Massive moons, lengthy canals and a very optimistic Neville – take the Thursday quiz

Optimistic Neville Chamberlain. Photograph: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis/Getty Images

The quiz master remains away, but early this morning a troupe of highly trained carrier pigeons delivered 14 questions from a secret location in Scotland to the Guardian’s offices. Can you face the fiendish combination of some questions loosely connected to today’s date, Kate Bush, Doctor Who, anagrams and all the usual gubbins? There are no prizes, it is just for fun, and let us know how you get on in the comments.

The Thursday quiz, No 23

1. 

   GEOGRAPHY: Scotland is rightly renowned for its absolutely beautiful islands that teem with wildlife like these puffins. But roughly how many Scottish islands are there?

   1. Roughly around 250

   2. Roughly around 450

   3. Roughly around 800

   4. Exactly 1,057

2. 

   VERY OLD COLONIAL NEWS: In 1775 the Thirteen Colonies began fighting the American revolutionary war prior to declaring independence as the United States of America. Which of these four was not one of the 13?

   1. Massachusetts

   2. Michigan

   3. Maryland

   4. Virginia

3. 

   ENSEMBLE CAST: We'll get this one out of the way early today. Which international streaming hit featured these three as recurring supporting actors? Greta Lee, Yul Vazquez and Elizabeth Ashley

   1. Russian Doll

   2. What We Do in the Shadows

   3. I May Destroy You

   4. Stranger Things

4. 

   COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING: Methuselah is renowned as the oldest person in the Bible. But which of THESE four characters mentioned in the Bible lived for the longest time, according to the Bible?

   1. Adam

   2. Job

   3. Noah

   4. Lamech

5. 

   EYE KNOW WHO YOU ARE ARE: Who is this?

   1. Beyoncé

   2. Whitney Houston

   3. Jennifer Lopez

   4. Rihanna

6. 

   SPACE: Jupiter is a massive show-off with 79 moons. Of these four options, which is the largest?

   1. Ganymede

   2. Callisto

   3. Io

   4. Europa

7. 

   WATER FEATURES: Notwithstanding that fractal theory makes people extremely argumentative if you ever try to ask how long a body of water is in the Thursday quiz, roughly how long is the Panama canal?

   1. 8km

   2. 80km

   3. 800km

   4. 8,000km

8. 

   MUSIC: Who released albums called Meddle, Animals and The Final Cut?

   1. The Animals

   2. Pink Floyd

   3. XTC

   4. Kate Bush

9. 

   ON THIS DAY: On 30 September 1938, the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain was proudly announcing he had secured "peace for our time" thanks to the Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler's Germany. The optimistic doofus. Which two other countries, apart from the UK and Germany, signed the agreement?

   1. France and Italy

   2. France and Russia

   3. France and Poland

   4. France and Spain

10. KINGS AND QUEENS: Who was proclaimed King of England on 30 September 1399?

    1. Henry III

    2. Henry IV

    3. Henry V

    4. Henry VI

11. 

    TRUE OR FALSE: The Monopoly man, the emblem of the game published by Hasbro, wears a monocle

    1. True

    2. False

12. 

    WORRYING POKEMON DESCRIPTIONS: Not every Pokémon is as cute as Pikachu. Which Pokémon has this worrying official description: “A Pokémon formed by the spirits of people and Pokémon. It tugs on the hands of children to steal them away. Because of the way it floats aimlessly, an old folktale calls it a 'Signpost for Wandering Spirits.'"

    1. Swirlix

    2. Meowth

    3. Meltan

    4. Drifloon

13. 

    SCIENCE CORNER: Which of the following elements is not found in Ca(HCO₃)₂?

    1. Carbon

    2. Cobalt

    3. Calcium

    4. Oxygen

14. 

    AND FINALLY: Here's Prince Charles emerging from Doctor Who's Tardis for some reason. But aside from him, which of these actors has never been Doctor Who? Plot twist – yes, it is anagram time …

    1. Wry Ladle Bash

    2. Clap Gunman

    3. Ant Van Did Ten

    4. Placed Pirate

Solutions

1:C - According to the Scottish Tourist Board, Scotland possesses "about" 790 islands, of which around 130 are inhabited and all of them are beautiful. Honestly if you've never been to somewhere like the Isle of Mull I cannot recommend it enough., 2:B - The thirteen colonies were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. A bit of Michigan passed from British control to the newly founded USA as part of the 1783 treaty of Paris., 3:A - It was Russian Doll. A show I must confess I started watching and then thought "I hate every single character in this, why I am watching it" until THE THING happened for the first time and then I was hooked. While also still disliking Greta Lee as Maxine who was throwing the birthday party, Nadia's loathsome ex-boyfriend John Reyes played by Yul Vazquez, and Elizabeth Ashley who played Ruth Brenner the flakey therapist one., 4:C - While Methuselah is the oldest person to have their years counted in the scripture – his age is given as 969 years old – Noah appears to have slightly lived longer than Adam, according to the manuscripts anyway. Noah is said to have lived for 950 years, with Adam getting slightly short-changed at 930. There's also a bloke called Jared who apparently lived for 962 years, but I figured nobody had ever heard of him so there wasn't any point putting him down., 5:B - The much-missed Houston sold more than 200m records worldwide, and various documentaries about her life in recent years have changed the perception of many about her career. The Bodyguard soundtrack from 1992 is generally considered the bestselling album of all time by a woman., 6:A - Ganymede is an absolute monster. It is the biggest satellite of any planet in the solar system, and is 25% bigger than the planet Mercury. Its discovery is usually credited to Galileo Galilei with a telescope in 1610, however the Chinese astronomer Gan De may have recorded observing a "small reddish star" near Jupiter in 362BC which was possibly this moon., 7:B - It is roughly 82km (51 miles) long. But certainly much closer to 80km than any of the other options. I am forever in awe of the person who first thought "This looks like hard work digging through all this rock. Has anybody considered it might be easier to just dig a shallow thing and then lift the boats up out of the sea instead?", 8:B - They aren't perhaps their best known, but Meddle came out in 1971, Animals in 1977 and The Final Cut in 1983. The first three Animals albums were called The Animals, Animal Tracks and Animalism. Kate did release an album called Director's Cut. , 9:A - Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier signed the Munich agreement that provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain is often misquoted as having said "Peace in our time", which in fact is a phrase from the common book of prayer. What he actually said outside Downing Street was "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.", 10:B - Known as Henry Bolingbroke before ascending to the throne, he was the first English king to have English as his first language for three centuries. He was crowned on 13 October 1399 at Westminster Abbey., 11:B - It's not true. It is a mass delusion that he ever did. Go on, go and get that box of Monopoly that you haven't played for seven years off the top of the wardrobe and have a look., 12:D - Looking like a balloon with badly drawn crosses for eyes, yes Drifloon is a Pokémon whose main occupation seems to be trying to abduct children. This is a show FOR children, right?, 13:B - You got this unless you got confused and thought CO was Cobalt (Co) and not Carbon and Oxygen. Capital letters are a big deal in chemistry., 14:A - Good spot. Bradley Walsh was in the last couple of series of Doctor Who as companion Graham, but he's never been the leading role. Your other options were Paul McGann, David Tennant and Peter Capaldi, the eighth, tenth and twelve Doctors.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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

2. 5 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 always final, and genuinely he’s not going to answer because today he is on an all-day train from Inverness to Kings Cross.