SPECTATOR CHRISTMAS QUIZ

Set by Christopher Howse Wrong numbers

This year 1. Where were there calls for population control when the number of apes reached 250?

2. Name the gas-supply company that announced the closure of 243 high- street showrooms.

3. To whom did the government hand out free umbrellas when a backlog of appli- cants reached 530,000?

4. In SeIly Oak, 21 houses were damaged by what natural phenomenon?

5. Who won nomination as candidate for the Mayor of London by 15,716 votes to 6,350?

6. Who became the trainer with the most National Hunt winners when his 2,644th came in at Newton Abbot?

7. In whose garden was a 450ft borehole sunk, capable of raising 500,000 gallons of water a day?

8. In which month did the Dow-Jones share index close above 10,000 for the first time?

9. What landed in the Egyptian western desert after a journey of 29,056 miles in 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes?

10. The defence minister of which country called Mr Yasser Arafat 'a son of 60,000 whores'?

Overheard

This year, who said: 1. 'I feel like a fox' (when a Commons committee said his achievements were 'largely confined to the publication of documents and policy statements').

2. 'All our problems have come from mainland Europe.' In which month . . ? 3. 'The forces of conservatism: the cynics, the elites, the Establishment.'

4. (Of the opposing sides in Northern Ire- land) 'They're like a couple of drunks walking out of the bar for the last time. When they get to the swinging door, they turn right around and go back in.'

5. 'Make my day, go on talking about the pound, make this the central issue in British politics.'

6. 'Treason!'

7. 'Many of these so-called travellers seem to think that it is perfectly OK for them to cause mayhem in an area, to go bur- gling, thieving, breaking into premises, causing all kinds of trouble, including defecating in the doorways of firms and so on, and getting away with it.'

8. 'Revolt against those who boast of friendship with the United States. The dwarfs on their thrones will be forced to hear you.'

9. 'You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime.'

10. (Of genetically modified food) 'I am not convinced we know enough about the long-term consequences for human health and the environment to release plants (or, heaven forbid, animals) bred in this way.'

Porcine

1. For how much did the Pig sell his ring to the Owl and the Pussy Cat?

2. In which month did a dirty British coaster carry a cargo of Tyne coal, road-rail, pig-lead, firewood, iron-ware and cheap tin trays?

3. Who asked whether the baby had turned into a pig or a fig?

You and I have been given . . .

4. Who 'could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak: That Latin was no more difficile Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle.'

5. Who wrote The Tale of Pigling Bland?

6. Whom does Doll Tearsheet call a `whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig'?

7. Which saint is shown with a bell and a pig?

8. What is Taenia solium?

9. Who owned the Empress of Blandings?

10. In whose Oedipus 7'yrannus does a cho- rus of swine sing: 'Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs.'

Whose teddy was called . . . ?

Ursine

1. Who was 'a Bear of Very Little Brain'?

2. Whose 82nd Symphony is nicknamed `L'Ours'?

3. Who wrote: 'When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.

But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.'

4. Which historian wrote: The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators'?

5. Whose teddy bear was called Archibald Ormsby-Gore?

6. Who wrote: 'The feather'd race with pinions skim the sir- Not so the mackerel, still less the bear.'

7. Which poet wrote the volume of essays Rose Acre Papers (1904) at Bearsted, Kent? 8. Whose bear was Aloysius?

9. What orange giant in the constellation Bootes, in line with the tail of Ursa Major, is the fourth brightest star in the sky?

10. Where did the old person come from who, when he rode on the back of a bear and was asked 'Does it trot?', said 'Cer- tainly not! It's a Moppsikon Floppsikon bear'?

Wearing people

Who gave a name to: 1. A woolly, and was born in Hambleden in 1797?

2. A boot, and was born in Dublin in 1769?

3. A double-breasted overcoat, or a woman's bodice, and was born in Wim- bledon in 1758?

4. A raincoat, and was born in Glasgow in 1766?

5. An airman's lifejacket, and was born in New York City in 1893?

6. A man's black felt hat, and was born at Windlestone Hall, Durham, in 1897?

7. A ceremonial army belt and shoulder- strap, and was born in India in 1824?

8. Low boots, now obsolete, and was born in Rostock in 1742?

9. Rubber-soled canvas shoes, and was born in Bristol in 1824?

10. Drooping whiskers, and was a charac- ter in a play, Our American Cousin, in 1858?

Elementary

Match these poets to the verses below:

William Shakespeare, Charles Turner, Edith Sitwell, William Cowper, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Richard Crashaw, Hilaire Belloc, John Donne, Henry Vaughan.

An airman's lifejacket

1. My fire of Passion, sighes of ayre, Water of teares, and earthly sad despaire, Which my materialls bee, But neere worse out by loves securitie, She, to my losse, doth by her death repaire, And I might live long wretched so But that my fire doth with my fuell grow.

Earth

2. Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole? ...Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned unto dust; the dust is earth: of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was con- verted might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

That night . . .

3. Brave wormes, and Earth! that thus could have A God Enclos'd within your Cell, Your maker pent up in a grave, Life lockt in death, heav'n in a shell.

Ah, my deare bard! what couldst thou spye In this impure, rebellious clay, That made thee thus resolve to dye For those that kill thee every day?

Air

4. Full often as I rove by path or style, To watch the harvest ripening in the vale, Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile — A smile that ends in laughter — the quick gale Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends; While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace,

About his viewless quarry dips and bends — And all the fine excitement of the chase Lies in the hunter's beauty: in the eclipse Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard

Tilts as the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips Among the white-tops in the ditches reared: And hedgerow's flowery breast of lacework stirs Faintly in that full wind that rocks th'out- standing firs.

5. The wind's bastinado Whipt on the calico Skin of the Macaroon And the black Picaroon Beneath the galloon Of the midnight sky.

Fire

6. So then — the Vandals of our isle, Sworn foes to sense and law, Have burnt to dust a nobler pile Than ever Roman saw!

7. That Night a Fire did break out —

You should have heard Matilda Shout!

You should have heard her Scream and Bawl And throw the window up and call To People passing in the Street — (The rapidly increasing Heat Encouraging her to obtain Their confidence) — but all in vain!

For every time She shouted 'Fire!'

They only answered 'Little Liar!'

Water

8. Let it be no longer a forlorne hope To wash an Aethiope: He's washt, His gloomy skin a peacefulle shade For his white soule is made: And now, I doubt not, the Eternal! Dove, A black-fac'd house will love.

9. As mad sexton's bell, tolling For earth's loveliest daughter, Night's dumbness breaks rolling Ghostily: So our boat breaks the water Witchingly.

As her look the dream troubles Of her tearful-eyed lover, So our sails in the bubbles Ghostily Are mirrored, and hover Moonily.

Answers: page 107.