Thursday news quiz: A Clacton zero, a departed hero and a whopper Virgin Mary

1. 

   We lost Hayden Panettiere. Which character did she play in Heroes?

   1. Ballerina Ali Larter

   2. Tennis player Tracy Strauss

   3. Pianist Rebecca Troughton

   4. Cheerleader Claire Bennet

2. 

   More than 20 tons of what spilled on to a Rhode Island highway during a traffic accident at the weekend?

   1. Cheese slices

   2. Yoghurt

   3. Squid

   4. Ping-pong balls

3. 

   Europe's biggest statue of the Virgin Mary (genuinely pictured, and it is an absolute whopper) has been erected where?

   1. Italy

   2. Poland

   3. Croatia

   4. Syldavia

4. 

   Amy Hunt knocked it out the park (the technical term) at the European Athletics Championships becoming the first athlete to secure four golds in one edition. She has previously described herself as what kind of badass?

   1. An architectural badass

   2. An administrative badass

   3. An academic badass

   4. An annoyingly good badass

5. 

   Four of the most important works of art by the 15th-century Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from where?

   1. Messina in Sicily

   2. Bonifacio in Corsica

   3. Valletta in Malta

   4. Heraklion in Crete

6. 

   Researchers recently named where as the friendliest place in England?

   1. Halifax

   2. Gosport

   3. Ilfracombe

   4. Isles of Scilly

7. 

   This week's guest canine is this faithful dog diligently keeping watch over all who move in Gosport. They want to know the name of a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle who was found nearly dead on a beach in Wales in late 2023, and has been nursed back to health and flown to Houston so it can get back to the Gulf of (definitely) Mexico. Tell them …

   1. Flossy

   2. Troxy

   3. Rhossi

   4. Raxacoricofallapatorius

8. 

   Hundreds of people overwhelmed the Friedrich August refuge mountain hut in the Italian Dolomites in search of what?

   1. Freshly baked krapfen

   2. Smoke-cured mouflon

   3. Hand-stretched pesto pizza

   4. A very naughty missing miniature dachshund

9. 

   Twenty-one of which type of birbs (not pictured, that is apparently 'an old abandoned farm cottage near Brown Willy') have been released on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall as part of a rewilding project aimed at restoring the majestic species?

   1. White pelicans

   2. White storks

   3. Black cormorants

   4. Sort-of brown-beige pidgeots

10. 

    Which of these was a genuine headline on the Guardian website this week?

    1. Etymologists who turned to GoFundMe to fund a dictionary for ghosts receive corporate sponsorship from pizza chain

    2. Marine biologists who turned to Duolingo to support teaching sign language to dolphins receive science prize

    3. Archaeologists who used Grindr to find dig targets uncover lost Roman hoard

    4. Scientists who turned to OnlyFans to fund marmot research receive crypto boost

11. 

    Inexplicably two Republican men with the same name appeared next to each other on the ballot in primary elections in Alaska this week. Which name?

    1. Steve Munchin

    2. Dan Sullivan

    3. Troy Newsom

    4. Bobson Dugnutt

12. 

    Authorities have publicly blamed a fire that caused damage at Bedford county’s Forest middle school on what?

    1. A snake called Nanner

    2. A pot-bellied pig called Marcus

    3. A gerbil called Driver

    4. A stick insect called Sticky

13. 

    Who won the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco at the weekend?

    1. Malawi

    2. Cameroon

    3. Algeria

    4. South Africa

14. 

    On this day with Brian May! And his badger! 20 August is the anniversary of Charles Darwin first publishing elements of his theory of evolution through natural selection. The Thursday quiz imagines Queen's legendary guitarist wants you to tell him – and his badger – in which publication …

    1. The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London

    2. The Quarterly of the Geological Society of London

    3. The Transactions of the Zoological Society of London

    4. The Recordings of Ichthyological Anomalies in Innsmouth

15. 

    And finally … Nigel Farage didn't turn up to the count of the byelection he generated by resigning, leaving Count Binface in the spotlight. Where does Count Binface claim to come from?

    1. Golgafrincham

    2. Telos

    3. Tatooine

    4. Neptune

    5. Sigma IX

    6. Skaro

    7. Vulcan

    8. Gallifrey

    9. He says he is actually from Clacton and genuinely visits it even when there isn't a byelection on

Solutions

1:D - Panettiere also featured in Scream and Nashville, 2:C - It caused quite the stink, 3:B - That's one in the eye for Haskovo in Bulgaria, which can no longer claim the record, 4:C - Hunt holds an English literature degree from Cambridge and when she won a world championship silver medal in Tokyo, she said it proved to young girls everywhere that you could be an 'academic badass and a track goddess', 5:A - Thieves gained access to the Regional Museum of Messina, or MuMe, on Saturday evening and stole four wood panels painted by Antonello, who is widely credited with changing the course of Renaissance art, 6:D - Barking was apparently the least friendly, 7:C - Rhossi was about 5,000 miles (8,000km) from home when he was found, which does suggest he is a bit of a dimwit, bless him, 8:A - A person who works at the refuge but who wanted to remain anonymous said it had been making the pastries for 30 years without any fuss, and blamed social media influencers for creating a 'chaotic' situation, 9:B - Conservationists said they will probably spend a couple of months in Cornwall getting used to freedom before heading south for the winter, and if all goes well, they will return in a few years’ time to the area where they hatched and produce their own young, 10:D - No idea, sorry, 11:B - Dan J Sullivan is facing off against Dan S Sullivan, 12:A - Nanner is accused of having escaped from its little house and knocked something over that started the fire that resulted in the death of a tortoise, 13:B - They became only the fourth different nation to lift the trophy of the competition that began in 1998, 14:A - It sounds like a riveting read. Alfred Russel Wallace was working on a similar idea at the time, leading to a publication race and a jointly presented paper, 15:E - Top bins, indeed

Scores

1. 0 and above.

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