Sunken treasure, papal names and an angry Alan Partridge – take the Thursday quiz

It’s that time again, for the slightly diminished Thursday quiz featuring fourteen questions about general knowledge and topical trivia, lightened by the presence of a handful of jokes, a hidden Doctor Who reference, the delightful Kate Bush, and an anagram round which is going to make everybody furious this week. It is just for fun. There are sadly no prizes. Except perhaps the greatest prize of all – being able to tell us in the comments just how well you got on.

The Thursday quiz, No 15

1. FILM NEWS: This is a picture of Jim Carrey as the Riddler in one of the superhero movies from the 1990s that everybody tries to forget happened. But which modern superhero actor is suing Disney, claiming that the streaming release of their latest movie has broken their contract and damaged their earnings?

   1. Jeremy Renner who plays Hawkeye

   2. Jake Gyllenhaal who plays Mysterio

   3. Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki

   4. Scarlett Johansson who plays Black Widow

2. CARBON FOOTPRINT UPDATE: Scotland runs what is described as the shortest commercial passenger flight in the world, between Westray (pictured) and Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands. How long does the flight last?

   1. Two minutes

   2. Five minutes

   3. Ten minutes

   4. Fifteen minutes

3. HILARIOUS SPORTING CALAMITIES: Ukraine's Serhiy Kulish suffered a hilarious sporting calamity at the Olympics this week. What was it?

   1. His suit split during the men's discus, revealing his unmentionables

   2. He managed to shoot an opponent's target by mistake in the shooting

   3. He tumbled off straight into the water when his horse decided to make an abrupt halt during the eventing

   4. He accidentally announced that he had formed a European Super League, and then had to back down a couple of days later

4. KIDS TV: Here's Bert and Ernie launching some Sesame Street stamps in Germany last year. That show has been running for approximately 1,057 years. But, in the US, which longest running animated kids TV show is to finally end after 25 years?

   1. SpongeBob SquarePants

   2. Adventure Time

   3. Scooby Doo

   4. Arthur

5. ON THIS DAY: On 5 August 1962 Nelson Mandela was jailed. He would not be released until when?

   1. 1987

   2. 1990

   3. 1993

   4. 1997

6. DIGITAL CULTURE: "The Mandela Effect" is a name that has been dubbed online to people having false memories?

   1. True

   2. False

7. THIS IS GOING TO MAKE ALAN PARTRIDGE ANGRY: Fictional character Alan Partridge is a very enthusiastic driver, and a huge fan of the Rover 825. He'll be absolutely furious that the UK government is planning to put who at the top of its new-fangled "road user hierarchy”?

   1. Pedestrians

   2. Cyclists

   3. Horses

   4. Little Herberts whizzing around on e-scooters

8. MUSIC: Which 80s superstar used to run their own record label called Paisley Park?

   1. Madonna

   2. Prince

   3. George Michael

   4. Kate Bush

9. UK NEWS: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has seen a surge in donations after its life-saving activities rescuing people in trouble at sea in the English Channel were criticised in some quarters. But when was it founded, under its original name of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck?

   1. 1788

   2. 1824

   3. 1862

   4. 1888

10. GEOGRAPHY: Talking of the sea, what is the southernmost tip of the continent of Africa?

    1. Cape Canaveral

    2. Cape of Good Hope

    3. Cape Peninsula

    4. Cape Agulhas

11. ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY: A exhibition opened this week into finds from a vast expanse of territory submerged by the sea following a tsunami some 8,000 years ago which cut the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia. What do archaeologists call the sunken landmass?

    1. Vikingsund

    2. Frontios

    3. Doggerland

    4. Utsire

12. IMPOSSIBLE ANAGRAM TIME: You are going to absolutely hate this. Which of these is NOT an anagram of the real birth name of a recent Pope? A question mostly included in order to mention The Fall's Mark E Smith in the answer text

    1. Boil Ogre Jogger

    2. Hangers Prize Jot

    3. Uncoil In Labia

    4. Invisible Colours

13. LANGUAGE: What type of word is used to describe doing an action?

    1. Verb

    2. Noun

    3. Adjective

    4. Fronted adverbial

14. THE 14TH AND NOW FINAL QUESTION THANKS TO SHRINKFLATION: Learning which language is going to be introduced into 40 state schools in England?

    1. Greek

    2. Aramaic

    3. Latin

    4. Klingon

Solutions

1:D - The actor is claiming that the studio’s decision to launch her Marvel standalone film on Disney+ as well as cinemas is a breach of contract. Johansson claims that her salary was based on the box office performance of the film. The hybrid release meant Black Widow had the steepest second week decline of any entry within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with theatre sales dropping 67%, 2:A - Surely it would be more environmentally friendly – and just a lot more fun – to load people up into a trebuchet and fling them across the water?, 3:B - World number two in his shooting discipline, Kulish said a button came undone on his outfit, and being distracted by that meant that when he looked up, he didn't realise he was aiming at the wrong target. “I am not happy,” he said. “Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me.”, 4:D - It is Arthur which is being ended by PBS Kids. The series, which first aired in 1996, is based on the popular books by Marc Brown, who created the Arthur character in 1976. SpongeBob SquarePants is – apparently - the fifth-longest running animated series in US television. Adventure time started in 2010. Scooby Doo never ends, it started in 1969 but it doesn't count as one long run because they reboot it as a new show every few years and also because all of the terrible episodes featuring Scrappy Doo have been completely erased from history., 5:B - After many years of campaigning for his release that was often bitterly opposed in South Africa and abroad, Nelson Mandela was finally released on 11 February 1990. He had served over 27 years in prison for attempting to overthrow the Apartheid system., 6:A - It is true. The origin comes from people agreeing online that they remember the news of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s, even though he was released and went on to lead South Africa before his death in 2013. Other examples include memories of the title of the Berenstain Bears children's books being spelled Berenstein, and – hilariously – in the process of writing this question I discovered that I had misremembered the origins of "The Mandela Effect". Or had I? 🤔, 7:A - The Department of Transport said the new version of the Highway Code would include a “hierarchy of road users” that ensured those who could do the greatest harm, such as those in vehicles, had the “greatest responsibility to reduce the danger they may pose to others”. The proposed changes, which are due to receive parliamentary approval in the autumn, will give pedestrians priority at junctions. , 8:B - It was named after his studio complex which was named after a song, or the song was named after the studio, I'm not sure really, but at least he didn't call it Erotic City or Head or Twenty Three Positions In A One Night Stand Records Inc., 9:B - The volunteer force was founded in 1824 as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, soon afterwards becoming the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. On 5 October 1854, the Institution’s name was changed to its current name., 10:D - People often think it is the Cape of Good Hope, but that sticks out of the western coast of the continent. The honour of being the southernmost point goes to Cape Agulhas. The name comes from the Portuguese for Cape of Needles. It is somewhat arbitrary, but it is considered to mark the beginning of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans., 11:C - The exhibition in Leiden, southern Holland, includes more than 200 objects, ranging from a deer bone in which an arrowhead is embedded, and fossils such as petrified hyena droppings and mammoth molars, to a fragment of a skull of a young male Neanderthal. He didn't see that coming., 12:D - A very tricky one this. Boil Ogre Jogger was Jorge Bergoglio, who is Pope Francis. Hangers Prize Jot is Joseph Ratzinger, who was Benedict XVI. We skipped over Karol Wojtyła, because the Polish characters would have given it away. Uncoil In Labia was Albino Luciani, who had a very short term as Pope John Paul I, and was the subject of a rather baffling play by The Fall's Mark E Smith. Invisible Colours is an anagram of Silvio Berlusconi, who just tried to live like a scandalous medieval pope, rather than being one. You all hate the anagrams, don't you?, 13:A - That's a verb, what always used to be taught as a "doing word". Love is a verb. Love is a doing word. You'll have probably only come across the curse of "fronted adverbials" if you had to homeschool your kids during lockdown., 14:C - "Stultorum plena est imperium" as they probably used to say in Rome. Given that they aren't adding any extra hours into the school day, it has not been made clear what kids will have to stop learning in order to accommodate the government's desire to have state schools cos-playing as boarding schools from Enid Blyton books.

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Do let us know how you get on in the comments!

2. 6 and above.

   Do let us know how you get 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 has a stare that could strike down a rhino at 1,000 paces.