Spanish kings, Tyrone Mings and was that really a trip into space? Take the Thursday quiz

Richard Branson and crew possibly going into space. Photograph: Virgin Galactic/Zuma Press Wire Service/Rex/Shutterstock

Once again we ask you to take on the ultimate Thursday challenge – assuming you consider 15 questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes to be the ultimate challenge. If not, well, why not do it anyway? It is just for fun and there are never any prizes, but let us know how you get on in the comments. There are bonus points for making the quiz master laugh but, be warned, extreme pedantry is frowned upon.

The Thursday quiz, No 12

1. 

   GLOBAL NEWS: The Aboriginal flag turned how many years old this month?

   1. 10 years

   2. 25 years

   3. 50 years

   4. 75 years

2. 

   ON THIS DAY: On 15 July 2006, Twitter was introduced to the world, condemning every journalist on the planet to frantically refreshing the app on their phone 24/7 in case they miss something. The first tweet was sent earlier that year by Jack Dorsey on 21 March. What did it say?

   1. picture of my lunch

   2. hello, world!

   3. ahoy-hoy

   4. just setting up my twttr

3. 

   COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING: There was some football or something and then it turned out it wasn't coming home after all but it made lots of news because of racism and the fact that some members of the UK government had argued before the tournament it was fine for fans to boo players for making a peaceful protest gesture against racism. But which of England's unsuccessful penalty takers at Euro 2020 is the oldest?

   1. Marcus Rashford

   2. Jadon Sancho

   3. Bukayo Saka

4. 

   TYRONE MINGS: Which Conservative MP tweeted to England's Tyrone Mings he should stick to football and stay out of politics, just a few days after the same MP had posted images of England's Gareth Southgate and Harry Kane and the slogan 'football's coming home' emblazoned with the Conservative party logo?

   1. Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover and Deal

   2. Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford

   3. Lee Anderson, Conservative MP for Ashfield

   4. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for the 18th century

5. 

   SPANISH KINGS: Mary I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She compounded her Spanish roots by marrying which Spanish monarch?

   1. Alfonso of Spain

   2. Philip of Spain

   3. Charles of Spain

   4. Ferdinand of Spain

6. 

   ART: Talking of Spain, critics have been reappraising the Basque artist Agustín Ibarrola's 1977 painting Guernica Gernikara, which went back on display in the last few days. It is an interpretation of one of the world's most famous paintings made as part of a campaign to get Picasso’s masterpiece back to Guernica after its long exile where?

   1. The Louvre, Paris

   2. The British Museum, London

   3. Museum of Modern Art, New York

   4. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

7. 

   SPORT THAT IS NOT THE FOOTBALL: The Isle of Man's Mark Cavendish has been ripping up the Tour de France, with the sprinter recording his 34th stage win and equalling the record set by which legendary cyclist?

   1. Eddy Merckx

   2. Bernard Hinault

   3. Chris Froome

   4. André Leducq

8. 

   GEOGRAPHY: Which of these is the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland?

   1. Slieve Commedagh

   2. Slieve Binnian

   3. Slieve Donard

   4. Slieve Bearnagh

9. 

   MUSIC: It would have been the birthday of Joy Division's Ian Curtis today. But which 80s solo pop singer did a glossy cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart that was a hit in Germany and the Netherlands and featured on their UK No 1 album No Parlez?

   1. Paul Young

   2. Chris Rea

   3. Sting

   4. Kate Bush

10. 

    FILM & TV: The prestige drama The Terror was about the grisly fate of the crews of the polar exploration ships HMS Terror and …

    1. HMS Fury

    2. HMS Cerberus

    3. HMS Resolute

    4. HMS Erebus

11. 

    SCIENCE: Talking of the icy Arctic, which of these basic GCSE-esque phrases best describes what happens to water as it freezes?

    1. The molecules gain energy and freedom to move about

    2. The molecules lose energy and the freedom to move about

    3. The molecules lose energy and escape into the atmosphere

    4. The molecules gain energy and break into separate oxygen and hydrogen atoms

12. 

    IT'S GRIMSBY UP NORTH: Still on an icy theme, Grimsby's iconic ice factory is going to be turned into what?

    1. A fishing museum

    2. A theatre

    3. An electric battery factory

    4. Europe's largest aquarium

13. 

    VIDEO GAMES: This week a sealed N64 game cartridge dating from 1996, described as one of fewer than five copies in such condition, sold for $1.5m at auction. Which game?

    1. Mortal Kombat Trilogy

    2. Super Mario 64

    3. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

    4. Mario Kart 64

14. 

    TRUE OR FALSE: Zsa Zsa Gábor’s ashes were buried in Budapest this week, five years after her death. They were flown there first class.

    1. True

    2. False

15. 

    AND FINALLY: Did Richard Branson go "into space"?

    1. Yes, because the flight exceeded the arbitrary 50-mile definition set by the US government

    2. No, because the flight didn't reach the arbitrary 62-mile Kármán line set by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

    3. No, because the earth is flat and it was all filmed by Stanley Kubrick from beyond the grave

    4. There's no real right answer here because it is all just arbitrary definitions by people trying to set rules for their own self-interested reasons, but they definitely went really, really high

Solutions

1:C - The red, black and yellow flag was first flown at a land rights rally in Adelaide in July 1971. It is currently embroiled in a copyright dispute over its use on merchandise, and a debate about its anniversary. For many decades the anniversary of its creation by the Luritja artist Harold Thomas has been celebrated on 12 July, but a recent federal government statement says: “The date of the first flying of the flag is incorrectly recorded as 12 July in a number of places, including the 2008 explanatory statement for the official proclamation of the Aboriginal flag. The Australian government is working to have these updated to reflect the true anniversary of 9 July.”, 2:D - Although often used in the early days for posting lunch pictures, Jack Dorsey callously eschewed developer practice of making every first message of every system be "Hello, world!" and also shunned Alexander Graham Bell's chosen form of telephone greeting "Ahoy-hoy!" as immortalised by Mr Burns in The Simpsons. Where's the joy, Jack, where's the joy?, 3:A - Rashford is the oldest at 23 and the only one of the three to have been born in the 20th century. Sancho is 21 and Saka is just 19. Rashford's statement after the tournament was a masterclass in how to handle defeat with grace, and Tyrone Mings' takedown of Priti Patel for the way she had previously condemned the England players' anti-racism stance was a masterpiece of political opposition. 🦁🦁🦁, 4:B - Rosindell quote-tweeted Mings directly, and told him to stick to football. Elphicke had to apologise to Marcus Rashford after sending a text, criticising him for concentrating on politics and not football, was leaked. Lee Anderson boycotted the whole tournament because he was so offended by the sight of the players briefly protesting against racism before matches. Rees-Mogg's main contribution to Euro 2020 was quoting from John Barnes's World In Motion rap in parliament, which surprised a lot of people given there was no prior indication that Rees-Mogg was even aware of the concept of recorded popular music., 5:B - Unhelpfully known as Philip II of Spain and also Philip I of Portugal, he was also king of Naples and Sicily and duke of Milan and effectively co-monarch of England and Ireland while married to Mary. He would have had divided loyalties at Euro 2020, that's for sure., 6:C - Ironically, when it was returned to Spain, it didn't head to the Basque Country, but only got as far as Madrid., 7:A - If you've never watched a sprint stage at the Tour de France, imagine Usain Bolt running a marathon, and then right at the end doing a 100-metre sprint. Incredible stuff. Only Hinault (28 stage wins) and Leducq (25) come close to Merckx and Cavendish., 8:C - At about 850 metres (2,970ft) it is someway short of the tallest mountain on the whole of Ireland, which is Corrán Tuathail in Munster, with a height of 1,038 metres (3,407ft)., 9:A - Many of Young's earliest hits were covers, but his crooned version of Love Will Tear Us Apart did not get a single release in the UK. , 10:D - The Terror and Erebus were abandoned in 1848 and none of the crew survived. Evidence suggests that before the end, the crew had turned to cannibalism to feed themselves. HMS Resolute was one of the ships sent in search of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. HMS Fury made two trips to the Arctic in the 1820s., 11:B - In moving from a liquid state to a solid state, the molecules have less energy and the attractive force between them increases, and hey presto, ice! Just be thankful we aren't asking you about quarks and leptons here., 12:B - Known locally as the Kasbah, the Grade II*-listed building had stood untouched for three decades before a deal with the entrepreneur Tom Shutes in May and the arrival of £40,000 from Historic England to make the roof watertight. The ice factory, which was completed in 1901, is awaiting planning permission for the first stage of a grand plan that will transform it into a 1,400-seat theatre of “national quality”. I'm not personally convinced Grimsby is *in* "the North" by the way, I just liked the pun on the song by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. , 13:B - “It seems impossible to overstate the importance of this title, not only to the history of Mario and Nintendo, but to video games as a whole,” said Valarie McLeckie, a video games specialist for Heritage Auctions, which handled the sale. Does it though?, 14:A - It is, apparently, true. Her last husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, said he carried an urn with three-quarters of Gábor’s ashes to London, then to Germany and from there to Budapest. Half the world can't travel beyond their front door because of a pandemic and yet Zsa Zsa Gábor is still flying first class from beyond the grave., 15:D - You have to ask though, if three billionaires are happily burning through carbon for the LOLs, while staging their own personal space race, are they being taxed enough? The best thing about the Euro 2020 final was that Richard Branson spent an enormous sum of money to fire himself into, or at least very near, space, and nobody noticed because they were more worried about whether Harry Maguire was about to send his penalty into orbit.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Hope you had fun - let us know how you got on in the comments!

2. 8 and above.

   Hope you had fun - let us know how you got on in the comments!

• If you think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is final and he will most likely file your correspondence in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the leopard’.