In a week where the shocking events in Afghanistan have rightly dominated the news headlines, the inaugural Hundred competition reached its conclusion at Lord’s last night, Morrisons accepted a £7bn takeover bid from Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (albeit there may yet be another round of bidding) and one of Britain's finest comedians, Sean Lock, sadly passed away, 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. Good luck!
Questions:
1. The delayed Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games begin on Tuesday, albeit in a very difficult situation, as Japan recorded its highest daily total of Covid cases on Thursday (25,000 cases). The Paralympic Games were founded by Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany to England, where he opened a spinal injuries centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The first edition of the Stoke Mandeville Games was held in 1948, with sixteen injured servicemen and women competing in archery. These Games later became the Paralympic Games, which first took place in Rome in 1960 featuring 400 athletes from 23 countries. This year's Games will welcome nearly 4,400 athletes from about 170 nations across 28 sports. There are only two sports in the Paralympic programme that do not have an Olympic counterpart. Can you name them?
2. According to research released by Knight Frank this week, the build-to-rent sector is on track for a record year of investment. In H1 2021, £2.35bn of capital was invested, with £1.27bn in Q1 and £1.08bn in Q2. This equates to nearly an 80% increase in investment volume on H1 2020 and the sector remains on track to beat last year’s annual total of £3.7bn. Appetite exists from both existing investors and new entrants, with the regional markets proving to be popular (with 70% of funds committed for schemes outside London), largely driven by strong rental growth. The latest ONS rental index indicates rents have increased by 1.7% annually across England (excluding London). Throughout the pandemic, the sector has performed well and remained resilient. According to Knight Frank’s income survey, average monthly residential rent collection rates have remained above what percentage level so far this year?
3. Tempted by a new job? If so, Mars may be calling. Not the confectionary giant, but NASA announced this week that they are looking for four people who want to spend a year pretending to live on Mars. Yes, you did read that correctly. The experiment, which will begin in the autumn of 2022, is called Mars Dune Alpha. A replica of a future Mars base and its surroundings will be 3D-printed and placed inside the Johnson Space Center at Houston, Texas. The four people chosen to take part will spend a year living in this environment, isolated from the outside world, doing ‘spacewalks’, to imitate the experience of living and working on the Red Planet. So far, there have been around 50 Mars missions, of which about half have been successful — a testament to the difficulty in reaching the planet. How long does it usually take a space vehicle to travel to Mars?
4. The humble ice-cream van is a childhood staple for many of us and this tradition has fortunately lived on since its accidental origin in 1934. However, numbers have tumbled to 5,000 in the UK - with only 500 mobile vans now driving from street to street. This week an ice cream van operator was banned from a street in Suffolk, over a complaint that one of its vehicles sounded its chimes for too long. What is the maximum amount of time ice-cream vans are allowed to chime?
5. Guinness World Records throw up some unusual stories from time to time and one particular story caught our attention this week. On 17 May 1972 Donald Gorske from Winconsin, US bought his first Big Mac. Nearly 22 years on, he has now just received the record for the most Big Macs eaten in a lifetime. He started out by eating nine a day, though lately he's on a more regimented two a day. It’s worth noting that each Big Mac contains 540 calories! How many Big Macs has Donald eaten so far?
Answers:
Boccia and goalball.
96%
About seven months (300 million miles).
Ice-cream vans in England are allowed to chime for up to 12 seconds at a time according to the Code of Practice on Noise from Ice Cream Van Chimes – and, no more than once every two minutes, never in sight of another vehicle that is trading, and only between 12:00 and 19:00.
32,340 Big Macs. If you don’t believe us, watch this.