Sporting leaders, racing waiters and lots of rescued cats – take the Thursday quiz

This Scottish wildcat has questions for you … Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The Thursday quiz would like to start this week with an apology to regular readers. Not for anything specific, just a general apology. There is bound to have been something that annoyed you in the previous 152 editions. It won’t be resigning though. That has gone right out of fashion. Anyway, this week, 15 topical and general knowledge questions await you, punctuated with a few jokes and no little sarcasm. There are no prizes. It is just for fun, but let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 153

1. 

   Who (pictured) will be the youngest taoiseach of Ireland now he has secured the leadership of the Fine Gael party after the resignation of Leo Varadkar?

   1. Evan McCabe

   2. Patrick O'Donovan

   3. Simon Harris

   4. Simon Coveney

2. 

   Some people, including Reform UK's Lee Anderson (not pictured) absolutely lost their minds about the new England football kit having a design element on it that looked like an England flag but with different colours. Who makes the kit?

   1. Adidas

   2. Puma

   3. Umbro

   4. Nike

3. 

   Horror film Late Night With the Devil apparently took how much at the box office on Sunday in the US?

   1. $6,666

   2. $66,666

   3. $666,666

   4. $6,666,666

4. 

   Paris has revived its Course des Cafés race. Waiters have to hold what (not pictured) on a tray one-handed during the 2km race?

   1. A coffee, croissant and a glass of water

   2. A beer, some frites and a small dipping bowl of mayonnaise

   3. Two flutes of champagne

   4. One very naughty miniature dachshund

5. 

   Laurent de Brunhoff has died. He presided over the popular picture-book series about which elephant (not pictured – that is John Prescott)?

   1. Nellie

   2. Elmer

   3. Dumbo

   4. Babar

6. 

   This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, and no lover of cats. But how many cats did a man from British Columbia end up looking after when he began taking in cats abandoned during the pandemic?

   1. 30–50

   2. About 100

   3. About 200

   4. About 300

7. 

   The UK chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said that earning £100,000 (€116k/$126k) a year “doesn’t go as far as you might think” for people in his Surrey constituency. What was the median salary for a full-time worker in the UK last year?

   1. £34,963

   2. £44,963

   3. £54,963

   4. £64,963

8. 

   One question about every country taking part in the Euro 2024 finals this summer. This week: Romania. In which quadrant of Romania is the capital, Bucharest?

   1. North-east

   2. South-east

   3. South-west

   4. North-west

9. 

   You've always wanted to pass GCSE computer studies, right? Try this one. Which of these is the correct description of what a router does?

   1. Corrects errors that are found in data packets

   2. Removes data packets from a network if it detects copyright infringement

   3. Forwards data packets along a network

   4. Outputs the work of a collection of 30-50 feral hogs passing notes to each other

10. 

    Which unlikely figure's jeans have been blurred by North Korean censors because they are seen as a symbol of US imperialism?

    1. David Attenborough

    2. Michel Roux Jr

    3. Alan Titchmarsh

    4. Ron from Sparks

11. 

    Whose music has returned to Spotify more than two years after she left the streaming platform in protest at it hosting Joe Rogan's podcast?

    1. Dolly Parton

    2. Joni Mitchell

    3. Kate Bush

    4. Patti Smith

12. 

    Talking of music, we demand you put the first four studio albums by Thursday quiz favourites the Fall into the correct chronological order, oldest first! Get to it!

    1. Live at the Witch Trials, Dragnet, Room to Live, Hex Enduction Hour

    2. Live at the Witch Trials, Dragnet, Grotesque (After the Gramme), Hex Enduction Hour

    3. Live at the Witch Trials, Perverted by Language, Grotesque (After the Gramme), Hex Enduction Hour

    4. Live at the Witch Trials, Perverted by Language, The Wonderful and Frightening World Of ..., Hex Enduction Hour

13. 

    France's president, Emmanuel Macron, treated Instagram users last week by posting pictures of himself doing which Olympic discipline that will feature at Paris 2024?

    1. Archery

    2. Boxing

    3. Breaking

    4. Fencing

14. 

    Who achieved a lifetime ambition to manage Liverpool at Anfield at the weekend?

    1. Alex Ferguson

    2. Fabio Capello

    3. Sven-Göran Eriksson

    4. Arsene Wenger

15. 

    Scientists in Germany have discovered that puberty makes teenagers’ armpits smell of what?

    1. Cheese, goat and urine

    2. Wet dog, spoiled milk and raw sewage

    3. Rotten fruit, potato peelings and faeces

    4. Sweetness, joy and light

Solutions

1:C - Harris, 37, dropped out of college to enter politics and became a TD at the age of 24, 2:D - It was Nike. It isn't Lee Anderson in the picture in the quiz, that is Reform UK leader Richard Tice and if you shout "Computer, enhance picture" like they do in the movies, it will zoom in to show you that time they recoloured the union flag to be in the shade of blue they use for their party rather than the correct blue, but that was fine then, apparently, because that wasn't, and we quote Anderson directly, “virtue-signalling woke nonsense”, 3:C - Rumours that it actually took $665,609 and then one executive insisted on paying $1,057 for a single ticket to push it to an extremely precise headlineable number could not be confirmed at the time of going to press, 4:A - The rules are: tray in one hand only; no running; and not a crumb or drop to be spilled. Being rude to people en route was optional, 5:D - De Brunhoff revived his father’s popular picture-book series and presided over its rise to a global multimedia franchise. Nevertheless, the stories have been criticised for their colonial attitudes, and De Brunhoff withdrew one book for its crude racial caricatures, 6:D - Bruce Robinson told the rescue charity that the cost of caring for them had become a herculean task after he lost his job. A spokesperson for the charity said: “When asked how many cats he had, I think he said it was like counting bubbles in boiling water." They all seemed in good condition, thankfully, 7:A - The median was £34,963, although in Hunt's constituency it was higher at £42,000 due to regional inequality, poor lambs, 8:B - Bucharest is at 26°6′14″E, with the easternmost point of the country being East Sulina at 29°40′E and the westernmost point being Beba Veche at 20°19′E, all of which is a very precise way for the Thursday quiz to try and head off quibbling about this somewhat vague and desperate deadline-approaching geographical question, 9:C - Well done if you picked this option – you've got one point towards your fictitious computer studies GCSE, 10:C - Dubbed and edited versions of Titchmarsh's gardening shows have apparently been a staple of North Korean state TV, but don't look at the jeans, 11:B - Mitchell made no comment about the return of her music, though the move comes a week after Neil Young said he was putting his music back on Spotify after the platform ended its exclusivity deal with Rogan’s podcast, 12:B - The Thursday quiz has determined that for quiz purposes, the 1981 10" EP Slates is essential listening, but doesn't count as an album, 13:B - Éric Anceau, a history professor at the University of Lorraine, wrote that the photos were “part of the neo-populist virility that certain leaders are fond of today". Oooooh la-di-da get you with your virile neo-populist long words, 14:C - Eriksson, who has terminal cancer, managed a team of Liverpool legends against an Ajax legends side. He said: "I cried, it was beautiful. To sit on the bench for Liverpool was the dream all my life and now it has happened. It was a beautiful day in every sense", 15:A - A fact that every parent of a teenager has also "discovered". Anyone with a teenager could argue answers B and C are also true, but in this specific study two steroids – 5-alpha-androst-16-en-3-one and 5-alpha-androst-16-en-3-alpha-ol – and six carboxylic acids are named as the culprits for smells of urine, musk, sandalwood, cheese, goat and wax between them

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 – feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember the quiz master’s word is final and he recommends you listen to No One’s Invited, by Kirsten Izer instead.