Vending machines, forbidden colours and Scottish declarations – take the Thursday quiz

A child looks at a toy vending machine – but what have they been selling in Japan’s northern prefecture of Akita? Photograph: monzenmachi/Getty Images/iStockphoto

With the passing last week of Keith Reid, the lyricist for Procol Harum, the Thursday quiz was sorely tempted to set the question “What is the meaning of Whiter Shade of Pale”, open the comment thread, and simply leave it at that. However, it is the usual mix of 15 vaguely topical and general knowledge questions that awaits you. Let us know how you got on in the comments – especially if you spotted any oblique references to Doctor Who, which will earn you a bonus point.

The Thursday quiz, No 102

1. 

   FINLAND ELECTION: Finland's general election was a tight affair, with Sanna Marin's SDP finishing third on 19.9% of the vote. Second were PS with 20.1%, and first were the National Conservative party (NCP) with 20.6%. Who is the NCP leader, likely to replace Marin as prime minister?

   1. Petteri Orpo

   2. Riikka Purra

   3. Banna Kaffalatta

   4. Annika Saarikko

2. 

   SUNLIT UPLANDS: The Unboxed arts festival – dubbed the festival of Brexit in some quarters – reached only 20.5 million of the 66 million people predicted. Of those, 6 million appear to have come from a segment shown on which BBC programme?

   1. The One Show

   2. Countryfile

   3. Songs of Praise

   4. Antiques Roadshow

3. 

   PER ARDUA AD ASTRA: Nasa is sending three Americans around the moon: Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman. What nationality is the fourth member of the Artemis II crew?

   1. Argentinian

   2. Mexican

   3. Australian

   4. Canadian

4. 

   THE BELLS! THE BELLS! There is apparently a shortage of church bell-ringers ahead of the coronation of King Charles III. What is the name for the hobby of studying and ringing bells?

   1. Lapidary

   2. Campanology

   3. Oology

   4. Philately

5. 

   PLEAD THE FIFTH: Which of these is one of the women at the centre of the case which has led to Donald Trump being indicted by a court in New York?

   1. Breezy Delilah

   2. Jinkx Monsoon

   3. Stormy Daniels

   4. Steamy Windows

6. 

   ON THIS DAY: In 1320 a letter was written by nobles of Scotland to the pope, asking him to recognise Scotland's independence and acknowledge Robert the Bruce as the country's lawful king. What is it known as?

   1. The Declaration of Inverurie

   2. The Declaration of Strathspey

   3. The Declaration of Arbroath

   4. The Declaration of Clachnacuddin

7. 

   ON THIS DAY BUT SPORT: On 6 April the very first modern Olympic Games at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens was opened. But in which year?

   1. 1888

   2. 1892

   3. 1896

   4. 1900

8. 

   SPORT DOUBLE WHAMMY: Graham Potter and Brendan Rodgers got told to "do one" by their respective Premier League clubs this week, meaning more than half of the teams in the league have changed managers this season. Which of these clubs has the same manager they started with when the season kicked off on 6 August 2022?

   1. Fulham

   2. Bournemouth

   3. Everton

   4. Southampton

9. 

   GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL: Team Rocket are recurring villains in the Pokémon anime series. We most usually encounter Wobbuffet, Meowth, James and … ?

   1. Janet

   2. Jessie

   3. Julie

   4. Jobel

10. 

    THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS ALIENS: That is a 2006 song by Sparks where you look at your TV in despair. But when did the movie Aliens come out?

    1. 1976

    2. 1979

    3. 1986

    4. 1989

11. 

    MATHS WITH GOTHS: Robert Smith of the Cure is looking up at a straight-line graph which goes through points (a, b) and (c, d), where a + 3 = c and b + 6 = d. Robert wants to know the gradient of the line. What is it?

    1. 2

    2. 3

    3. 6

    4. 0.5

12. 

    IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. She is looking concerned because she has heard there is a vending machine in Japan's northern prefecture of Akita selling which kind of meat caught by local hunters?

    1. Iriomote cat

    2. Raccoon

    3. Wild bear

    4. Dachshund

13. 

    TV PERSONALITIES: Who topped the Radio Times list of the top 100 most powerful people in television in 2022?

    1. Bella Ramsey from The Last of Us

    2. Emma D’Arcy from House of the Dragon

    3. Yasmin Finney from Heartstopper

    4. Ncuti Gatwa from Sex Education

14. 

    GCSE SCIENCE CORNER: Which of these is an example of peristalsis?

    1. The process of shedding primary teeth and their replacement by permanent teeth

    2. A fibrous connective tissue that attaches bone to bone

    3. Inflammation of the fluid-filled channels in the inner ear leading to dizziness or vertigo

    4. The movement of food in the gut by muscles

15. 

    REST WELL RYUICHI: We lost Japanese musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. He provided the soundtrack and starred in the film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. But who sang the film's theme tune – Forbidden Colours?

    1. David Bowie

    2. David Sylvian

    3. Peter Murphy

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:A - Orpo, 53, and an MP since 2007, will send a questionnaire to all party leaders asking for their positions on key policy issues before beginning talks with those seen as the most probable partners, but probably faces a difficult job forming a new government., 2:B - 15.86 million people engaged remotely, either digitally or through broadcasts. But that number includes those watching a special edition of Countryfile, which included a 15-minute segment of content created by Unboxed. Countryfile has an average weekly audience of 6 million., 3:D - Jeremy Hansen is the first Canadian chosen to fly round the moon. Artemis II, which may fly as soon as 2024, is intended to demonstrate that Nasa's follow-up to the Apollo missions can get a crew to the moon and back safely – although they will not be landing., 4:B - Since a call went out from the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (CCCBR) – who knew? – last autumn for new recruits to join 30,000 existing campanologists, about 1,750 have come forward. But there is still a considerable shortfall to be made up if all the UK’s church bells are to be rung and there is now insufficient time to train new starters in the month before coronation day., 5:C - The case centres, among other things, around allegations that Trump and his lawyers paid Daniels $130,000 in "hush money" to cover up an extra-marital affair., 6:C - Described by the National Museum of Scotland as one of the country's most important historical artefacts, the letter to Pope John XXII was written in Latin and sealed by eight earls and about 40 barons. , 7:C - At the Games of the I Olympiad, 241 men from 14 countries competed in 43 events in nine sports, and none of them competed naked as a tribute to the Greek god Zeus, 8:A - It is Marco Silva at Fulham who still has his job. Bournemouth sacked Scott Parker; Everton binned off Frank Lampard; and Southampton have been having a right old merry-go-round with Ralph Hasenhüttl and Nathan Jones picking up their P45s so far, and you wouldn't bet against another desperate sacking either., 9:B - Prepare for trouble, and make it double! To protect the world from devastation, to unite all people within our nation. To denounce the evil of truth and love, to extend our reach to the stars of above. Jessie! James! Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light! Surrender now or prepare to fight! , 10:C - Aliens came out in 1986 as a follow-up to the highly successful Alien, which was released in 1979., 11:A - The gradient of the line = (change in y-coordinate) / (change in x-coordinate). In this case, the x-coordinate (a and c) has increased by 3, the y-coordinate (b and d) has increased by 6, and 6 divided by 3 is 2. Robert is much happier now., 12:C - The vending machine appeared in November after Soba Goro, a local restaurant, spied an opportunity to use ursine cuisine as a tourist attraction. The meat comes from bears captured in the mountains by members of a local hunting club who were permitted to kill a certain number during the annual hunting season. Bear meat consumption is highest in northern Japan, where it is sold in cans and even as instant curry. It has a slightly gamey flavour that some have likened to venison, and is often served in stew., 13:D - It was Gatwa, who pipped Heartstopper writer Alice Oseman and epic newsreader Huw Edwards in the top three., 14:D - That is also the radially symmetrical contraction and relaxation of muscles that propagate in a wave down a tube that pushes fluid around the human lymphatic system, and how earthworms move. , 15:B - Despite Bowie appearing in the movie, it was the lead singer of Japan, David Sylvian, who sang the song. Sakamoto was born in Tokyo in 1952, and began taking piano lessons aged six, later attending Tokyo University of the Arts to study music. He trained on early synthesisers and was part of the trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, whose joyous and progressive electronic pop in the late 1970s and early 1980s bought them fame outside Japan.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

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 so it was that later, as the miller told his tale, her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯