Wuthering Heights and Lionhearts – take the Thursday quiz Kate Bush special

The wonderful Kate Bush is the over-arching theme of our quiz today. Photograph: Trevor Leighton/Fish People/AFP/Getty Images

It is Kate Bush’s birthday on Saturday, and so we have an exciting new one-off Thursday quiz format in her honour! Every one of these general knowledge and vaguely topical questions this week is loosely and tangentially related to one of the amazing songs that she has released over the years. But don’t worry – you don’t have to know anything about Kate Bush to take part. There are no prizes. It is just for fun. Let us know in the comments if you ended up Running Up That Hill like her international smash hit, or found yourself Suspended in Gaffa, one of the incredibly weird tracks from her brilliant The Dreaming album.

The Thursday quiz, No 66 – Kate Bush special edition

1. 

   STRANGE PHENOMENA: Featured on Kate's debut LP, this song is about how coincidences cluster together. But a strange phenomenon that happened last week was a weird pink glow in the sky in Australia. What was it?

   1. A rare lighting effect of the Aurora Australis

   2. An experimental light show by contemporary artist Bianca Hester

   3. Someone forgot to put the blinds down on a cannabis factory

   4. Aliens

2. 

   BABOOSHKA: Kate's Russian-themed song. Last week the US said it may have found one of the rare Fabergé eggs on an impounded oligarch yacht. How many Imperial Easter eggs do Fabergé say were created for the Russian Imperial family from 1885 to 1916?

   1. 31

   2. 44

   3. 50

   4. 62

3. 

   BAMBOO-SHKA: You see what I did there? An An (pictured), the world’s oldest captive male giant panda, died in Hong Kong zoo last week. How old was An An?

   1. 25

   2. 35

   3. 45

   4. 55

4. 

   OH ENGLAND MY LIONHEART: This song was sort of the title track of Kate's second album, Lionheart. But how did Richard I of England (engraved), often known as Richard the Lionheart, die?

   1. A crossbow bolt through the shoulder while in France

   2. Fell off a horse in a hunting accident while in Lombardy

   3. Unexpectedly in his sleep while in Sicily

   4. Pelted with coins and sharp objects after announcing he was forming a European Super League™

5. 

   OH ENGLAND MY LIONHEART (SLIGHT RETURN): It isn't a lion (pictured), and it isn't in England, but what is being returned to the wild in India’s forests for the first time in more than 70 years?

   1. Puma

   2. Panther

   3. Cheetah

   4. 30-50 feral hogs

6. 

   THERE GOES A TENNER: Kate released a single about a bank robbery from her album The Dreaming which failed to chart in the UK. But how many Indian rupees (roughly) would you get for £10 at the current exchange rates?

   1. ₹9.54 INR

   2. ₹95.4 INR

   3. ₹954 INR

   4. ₹9,540 INR

7. 

   LAKE TAHOE: Is a ghost story featuring a dog on Kate Bush's 50 Words For Snow album. But where is the real Lake Tahoe situated?

   1. Nevada, USA

   2. Oregon, USA

   3. British Columbia, Canada

   4. Northwest Territories, Canada

8. 

   IN SEARCH OF PETER PAN: A song guaranteed to make the quiz master cry, it is about a child whose life is so terrible he wants to grow up to be Peter Pan. But who created the character of Peter Pan?

   1. C S Lewis

   2. J M Barrie

   3. Lewis Carroll

   4. J R Hartley

9. 

   HAMMER HORROR: In Hammer Horror Kate tells the story of a leading actor haunted by the ghost of the man whose role he stole. But who (not pictured) used to star a lot as Count Dracula in the Hammer Horror movies?

   1. Peter Cushing

   2. Christopher Lee

   3. David Prowse

   4. Michael Gough

10. 

    GCSE MATHS CORNER BUT WITH A KATE BUSH TWIST: On her album Aerial, Kate Bush performs a song called Pi during which she recites the value of π at some considerable length. Which of these is the correct first six digits of the value of π?

    1. 3.41519

    2. 3.18158

    3. 3.16142

    4. 3.14159

11. 

    JOANNI: Joanni is also on Kate's album Aerial. Where was Joan of Arc put on trial by the English in 1431?

    1. Rouen

    2. Reims

    3. Rennes‎

    4. Rochester

12. 

    THE SAXOPHONE SONG: A not very imaginatively-titled track from Kate's debut album features a saxophone. The not very imaginatively-titled instrument was patented by Adolphe Sax. But when?

    1. 1796

    2. 1846

    3. 1896

    4. 1916

13. 

    KASHKA FROM BAGHDAD: This song was about a mysterious couple in a small town that nobody knows anything about, but everyone is curious. The Thursday Quiz is curious to know, which river flows through Baghdad?

    1. Euphrates

    2. Jordan

    3. Tigris

    4. Androzani

14. 

    WUTHERING HEIGHTS: No Kate Bush-themed quiz would be complete without a question about this novel. It was originally published under the pen name Ellis Bell. But which Brontë sister wrote it?

    1. Elizabeth Brontë

    2. Charlotte Brontë

    3. Emily Brontë

    4. Bunty Brontë

15. 

    IT'S ME, CATHY: And finally – what year did Kate Bush have her UK No 1 hit single with her debut release, Wuthering Heights?

    1. 1977

    2. 1978

    3. 1979

    4. 1980

Solutions

1:C - Pharmaceutical company Cann Group confirmed the lights were coming from its medicinal cannabis facility near the northern Victorian town of Mildura, where the blackout blinds had been left open., 2:C - The company's website says 'The celebrated series of 50 Imperial Easter eggs was created for the Russian Imperial family from 1885 to 1916 when the company was run by Peter Carl Fabergé'. In the song, Babooshka is the pen name of a wife sending racy notes to her husband to test his fidelity. Kate said in an interview once that she hadn't realised бaбушка (babushka) is actually the Russian word for 'grandmother' which is … less sexy., 3:B - An An was 35, the equivalent of 105 years for humans. He was born in the wild in the south-western Chinese province of Sichuan, but his health had been showing signs of deterioration over the past few weeks., 4:A - He was besieging a castle when he was wounded by the crossbow bolt. The wound then got infected and did for him. Some contemporary sources say the boy who fired the bolt was brought before Richard, forgiven by the monarch and given 100 shillings. Other sources suggest that, as soon as Richard I passed away, the boy was then flayed alive for killing the king by somewhat less forgiving members of Richard's entourage., 5:C - Eight wild cats from Namibia will roam freely at Kuno-Palpur national park in the state of Madhya Pradesh in efforts to reintroduce the animals to their natural habitat. Despite being a vital part of India’s ecosystem, the cheetah was declared extinct from the country in 1952 because of habitat loss and poaching., 6:C - One Indian Rupee is worth a little over one penny – or at least it was on 21 July when this question was written, so £10 will buy just under 1,000 rupees., 7:A - The state line between California and Nevada actually runs through the middle of the lake, which is one of the largest bodies of freshwater on the North American continent. It is renowned for winter sports, and also ghostly dogs., 8:B - Barrie invented the character at the turn of the 20th century, about a load of lost children fighting pirates for no readily apparent reason., 9:B - All of these actors appeared in Hammer Horror movies, but Lee specialised in portraying Dracula, often opposite Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing. Hammer Horror was a rare flop for Kate Bush in her early career, with the single failing to reach the top 40., 10:D - That's the ticket. In the song π Bush sings the number to its 78th decimal place, then from its 101st to its 137th decimal place., 11:A - She was put on trial by a pro-English church court overseen by English commanders at Rouen, Normandy in 1431. The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake. She was made a saint in 1920. That picture is Maria Falconetti in 1928 movie The Passion of Joan of Arc., 12:B - Having invented it over the previous few years, Sax got a patent for 14 versions of the honking squawking things in various different sizes., 13:C - The Tigris runs through the city – the Euphrates is close and runs parallel to the Tigris at this point, but is to the southwest., 14:C - It was Emily who wrote the unhappy history of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, a book which the quiz master has attempted to read on three separate occasions but always given up on because dear lord they are a bunch of miserabalists in that novel, eh? That picture, by the way, is from The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever flash mob at Edinburgh Gardens in Melbourne in 2019, and they are all dressed how Kate appeared in one of the videos for the song., 15:B - Regular readers of the Thursday Quiz may be familiar with the 44-year gap between her first No 1 single, Wuthering Heights, and her second No 1 single, Running Up The Hill, which hit the top spot this year. Happy birthday Kate! For viewers in the UK, BBC Two has a special night of Kate Bush programmes on Saturday evening. But remember, nobody loves Kate as much as the Thursday Quiz does!

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We love Kate Bush! 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 he is about to go on holiday for a few weeks hence switching to formats that can be almost entirely pre-written with fewer topical elements. Just roll with it.