Ulysses, Kelpies and Bond’s debut – take the Thursday quiz

Daniel Craig as James Bond. Photograph: United Artists/Columbia Pictures/Allstar

The quiz master is away, but before his departure he assembled 15 general knowledge and vaguely topical questions to dazzle the senses and expand the mind. Of course, no Thursday quiz is complete without Ron from Sparks, Kate Bush, or a hidden reference to children’s TV favourite Doctor Who. There are no prizes. It is just for fun. Let us know how you got on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 45

1. 

   ON THIS DAY: Charles Ponzi was born 3 March 1882, and ended up giving his name to schemes where the illusion of early investors getting a huge profit is maintained by shovelling the money of later investors to them. But what did his original 'Ponzi scheme' claim it was investing in?

   1. Used bottle tops

   2. Expired stock certificates

   3. Premium bonds

   4. International reply coupons

2. 

   HAPPY BIRTHDAY: It is Daniel Craig's birthday this week. Happy birthday, Daniel. He is most famous for playing James Bond between 2006 and 2021, but in which 1992 film did he make his screen debut?

   1. The Power of One

   2. A Kid in King Arthur's Court

   3. The Power of Three

   4. Genghis Cohn

3. 

   TRUE OR FALSE: Steps version of Tragedy actually did better in the UK charts than the Bee Gees original version?

   1. True

   2. False

4. 

   GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: Acyclic saturated hydrocarbons consist of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure. They share the same general formula where there are twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms, plus two. What are they called?

   1. Alloys

   2. Alkanes

   3. Amalgams

   4. Azeotropes

5. 

   ENSEMBLE CASTS: Which show featured Gerry Parkes in North America, Fulton Mackay in the UK, and Hans-Helmut Dickow in Germany?

   1. Mopatop's Shop

   2. Muppet Babies

   3. The StoryTeller

   4. Fraggle Rock

6. 

   STATE THE OBVIOUS: Canada is divided into a number of provinces and territories, that each either have a lieutenant governor or a commissioner. How many provinces and territories are there altogether in Canada?

   1. 5

   2. 7

   3. 13

   4. 16

7. 

   I MARRIED A MARTIAN: That's a 1981 Sparks song in which they discover that the Martian 'had a European flair'. But that's not important right now. How long does it take Mars to rotate each day?

   1. 24 hours 37 minutes

   2. 18 hours 13 minutes

   3. 15 hours 58 minutes

   4. 13 hours 8 minutes

8. 

   I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT, DAVE: In 1959 a consortium called the Conference on Data Systems Languages (Codasyl) was held to extend and develop Grace Hopper's Flow-Matic computer language into which programming language?

   1. Formula Translation language or 'Fortran'

   2. Common business-oriented language or 'Cobol'

   3. Basic Object Programming Language or 'BOPL'

   4. Cascading Style Sheets or 'CSS'

9. 

   WHO AM I? Born in Buenos Aires and given the first name Jorge, I've gone on to become one of the most famous Argentinians of all-time, working in Europe under a different name. Who am I?

   1. Julio Cortázar

   2. Lionel Messi

   3. Pope Francis

   4. Diego Maradona

10. 

    FIBONACCI NUMBERS: First described in Indian mathematics, and forming a sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, F₂ is, like F₁, one. But how, roughly, did ancient Sumerians define one cubit?

    1. The distance an adult can stride in three paces

    2. The distance from head to toe of an adult human

    3. The distance from the knee to the ankle

    4. The distance from the elbow to the middle finger

11. 

    THE PLAY'S THE THING: Ulysses appears as a character in which of these plays generally ascribed to William Shakespeare?

    1. Troilus and Cressida

    2. Timon of Athens

    3. Cymbeline

    4. Antony and Cleopatra

12. 

    SCOTTISH THINGS: The Kelpies are an incredible 30-metre-high pair of horse-head sculptures by Andy Scott. But where in Scotland would you find them?

    1. Dundee

    2. Falkirk

    3. Inverness

    4. Fort William

13. 

    ALLONS-Y: Wiki Voyage lists 23 locations visited by fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. No 5 is Suez, Egypt. But roughly how long is the Suez Canal?

    1. 60 miles

    2. 120 miles

    3. 240 miles

    4. 360 miles

14. 

    ASTERIXOLOGY: The 11th volume of the Asterix books was published in France in 1968 as Le bouclier Arverne. But what was the title in English?

    1. Asterix and the Arverne Shield

    2. Asterix and Arverne's Shield

    3. Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield

    4. Asterix and the Big Fight

15. 

    MUSIC: Which 80s pop star wrote the UK No 1 hit single The One And Only by British singer Chesney Hawkes?

    1. Nik Kershaw

    2. Phil Oakey

    3. Midge Ure

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:D - Ponzi claimed that coupons bought in war-ravaged and inflation-hit Europe could be exchanged for higher value postage stamps in the US, delivering huge profits. There wasn't anything illegal about that arbitrage, but it couldn't be done at scale. At one point Ponzi successfully sued a Boston journalist for libel for raising alarms about the scheme, 2:A - Craig made his debut in the 1992 drama film loosely based on Bryce Courtenay's 1989 novel of the same name, which is set in South Africa during the second world war. He began playing James Bond with Casino Royale in 2006, 3:B - It's false. Both versions of the song reached No 1 in the UK singles chart. For the Bee Gees it was a smash in 1979, for Steps it was a hit on a double-a side single with a ballad called Heartbeat, which topped the chart in 1998. Fancy that, 4:B - Methane, ethane and propane are among their number, 5:D - The wraparound segments were localised as part of an international co-production, although everybody got the same main show with the Fraggles themselves, 6:C - There are ten provinces and three territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon), 7:A - It takes just longer than the Earth does to rotate, even though it is roughly half the size and its year nearly twice as long which suggests you can't imply rotation speed from either of those facts. You can tell by his face that Ron from Sparks thinks you should have known that, 8:B - Mainly used in business applications on mainframes, Cobol is still in use in legacy systems today, and has continued to evolve over the years. There's an automatic point off if you start bickering about whether CSS is a 'programming language' or a 'mark-up language' in the comments. It was the wrong answer anyway, 9:C - Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. All of your options had Argentinian nationality, and all of them worked and found success in Europe, but only Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Argentina's capital, 10:D - It was based on the distance from the elbow to the middle finger, which clearly varies a lot in different people. What a terrible system, 11:A - He is one of the more manipulative characters in one of Shakespeare's lesser-produced plays, 12:B - They are situated next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal, in The Helix, between Falkirk and Grangemouth. Scott says he took the concept of the shape-shifting mythological creatures and "moved with it towards a more equine and contemporary response, shifting from any mythological references towards a socio-historical monument intended to celebrate the horse’s role in industry and agriculture as well as the obvious association with the canals as tow horses." Alright, mate, calm down, 13:B - It is roughly 120 miles long from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. We can quibble about the exact distance in the comments forever, but it is definitely closer to 120 miles than 60 miles or 240 miles, 14:C - Chief Vitalstatistix is forced to visit a spa in the Arvernian countryside, which lends itself to the French title. However, the English title instead has its focus on Romans trying to steal his shield, 15:A - It came out in 1991 and was written and co-produced by Nik Kershaw. Showing he's got his head screwed on right, when he does nostalgia tours these days, Hawkes plays his massive hit, and then several cover versions guaranteed to get the crowd singing along, and essentially ignores more of his own back catalogue in favour of just entertaining people. Sound lad

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

2. 3 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 quiz master’s word is always final, and genuinely, he is away.