In a week when England beat Germany and then thrashed Ukraine to reach their first European Championships semi-final since 1996, Andy Murray proved he still knows how to use a tennis racket, Love Island returned to our TV screens (apparently), the Chinese Communist Party turned 100 years’ old and details of a new savings product which will fund the Government's environmental projects were revealed, The Weekly has again done its upmost to condense the news from the last seven days into five short quiz questions to brighten your Sunday morning.
Questions
1. The Tokyo Olympic Games are scheduled to begin on July 23. Many Japanese remain sceptical about the possibility of holding even a scaled-down Games safely during the pandemic. Organisers have excluded foreign spectators and limited the number of domestic ones for the event. High-fiving, autograph-hunting and towel-waving are also all off limits to spectators. There will be five new events added to the programme this summer: sport climbing, surfing, karate, baseball (men) / softball (women) and skateboarding. Team GB announced their skateboarding team this week, comprising Sky Brown and Bombette Martin. How old will Sky be when the games start?
2. Stamp duty rates in England and Northern Ireland changed on Thursday, as the tax holiday introduced by the government in June 2020 starts to be phased out. This now means house buyers will have to pay stamp duty again for purchases above £250,000, whilst from 1 October, rates will return to normal (above £125,000). When the stamp duty holiday was introduced, it was designed to stimulate the market by helping buyers whose finances were affected by COVID. It has certainly worked. According to the Nationwide Building Society, UK house prices rose 13.4% in the year to June, the fastest pace since November 2004, with the average house price increasing to £245,432, up from £216,403. All parts of the UK saw a rise in house prices in Q2 2021, but which two parts of the UK experienced the largest year-on-year increases?
3. The results of Mercer’s Cost of Living Report 2021 have now been released. The report ranks 209 cities by evaluating the cost of expenses from categories such as housing, transportation, utilities, food and domestic supplies and aims to help employers determine compensation strategies for international employees worldwide. Ashgabat, the capital city of Turkmenistan, topped Hong Kong to become the world’s most expensive city for expats in 2021, with Beirut picking up the bronze medal. High local inflation has been cited as the principal reason for Ashgabat's ‘victory’. What place did London and Birmingham come in at?
4. A prototype flying car completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia on Monday morning. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Professor Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 600 miles at a height of 2,500m with a cruising speed of 170km/h, carrying two people with a combined weight limit of 200kg. But unlike drone-taxi prototypes, AirCar cannot take off and land vertically and requires a runway. How long does it take for AirCar to transform from car into aircraft, and which 1974 Bond film featured a similar invention using an AMC Matador?
5. Today is ‘Thank You Day’. Emanating from just thirteen individuals proposing it, the idea is now supported by hundreds of organisations across the country, including the NHS, the Football Association and the Church of England. It’s got the backing of celebrities, religious leaders and sports stars, local councils and schools, businesses and communities throughout the UK. There is not a strict plan for the day. The idea is to say 'Thank You' however you want. But according to polling by ICM Unlimited, 16.3 million Brits are expected to join in events in their local communities. This would make the day the biggest mass participation event since the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012. ‘Thank You’ is said millions of times a day all over the English-speaking world, but what is the expression's origin?
Enjoy your Sunday
The Weekly
Answers
1. Brown will be 13 years, 11 days, becoming the youngest British summer Olympian in the process.
2. Northern Ireland and Wales at 14% and 13.1% respectively.
3. 18th and 121st respectively.
4. Two minutes 15 seconds. The Man with the Golden Gun.
5. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word “thank” derived from the word “think” around 450AD. Up until this time, people would typically express their gratitude by saying “I think of you kindly.” This evolved to become “I Thank You”, which was then shortened to “Thank You” around the 14th century.