Dachshunds, kangaroos and a tortoise on the loose – take the Thursday quiz

These dachshunds are coming for you with some questions … Photograph: Simone De Peak/The Guardian

On Tuesday, the Thursday quiz celebrated its fourth birthday. Four whole years of this nonsense! What a joy it is to share the quiz with those who gather underneath it in the comments every week. But there is no time to get carried away with self-congratulations when there are questions to be asked. Fifteen of them, in fact, in their usual ridiculous configuration of topical news, general knowledge and pop culture trivia. Enjoy – and here’s to many more birthdays to come …

The Thursday quiz, No 208

1. 

   Valerie the dachshund is home! How long did she survive on her own on Kangaroo Island?

   1. 529 days

   2. 579 days

   3. 629 days

   4. 679 days

2. 

   Also found this week was a tortoise (not pictured) that went missing from his home in Ulverston, Cumbria, nine months ago. What was his name?

   1. Michelangelo

   2. Donatello

   3. Leonardo

   4. Derek

3. 

   There was a lot of animal news to take in this week. A runaway kangaroo named Sheila (similar to the one in the picture) shut down a stretch of interstate in which US state?

   1. Texas

   2. Washington

   3. Michigan

   4. Alabama

4. 

   Mark Carney and his Liberal party won the election in Canada. Members of parliament in Canada represent what …

   1. A county

   2. A shire

   3. A ward

   4. A riding

5. 

   A university student had to be rescued from the slopes of which tourist attraction twice in the space of a week?

   1. Mount Etna

   2. Mount Fuji

   3. Mount Haleakalā

   4. Mount Batur

6. 

   This is Willow, the official dog of the Guardian Thursday quiz. She's anxious today because she has forgotten which group of the periodic table the noble gases have belonged to since 1988. Which group is it?

   1. Group 1

   2. Group 9

   3. Group 15

   4. Group 18

   5. Group 30-50

   6. Group 1,057

   7. Let's just get all the in-jokes out the way immediately. They belong to 'Group Ron from Sparks featuring Kate Bush and Chris Martin falling through a trap door'

7. 

   Cardinals will form a conclave next week to elect a successor to the late Pope Francis. Where inside the Vatican (not pictured, that is Inter Milan's Stadio Giuseppe Meazza) do they meet?

   1. Vatican library

   2. Apostolic Palace

   3. Stanze di Raffaello

   4. Sistine Chapel

8. 

   Here is Karl-Heinz with his opening lines. This week the Thursday quiz imagines the German soccer legend (pictured) would like you to say which film, set during the second world war, opens with these narrated lines: 'Refugees – streaming from all corners of Europe towards the freedom of the new world – all eyes turned to Lisbon, the great embarkation point.'

   1. Casablanca

   2. Went the Day Well

   3. Schindler's List

   4. The Great Escape

9. 

   This proved unexpectedly popular last week. Or at least the title did. Once again, here is farther or nearer with Geordie Alan Shearer. This week we imagine the England soccer legend (pictured) wants to know, if he leaves his hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is farther or nearer – Cape Town, South Africa, or Mumbai, India?

   1. Cape Town is nearer to Newcastle upon Tyne than Mumbai

   2. Mumbai is nearer to Newcastle upon Tyne than Cape Town

10. 

    On this day in 1851, Queen Victoria (etched) opened the Great Exhibition. Where?

    1. Alexandra Palace

    2. The Crystal Palace

    3. St James' Park

    4. The KFC outside Waterloo station

11. 

    It is Bernard Butler's birthday today. Happy birthday Bernard! Which fantastic 90s band did he play guitar for?

    1. Suede

    2. Pulp

    3. Blur

    4. Bombalurina featuring Timmy Mallett

12. 

    Fair play to artist Stuart Semple, who says he has created a new colour called olo which scientists say they discovered by having laser pulses fired into their eyes. Semple has turned the colour into a paint and claims to be selling it for how much per 150ml jar?

    1. £100

    2. £1,000

    3. £10,000

    4. 50 Grotzits

13. 

    We lost Mike Peters, the singer with the Alarm. How many guns did their biggest UK hit feature?

    1. 45

    2. 68

    3. 99

    4. 101

14. 

    How many red cards did Real Madrid manage to pick up in the Copa del Rey final at the weekend?

    1. One

    2. Two

    3. Three

    4. Four

15. 

    And finally, 'Historians dispute Bayeux tapestry penis tally after lengthy debate' was not a sentence the Thursday quiz ever expected to read, as you can see from Kenneth Williams's expression here. According to history boffins, how many depictions of penises are there in the tapestry?

    1. 30 to 50

    2. 73 to 74

    3. 83 to 84

    4. 93 to 94

Solutions

1:A - 'There was no way we were letting that sausage dog run away on us again,' said one of the rescue team after they finally managed to snare her., 2:C - A dog-walker spotted Leonardo walking down a street, presumably after he had come out of hibernation. The tortoise that is, not the dog-walker, 3:D - The Alabama law enforcement agency said the pet kangaroo was spotted on Tuesday hopping along the side of Interstate 85 in Macon county, which is between Montgomery and Auburn, 4:D - There are 343 seats in the House of Commons in Canada, which has a population of 40 million people, 5:B - It emerged that he had returned to the scene of his first rescue to retrieve his mobile phone. Chicken jockey your way out of that one, sunshine., 6:D - Since 1988 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has recommended there are 18 groups in the periodic table, with the noble gases being on the far right, although Dmitri Mendeleev initially made them 'group 0', 7:D - At least there is something nice to look at if they get bored., 8:A - It was made in 1942 during the second world war., 9:B - It is Mumbai, which is about 7,300km away. Africa is massive, whatever your map projection claims. Cape Town is about 10,000km away. Top bins!, 10:B - The Crystal Palace was indeed built for the occasion, originally located in Hyde Park in central London, 11:A - He played on Suede's absolutely cracking first two albums, 12:C - It is £29.99 if you say you are an artist and appears to be a regular blue-green hue that anybody would recognise. The scientists behind the research say you can only see this 'new' colour by bombarding your eyes with lasers. The Thursday quiz recommends you do not do this at home, 13:B - It reached No 17 and was about street gangs in Glasgow., 14:C - Antonio Rüdiger, Lucas Vázquez and Jude Bellingham all stayed humble by getting sent off after their 3-2 defeat to Barcelona had finished, 15:D - 88 of the male appendages are attached to horses and the remainder to human figures, with a slight dispute whether one bloke is wielding a dagger or exposing his nethers. Oooh matron indeed.

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 – and can show your working and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch this sublime video for Highway Man by the New Eves instead?

Highway Man by the New Eves