1 The first cover of Charlie Hebdo after January’s massacre at the magazine was a cartoon of Muhammad holding a “Je suis Charlie” placard – but what was the coverline?
2 Who, where or what this year was Synaspismos tis Rizospastikis Aristeras better known as?
3 Which singer, who died in January, had in 1977 been the crux of a bitter husband-and-wife argument in a Play for Today?
4 A French court refused to allow misguided parents to name their child after which jar-based spread? Its inventor also died this year, aged 89, and sun shining through an empty jar of this was blamed for a fire in Twickenham that killed a Jack Russell called Chilli.
5 Gauguin’s masterpiece, Nafea Faa Ipoipo (above), was sold for £197m, the highest for any painting, to a museum in Qatar. What does the title translate as?
6 The Queen named a 3,600- passenger P&O ship Britannia, breaking a bottle of wine on the bow. Wine from where?
7 And which country overtook France to have the largest area of vineyards after Spain?
8 What was Simon Cowell scared to see at his Loire Vallery château during The X Factor’s Judges’ Houses round?
a) A ghost
b) The ratings
c) Talent
9 What happened next? (see picture above)
10 Public Health England wrote to supermarkets warning them to keep daffodils well away from “produce areas” in case customers mistook them for what?
11 We all know about Richard III and Leicester – but the bones of which other long-lost bod were identified at the Convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in Madrid?
12 The Pope called on world leaders to prevent deaths from migrants driven to desperate crossings of the Mediterranean, saying: “They are men and women like us, our brothers and sisters.” Sun columnist Katie Hopkins found she couldn’t quite top this outpouring of the milk of human kindness, likening migrants to what?
13 Many thought that this image was a “praying” emoji (left), when it’s actually what?
14 How many edges is the new £1 coin going to have? And don’t say “two” – I think you’ll find that’s sides.
15 A court upheld a conviction for unlawful driving of a man who accidentally gashed his hand with a chainsaw and then sewed it up with fishing line, drank gin to deaden the pain and drove himself to hospital. In (unsurprisingly) which country?
16 By the time they arrived at the Paris climate talks, which busy bee had already travelled a red-eye-watering 957,744 miles in their current post, much of it with a broken leg?
17 Bake Off contestant Paul Jagger made a glorious lion from bread, and near as dammit reduced judge Paul Hollywood to tears. But what did eventual winner Nadiya Hussain make for that specialist bread round?
18 Viv Nicholson, who exclaimed “Spend, spend, spend!” after winning £152,319 on the football pools in 1961, died in April. How much, to the nearest million, would her win be worth today, adjusted for inflation?
19 Who is the leader of Plaid Cymru, whose profile was raised somewhat during the pre-election debates? Who is the president of Cuba, who opened an embassy in Washington? Would they benefit from a job swap? (That last not really a question. But surely a fascinating reality TV show.)
20 Who was traduced by his own (short-lived) economics spokesman for being “snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive”?
21 Who is planning an entirely nude public performance?
a) Miley Cyrus
b) The Hairy Bikers
c) Rita Ora
22 Perfectly mirroring our own gnawing boredom with the Fifa yawnfest, a film about Jules Rimet, Fifa’s founder, and Sepp Blatter managed to take all of a sumptuous $607 in the first weekend of its US release. But who were the surprisingly high-profile stars?
23 Balls dropped in May, but increased by 10 in October. Why?
24 Aberdeenshire Council ordered the Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven to take down a banner declaring it “the birthplace of” what?
25 There was much talk in 2015 of the Schengen Agreement. But where is Schengen?
26 What did Cristiano Ronaldo give his agent, Jorge Mendes, as a wedding present?
27 In the summer Greek banks reopened – with withdrawals limited to how much a week?
28 Four of the five most retweeted tweets of the year were from the members of which group?
29 “Civil society” minister Rob Wilson claimed 60p for a journey between his constituency office, the railway station and home. On what mode of transport?
30 Who was named by Forbes magazine as the highest-paid actress in Hollywood in 2015?
31 This is the Isis flag (above). On a cake. Crumbs! Which staggeringly unlikely combo of multinational retail corporation and American state agreed to make it, because “Our associate didn’t recognise what that image was”?
32 US commentator Steven Emerson apologised for saying on Fox News that in the UK “There are actual cities like ______ that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” Which city?
33 What happened next? (see picture, below)
34 Daesh cheerfully blew up two temples, Bel and Baalshamin, in which ancient Syrian city?
35 Who took a spectacular tumble at the Brit Awards?
36 “Just a little prick, just a stab in the back.” Whose response to what?
37 Why was the particular span of 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes important to an octogenarian on a train in the Scottish borders on 9 September?
38 What did American dentist Walter Palmer employ to shoot Cecil the lion?
39 Marlon James’s Booker winner A Brief History of Seven Killings was based around what 1970s event?
40 Who was behind the opening of a bookshop in Seattle, this representing the culmination of a long, slow-turn full circle?
41 What (this is just getting embarrassing – I used the same question last year) was the title of Britain’s Eurovision entry?
42 Seriously bad hair day – what had this gentle soul (above) mistaken for mousse?
43 “Mostly these are just not-very-thinly veiled ways of people saying: ‘I don’t want them in my backyard.’ Well, I do. I want ________ to be a place where people who come here with little more than the clothes they are standing in can feel safe and at home.” The editor of which island’s local paper, in its leader column?
44 Whose putative Olympics logo (left) was scrapped after claims of blatant plagiarism of an earlier design (right)? (Though you’d have to be deluded to infer the slightest smidgen of a resemblance.)
45 Which superhero broke up with his long-term girlfriend?
46 What was “Alabama rot”?
a) A headline in the New York Times about a Donald Trump speech in Montgomery
b) A gum infection which spread like Topsy throughout Tuscaloosa
c) A canine infection blamed for the death of 30 British dogs in 18 months.
47 A US food analysis laboratory found DNA from which species in 2% of all sampled hot dogs?
48 What did Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, graphically liken to “a cow slipping on ice” which needed to be pushed to firm ground?
49 What did Banksy do with the timber from the dismantled Dismaland?
50 Which SW19 disaster led to the near-unthinkable: a campaign to bring back John Inverdale?
51 A shootout among biker gangs in America left nine dead. At which diner, memorable for its TV series; and in which city, famous for its siege?
52 What was removed from the recipe for Guinness?
53 Asger Juhl, a radio presenter, was criticised for killing a baby rabbit live on air by hitting it with a bicycle pump. Sorry, I just spat out some tea. What was the rabbit’s name – no, no, in what country did this occur?
54 Which character got most hate mail this year in The Archers?
55 Loud booing greeted a prolonged rape scene in a production at the Royal Opera House of which Rossini work?
56 What, reportedly, did the Prince of Wales take to wearing in private?
57 Who was Avijit Roy?
58 And who is Lutfur Rahman?
59 And Oisin Tymon?
60 What age was AP McCoy when he finally retired? Hint: same age as the birthday on which a squeaky footballer finally joined Instagram.
61 REM’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” was used how?
a) To rally crowds for Donald Trump
b) On portable speakers, as Class War attacked the hipsterish Cereal Killer Café
c) On a stage by Fatboy Slim at 3am on Brighton beach on the night of the “blood moon”
62 What used to be the mountain now known (since this year, when Obama got his hands on it) as Denali?
63 She is called Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana (above). On her birth certificate her father’s occupation was given as what?
64 Why did Pakistan postpone the execution of a paraplegic prisoner?
65 Ziferblat, a chain of cafés, opened UK branches with free coffee, yum, but what ancillary charge?
66 53 girls in Britain were found in 2015 to have been given which Game of Thrones name?
67 Which company bravely bowed to internet threats and withdrew The Interview, a “comedy” film which later prompted North Korea to declare, grammatically: “Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest”?
68 British tourists on which Greek holiday island complained, predominantly to the Daily Mail, about their holidays being spoiled by the general unsightliness of Syrian refugees?
69 Who tweeted this birth announcement as emojis (above) – and what was the baby called? Identify all the people in this tweet.
70 45 tons of lovers’ padlocks (below) were removed with bolt cutters from which Paris bridge?
71 A BA flight turned back half an hour into a trip to Dubai because of what in a lavatory?
a) Use of an e-cigarette
b) Pungent excrement
c) Graffiti depicting Muhammad
72 To whom did the Arctic wolf stolen from a Chelsea house party in August 2015 belong?
73 Boris Johnson demanded that which professor “should be reinstated forthwith to his academic positions”?
74 What’s the time in North Korea? And why did it change this year?
75 What was digitally added to our PM in November?
76 What was the name of the three-year-old boy whose lifeless body made front-page pictures throughout much of the world, the media backlash over which led to a U-turn in David Cameron’s policy on Syrian refugees?
77 China said it was introducing laws to control outbreaks of mass what in public places?
78 Which multinational company apologised for having forced US prisoners of war to labour in mines?
79 What is Jeremy Corbyn’s middle name? And which language does he speak fluently? (Not surprisingly, given one of his divorces and his current wife…)
80 Why was this year a second longer?
Answers
1 ‘Tout est pardonné’
2 Far-left Greek party Syriza
3 Demis Roussos
4 Nutella
5 When Will You Marry?
6 Sussex
7 China
8 a)
9 An Italian art installation meant to represent the hedonism of the 1980s was mistaken by cleaners for the remnants of a party, and unceremoniously tidied into bin bags
10 Onions
11 Cervantes
12 Cockroaches
13 A high five
14 12, like the old threepenny piece
15 Australia
16 John Kerry
17 A spicy snake charmer’s basket
18 £3m
19 Leanne Wood; Raul Castro
20 Nigel Farage
21 a)
22 Gérard Depardieu (Rimet); Tim Roth (Blatter)
23 Ed Balls lost his seat at the election: Camelot upped the number of Lotto numbers. It is now necessary to pick six out of 59 numbers to win the jackpot, where before it was six out of 49. The average Briton is now 45 times more likely to be struck by lightning than win
24 The deep-fried Mars Bar
25 Luxembourg
26 A Greek island
27 €420
28 One Direction
29 His bicycle
30 Jennifer Lawrence
31 Walmart, in Louisiana
32 Birmingham
33 Australia were given a last-minute penalty which knocked Scotland out of the Rugby World Cup. World Rugby later stated that ref Craig Joubert’s decision had been wrong
34 Palmyra
35 Madonna
36 David Cameron’s to Lord Ashcroft’s ‘pig-gate’ ‘revelations’
37 The Queen became the longest reigning monarch in British history, surpassing Victoria
38 A bow and arrow
39 The attempted assassination of Bob Marley
40 Amazon, 20 years after attempting to put bookshops out of business
41 Still In Love With You. Performed by Electro Velvet. One of their backing singers now co-presents A Place In The Sun. There’s fame, now
42 Expanding foam
43 Bute, Scotland, as Buteman editor Craig Borland welcomed the first Syrian refugees to heavy rain and hailstorms
44 Tokyo’s, for 2022. There were allegations the logo bore a passing resemblance to that of the Théâtre de Liège
45 Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man) split from Emma Stone
46 c)
47 Human
48 The fraught Greek economy
49 Built shelters for the migrants’ camps at Calais
50 Wimbledon 2Day, the revamped, much-criticised and eventually scrapped BBC evening round-up
51 The Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas
52 Fish (in the form of isinglass)
53 Denmark
54 Rob Titchener
55 Guillaume Tell
56 A monocle
57 The atheist blogger hacked to death in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by a Daesh offshoot
58 The disgraced ex-mayor of Tower Hamlets
59 The producer punched by Jeremy Clarkson
60 40
61 a)
62 Mount McKinley
63 Prince of the United Kingdom
64 The hangman couldn’t calculate the correct weight-for-height ratio to drop a man in a wheelchair
65 Time stayed, in pence per minute
66 Khaleesi. It’s Dothraki for ‘queen’, and one of the titles of Daenerys
67 Sony
68 Kos
69 Kim Kardashian tweeted; baby Saint West. Faces: Kanye, Kim, North, Saint
70 Le Pont des Arts
71 b)
72 Charlotte Watts, granddaughter of Stones drummer Charlie Watts
73 Tim Hunt, the UCL biochemist accused of sexism after giving a speech in Seoul
74 Pyongyang Time was established on 5 August to reject the legacy of Japanese imperialism, Japan having forced all of Korea in 1912 to synchronise with Japan Standard Time. It is now 8 hours and 30 minutes ahead of GMT (a change of 30 minutes).
75 A remembrance poppy, on the Downing Street Facebook page
76 Alan Kurdi
77 Square-dancing
78 Mitsubishi
79 Bernard; Spanish
80 A second was added to atomic clocks on 30 June to take into account the slowing of the Earth’s rotation
