Mystery meatballs, absolute zero, and a Depeche Mode twist – take the Thursday quiz

Depeche Mode’s David Gahan performing in Chicago in 2018. Photograph: Kamil Krzaczyński/AFP/Getty

The Guardian Thursday quiz is nothing if not obtuse, and what better way to celebrate its 101st edition than by theming it around the greatest live music album of all time – Depeche Mode’s 101? Yes, you read that right. Every question is based on the title of one of the songs on a 1989 LP that showcased a band at the top of their game – and incredibly came before they went on to even greater global stardom with songs such as Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence. And they released a new album, Memento Mori, last week too, which seems jolly good. But we digress. Fifteen questions await you, and you don’t really need to know anything much about Depeche Mode to be honest. Let us know how you get on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 101

1. 

   STRANGELOVE: Strangelove was a single from Depeche Mode in 1987. But what could be stranger to buy your loved one than the new range of cosmetics from Lush that are based on which video game franchise?

   1. Super Mario Bros

   2. Pokémon

   3. Minecraft

   4. Fortnite

2. 

   SACRED: Depeche Mode fans are called "Devotees" after a line in this song and the title of their 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion. But, talking of sacred things, when was the Sistine Chapel consecrated?

   1. 1383

   2. 1483

   3. 1583

   4. 1683

3. 

   SOMETHING TO DO: A Depeche Mode song about bored rebellious teenagers. The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, last week signed legislation forbidding people under 18 to do what without their parents' consent?

   1. Use social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook

   2. Begin taking driving lessons

   3. Reading books that contain references to sex or drugs

   4. Holding hands in public

4. 

   BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS: A Florence museum has invited parents and teachers from which US state to visit Michelangelo’s David after a furore where a parent described it as "pornographic" when it was shown to children in a classroom?

   1. Texas

   2. Utah

   3. Arizona

   4. Florida

5. 

   STRIPPED: A hit for Depeche Mode in 1986. If you stripped the Earth back to its core, it would mostly consist – according to the National Geographic website – of iron and which other element?

   1. Sulfur

   2. Manganese

   3. Cobalt

   4. Nickel

6. 

   SOMEBODY: And now we get to the Martin L Gore section of the concert while Dave has a rest. Which somebody got voted in as the new leader of the SNP and first minister of Scotland?

   1. Kate Forbes

   2. Humza Yousaf

   3. Ash Regan

   4. Stephen Flynn

7. 

   THE THINGS YOU SAID: Another song sung by Martin, about betrayal. But who this week said "The entire nation is rapt with deep worry. Our security, economy, society – all are under threat. Wake up now!"

   1. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog

   2. France's president, Emmanuel Macron

   3. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi

   4. The left-wing economic establishment, taunting Liz Truss

8. 

   NOTHING: "Sitting target, sitting praying, God is saying, nothing" goes yet another cheerful Depeche Mode ditty, originally only on the CD edition of 101, and Dave is back on stage singing now. But talking of nothing, what is the value of absolute zero in Fahrenheit?

   1. -101F

   2. -273.15

   3. -314.15F

   4. -459.67F

9. 

   PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE: "People are people, so why should it be, that what you wear when swimming is treated differently?" That was the question in which German city, which will now allow women to go topless in swimming pools, after a discrimination case?

   1. Hamburg

   2. Munich

   3. Berlin

   4. Leipzig

10. 

    PLEASURE, LITTLE TREASURE: A curious choice for the 101 setlist, since it was only ever a B-side. Talking of curious choices, an Australian company is extolling the virtue of "cultivated meat" with the production of a giant meatball grown using a DNA sequence from which animal?

    1. A rhinoceros

    2. An orangutan

    3. A mammoth

    4. Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz

11. 

    A QUESTION OF TIME: A popular Depeche Mode single lifted from the band's Black Celebration album. Now, everyone knows that changing the clocks is an abomination, but which country has been thrown into chronological chaos after the government's last-minute decision to delay clocks going forward until the end of April?

    1. Lebanon

    2. Cyprus

    3. Jordan

    4. Egypt

12. 

    NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN: The Depeche Mode song Never Let Me Down Again was recently used in which prestige TV drama based on a video game?

    1. The Witcher: Blood Origin

    2. The Last of Us

    3. Tetris

    4. Horace Goes Skiing

13. 

    A QUESTION OF LUST: Time for another song sung by Martin. What year was the notorious Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial in the UK?

    1. 1954

    2. 1956

    3. 1958

    4. 1960

14. 

    JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH: An absolute bop from the Vince Clarke era of Depeche Mode. A remote kissing machine called MUA has been invented – you kiss the device and sensors allow it to mimic your actions to the recipient's device. Absolute madness. Anyway, it has been invented where?

    1. Australia

    2. Japan

    3. UAE

    4. China

15. 

    EVERYTHING COUNTS (IN LARGE AMOUNTS): The definitive Depeche Mode critique of capitalism and greed. Harry Kane, meanwhile, became England men's greatest ever goalscorer with his penalty against Italy last week. Everything counts, even the ones against San Marino. Who did he replace at the top of the scoring charts?

    1. Gary Lineker

    2. Wayne Rooney

    3. Bobby Charlton

    4. David Batty

Solutions

1:A - The Luigi shower gel "has sweet notes of apple and rose and the vibrant green colour and consistency of fluorescent play slime", according to the Guardian's reviewer Keith Stuart. According to a Lush spokesperson, "the main reason we love Super Mario is because it’s so cross-generational", which we suspect will be news to a lot of the Guardian Thursday quiz audience., 2:B - Michelangelo painted the ceiling between 1508 and 1512, but the chapel itself was already in use, being built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV, who lends the chapel his name., 3:A - “We’re no longer willing to let social media companies continue to harm the mental health of our youth,” Cox, a Republican, said in a message on the social media platform Twitter. Something to Do opened Depeche's fourth album, which the quiz master got for his 13th birthday, and included the lyrics "grey sky over a black town, I can feel depression all around. You've got your leather boots on." It is no wonder the Thursday quiz turned out like this really., 4:D - Parents objected presumably because you could – Gasp! The horror! – see genitals! The principal of Tallahassee Classical school resigned after three parents complained about the class. It is a good job nobody has to resign every time there are three complaints about a question in this quiz, that's for sure., 5:D - National Geographic says "unlike the mineral-rich crust and mantle, the core is made almost entirely of metal – specifically, iron and nickel. The shorthand used for the core’s iron-nickel alloys is simply the elements’ chemical symbols – NiFe.", 6:B - Widely seen as Nicola Sturgeon’s preference as her successor, Yousaf defeated his closest rival, Kate Forbes, by the cursed ratio of 52% to 48% after second preference votes cast by supporters of the third candidate, Ash Regan, who came last in the first round, were counted. The turnout was 70%., 7:A - Herzog was referring to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary in Israel, which has sparked mass protests., 8:D - Absolute zero measures zero on the scale invented by William Thomson, who became Lord Kelvin as the first British scientist to be given a place in the House of Lords. The Fahrenheit scale was invented a few decades earlier, which, with some adjustments, essentially puts 180 degrees between the freezing point of water (32F) and the boiling point of water (212F). Absolute zero is a lot colder than that., 9:C - The decision to change clothing rules around swimming in the German capital was made after two women filed complaints about being thrown out or barred from the city’s pools for refusing to cover up, and demanded the same rights as their male counterparts when bathing topless at the city’s public pools. And no, we have no idea why those people are playing chess underwater in the photo., 10:C - Vow worked with Prof Ernst Wolvetang at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland to create the mammoth muscle protein. His team took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin and filled in the few gaps using elephant DNA. This sequence was placed in myoblast stem cells from a sheep, which replicated to grow to the 20bn cells subsequently used by the company to grow the mammoth meat. Mmmm, pleasure little treasure, sounds absolutely delicious., 11:A - The Mediterranean country normally sets its clocks forward an hour on the last Sunday in March, which aligns with most European countries. However, last Thursday Lebanon’s government announced a decision by the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, to push the start of daylight savings to 21 April, causing confusion, with some institutions refusing to accept the delay. Everybody knows that time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so., 12:B - Episode one ended with the Depeche Mode version, while episode six ended with a piano-based version by Jessica Mazin, which was either "haunting and moving", or "a honking great bag of John Lewis advert-style [REDACTED BY LAWYERS]" depending on whether you asked TV reviewers or one of the quiz master's mates on Facebook., 13:D - The poet Philip Larkin wrote that sexual intercourse began in 1963, partly because of the outcome of the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial three years earlier, and partly because the Beatles released their first LP that year. He sadly didn't get to give an opinion on Depeche Mode's A Question of Lust, as it was released a few months after he died. The trial concluded in November 1960 and Penguin published its popular edition of the D H Lawrence book several days later., 14:D - The MUA resembles a mobile stand with colourless pursed lips protruding from the front. To use it, lovers must download an app on to their smartphones and pair their kissing machines. When they kiss the device, it kisses back. Inventor Zhao Jianbo is based in China, although previous attempts at a kissing machine have come from Tokyo in 2011 and Malaysia in 2016., 15:B - Rooney scored 53 goals for England between 2003 and 2018, Charlton scored 49 between 1958 and 1970, and Lineker scored 48 between 1984 and 1992. David Batty played 42 times for England between 1991 and 1999, but never found the net, most notably when he missed in the penalty shootout against Argentina in the World Cup in 1998.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you just can't get enough of the Guardian Thursday quiz!

If you 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 final and 101 really is the best live LP ever made, no question.