THE SUNDAY QUIZ

Have you been paying attention to this week’s news? Test yourself…

Offered assistance while on a visit to Cambridge, the Queen demurred, saying: “No no, I can still…”

(a) Pull a pint

(b) Mount a horse

(c) Plant a tree

Snowball the dancing parrot has impressed scientists by “doing the Vogue” to the accompaniment of which Eighties hit?

(a) Another One Bites the Dust

(b) Another One Bites the Finger

(c) Free Bird

The European Space Agency has suggested that Mars mission astronauts could use a 3D printer to manufacture their own…

(a) Food

(b) Skin

(c) Lavatories

What does Prosecco have in common with the water management system of Augsburg in Germany?

(a) Smells vaguely sulphurous

(b) Causes wind

(c) Awarded Unesco World Heritage status this year

What is unusual about all the artworks in a new exhibition, Dog Show, at the Southwark Park Galleries in London?

(a) Painted by dogs

(b) Urinated on by dogs

(c) Chosen by dogs

As part of a Government-backed scheme to prepare them for university, sixth-formers are to be asked whether they can…

(a) Cook five different hot meals

(b) Name five plays by Shakespeare

(c) Recite the five times table

What is 16 Psyche, reported to be worth many millions of dollars?

(a) A self-portrait nude painting by Damien Hirst

(b) An asteroid made of metal

(c) A yearling racehorse, the son of Raving Looney and Sweet Sixteen

The novel Seducers in Ecuador was reputedly written in two weeks, yet it went on to become a rapid bestseller. Who was the author?

(a) Barbara Cartland

(b) Jackie Collins

(c) Vita Sackville-West

Who, or what, was Paddles the polydactyl?

(a) A Nessie-like plesiosaur recently unearthed in China

(b) The late First Cat of New Zealand, the prime minister’s pet

(c) A performing platypus at Zoo World in Melbourne, Australia

10 What did Macbeth, Hamlet, Judas Iscariot, Louis XV and Zeus have in common?

(a) Left-handed

(b) Vegans

(c) Played by the late Rip Torn

11 Speakers of which two languages command the highest salaries in the UK, earning on average £13,000 more than speakers of English and Arabic?

(a) English and Swedish

(b) English and Russian

(c) English and Mandarin

12 The merchandise range of the veteran rock band Kiss has included a $700 leather jacket and crystalencrusted coffee-cups at $400. They also offered the Kiss Kasket, at around $5,000. What was that?

(a) A beer cooler

(b) A coffin

(c) A bejewelled trinket box