Thursday news quiz: Farage breaking rules and a cow that uses tools

1. 

   Brooklyn Beckham (pictured, left) has thrown off the shackles of his famous parents, by cutting them off and eviscerating them in Instagram messages that included complaining about his mum's dancing at his wedding. Who is Brooklyn Beckham married to (pictured, right)?

   1. Angelica Weltz

   2. Nicola Peltz

   3. Pandora Veltz

   4. Vanessa Feltz

2. 

   Who said 'My social circles were not leaky' in court (not pictured, we do not use gavels in court in England) this week?

   1. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

   2. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

   3. Prince Harry

   4. Mr Blobby

3. 

   Who has, rather inexplicably, announced their new album is to be called Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally?

   1. Harry Styles

   2. Dua Lipa

   3. Sam Smith

   4. Kate Bush

4. 

   Clare Binns, Picturehouse director, says movie studios should do what to get more people to go and see films in the cinema?

   1. Show more nudity

   2. Allow talking and phone use during screenings

   3. Make films shorter

   4. End streaming releases

5. 

   Experts at the Mauritshuis in The Hague believe painter Paulus Potter changed what in his work The Bull (not pictured, that's just someone painting) to respect 17th-century sensibilities?

   1. Painted over the bull's initially larger testicles

   2. Painted over the farmgirl's toplessness

   3. Painted over the priest's flagon of ale

   4. Painted over 30-50 feral hogs rampaging in the distance

6. 

   The Tour de France has announced the 2027 Grands Départs. From where?

   1. Edinburgh for men, Leeds for women

   2. Cardiff for men, Manchester for women

   3. London for men, York for women

   4. Glasgow for men, Bristol for women

7. 

   Who won the Africa Cup of Nations (not pictured) amid chaotic scenes on Sunday?

   1. Senegal

   2. Morocco

   3. Nigeria

   4. Syldavia

8. 

   This week's guest canine is this very cute little floof that the Thursday quiz met late at night on the tube and then for some unknown reason definitely not alcohol-related promptly forgot the name of. But what is the name of the cow in Austria that has demonstrated the ability to use tools?

   1. Velma

   2. Valeria

   3. Viktoria

   4. Veronika

9. 

   Nigel Farage has apologised this week for breaching the MPs' code how many times?

   1. 7

   2. 17

   3. 27

   4. 1,057

10. 

    Here is Karl-Heinz, with his opening lines, which almost rhymes. This week, the Thursday quiz imagines the German soccer ace would like to know which US novel begins: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like"?

    1. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

    2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

    3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

    4. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

11. 

    Japan is preparing to restart the world's largest nuclear power plant at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, 15 years after a nuclear disaster (not pictured, that is just some people standing way too close to a bomb test in Nevada for reasons best known to history), where?

    1. Inoshishi

    2. Shippai

    3. Muzukashii

    4. Fukushima

12. 

    Rare-earth metals are in the news because of Donald Trump's machinations over Greenland. Which of these is genuinely classed as a rare-earth metal?

    1. Neodymium

    2. Validium

    3. Tritonium

    4. Dalekanium

13. 

    Whose private messages did Donald Trump expose at the weekend?

    1. Friedrich Merz

    2. Giorgia Meloni

    3. Emmanuel Macron

    4. Gary Barlow's massive son

14. 

    On this day with Brian May! And his badger! 22 January is the anniversary of the Battle of Rorke's Drift, as portrayed in the movie Zulu. The Thursday quiz imagines Queen's legendary guitarist wants you to tell him – and his badger – in which year …

    1. 1839

    2. 1859

    3. 1879

    4. 1899

15. 

    And finally, what type of animal stunned onlookers by seemingly having swum from San Francisco to the notorious prison island of Alcatraz?

    1. A raccoon

    2. A coyote

    3. A pronghorn

    4. A macaque

Solutions

1:B - The pair married in April 2022 and had a ceremony in August 2025 to renew their vows, which seems a bit much to the Thursday quiz, 2:C - He is taking legal action against the publishers of the Daily Mail, 3:A - You do you, Harry. You do you, 4:C - All of those other options might work, but what she said was that if your film has a three-hour runtime it puts audiences off and you can only have one evening showing. The Thursday quiz's bladder could not agree more, 5:A - 'The balls were bigger and lower, his whole back end was shifted – but, indeed, the balls are the biggest change', said one expert, in words the Thursday quiz never expected to have to transcribe, 6:A - It is the first time that both the men’s and women’s Grands Départs have been hosted by the same country outside France, 7:A - They beat hosts Morocco 1-0 after at one point walking off the pitch in protest at a penalty decision, 8:D - The adorable 13-year-old Brown Swiss has learned to scratch herself with a broom, using the brush for her back, and the handle for more delicate areas, 9:B - He said the errors in reporting £380,000 of income from other jobs on time was because he was an 'oddball' who wasn't computer literate, which presumably is exactly what you would be looking for in a senior politician, 10:D - That sound you can hear is thousands of GCSE students falling asleep trying to read this novel, 11:D - The plant opened in 1971, and came a cropper during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, 12:A - It sounds made up, but it is atomic number 60 and used in powerful magnets, 13:C - With friends like that …, 14:C - The film version introduced Michael Caine in his first major role, and in 2010 the Guardian said of it: 'The Zulus are a mystery, the Welsh are misplaced, a Victoria Cross recipient is slandered, and no one has enough facial hair. Nonetheless, Zulu is a brilliantly made dramatisation of Rorke's Drift'. The real events were no doubt rather less glamorous, 15:B - Nobody knows where it came from or where it was going, but there should be enough sustenance on the island to keep it going, even if it was a bit bedraggled and tired after the lengthy swim

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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