Nato’s venue, a lazy author, and yet another Johnson – take the Thursday quiz

Carrie and Boris Johnson. But what have they called their latest progeny? Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Fresh from being annoyed with Paul Weller at the weekend after he declined to play more than a couple of songs by the Jam that the whole of Wembley Stadium would have happily sung along with before Blur, here is the Thursday quiz. Fifteen questions on topical news, general knowledge, and absurdly random trivia. There are no prizes, although thanks to user0 we now seem to have a monthly officially unofficial league table. And please give a warm Thursday quiz welcome to Anna Davidson, who has contributed to compiling it for this week. Let us both know how you get on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 116

1. 

   JENS AND COMPANY: Nato held its latest summit this week. In which country?

   1. Estonia

   2. Lithuania

   3. Latvia

   4. Finland

2. 

   SLACKER: A note in which an author asked for time off working in the civil service has been identified as being in his own handwriting (not pictured) after being misidentified for years. Who?

   1. William Shakespeare

   2. Geoffrey Chaucer

   3. George Orwell

   4. Percy Shelley

3. 

   HOSPITALITY ON PARADE: That is a 1975 Sparks song where there's "kind help right there to serve you". However, consumers of vegan products may have been horrified this week to find that a third of UK vegan products have been found to contain what?

   1. Gelatin

   2. Meat protein

   3. Milk or egg

   4. 30-50 feral hogs

4. 

   ACTUAL GROWN ADULT MEN: Elon Musk (not pictured) called Mark Zuckerberg (not pictured) what in public this week?

   1. Assclown

   2. Cuck

   3. Twonk

   4. Beta

5. 

   ALSO APPARENTLY AN ACTUAL GROWN MAN: George Santos, the Republican congressman whose résumé has been shown to be largely fabricated and who has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, stoked outrage by comparing himself to who?

   1. Rosa Parks

   2. Mahatma Gandhi

   3. Jesus

   4. Martin Luther King Jr

6. 

   THE MYSTERY DEEPENS: Nobody knows how many children former prime minister Boris Johnson has – a state of affairs you imagine simply wouldn't have been tolerated by the rightwing press from Thatcher, May or Truss – but this week he added another one to his indeterminate brood. What have he and wife Carrie (pictured, with tiny horses) called him?

   1. Wulfric Homer Bruce Johnson

   2. James Alexander Winston Johnson

   3. Frank Alfred Odysseus Johnson

   4. Dogface Hermann Dingbat Johnson

7. 

   DOG IS LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. She knows that Canadian justice Rosanna Saccomani this week fined a man for shooting an animal, but can't remember which animal. Can you?

   1. It was a moose

   2. It was an endangered ring-necked beaver

   3. It was a bear

   4. It was one very naughty miniature dachshund

8. 

   THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE: Element number 12 is Magnesium. It is part of milk of magnesia, used as an antacid. But which magnesium compound is milk of magnesia made of?

   1. Magnesium hydroxide

   2. Magnesium sulfate

   3. Magnesium chloride

   4. Magnesium nitrate

9. 

   JOIN THE CLUB: The United Nations last admitted a new member country in 2011. Can you name it?

   1. South Sudan

   2. Montenegro

   3. Switzerland

   4. Timor-Leste

10. 

    SHE'S SO HEAVY: Which European capital is going to start charging cars for parking by their weight, in order to deter people from clonking through the urban landscape in massive SUVs?

    1. Berlin

    2. London

    3. Rome

    4. Paris

11. 

    WOMEN'S WORLD CUP 2023: Non-football questions about each of the countries playing in this year's Fifa Women's World Cup. How many official languages does France have (not pictured)?

    1. One

    2. Two

    3. Three

    4. Four

12. 

    WOMEN'S WORLD CUP 2023: Germany's women will also be at the world cup. How many countries does Germany border?

    1. 6

    2. 7

    3. 8

    4. 9

13. 

    KICKER CONSPIRACY: Leyton Orient are still the champions of League Two in the English Football League, and the quiz master is still literally in this photo. Queen's We Are The Champions has been on the turntable non-stop. Which Queen album was it first on?

    1. A Day at the Races

    2. The Game

    3. News of the World

    4. World Enough and Time

14. 

    MEN'S WORLD CUP: Finally an actual football question. It is the anniversary of the opening matches of the very first Fifa World Cup for men, held in 1930. France beat Mexico, and the US beat Belgium on the opening day. But which nation hosted?

    1. Uruguay

    2. Argentina

    3. Italy

    4. Sweden

15. 

    ON THIS DAY: It is also the anniversary of the Live Aid concert. Who was it who famously used a British Airways Concorde flight to cross the Atlantic so that they could feature in the show in Philadelphia having already performed at the Wembley leg in London?

    1. Robert Plant

    2. Phil Collins

    3. Paul McCartney

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:B - It was Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, that was hosting. The country joined the alliance in 2004., 2:B - From 1374 to 1386, Chaucer was the king’s controller, overseeing the payment of duty on exported and imported wool, among other goods. The note, written in French, had previously been dismissed as that of a clerk writing on behalf of his boss., 3:C - It isn't just a slap in the face for those eating vegan food for idealogical reasons, it is extremely dangerous for people with severe allergies. You can tell by the look on his face that Ron thinks they shouldn't have done that., 4:B - That is a picture of Grimes by the way, just because the Thursday quiz knows it will annoy Elon Musk in the unlikely chance he stumbles across it. Incidentally, Musk has still never clarified whether his name is genuinely short for Elongated Muskrat. Musk used the insult beloved of rightwing white supremacists in some sort of online beef the two were having but frankly the Thursday quiz has already lost interest., 5:A - “Rosa Parks didn’t sit in the back, and neither am I gonna sit in the back,” Santos told a rightwing podcast. Santos said of critics in his own party: “They come for me, I go right back for them … So, you know, it’s not gonna stay that way any more. I’m gonna call them out. You want to call me a liar? I’ll call you a sellout". He seems nice., 6:C - The new arrival joins Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, Romy Iris Charlotte Johnson, and who knows how many siblings or half-siblings. There is no word yet on how many of the children already have newspaper columns lined up., 7:C - Justice Rosanna Saccomani rejected the idea that Painchaud’s fear of bears bore any weight. “[That] would apply to pretty much every single person in your situation,” she said. “We’re all afraid of bears". Are we though? Are we?, 8:A - Liquid milk of magnesia will typically consist of sodium hydrogen carbonate, oil of peppermint, glycerol, sodium saccharin, purified water and the active ingredient, magnesium hydroxide. Mmmmmmm. Sounds delicious., 9:A - It was South Sudan. Montenegro was admitted in 2006. Switzerland and Timor-Leste both joined in 2002. Switzerland joined the organisation after a referendum., 10:D - Electric vehicles and those with large families requiring a bigger car are expected to escape the increased fees that will come into effect on 1 January 2024. Paris councillors approved the measure in an unanimous vote, with Frédéric Badina-Serpette, a councillor from the EELV ecology party, saying the aim was "to focus on an absurdity: auto-besity … the inexorable growth in the weight and size of vehicles circulating in our cities.", 11:A - Despite having a wide range of regional dialects and other languages widely in use due to its colonial activities, there is one official language, as defined in the second article of the French constitution., 12:D - It is nine. Germany's own interior ministry says "No other country in Europe has as many neighbours as Germany. Germany shares its 3,767-kilometre land border with Denmark to the north; the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France to the west; Switzerland and Austria to the south; and the Czech Republic and Poland to the east". Please address all queries in the comments about how, given fractal theory, Germany has actually measured the border directly to the German embassy in London and not to the quiz masters. Thanks in advance., 13:C - The 1977 album also featured We Will Rock You and Get Down, Make Love. Other Queen albums named after defunct newspapers included Workers' Dreadnought, The Daily Courant and The Pall Mall Gazette. Ok, that bit isn't true., 14:A - Thirteen teams (seven from South America, four from Europe, and two from North America) entered the tournament, which was hosted by the then Olympic football champions Uruguay, and none of it was live on the tellybox., 15:B - Collins was ferried in a helicopter piloted by Noel Edmonds to Heathrow and then on to New York and onwards to Philadelphia and then sat down and was part of a Led Zeppelin reunion performance considered so bad that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant have subsequently blocked it from being released. But none of it as bad as watching Paul Weller get a whole stadium singing along to That's Entertainment and then deciding that's enough Jam songs for now.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

• We lost a member of the Thursday quiz family this week. Victoria Conlan was a friend and former colleague of the quiz master at the BBC in the early 2000s, and she regularly posted her Thursday quiz score – and witty analysis – on Facebook. She died after a short illness. A partner, mother, sister and much more, Victoria was an absolute force of nature. She leaves behind family and friends who are stunned to have lost her so unexpectedly and suddenly, and who will miss her very much indeed. They are fundraising for Amyloidosis research. Rest well, Victoria.

Victoria Conlan (1973–2023) Photograph: Floyd Briscoe