Peppa’s new parents, Marco Polo’s home and Argentina’s money – take the Thursday quiz

A young girl called Daria plays with Peppa Pig toys – but who are the new couple in Peppa Pig? Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images

The Thursday quiz! We meet again! We could do with some joy on the internet so here we are. You face 15 questions that could be topical, could be general knowledge, or could involve disparaging cheese manufactured in the US. It is just for fun and there are no prizes. Let us know how you get on in the comments, where you can score bonus points for spotting Doctor Who connections or for making the quizmaster laugh. Careful though – points can be taking off for excessive pedantry.

The Thursday quiz, No 73

1. 

   THE LAST QUEEN OF EUROPE: Margrethe II marked a muted jubilee at the weekend after she became Europe's only crowned queen following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Where is Margrethe II the queen?

   1. Denmark

   2. Netherlands

   3. Luxembourg

   4. Sweden

2. 

   THERE'S MORE TO LOVE THAN BOY MEETS GIRL: Children's favourite Peppa Pig is to introduce its first same-sex couple. But which type of animal is going to be introduced as "my mummy and my other mummy"?

   1. Porcupines

   2. Polar bears

   3. Penguins

   4. Parrots

3. 

   THAT'S ELUSIVE: Talking of animals, which animal was spotted in London for the first time in more than a century by a London Zoo camera intended for spotting hedgehogs?

   1. Polecat

   2. Badger

   3. Pine marten

   4. 30-50 feral hogs

4. 

   NID YW CYMRU AR WERTH: Prince William has been named the new Prince of Wales. But which Prince of Wales was executed on the orders of Edward I on 3 October 1283, with the English King later awarding the title to his own son and heir?

   1. Owain Gwynedd

   2. Dafydd ap Gruffydd

   3. Blaidd Drwg

   4. Anarawd ap Rhodri

5. 

   ON THIS DAY: On 15 September 1978 Muhammad Ali became a world heavyweight boxing champion for the third time, after defeating whom at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana in front of 70,000 people?

   1. Leon Spinks

   2. Joe Frazier

   3. George Foreman

   4. Joe Bugner

6. 

   ALSO ON THIS DAY BUT A REALLY LONG TIME AGO: Marco Polo was born on this day in 1254, famed for boring Rustichello da Pisa so much with his travel stories that the latter eventually wrote it all down in a book. But where was Marco Polo born?

   1. Milan

   2. Turin

   3. Rome

   4. Venice

7. 

   LITERATURE: A rare signed edition of The Catcher in the Rye is up for sale for £225,000. Who wrote it?

   1. Ernest Hemingway

   2. William Golding

   3. Aldous Huxley

   4. JD Salinger

8. 

   THANKS BUT NO THANKS: That is a 1974 Sparks song where their orders come from high above them. But which Commonwealth country just announced that within three years it would hold a referendum on whether to retain the British monarch as head of state?

   1. Belize

   2. Jamaica

   3. Antigua and Barbuda

   4. St Kitts and Nevis

9. 

   GCSE SCIENCE BUT WITH STEVIE NICKS: Stevie contributes vocals to The Chain, one of the highlights of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album. But if scientists were measuring something that was the length of one imperial chain, how long would it be?

   1. 24 metres

   2. 66 feet

   3. 55 Biblical cubits

   4. All of the above

10. 

    1966 AND ALL THAT: A series of questions not related to football leading up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup awarded to Qatar where they decided to change the fixtures a few weeks ago to suit the host nation. The 1978 Fifa World Cup was held in Argentina. But what is the name of Argentina's present day currency?

    1. Dollar

    2. Peso

    3. Austral

    4. Lire

11. 

    WEIRD WORDS: According to the Collins dictionary online, which of these words means 'an attractive or curious trinket'

    1. Bibcock

    2. Boffola

    3. Bibelot

    4. Benthon

12. 

    TAMMY'S TEASER: Tammy Wynette had a hit single with D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968. R is for Rabat – but which African nation is it the capital city of?

    1. Malawi

    2. Morocco

    3. Mozambique

    4. Mali

13. 

    UNEXPECTED SAUSAGE!: Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz, is sad because this week we lost Gwyneth Powell, who played Grange Hill’s headteacher on TV between 1981 and 1991. But what was the name of Powell's character in Grange Hill?

    1. Bridget McClusky

    2. Barbara Wright

    3. Ginny Booth

    4. Liz Reagan

14. 

    I'M SORRY DAVE, I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT: In computer programming, which of these terms best describes "a location that stores temporary data within a program which can be modified, stored and displayed whenever needed"?

    1. Operator

    2. Conditional

    3. Variable

    4. Argument

15. 

    MUSIC: Who is No 1 in the UK singles chart at the moment?

    1. Harry Styles with As It Was

    2. Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal with B.O.T.A (Baddest Of The All)

    3. LF System with Afraid To Feel

    4. Kate Bush with Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)

16. 

    BONUS QUESTION: What prompt did the Thursday quiz give to an AI drawing robot to produce this masterpiece?

    1. Dan Wootton stealing flowers from Buckingham Palace

    2. Jacob Rees-Mogg going on a date

    3. Gary Numan dressed as an airman watching a flower show

    4. Liam Gallagher with a fork in a world of soup

Solutions

1:A - Margrethe was crowned queen at the age of 31 on 14 January 1972. Plans for celebrations earlier in the year where pushed back due to the pandemic, and then toned down after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who was her third cousin., 2:B - In an episode entitled Families, a character called Penny introduces her guardians as a pair of lesbian polar bears. "One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti" she explains, in a line which will definitely feature in rows between parents of any gender over the next few years. "You're just the spaghetti cooker! I'm the Doctor!", 3:C - The endangered mustelid was driven to extinction in England a hundred years ago and was only sighted again for the first time in the Shropshire hills in 2015, remaining an extremely rare animal. This particular pine marten was caught on camera in a woodland in south-west London where cameras were installed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) as part of the London HogWatch project to monitor and conserve the capital’s hedgehog population., 4:B - His older brother Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, had been killed the year before after being lured into a trap by the English. Edward I went on to declare his own son the next Prince of Wales after Dafydd ap Gruffydd was executed and the title began to traditionally be given to the next in line to the English throne. There were some later Welsh claimants of the title, including Owain Glyndŵr, who was proclaimed Prince of Wales on 16 September 1400, and whose day is celebrated tomorrow., 5:A - It was Spinks, who had shocked Ali by beating him in February of the same year to take the title off him., 6:D - There is still considerable scholarly debate about whether Marco Polo did any or all the things in the book, or whether he or Rustichello da Pisa exaggerated elements to produce a bestseller. But nevertheless, he was definitely from Venice. Well, probably., 7:D - It is apparently quite rare to find a signed copy of Salinger's tedious tale of a miserable adolescent moaning his way through 277-ish pages during which nothing much happens. It is, though, more cheerful than Wuthering Heights, and more realistic than Marco Polo's yarn., 8:C - Browne said “This is not an act of hostility or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy, but it is the final step to complete that circle of independence, to ensure that we are truly a sovereign nation". He said his country would remain a committed member of the Commonwealth, even if it removes the monarchy via referendum. And you can tell from the look on his face that Ron thinks you should have known that., 9:B - A chain is 66 feet or 22 yards and is the distance between the two wickets on a full-sized cricket pitch. That works out at roughly 20 metres, and if you take a Biblical cubit to be about 18 inches – sources vary – it is about 44 Biblical cubits. This isn't a GCSE question at the moment but presumably the general turning back of the clock and looming return of imperial measurements in the UK means it will be an O-level question again soon., 10:B - Argentina has not been particularly blessed with stable currencies. The current version of the peso was introduced in 1992 at a fixed rate of one peso to one US dollar, and was also known as the 'peso convertible'. It replaced the Austral which had suffered through a period of hyperinflation. Before that was the Peso argentino, and the Peso ley. And that only takes us back to 1970., 11:C - It is bibelot, which can also apparently mean a miniature book. Benthon is a community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a body of water. A boffola is a joke or a line in a script intended to get a laugh. And a bibcok is a tap with a bent nozzle fixed at the end of a pipe., 12:B - Founded in the 12th century, Rabat became an administrative centre for the invading French in the early 20th century, before becoming Morocco's capital when it gained independence in 1955., 13:A - She played the tough but fair Mrs McClusky for a decade. Her other credits included Heartbeat, Holby City and Father Brown, and in 2013 she was cast as the mother of Welsh comic Greg Davies’ character in Channel 4 comedy Man Down. The unexpected sausage in the question kicker could of course refer to Willow popping up in the quiz again, or the legendary unexpected sausage included in the original comic-style opening sequence of the soap opera for children., 14:C - A variable usually has a type, for example an integer or a text string, it has a value and it has a name, 15:B - The four options are actually the four most recent No 1 singles in the UK. Eliza Rose is at the top of the charts with her first single to get into the top 40, and she's so brand new she doesn't even have a Wikipedia page so the quizmaster knows literally nothing about her., 16:A - Much hilarity was had on the internet when Dan Wootton's video of him carefully placing flowers at Buckingham Palace was reversed so it looked like Wootton had looked around him to check the coast was clear, then stolen the flowers. The Guardian, the Thursday quiz, and their lawyers would all like to make it clear that there is no evidence whatsoever that Wootton – who in the past criticised Harry and Meghan for being photographed at a war memorial and described mask-wearing as "virtue signalling" and who also arranged for someone to meticulously film what he himself described as "some quiet reflection" at Buckingham Palace – stole any flowers.

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 quiz master’s word is final, and you will make yourself about as popular as cheese manufactured in the US.