Tasteless ads, a dirty drink, and messy Olympic designs – take the Thursday quiz

The Paris mascot is cute, but oh dear the pictograms are a mess. Photograph: Teresa Suarez/EPA

The Thursday quiz hopes that Valentine’s Day was everything you dreamed it would be, and that today’s quiz will not give you nightmares. You face 15 questions of varying degrees of topicality, difficulty, and sensibility. There are no prizes, it is just for fun. Let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 95

1. 

   PHEW WHAT A GLOBAL HEATING SCORCHER: The residents of the Swiss canton of Valais are finding what invasive species on their ski slopes due to global heating?

   1. 30-50 feral hogs

   2. Bears

   3. Truffles

   4. Cacti

2. 

   POOR TASTE: An advert in Cornwall that was placed next to a direction sign for a crematorium has been removed after people thought it might be offensive. What was it for?

   1. Burger King's flame-grilled Whopper

   2. KFC BBQ Rack'o'ribs meal deal

   3. McDonald's McCrispy chicken sandwich

   4. An album by local band Corpse Licker

3. 

   WHAT SORT OF UNHOLY DESIGN MESS DO YOU CALL THAT: The Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics have unveiled a set of absolutely baffling pictogram designs. When were pictograms first introduced to the Olympics?

   1. Tokyo 1964

   2. Mexico City 1968

   3. Munich 1972

   4. Montreal 1976

4. 

   DKTR FAUSTUS: In 1986 it inspired a song by the Fall, but the play Faust – Der Tragödie erster Teil was published in 1808 and is generally considered as one of the greatest works of German literature. Who wrote it?

   1. Ludwig Tieck

   2. Hermann Zaroff

   3. Friedrich Schiller

   4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

5. 

   HIGHER OR LOWER WITH TONY YEBOAH: This week the Leeds United legend wants to know which of these four Indian cities is the most northerly?

   1. Hyderabad

   2. New Delhi

   3. Mumbai

   4. Kolkata

6. 

   SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT: Simply Red have sold more than 50m albums, so surely at least one of you will be able to put their first four UK album releases in the correct order?

   1. Picture Book, A New Flame, Stars, Men and Women

   2. Men and Women, Picture Book, Life, Stars

   3. Men and Women, Blue Eyed Soul, Picture Book, Stars

   4. Picture Book, Men and Women, A New Flame, Stars

7. 

   ON THIS DAY-ISH: On 17 February, Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Which year?

   1. 1903

   2. 1913

   3. 1923

   4. 1933

8. 

   HAPPY BIRTHDAY: It is Christopher Eccleston's birthday today. Happy birthday Chris! What was the name of the first episode of Doctor Who that he starred in?

   1. The Unquiet Dead

   2. The End of the World

   3. Never For Ever

   4. Rose

9. 

   GCSE SCIENCE WRITTEN BY AN AI: The Thursday quiz asked ChatGPT "please write a multiple choice question about human biology aimed at GCSE students" and it said "What type of tissue forms the protective covering of bones?"

   1. Epithelial

   2. Connective

   3. Nervous

   4. Muscular

10. 

    THE LEFTWING ECONOMIC ESTABLISHMENT WITH LIZ TRUSS: The International Monetary Fund was founded in 1944, and began operation on 27 December 1945. Where is it headquartered?

    1. Geneva

    2. Washington DC

    3. New York

    4. At Fidel Castro's old house in Cuba wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and a hat with a slogan that reads "the masses against the classes"

11. 

    I WANT TO BELIEVE: UFOs are back in fashion in the news. What was the first name of David Duchovny's character Mulder in the X-Files?

    1. Buck

    2. Hawk

    3. Fox

    4. Racoon

12. 

    COCKTAIL O'CLOCK: What do you add to a martini to make it 'dirty'?

    1. Capers

    2. Peach juice

    3. Olive juice

    4. Marmite

13. 

    IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian's Thursday quiz. She wants to know if you think it is true that dogs can sweat through their paws?

    1. Yes it is true – merocrine sweat glands in a dog's paws act much the same as human sweat glands.

    2. No it is false – the main way dogs regulate their temperature is through panting, and they have but a handful of sweat glands on their body, and none on the paw pads.

14. 

    MATHS WITH GOTHS: The bouncer at Slimelight says they won't let your goth dogs in unless you can name the lowest prime number with four digits. Which is it?

    1. 1,007

    2. 1,009

    3. 1,011

    4. 1,017

15. 

    WHAM BAM, THANK YOU SAM: Sam Smith's outfit at the Brits helpfully outed a load of dullards in comments around the internet who would have been the kind of dads going "Oooooh is it a girl or a boy?" when Culture Club first appeared on Top of the Pops in 1982. But who won artist of the year at the Brits this year?

    1. Harry Styles

    2. Stormzy

    3. Wet Leg

    4. Ron from Sparks

Solutions

1:D - Authorities say cactus species belonging to the genus Opuntia, or prickly pears, are proliferating in parts of Valais, encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat. According to Meteo Swiss, the number of snow days under 800 metres of altitude in Switzerland has halved since 1970., 2:C - The McCrispy chicken sandwich advertisement was placed at a bus stop next to a road sign pointing motorists toward the Penmount crematorium. One woman whose mother-in-law was cremated at the crematorium last year told CornwallLive: “Although I can see the funny side, it is tasteless, and I’m sure some grieving family members won’t like to see it.", 3:A - Although there had been illustrative designs used in previous Olympic literature, faced with the language barrier of non-Japanese visitors heading to Japan, designer Yoshiro Yamashita made simple wordless pictograms for each sport that could be used for venue signage, changing the course of Olympic design. The Paris designs appear to have completely forgotten the "simple symbol easily recognisable at distance" part of the brief., 4:D - Goethe was born in Frankfurt in 1749 and Dktr Faustus was the first ever song the quiz master ever heard by The Fall. Banana!, 5:B - It is New Delhi. It became the capital city of India in the early 20th century when anti-British sentiment caused the British Empire to shift its administration from Kolkata, believing that it would be easier to suppress nationalist uprisings from a base located more centrally in northern India. , 6:D - Stars became the best-selling album for two years running in Europe after its release in 1991 but mostly the quiz master remembers Simply Red for having some headphones popped on him just as he was going in for a lengthy MRI scan a few years ago, and to help "soothe the experience" they played him Simply Red for 20 minutes. This did not help soothe the experience., 7:C - The tomb had been uncovered in November 1922, and then it took a few months to excavate it to a point of being able to enter it. It was unsealed in the presence of witnesses including Lord Carnarvon, several Egyptian officials, museum representatives and the staff of the Government Press Bureau., 8:D - Rose was broadcast in March 2005 and introduced Eccleston as the ninth Doctor alongside Billie Piper as his companion – Rose., 9:B - Asked to explain the answer it said "Connective tissue is the type of tissue that forms the protective covering of bones", which was a bit recursive really., 10:B - The IMF has 190 member countries, 2,400 staff and a budget of $1.2bn., 11:C - Having previously played Jake Winters in the Red Shoe Diaries TV anthology series, Duchovny first appeared as Fox William Mulder in 1993., 12:C - A dirty martini is made with vermouth, gin, olives and olive brine., 13:A - It is true. While panting is the main way a dog regulates its temperature, sweat glands located in a dog's paw pads activate when a dog is hot to cool them down, which is why you might notice damp paw prints on the ground during particularly hot days, 14:B - The first four prime numbers in the thousands are 1,009, 1,013, 1,019 and 1,021. The factors of 1,007 are 1, 19, 53, 1,007. The factors of 1,011 are 1, 3, 337, 1,011. The factors of 1,017 are 1, 3, 9, 113, 339, 1,017. I bet you that Gene Loves Jezebel knew that., 15:A - Styles took home four gongs, while Wet Leg won best new artist. Stormzy missed out despite being nominated in three categories, and Ron from Sparks is just a legend anyway and doesn't need awards.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

If you do 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 quizmaster’s word is final, and he is actually in Oxford today visiting the Knossos exhibition at the Ashmolean so won’t read them.