So they say

In 2014, who was quoted as saying:
1. ‘There is no status for the partner of a head of state, and there has never been one.’
2. ‘He’s there to serve a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device.’
3. ‘Money is no object in this relief effort.’
4. ‘I smoked pot as a kid. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.’
5. ‘If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen.’
6. ‘Rush, O Muslims, to your state, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.’
7. ‘William Hague was probably one of the finest foreign secretaries this country has seen.’
8. ‘If I were there, Margaret, I’d throw my hat in the door before I came in.’
9. ‘Respect is the basic rule of politics and there is nothing unusual or odd about having England flags in your window.’
10. ‘I’m feeling a bit tired, did you get all my data? I might take a nap…’

Talking telephone numbers

In 2014:
1. Fyffes and Chiquita wrangled over a planned merger to sell 160 million boxes a year of what?
2. Which distinctive tower-block in the City of London was bought by Joseph Safra, a Brazilian, for more than £700 million?
3. A man who bet £900,000 received a cheque for £1,093,333.33 from William Hill after which result?
4. A signed copy of which dictator’s bestseller fetched $64,850 at auction in Los Angeles?
5. Name the man who faked his own death in 2002, and, so Teesside Crown Court heard, had paid only £121 of a £679,000 proceeds-of-crime order.
6. Whose painting of waterlilies, which had failed to reach its reserve in 2010, sold in London for £31.7 million?
7. Name the South Korean rapper whose ‘Gangnam Style’ video became the first on YouTube to be watched more than two billion times.
8. A small 15th-century cup decorated with chickens sold for £21.5 million in Hong Kong. From which dynasty?
9. The prime minister of which country had his gas cut off at home because the bill was said to be £28,000 in arrears?
10. In Abu Dhabi a bidder spent the seven- figure sum of £1.3 million for the use of which seven-figure telephone number?

Flicks

In 2014:
1. Who was Mike Leigh’s J.M.W. Turner?
2. Whose film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, was meant to be based on the work of Stefan Zweig?
3. Who played Alan Turing, in The Imitation Game?
4. Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann, from the novel by Jonas Jonasson, appeared in English cinemas under what title?
5. The cat Ulysses sat at the heart of which Coen brothers Dylanesque ramble?
6. Which film examined slavery and the household of Lord Mansfield?
7. Name the latest and last film of Hayao Miyazaki, in 2001 the maker of Spirited Away.
8. Richard Linklater made a film over the period 2002-13, using the same central cast. What is its name?
9. ‘Would it help if I said my facial expressions out loud?’ asks Frank Sidebottom in Frank. What about him would have made that helpful?
10. Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine’s daughter, ventured through a wormhole in which sci-fi adventure?

All creatures…

In 2014:
1. A prisoner at Hollesley Bay prison, Suffolk, was found to be keeping what as a pet?
2. What were monkeys in Paignton Zoo banned from eating because they were too sugary?
3. What kind of tiny creature, 30,000 years old, came back to life after being retrieved from Siberian permafrost?
4. The Football Association rejected Hull City’s application to use the name of which creatures in a new name?
5. Abraham Poincheval, an artist of a sort, took up a fortnight’s residence inside what kind of stuffed animal at the Musée de la Chasse in Paris?
6. Scientists in Taiwan gave the name Aegista diversifamilia to a newly discovered species of what hermaphrodite creature, in the hope of honouring the struggle to introduce same-sex marriage to their country?
7. Which creatures devoured £4,000-worth of cannabis that had been dumped in their field at Merstham, Surrey?
8. The deputy president of the Islamic Party of which country complained that the Scottie dogs that preceded each team at the opening of the Commonwealth Games were ‘disrespectful’ to Muslims, who are ‘not allowed to touch dogs’?
9. At which zoo was a young giraffe called Marius killed, to prevent inbreeding, and fed to lions?
10. What colour were the twin pandas born at Drusillas zoo in Sussex?

Burning questions

1. ‘It was very difficult to know what to do: keep in the car or get out of the car,’ said the mother with two children who found that their car had caught on fire in the lion enclosure at which stately home?
2. The ancient wooden village of Laerdalsoyr burnt down, in which Scandinavian country?
3. In Yunnan, China, fire destroyed the 300 houses of the ancient Tibetan town of Dukezong in Zhongdian County. To what had the county’s name been changed in 2001 to attract tourists?
4. In which Norfolk town did the fire station burn down with its fire-engine inside it?
5. From which Chilean city were more than 10,000 people evacuated as fire swept through the old quarter?
6. To which dogs’ home was £1 million donated within 24 hours of it being severely damaged by fire?
7. A hundred firemen could not prevent the wooden cooling towers of which power station in Oxfordshire from burning down?
8. Before which event did firemen in England go on strike for four days?
9. In which county town did a fireworks warehouse burn down as 50 firemen tried to control the blaze?
10. On which island did Kilauea volcano, which has been erupting for 31 years, send out lava that threatened the village of Pahoa?

Late

Name the public figures who died in 2014:
1. The militant leader of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.
2. Churchill’s last surviving child.
3. The politician who, as a stopgap in 1978, invented the formula for funding Scotland.
4. The politician who became Lord Bannside and in 1985 had said: ‘Never, never, never, never.’
5. The saxophonist who played the solo on Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’.
6. The politician who campaigned for the Peerage Act 1963, 22 minutes after the passing of which he renounced his peerage.
7. The actress who in To Have and Have Not said: ‘Maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.’
8. The singer-songwriter who narrowly failed to win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 with ‘Rock Bottom’.
9. The dictator who was proclaimed president for life of Haiti at the age of 19.
10. The comedian who said: ‘I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.’

Right royal

In 2014:
1. After whose eight-month-old son was an enclosure for bilbies, a kind of bandicoot, at Taronga zoo in Sydney named?
2. The Queen named a 65,000-ton, 919ft aircraft carrier. What was its name?
3. Who unveiled a plaque at Cartagena, Colombia, commemorating the siege of 1741 in which thousands died during the War of Jenkins’ Ear?
4. Who saw a flypast at RAF Lossiemouth on his 67th wedding anniversary?
5. Who was presented with a bouquet ‘for his wife’ by a group of children in Oman?
6. Who visited Vanuatu, where some people are said to worship her father?
7. The British and the people of which country did the Queen think were ‘finally shedding our inhibitions about seeing the best in each other’?
8. Whose brother founded a company called Boomf, which allows people to print personalised messages on marshmallows?
9. To whom did the Queen give a jar of honey from her garden, remarking: ‘I hope that is unusual for you’?
10. Who paid a private visit to Baku last month to meet President Ilham Aliyev for what was said to be the 12th time?

In other words

Match these Christmassy words to their synonyms:
1. Farture
2. Huexolotl
3. Hedera
4. Goose-tongue
5. Bullace pudding
6. Tomaculum
7. Bon-bon
8. Tire-lire
9. Ickle
10. Juvia
 
a. Sneezewort; b. Turkey; c. Plum pudding; d. Icicle; e. Brazil-nut; f. Sausage; g. Cracker; h. Christmas-box; i. Stuffing; j. Ivy