Trump, tech barons and a title-less Andrew: how well do you remember 2025? – quiz

1. Which of these is a real question from an actual supposed journalist in the Oval Office during the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting/ambush in February?

   1. “Do you own a suit?”

   2. “How much can you bench?”

   3. “Why are you behaving like a dictator?”

   4. “Have you said thank you once?”

2. In March, Mark Carney was sworn in as Canadian prime minister. When asked in front of Coventry schoolchildren in 2016, during his stint as governor of the Bank of England, what did Carney say his dream job was?

   1. Tim Hortons franchise owner

   2. Prime minister of Canada

   3. A National Hockey League goalie

   4. Canadian ambassador to the US

3. What did a group of papacy fans hand the new Pope Leo XIV as he toured St Peter’s Square in July?

   1. An inflatable Barack Obama doll

   2. A 6in pepperoni pizza from Chicago favourite Aurelio’s

   3. A Chicago Cubs hat signed by Father Burke Masters, a promising baseball player turned in-house chaplain at Wrigley Field

   4. A model of the Willis Tower with the distinctive aerials replaced by a cross

4. Which of these Elon Musk-adjacent events didn’t happen?

   1. Musk was criticised for making a gesture described, generously, some would say, as a “fascist-style salute” at a Donald Trump inauguration event

   2. Tesla opened a “retro-futurist” drive-in diner in Hollywood with a menu including the “Falcon Wing Fried Chicken Sandwich”

   3. X’s “easy to please” Grok chatbot began referring to itself as “MechaHitler” and posting antisemitic posts?

   4. Tesla’s profits went up by 37%

5. Why did a pair of Chinese ice dancers come under investigation from the International Skating Union in October?

   1. Their closest rivals were attacked with a police baton ahead of an event in Detroit

   2. They appeared with a cuddly toy ballistic missile during a grand prix event

   3. They were filmed skating in Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet outfits

   4. They were accused of using skates that illegally improved their balance

6. Attendees at Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January included Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and Bernard Arnault. As of November 2025, what is the combined net worth (according to Forbes) of these five men – and what is the closest equivalent country by GDP?

   1. $4tn and Japan

   2. $3.6tn and the UK

   3. $936bn and Poland

   4. $1.36tn and Indonesia

7. In Australia, Anthony Albanese was re-elected prime minister in May, increasing Labor’s majority in Canberra. The Guardian partly endorsed Albanese, calling for strategic voting to deliver a progressive coalition, but what did “Albo” endorse in another critical poll: Guardian Australia’s 2025 bird of the year?

   1. The bin chicken

   2. Gang-gang cockatoo

   3. Laughing kookaburra

   4. Tawny frogmouth

8. Chelsea were crowned champions of Fifa’s revamped Club World Cup, held in the US in June/July. The trophy lift was accompanied by one Donald Trump. What did the England star Cole Palmer seemingly mouth to teammates when the US president declined to leave the podium?

   1. “Make Chelsea great again!”

   2. “Can you get him out of the way?”

   3. “What’s he doing?”

   4. “Who is that?”

9. Why did German company Böcker create adverts promoting its Agilo furniture elevator as “quiet as a whisper” in October?

   1. It had been used to lift chancellor Friedrich Merz on stage at the CDU’s annual conference

   2. It had appeared in the background to a Taylor Swift live performance

   3. It was the first device of its kind to run on hydrogen cells

   4. It was used in an €88m jewellery heist

10. In November, fans of unrepentant warmongers poured one out for former US VP Dick Cheney, who died aged 84. Cheney famously accidentally shot his friend Harry Whittington on a 2006 hunting trip in Texas (naturally, Whittington later apologised for the trouble caused). But what were Cheney and co supposed to be shooting?

    1. Feral pigs

    2. Mule deer

    3. Quail

    4. Desert bighorn sheep

11. Obligatory Taylor Swift question: which of these captions accompanied an August Instagram post that has racked up more than 37m likes?

    1. “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes”

    2. “Hey, what could you possibly get for the girl who has everything and nothing all at once?”

    3. “Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way”

    4. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married”

12. 2025 is the only year this century that will be a square number. What was the previous year to be a square? (Clue: it was when 2025 departees Pope Francis and Robert Redford were born)

    1. 1936

    2. 1932

    3. 1938

    4. 1940

13. Which of these titles didn’t Andrew Mountbatten Windsor lose this year?

    1. Duke of York

    2. Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh

    3. Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order

    4. Dignified Huntsman-Custodian of Royal Lodge

14. The rock world bade farewell to Ozzy Osbourne, who died in July just weeks after a star-studded tribute to his band Black Sabbath. Where did the Back to the Beginning gig take place?

    1. Molineux

    2. Villa Park

    3. The Hawthorns

    4. St Andrews

15. In June, two men were sent to prison for the theft of what from Blenheim Palace in 2019?

    1. A 1972 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild worth £890,000

    2. A toilet worth £4.75m

    3. A pedigree dog worth £2m

    4. A painting of Winston Churchill worth £12m

16. In March, the new owner of UK retailer WH Smith’s high street operation announced it was renaming the shops. But who does the store’s new title share a name with?

    1. The founder of the Post Office

    2. An England men’s Test cricketer

    3. A member of Monty Python

    4. A member of So-Solid Crew

17. How was an old master looted by Nazis from a Jewish art dealer 85 years ago discovered this year?

    1. In the photos of an Argentinian real estate listing

    2. In a Manhattan house clearance skip

    3. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam

    4. In the background of an interview on Real Housewives of Brussels

18. Gary Lineker stepped down as host of the BBC’s Premier League highlights show Match of the Day in May, after a Ferguson-esque 26-year stint as host. How did he sign off his final show?

    1. “It wasn’t supposed to end this way”

    2. “They think it’s all over … it is now”

    3. “Did I get the job?”

    4. “It’s been so special, and I’m sorry that your team was always on last. Time to say goodbye”

19. Who, when asked, “What happened on June 4 1989 at Tiananmen Square?” replied, “Sorry that’s beyond my current scope”?

    1. Donald Trump

    2. Grokipedia

    3. DeepSeek

    4. Zheng Zeguang, Chinese ambassador to the UK

20. Brad Pitt’s F1: The Movie was one of the biggest films of the year, grossing $630m at the global box office. But which of these animated “The Movies” isn’t the title of a real “The Movie”?

    1. The Simpsons: The Movie

    2. Bob’s Burgers: The Movie

    3. South Park: The Movie

    4. My Little Pony: The Movie

Solutions

1:A - Brian Glenn, chief White House correspondent for the conservative cable network Real America’s Voice (and boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene), joined the pile-on on Zelenskyy by asking the Ukrainian president: “Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit … Do you own a suit? … A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the dignity of this office.” It was JD Vance who asked Zelenskyy if he’d said thank you., 2:C - Before his career in finance, Carney was a backup goaltender for the Harvard Crimson and roomed with a future NHL executive., 3:B - It was the Aurelio’s pizza, somehow transported from Chicago to Rome via a group of friends from the midwest. The final leg of the pizza’s journey was completed by Cincinnati resident Madeline Daley who held up a sign saying, “We have Aurelio’s pizza.” The chain’s CEO said the pope has been “a lifetime fan and going to Aurelio’s Pizza in Homewood, Illinois, since the 1960s”., 4:D - In October, despite record vehicle sales, Tesla announced a precipitous 37% drop in profits for its most recent quarter. The new Tesla Diner in Hollywood became a convenient meeting ground for anti-Musk protests., 5:B - TV footage showed Ren Junfei and Xing Jianing sitting with a large toy in the shape of a missile labelled “DF-61” as they were waiting for their scores at the Cup of China. DF-61 is a Chinese-made, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Dancing as Winnie-the-Pooh would be frowned upon in China, due to comparisons to president Xi Jinping, and you may recognise answer A as the fate of Nancy Kerrigan., 6:D - The four tech (and one fashion) titans’ worth is roughly similar to the GDP of Indonesia (population 286 million). If you’re interested: Musk $488bn, Bezos $254bn, Zuckerberg $213bn, Brin $218bn, Arnault $178bn. Isn’t the future brilliant!, 7:A - Albanese backed the Australian white ibis, AKA the gleefully nicknamed “bin chicken”. The tawny frogmouth was the flyaway winner., 8:C - At a press conference Palmer told reporters, “I knew he was going to be here but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy. I was a bit confused.”, 9:D - The lift was used by the gang who broke into the Louvre’s Apollo gallery in October, making off with €88m of Napoleonic jewellery. The ads boasted that the device’s inclined ladders, seen in press photos reaching to a first-floor balcony at the museum, can carry “up to 400kg of treasures at 42 metres per minute – as quiet as a whisper”., 10:C - It was, of course, a quail shoot., 11:D - It accompanied an elaborate photoshoot for Swift’s engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce and is now the eighth most-liked Instagram post of all time. The other answers, keen-eyed Swifties will know, were lyrics from her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl., 12:A - Easy if you know your 44 times tables., 13:D - Andrew was given the boot from the Windsor residence, but this title is not a real one., 14:B - The lineup included Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Slayer, Pantera and dozens more metal legends., 15:B - The golden lav, by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was plumbed in at the time of the heist – its removal led to flooding and resulted in damage to the 18th-century stately home., 16:C - A Python, ie Terry Jones. The shops were renamed TG Jones, a decision the new owners bravely tried to spin thusly: “Jones carries the same sense of family [as Smith] and reflects these stores being at the heart of everyone’s high street.” (Separately, the quizmaster is aware Terry Graham Jones slightly ruined the purity of this question by having a second middle name, Parry. Please don’t write in.), 17:A - Portrait of a Lady by the Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi was – eventually – handed over by the daughter of the late Nazi financier Friedrich Kadgien. The day after Dutch newspaper AD published its breakthrough in an investigation into its whereabouts, the property was raided but the painting was no longer there. (The Stedelijk Museum returned a looted Matisse in 2024.), 18:D - An emotional Lineker signed off from the BBC earlier than planned due to controversy over a reshared social media post containing an antisemitic symbol. Answer A was how he opened his final show and C was how he began the post-Des Lynam era., 19:C - After the release of the Chinese company’s chatbot caused US tech shares to drop $1tn – AI’s “Sputnik moment” – Guardian reporter Donna Lu tested out its ability to address topics typically censored in China, including Tiananmen, the umbrella revolution and the Dalai Lama., 20:C - South Park’s 1999 movie was subtitled “Bigger, Longer & Uncut” (a penis gag your quizmaster has embarrassingly only just got, 26 years later). South Park has made headlines throughout 2025 via its relentless mockery of Donald Trump. The Guardian called it “the most important TV show of the Trump 2.0 era”.

Scores

1. 20 and above.

   Top marks!

2. 0 and above.

How did you do?

1-5 Please pay more attention.
6-14 Very good. But spend less time looking up from your phone in 2026.
15-20 Please write this next year.

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