SPECTATOR CHRISTMAS QUIZ Set by Christopher Howse

On the record

Who, this year, said:

1 do not even know what an ouija board is.'

2 (To Bob Geldof) 'I have executed people who plotted a coup against me, but I do not use torture. These are stories put about by my enemies in the bourgeoisie because I am a man of the people and I play the guitar.'

3 That he had concealed his father's death since 1979 'out of consideration for the people who were in contact with him'.

4 Of Mr Gorbachev that 'He has a nice .smile, but he's got iron teeth.'

5 'People are now discovering the price of insubordination. . . and, boy, are we going to make it stick.'

6 That the Contras in Nicaragua were `the moral equal of the Founding Fathers'.

7 That his acquittal was a 'tremendous triumph' and a `tremendous surprise'.

8 'My wife, as some people know, had a lot of children — eight if I remember rightly.'

9 'I saved TV-am and now I am here to save the BBC.'

10 '£1,500 a month is not what people need for living in central London.'

`Only connect'

1 What relation was Beatrice Webb to Malcolm Mugge ridge?

2 What relation was the author of Night- mare Abbey to the author of The Egoist?

3 What connects Henry James and E. F. Benson?

4 What relation was the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography to the author of Mrs Danoway?

5 What was the Christian name of the first Mrs Denis Thatcher?

6 What connects. Mr Foot's dog and the town where Chesterton died?

`Martyr to music'

1 Which director of Faber and Faber once sang:

Things they do look awful cold, Hope I die before I get old.

2 Which performer at the Zimbabwe independence celebrations once sang:

I remember when we used to sit in the government yard in Trenchtown Observing the hypocrites as they would mingle with the good people we met.

3 Who, before he killed Nancy Spongen and died himself, played to the song:

God save the Queen, She ain't no human being.

There is no future In England's dream.

4 Who sang:

I could be a writer with a growing reputation I could be the ticket man at Fulham Broad- way Station

5 Which band, led by Sting, declared:

I don't want to spend the rest of my life Looking at the barrel of an armalite.

6 Which band, headed by Joe Strummer, was of the opinion that:

Black man got a lot of problems, But they don't mind throwing a brick. White people go to school, Where they teach you how to be thick.

Mad World

1 Who stabbed her mother before help- ing her brother cut Shakespeare down to size?

2 Which dramatic lady received a cold hand and was mobbed by zanies?

3 Which cat-loving poet shared Johnson's lack of.taste for clean linen?

4 Which hunting squire died after setting fire to his nightshirt to cure the hiccups?

5 Who killed his father before painting .`The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke'?

6 Which melancholic poet recounted a breakneck ride to Ware?

7 Which Broadmoor inmate once killed Jack 'the Hat' McVitie?

8 Which kite-flier had trouble with King Charles's head?

9 Which artist was driven to self- mutilation when staying with Gauguin?

10 Who was it that, sent mad by the exertions of compiling his Biblical con- cordance, followed behind the Wilkes- ite mob, rubbing off their chalked graffiti with a sponge?

First circle

Which film, screened in London this year: 1 Was retitled Cop au Vin?

2 Took its title from Henry IV Part I, but was mistranslated back into English?

3 Concerned a man called, at home, Gottlieb, but baptised Joannes Chry- sostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus? 4 Was set among the Amish sect of Pennsylvania?

5 Starred Warren Mitchell as a removal man?

6 Starred Alec Guinness as an Indian?

Gratia artis

Of paintings on show in England:

1 Which Velazquez includes a reflection of a face where optics would require some other part to be in view?

2 Which Holbein portrait shows a skull in distorted perspective?

3 Which animal figures largely in a can- vas by Henri `le Douanier' Rousseau originally entitled `Surpris!'?

4 Which king who died of lung cancer is portrayed by Sir James Gunn in a conversation piece, smoking a cigarette at tea time?

5 Which husband of an English queen was painted by a Greek, accompanied by the Pope and the Doge of Venice adoring the name of Jesus?

6 Which army officer who died 100 years ago was painted by James Jacques Tissot, was 6'4" tall and wrote On Horseback through Asia Minor?

Sporting chance

1 Who was ejected by The Reject at Chepstow in April and what was the consequence?

2 Who was the only bowler to take 100 County Championship wickets during the 1985 season?

3 Who had his winner's medal withheld after the 1985 FA Cup Final (and why)?

4 From whom did Barry McGuigan win the world featherweight title at Loftus Road in June?

5 Who was the American tennis player prohibited from wearing all-white at Wimbledon in 1985?

6 Nigel Mansell won two Grands Prix in 1985 — which were they?

7 When running at Peterborough in July he was thought to have been hit by a stone but was later found to have pulled a muscle — name him.

8 Name Lester Piggott's last ride in Bri- tain.

9 Whose putt sealed Great Britain's vic- tory over the US in the 1985 Ryder Cup?

Deans

1 Which Dean is credited with the re- mark: 'You are not drunk if you can lie on the carpet without holding on'?

2 At which new club in Dean Street, Soho, does `everyone spend half their time looking round to see who is there,' according to Richard Ingrams?

3 Of which Dean's wife was it written: She plays the first And I the second fiddle.

SPECTATOR CHRISTMAS QUIZ

4 Which American Dean commented that British had 'lost an Empire and not yet found a role'?

5 Which Dean was killed in a car crash 30 years ago?

6 Who was the Red Dean?

7 Of where was the subject of the verse 'I do not like thee, Dr Fell' Dean?

8 Which Dean wrote marginal comments criticising the author in his copy of Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time which included: 'Nonsense. . . Puppy. . . Sad trash. . . Pox of his Claps. . . Dog. . . Treacherous vil- lain. . . Dog, dog, dog'?

9 Which Dean cancelled engagements this year because of an injured hand, but had half a rose named after him?

10 Which Dean of Christ Church preached on Christmas Day:

Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek litera- ture, which not only elevates above the regular herd, but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument.

Last words

Of which 20th-century novels are these the concluding sentences?

1 He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.

2 But you, 0 my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Ame. And all that cal.

3 She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror of all. 4 Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

5 And presently, like a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to return.

6 After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

7 The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.

8 Even the formal measure of the Sea- sons seemed suspended in the wintry silence.

Eat

1 Which mammals picknicked on 'cold- tonguecoldhamcoldbeef pickledgherkin saladfrenchrollscress sandwiches potted meatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater. . .'? 2 Which Jacobean epicurean dreamt of dining on:

The beards of barbels, served instead of salads; Oiled mushrooms; and the swelling un- ctuous paps Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off?

3 Who 'dined on mince/And slices of quince'? 4 Who asked: 'You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now?'

5 Who, according to John Betjeman, said: `I'm a man/More dined against than dining'?

6 Who asked: 'Do I dare to eat a peach?'

7 Which of Bertie's aunts 'eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin'?

8 Who thought that mole was the nastiest thing he had eaten until he tried bluebottles?

Drink

What is: 1 A dog's nose 2 Coke upon Littleton 3 Metheglin 4 Red Biddy 5 Arrack 6 A snake bite 7 Brandy-pawnee 8 A box-up of Jack 9 Gin and it 10 A horse's neck

Sick transit.

1 Give the book (and its pseudonymous author) in which the following passage by Brian 0 Nolan occurs:

Kelly then made a low noise and opened his mouth and covered the small man from shoulder to knee with a coating of unpleasant buff-coloured puke. . . . Afterwards the small man was some distance from us in the lane, shaking his divested coat and rubbing it along a wall. He is the little man that the name of Rousseau will always recall to me.

2 In which Elizabethan epic does the hero come across a monster which . . . spewd out of her filthy maw

A flood of poyson horrible and blacke Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw, Which stunk so vildly, that it forst him slacke His grasping holde.

3 Which society portrait painter enter- tained Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell while they sat to him by repeating:

There was a young lady from Spain Who was horribly sick on a train, Not once, but again,

And again and again, And again and again and again.

4 Who was banned from the Bull, Ambridge, for being sick in the piano?

5 Which novel contains this remark: `So like one's first parties,' said Miss Runci- ble, 'being sick with other people singing.'

`Not what I meant at all'

1 Who recounts the following incident: ' "The woman had a bottom of good sense." The word bottom thus intro- duced was so ludicrous. . . that most of us could not forbear tittering'?

2 Which children's book contains the chapter heading 'Intercourse with the savages'?

3 Which philosopher was the author of the book called, in English, The Gay Science?

4 Who innocently wrote:

Owls and bats, Cowls and twats, Monks and nuns, in a cloister's mood

Acrostic

Enter the four-letter words which complete the quotations below in the grid to spell out the message in columns A and C.

1 Clear your mind of . . . . You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society: but don't think foolishly.

(Boswell's Life, 13 May 1783) 2 Thou thinkst that monarchs never can act ill. Get thy . . shaved, poor fool or think so

still. (Peter Pindar, 'Ode upon Ode') 3 Th'inferior Priestess, at her altar's side, Trembling, begins the sacred . . . .s of Pride.

(Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I)

4 Ulysses and . . . . fight.

Penelope vouchsafes her sight To all her Wooers, who present Gifts to her, ravisht with content.

(Chapman, The Odyssey,

Book 18, Argument) 5 And on the 12th I love to wear The . . „ my father wore. (Orange song)

6 I read, and sigh, and wish I were a . . • . (George Herbert, The Temple, 'Affliction') 7 My father's opinion of Dr Johnson may be conjectured from the name he afterwards gave him, which was . . . . Major. (Boswell, A Tour to the Hebrides,

6 November) 8 But look, amazement on thy mother . . .

(Hamlet, Act III, Scene iv) Answers — page 72 A C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Christmas Quiz answers

On the record 1 Prince Charles; 2 Captain Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso; 3 Dr Mengele's son; 4 Mr Gromyko; 5 Ian MacGregor; 6 President Reagan; 7 Clive Ponting; 8 Lord Longford; 9 Roland Rat; 10 Lord Gowrie.

`Only connect' 1 Wife's aunt; 2 Father-in- law (Thomas Love Peacock and George Meredith); 3 Lamb House, Rye, where they both lived; 4 Father (Sir Leslie Stephen and Virgina Woolf); 5 Margaret; 6 .-Disraeli. The dog is Dizzy and the town is Beaconsfield, from which Disraeli took his title.

'Martyr to music' 1 Peter Townshend (The Who), 'My Generation'; 2 Bob Marley (and the Wailers), 'No Woman No Cry'; 3 Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) 'God Save the Queen'; 4 Ian Dury (and the Blockheads) 'What a Waste'; 5 The Police, 'Invisible Sun'; 6 The Clash, 'White Riot'.

Mad World 1 Mary Lamb; 2 The Duchess of Malfi; 3 Christopher Smart; 4 Jack Mytton; 5 Richard Dadd; 6 William Cow- per; 7 Ronnie Kray; 8 Mr Dick; 9 Vincent van Gogh; 10 Alexander Cruden.

First circle 1 Poulet au Vinaigre; 2 Favourites of the Moon (Favoris de la Lune). Shakespeare had 'minions of the moon'; 3 Amadeus; 4 Witness; 6 A Passage to India; Gratia artis 1 'The Rokeby Venus'; 2 'The Ambassadors' (Jean de Dinteville and George de Selve); 3 A tiger; 4 George VI; 5 Philip II of Spain; 6 Captain Frederick Burnaby.

Sporting chance 1 John Francome announced his retirement as a jockey; 2 Neal Radford (Worcestershire) took 100 wickets; 3 Kevin Moran (Man Utd) be- came the first player to be sent off during an F.A. Cup Final; 4 Eusebio Pedrosa; 5 Ann White — banned from wearing an all-white body stocking; 6 European and South African Grand Prix: 7 Scurlogue Champ; 8 Wind from the West (3.45 at Nottingham, 29 October); 9 Sam Torr- ance.

Deans 1 Dean Martin; 2 Groucho's; 3 Dean Liddell; 4 Dean Acheson; 5 James Dean; 6 Hewlett Johnson; 7 Christ Church, Ox- ford; 8 Dean Swift; 9 Christopher Dean; 10 Dean Thomas Gaisford (1779-1855), Last words 1 Lord of the Flies (William Golding); 2 A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess); 3 Brighton Rock (Gra- ham Greene); 4 The Catcher in the Rye (J.

D. Salinger); 5 Vile Bodies (Evelyn Waugh); 6 A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway); 7 Catch 22 (Joseph Heller); 8 Hearing Secret Harmonies (Anthony Powell).

Eat Rat and Mole (The Wind in the Willows); 2 Sir Epicure Mammon (The Alchemist); 3 The Owl and the Pussy Cat; 4 Benn Gunn (Treasure Island); 5 Maurice

Bowra (Summoned by Bells); 6 J. Alfred Prufrock; 7 Aunt Agatha; 8 Professor William Buckland.

Drink 1 Bitter beer and gin; 2 Tent (Spanish red wine) and brandy; 3 Mcad; 4 Red wine and methylated spirits; 5 Palm. rice or jaggery sugar spirit; 6 Lager and cider; 7 Brandy and water; 8 Surgical spirit and water; 9 Gin and Italian vermouth; 10 Ginger ale and spirit (usually brandy) with a slice of lemon on the glass rim.

Sick transit. . . . 1 At Swim Two Birds, Flann O'Brien; 2 The Faerie Queene (Can- to I. 20), 3 John Singer Sargent; 4 Eddie Grundy (The Archers); 5 Vile Bodies (Chapter 1).

'Not what I meant at all' 1 Boswell, Life, 20 April 1781; 2 Coral Island; 3 Nietzsche; 4 Browning, thinking it meant some conven- tual attire, having read in Vanity of Vani- ties (1660): 'They talk'd of his having a Cardinalls Hat,/They'd send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat.'

Acrostic

A

C .

1 C A N

T _

2 H E A D 3 R I T E 4 I R U S 5

S

A

S

H 6 T R E E 7

U

R

S

A _ 8 S 1 T

S

Christus natus est.