthouses off Land's End, and very, very loud with it, 2:A - They spent $8.5bn on it, but have decided to concentrate investment on their Teams platform instead, 3:C - It does raise the possibility that one of the scientists simply got confused and opened the wrong page of the dictionary, 4:A - He spoke for five minutes and 40 seconds, appropriately enough having appeared in a movie which lasts approximately 1,057 hours, 5:C - He is not thought to have been one for drinking, but he did use beer in his homebrew recipe for ink, 6:A - Lumo's name is meant to evoke a sense of light, and the character was designed by 20-year-old visual design student Lynn Brunner, 7:D - It became the first privately financed US moon lander not to fall over when it arrived, 8:B - That is William Shatner's opening line of dialogue in episode The Man Trap. Although the sixth episode to be filmed, it was the first to be broadcast, in September 1966. And then the fun begins …, 9:C - Not as exciting or as valuable as a touchdown of course, 10:B - It is, rather unimaginatively, Guatemala City. With an 'e', 11:B - Perhaps the most bizarre non-sequitur in sporting laws of all time, if it is foul play then it is a free kick, end of story …, 12:D - His formulation allowed him to predict some of the properties of as-yet undiscovered elements, 13:A - He did live in a windmill, which was also possibly a Tardis in disguise, 14:B - It has a population of 1,800 people, and a cathedral, and Queen Elizabeth II confirmed it had city status in 1994 despite it being very, very small. Technically the City of London is smaller geographically speaking, but he isn't painting the people who live there, as there are too many of them probably, 15:A - The naming convention for Antarctic icebergs is derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, rather than just calling them Derek or Ermintrude or whatnot

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers – and can show your working and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch I Just Needed You To Know by Girl Scout instead?

I Just Needed You To Know by Girl Scout