Mountain bikes, molehills and one-act plays – take the Thursday quiz

Thursday quiz colleague Helen Pidd gets on her bike … Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Every now and then the quiz master is allowed to take a break, and when that happens, instead of the Thursday quiz being a random assortment of odd questions loosely tied to the week’s news, it becomes a random assortment of odd questions loosely tied to some vague theme that he was able to write well in advance. And so this week your 15 questions all have some kind of increasingly tenuous connection to the theme of mountains and hills. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 203

1. 

   What is the name of the highest peak in the Andes (pictured, but good luck getting the name from recognising a mountain in a photo)?

   1. Huascarán

   2. Mercedario

   3. Aconcagua

   4. Derek

2. 

   Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji – including this frequently reproduced image – is a famous series of works by which Japanese artist?

   1. Hasegawa Tōhaku

   2. Katsushika Hokusai

   3. Takashi Murakami

   4. Utagawa Kuniyoshi

3. 

   Where was movie The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain set?

   1. Scotland

   2. Wales

   3. Ireland

   4. Raxacoricofallapatorius

4. 

   What is the value of the letter tiles required for the word Hill in a standard edition of Scrabble?

   1. 4

   2. 5

   3. 7

   4. 9

5. 

   Who wrote In the Hall of the Mountain King?

   1. Edvard Grieg

   2. Jean Sibelius

   3. Antonín Dvořák

   4. Georges Bizet

6. 

   In which year did Damon Hill win the F1 World Drivers' Championship?

   1. 1990

   2. 1993

   3. 1996

   4. 1999

7. 

   Which companion of William Hartnell's first Doctor Who did the lovely Jacqueline Hill play?

   1. Barbara

   2. Vicki

   3. Zoe

   4. Polly

8. 

   Which Prince album featured the glorious single Mountains?

   1. Around the World in a Day

   2. The Black Album

   3. Purple Rain

   4. Parade

9. 

   When was mountain biking first added as a discipline to the summer Olympic games?

   1. 1996 in Atlanta

   2. 2000 in Sydney

   3. 2004 in Athens

   4. 2008 in Beijing

10. 

    Dusty Hill, who died in 2021, was in ZZ Top, but what did he play?

    1. Lead guitar

    2. Bass guitar

    3. Drums

    4. Kazoo

11. 

    Anthony Newley's song Gonna Build A Mountain was a central theme in Joker: Folie À Deux, but who composed the original score for both Joker and Joker: Folie À Deux

    1. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

    2. Alexandre Desplat

    3. Mark Ayres

    4. Hildur Guðnadóttir

12. 

    They say don't make a mountain out of a mole hill, but scientists use the concept of the mole to measure what?

    1. Atoms

    2. Time

    3. Electricity

    4. Very naughty miniature dachshunds

13. 

    Of course nobody wrote down a list of people who had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro until a couple of Europeans came along in 1889 and said they were the first to do it. Where did they come from?

    1. Germany and Austria

    2. France and Belgium

    3. England and Scotland

    4. Denmark and Sweden

14. 

    Who wrote the 1988 play Mountain Language?

    1. Sarah Daniels

    2. Timberlake Wertenbaker

    3. Alan Bennett

    4. Harold Pinter

15. 

    And finally, Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, would like to know which breed of dog is typically pictured as a cliched mountain rescue dog complete with a miniature barrel of brandy?

    1. St Leonard

    2. St Bernard

    3. St Rhinehard

    4. St Wellard

Solutions

1:C - It is in Argentina, and is, really really high, as the Thursday quiz believes the technical term is, 2:B - He lived between about 1760 and 1849, and is sometimes known as simply Hokusai, 3:B - The story was originally told in Glamorgan, but was filmed in Powys, 4:C - H scores 4 and all the other tiles are common as muck and score just the 1. Of course you can score more if you place it one of the special squares but we just want the values on the tiles, 5:A - It was originally incidental music for a play by Henrik Ibsen, 6:C - He finished ahead of Jacques Villeneuve in second and Michael Schumacher in third, 7:A - She shone from 1963 until 1965 as one of the original regular cast, 8:D - "Once upon a time in a land called Fantasy, 17 mountains stood so high …", 9:A - It was first introduced when the US was hosting, with the men's race won by Bart Brentjens and the women's by Paola Pezzo, 10:B - He was the bassist, and they released their first album in 1971, 11:D - With the score for Joker she won an Oscar, Bafta and the Golden Globe award making her the first solo female composer to win in all three, 12:A - In chemistry the mole is a standard scientific unit for measuring very very large quantities of very very small entities such as atoms, molecules, or other specified particles, 13:A - German Hans Meyer and Austrian Ludwig Purtscheller reached the top of the highest peak that year along with their Tanzanian guide Yohana Lauwo, who possibly, if he knew the way, had been there before, 14:D - The one-act play was first published in the Times Literary Supplement, 15:B - Of course it is a St Bernard, although apparently the brandy bit is a myth, because alcohol prompts dilation in the blood vessels which would, despite the pleasing initial burning sensation of brandy in the mouth, eventually make you colder. The quiz master will be back next week …

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. But why not watch a rare 1985 television performance of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) by Kate Bush instead?

Kate Bush – Running up that Hill (A Deal with God)