Rolling Stones, wrong boarding passes and drunk tourists – take the Thursday quiz

A statue of Mick Jagger next to sculptor Amy Goodman who created it. But where is it? Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

This week the Thursday quiz starts off quite sombre, serious, political and topical, and gets more whimsical as it progresses. A bit like the progression of Doctor Who from the early days of William Hartnell to the technicolour of Colin Baker’s costume in the 1980s. If that reference has passed you by, never mind, maybe you will spot that the categories are all song titles again this week. But whose songs? Have fun, and let us know how you get on in the comments. And advance warning – the quiz master is away for the next few weeks so the quizzes are going to be pre-written and … weird.

The Thursday quiz, No 121

1. 

   COULD IT HAPPEN TO ME?: A record number of people are waiting for NHS treatment in England. How many?

   1. 1,057 exactly

   2. More than 3.5 million

   3. More than 5.5 million

   4. More than 7.5 million

2. 

   LOVE IS THE DRUG: Law enforcement officers have raided Swatch stores at 11 shopping malls looking for timepieces bearing what it called “LGBT elements”. Where?

   1. Malaysia

   2. Vietnam

   3. United Arab Emirates

   4. Uganda

3. 

   MANIFESTO: What was the name of the Ecuadorian presidential candidate shot dead as he left a campaign event in Quito?

   1. Otto Sonnenholzner

   2. Fernando Villavicencio

   3. Bolívar Armijos

   4. Xavier Hervas

4. 

   SEA BREEZES: In a humiliating climbdown for the UK government on its proposed policy of housing asylum seekers on a barge, the first inhabitants of the Bibby Stockholm had to be evacuated after traces were found of what?

   1. E coli bacteria

   2. Salmonella bacteria

   3. Legionella bacteria

   4. Saliota Orbis fungus

5. 

   EDITIONS OF YOU: Statues of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have been unveiled in their home town. Where?

   1. Dartford, Kent

   2. Dawlish, Devon

   3. Dorking, Surrey

   4. Deptford, London

6. 

   EDITIONS OF YOU (SLIGHT RETURN): Willow, the official dog of the Thursday quiz, felt sad when she heard that an actor turned up at a fan’s art show in Margate that was all about him, only to find it was shut. Who?

   1. Patrick Stewart from Star Trek and X-Men

   2. Sylvester McCoy from Doctor Who and The Hobbit

   3. Mark Hamill from Star Wars and Batman

   4. Pedro Pascal from The Last of Us and The Mandalorian

7. 

   THE SPACE BETWEEN: Russia has launched Luna-25, its first attempt to land something on an object away from the Earth since 2011. What was that 2011 mission, which crashed back to Earth after its rocket boosters failed to ignite, called?

   1. Phobos-Grunt

   2. Deimos-Poot

   3. Callisto–Guff

   4. Uranus-Trumped

8. 

   CHANCE MEETING: Local speculation as to who was responsible for it ranged from art pranksters to aliens when what appeared on the clifftops on the North Downs Way in Kent last week?

   1. A 3m high metal monolith

   2. A series of glass pyramids

   3. A totem pole inscribed with the name Perkūnas

   4. 30-50 feral hogs

9. 

   FOR YOUR PLEASURE: Johanna Spyri wrote which famous novel with a titular female protagonist (not pictured)?

   1. Madame Bovary

   2. Leela

   3. Rebecca

   4. Heidi

10. 

    TRASH: Which foreign minister had to abandon a trip to the Indo-Pacific after their government plane (not pictured) twice had to return to Abu Dhabi due to technical difficulties?

    1. Catherine Colonna of France

    2. Tobias Billström of Sweden

    3. Lars Løkke Rasmussen of Denmark

    4. Annalena Baerbock of Germany

11. 

    SAME OLD SCENE: Which Australian politician revealed they had been at a bar that was inexplicably showing the WRONG France v Australia game during their Fifa Women's World Cup quarter-final, thus missing one of the greatest penalty shootout dramas of all time?

    1. Bob Katter

    2. Kevin Rudd

    3. Barnaby Joyce

    4. Les Patterson

12. 

    A SONG FOR EUROPE: Two US tourists were found sleeping, having hopped over a barrier at which major European tourist attraction?

    1. Eiffel Tower, Paris

    2. Colosseum, Rome

    3. Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

    4. La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

13. 

    MORE THAN THIS: Ryanair charged an elderly couple, bless them, how much to reprint their boarding cards after they'd accidentally checked in to the wrong flight?

    1. £20

    2. £55

    3. £110

    4. £160

14. 

    RE-MAKE/RE-MODEL: Boffins have measured people's brainwaves while playing a classic song from the 1970s to them, then somehow reconstructed the song from the recording. Which iconic song did they use for the experiment?

    1. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

    2. This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us by Sparks

    3. Another Brick In The Wall (Pt 2) by Pink Floyd

    4. Tiny Dancer by Elton John

15. 

    OUT OF THE BLUE: Ghent University is offering an English literature course based around the output of which musician?

    1. Nina Simone

    2. Taylor Swift

    3. Joni Mitchell

    4. Kate Bush

Solutions

1:D - A record of more than 7.5 million people in England were waiting for NHS treatment in June, with two in five patients waiting more than 18 weeks to be seen. The total number of people awaiting treatment, 7,574,649, is the highest figure recorded in the data series, which began in August 2007, and a rise of 1.4% on the previous high recorded in May this year (7,472,052). The Conservatives have been in government since 2010., 2:A - Owners or sellers of rainbow-coloured timepieces made by the Swiss watchmaker Swatch face three years in prison in Malaysia, the interior ministry has said. Homosexuality is outlawed in Malaysia and LGBTQ+ people face discrimination. A ministry official told Agence France-Presse in May that 172 watches worth $14,000 (£10,960) were seized in raids because they bore the initials “LGBTQ” and had six colours instead of the seven in a rainbow., 3:B - Villavicencio was one of eight presidential candidates running in early elections due to be held on 20 August. Days before his murder, Villavicencio, who was 59, had said on national television that he had received several death threats that he alleged came from the jailed leader of one of Ecuador's gangs., 4:C - Carralyn Parkes, a Portland councillor who is pursuing legal action against the Home Office about the barge in a personal capacity, questioned the delay in evacuating people. “The legionella test results came back on Monday. Why were the asylum seekers not moved off the barge immediately? It’s all a bit chaotic. Hasty decisions have put people on the barge at risk.”, 5:A - The pair met as teenagers on a platform of the town’s railway station in 1961, and joined the Rolling Stones the following year. They had both attended Wentworth primary school in Dartford, but went to different secondary schools., 6:D - The Margate exhibition, called ADHD Hyper Fixation and why it looks like I love Pedro Pascal, was created by the artist Heidi Gentle Burrell, 45, in June. Pascal visited with his friend and fellow actor Russell Tovey. However, when they arrived, the gallery was shut for the day so they took a selfie outside the window to mark the occasion., 7:A - Improbably … yes, 8:C - Keen to keep the artwork situated in the Capel-Le-Ferne nature reserve, Kent Wildlife Trust is in the process of applying to Dover district council for retrospective planning permission, but its appeal to find the artist behind it has so far proved unsuccessful., 9:D - Published between 1880 and 1881, a TV adaption of it seemed to be on every single day of every single summer holiday the quiz master had between 1975 and 1984., 10:D - Commentators in the German media described the incident as a humiliation for Berlin that risked bringing into disrepute Germany’s reputation for technical prowess. On both occasions the plane had to jettison a full tank of fuel in order to land safely, a source of particular discomfort to the Green party politician., 11:C - In a sequence of events that the Thursday quiz still doesn't quite comprehend, he posted a video of himself in a hotel watching Australia–France while the match was on, but in the background you could see the bar was somehow showing a replay of an Australia–France match the teams had played months ago., 12:A - They “appear to have got stuck because of how drunk they were”, Paris prosecutors told Agence-France Presse, in a tale as old as time., 13:C - Ryanair defended its actions, saying the charges were in line with its policy. The airline said in a statement: “All passengers travelling with Ryanair agree to check in online before arriving at their departure airport and all passengers are sent an email/SMS, reminding them to do so 24 hours before departure. We regret that these passengers ignored their email reminder and failed to check in online." Ruth Jaffe, 79, and Peter Jaffe, 80, had to pay the fee after they accidentally downloaded their return boarding passes instead of the outgoing ones for a flight to France., 14:C - The point of the exercise was that it could lead to understandings which help to restore the musicality of natural speech in patients who struggle to communicate because of disabling neurological conditions., 15:B - The course was devised by Elly McCausland and is titled Literature: Taylor’s Version. It uses literary references and comparisons found in Swift’s work as a springboard to explore everything from 14th-century writings to Margaret Atwood’s take on The Tempest. It still can't guarantee you'll get tickets for the Eras tour though.

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, feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, or just go on social media and have a right royal moan up about it.