Politics
1 When asked in July, which of these cabinet ministers denied smoking cannabis in their youth?
a) Jack Straw
b) Harriet Harman
c) Jacqui Smith
d) Alistair Darling
2 Prime Minister Gordon Brown became an honorary Hindu during a ceremony marking the festival of Diwali this year, adopting the first name Govardhan. What does it mean in Sanskrit?
a) Warrior charioteer
b) Beautiful lotus flower
c) Hill in paradise
d) Attractive, charming servant
3 Which city did the Tory MP Boris Johnson annoy by claiming that it was “too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs”?
a) Liverpool
b) Birmingham
c) Bristol
d) Portsmouth
4 Which of the following was one of the great or considerable “achievements” with which David Cameron did not credit Tony Blair on his leaving office?
a) Peace in Northern Ireland
b) Overthrowing Saddam Hussein
c) His work in the developing world
d) Serving as prime minister for ten years
5 How many houses does the Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Chris Huhne own?
a) Two b) Three c) Five d) Seven
In the news
1 The panic-induced run on Northern Rock was the first seen in Britain since the collapse of which wholesale bank in 1866 with £11m in debts?
a) Fox Brother, Fowler & Co
b) Cunliffe, Brooks & Co
c) Backhouse’s Bank
d) Overend, Gurney & Co
2 Under what more popular name did “catarrhal fever” hit the news headlines?
a) Avian flu
b) Bluetongue disease
c) Foot-and-mouth disease
d) Classical swine fever
3 What seemingly harmless activity did the hospital in the town of Congleton ban as a health and safety hazard in September?
a) Doing crosswords and sudoku
b) Watching TV
c) Knitting
d) Playing cards
4 The police identified 169 separate what in London?
a) Crime-free streets
b) Corrupt members of the force
c) Illegal gun-dealers
d) Gangs
5 Moira Cameron became the first woman to take up which job?
a) Postmaster General
b) Yeoman of the Guard
c) Voice of the speaking clock
d) Venetian gondolier
Online and technology
1 Full-scale production of the XO-1 began in November. What is it?
a) Boeing’s newest airliner
b) The “$100 laptop”
c) Jaguar’s next concept car
d) Nintendo’s latest games console
2 Having discounted the device by $200, what did Apple offer in order to placate purchasers of the full-price iPhone ten weeks after its US launch in April?
a) An announcement saying, “Ha! Got you suckers!”
b) A full apology
c) $100 voucher
d) Free iTouch
3 Which Japanese corporation launched the world’s largest commercial LCD TV, a 900lb, 108in monster?
a) Toshiba b) Sanyo
c) Sharp d) Sony
4 Microsoft revealed that which feature in its new operating system, Vista, can be hijacked so a PC tells itself to delete files?
a) Speech recognition
b) Back-up and restore
c) Shadow copy
d) Disk management
5 Which Facebook founder was taken to court, having been accused of stealing both the idea and business angle of the social networking website from a rival?
a) Thomas Anderson
b) Michael Birch
c) Noah Glass
d) Mark Zuckerberg
Books
1 It was revealed that the bricklayer David Sharp, who had been given up for adoption during the Second World War, was the long-lost brother of which novelist?
a) Ian McEwan
b) Philip Pullman
c) Julian Barnes
d) Graham Swift
2 Which poet’s hip flask fetched £7,200 at auction, about ten times its expected price?
a) Robert Burns
b) Sylvia Plath
c) Dylan Thomas
d) Lord Byron
3 What was the name of the J R R Tolkien book completed by his son Christopher and published in 2007?
a) The Children of Húrin
b) The Stones of Osgiliath
c) The Kings of Valinor
d) The House of Turgon
4 Who belatedly won the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his description of oral sex in his final novel?
a) Norman Mailer
b) Kurt Vonnegut
c) Ira Levin
d) Sidney Sheldon
5 What were Doris Lessing’s very first words on being informed that she had won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature?
a) “Oh Christ”
b) “Can I get the groceries out of the taxi first?”
c) “Bloody hell”
d) “It’s about time”
International affairs
1 Yahya Jammeh claims he can cure Aids and HIV with a natural herb infusion. Nobody would listen to him if he were not the president of which African country?
a) Senegal
Related
b) Cameroon
Content from our partners
c) Benin
d) Gambia
2 The then president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, was cited for which sartorial faux pas on a visit to Turkey?
a) Wearing short sleeves with a tie
b) His socks had holes in them
c) His flies were undone
d) Unidentifiable stains on his tie
3 Fifteen sailors from which Royal Navy ship were taken captive by Iranian forces?
a) HMS Exeter
b) HMS Devon
c) HMS Kent
d) HMS Cornwall
4 What became the 23rd official language of the European Union in January?
a) Basque/Euskara
b) Breton
c) Irish
d) Esperanto
5 Promising a “citizens’ revolution”, Rafael Correa was sworn in as the president of which country?
a) Peru
b) El Salvador
c) Ecuador
d) Uruguay
Television
1 A September edition of whose Sunday TV show, Aló Presidente, lasted a record eight hours?
a) Nestor Kirchner
b) Fidel Castro
c) Daniel Ortega
d) Hugo Chávez
2 On Ugly Betty, who performed maid-of-honour duties at the wedding of Wilhelmina Slater and Bradford Meade?
a) Lindsay Lohan
b) Victoria Beckham
c) Paris Hilton
d) Mischa Barton
3 The Catholic organisation Opus Dei complained about its portrayal in which BBC TV drama series?
a) Spooks
b) Waking the Dead
c) Doctor Who
d) The State Within
4 Describing himself as resembling “an exploding tomato”, which Panorama journalist lost his temper and shouted at a representative of the Scientologists in a widely disseminated video clip?
a) Paul Kenyon
b) Raphael Rowe
c) John Sweeney
d) Peter Taylor
5 Which Cumbrian town became the first place in the UK to lose its analogue television signals and start the digital switch-over in October?
a) Whitehaven
b) Ulverston
c) Thursby
d) Kendal
Arts
1 Which Woody Allen movie shares its title with the Turner Prize-winning film by Mark Wallinger in which he wanders around a deserted Berlin gallery wearing a bear costume?
a) Love and Death
b) Interiors
c) Sweet and Lowdown
d) Sleeper
2 Which acclaimed film director made a tricky transition to opera with her ENO production of Carmen?
a) Beeban Kidron
b) Sally Potter
c) Carine Adler
d) Antonia Bird
3 Which Hollywood film was condemned by the Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham as a sign of “hostile behaviour, which is the result of cultural and psychological warfare” being waged by the US?
a) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
b) Transformers
c) Norbit
d) 300
4 The people of Israel voted overwhelmingly for a song about which subject to be their Eurovision Song Contest entry?
a) Nuclear annihilation
b) Palestinian invasion
c) West Bank barrier
d) Suicide bombings
5 Martin Scorsese finally won a Best Director Oscar for helming The Departed. How many times had he previously gone home empty-handed from the Academy Awards?
a) Four b) Five c) Six d) Seven
Fashion and style
1 How much would a Louis Vuitton Tribute Patchwork Bag, released in March, set you back?
a) £19,129
b) £21,675
c) £23,484
d) £25,232
2 What two-word name was given to the 2007 fashion trend, adopted by Versace and Alexander McQueen, that involves wearing tight high-waisted trousers and skintight minidresses?
a) Tight couture
b) Fit wear
c) Body con
d) Squeeze dress
3 Known as the British Chanel, which brand shut up shop completely with the end of its closing sale on 20 April?
a) Jean Muir
b) Mary Quant
c) Celia Birtwell
d) Barbara Hulanicki
4 Perhaps surprisingly, Victoria Beckham was confirmed as the new face of which American designer’s spring/summer 2008 ad campaign?
a) Calvin Klein
b) Tommy Hilfiger
c) Tom Ford
d) Marc Jacobs
Climate change
1 On which US TV show did the 2007 Nobel Peace Prizewinner Al Gore mock himself, saying: “Quiet! A whale is in trouble! I have to go!”?
a) 30 Rock
b) The Late Show With David Letterman
c) Curb Your Enthusiasm
d) Scrubs
2 From March until June, Mayor Ken Livingstone offered £100 cashback to Londoners if they did what?
a) Not fly for one year
b) Instal insulation in their homes
c) Give up their car for public transport
d) Replace all their inefficient light bulbs with energy-saving ones
3 Scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed in February that human activity was likely to increase global temperatures by what best-estimate range over the next century?
a) 0.5-2.2°C
b) 1.8-4°C
c) 2.5-4.7°C
d) 3-5.2°C
4 Though aides briefed the media that he was preparing to exchange his car for a Toyota Prius, Gordon Brown instead chose a 4.2-litre model of which car that happens to fall into the government’s worst emissions band?
a) Jaguar XJ V8
b) Rolls-Royce Phantom
c) BMW 7 Series
d) Aston Martin DBS V12
5 In March, meteorologists said that which major city had had its first winter without snow since records began in 1876?
a) Beijing
b) Seoul
c) Pyongyang
d) Tokyo
Media
1 Described by one holidaymaker as “every swimmer’s worst nightmare”, the video footage of the great white shark splashed across the Sun’s front page on 28 July was filmed not in Cornwall, but where?
a) Australia
b) Florida
c) Mexico
d) South Africa
2 Conrad Black was found guilty in July on four out of 13 charges laid against him. On which of the following charges was he declared guilty?
a) Mail fraud
b) Racketeering
c) Money laundering
d) Wire fraud
3 Which writer branded the BBC a “racist institution” during a radio interview?
a) Paul Abbott
b) Jimmy McGovern
c) Alan Bleasdale
d) Stephen Poliakoff
4 Rupert Murdoch took over control of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal from which family?
a) The Millers
b) The Grahams
c) The Woodwards
d) The Bancrofts
5 Which former Wimbledon footballer-turned-private-investigator was jailed along with the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman for his part in the royal household phone-tapping scandal?
a) Jonathan Atkinson
b) Damien Griffin
c) Glenn Mulcaire
d) Paul McAllister
Sport
1 Which England player was disallowed a “phantom try” in the rugby union World Cup, though he claimed he was “100 per cent sure” that he had grounded the ball without going into touch?
a) Jason Robinson
b) Paul Sackey
c) Mark Cueto
d) Mathew Tait
2 At which world championships – held 29 March to 1 April – did Great Britain top the medals table with seven gold medals?
a) Swimming
b) Rowing
c) Amateur boxing
d) Track cycling
3 Why did Björn Borg pull out of an exhibition match with Pat Cash at the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament in June?
a) He dropped a jar of pickled herring on his right foot
b) Bitten by a dog
c) Stage fright
d) He missed his plane
4 What verdict was returned by the coroner Patrick Murphy in November with regard to the death of the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer during this year’s Cricket World Cup?
a) Natural causes
b) Unlawful killing
c) Open verdict
d) Death by misadventure
5 Which female tennis player won the Australian Open despite being ranked 81st in the world?
a) Serena Williams
b) Jelena Jankovic
c) Lindsay Davenport
d) Daniela Hantuchova
Compiled by Olav Bjortomt With illustrations by Dan Murrell