Christmas quiz round five: Can you spot the link?

All these things have something in common. See if you can find it, writes Chris Maume

(Getty)

1. Who are the above and how were they linked in February?

AND HOW ARE THE FOLLOWING LINKED?

2. Belarus, Guyana, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, US?

3. Screentime, the twins Snowflake and Safespace, B-Negative, Trailblazer?

4. The New Wilderness (Diane Cook), This Mournable Body (Tsitsi Dangarembga), Burnt Sugar (Avni Doshi), The Shadow King (Maaza Mengiste), Real Life (Brandon Taylor), in November?

5. BNT162b2, AZD1222, mRNA-1273, INO-4800, GX-19, SCB-2019?

6. YHLQMDLG, by Bad Bunny; After Hours, The Weeknd; Hollywood’s Bleeding, Post Malone; Fine Line, Harry Styles; Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa?

7. Elizabeth’s salute; Anne showjumping; Philip shooting pheasant in August rather than grouse; Charles’s fly-fishing technique?

8. Baroness Harding; Kate Bingham; Lord Feldman of Elstree; David Meller, of Meller Designs; Owen Paterson; George Pascoe-Watson, chairman of Portland Communications; Lord O’Shaughnessy?  

9. In November: bushfires, Covid-19, WFH, lockdown, circuit-breaker, support bubbles, keyworkers, furlough, Black Lives Matter, moonshot?

10. “Frankly, it is rather hideous – but also quite wonderful, shimmering against the weak blue of a late November sky”; “It's been compared to a rocket of hope going up to the sky, tracking the fight for female empowerment”; “None of us expected to find ourselves contemplating whether or not she had a full bush”?

Tap here for answers

1. Renee Zellweger, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt, who were, respectively, Best Actress (for Judy), Best Supporting Actress (Marriage Story), Best Actor (The Joker) and Best Supporting Actor (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) at the 92nd Academy Awards.

2. They are all countries which had elections that were criticised by some as unfair; in August the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo put pressure on Guyana when its outgoing president, David Granger, blamed his defeat on illegitimate votes.

3. They were all announced in March as new Marvel characters.

4. They were all on the shortlist for the Booker Prize in November but lost to Douglas Stuart’s novel Shuggie Bain.

5. They are all potential vaccines against Covid-19.

6. In descending order, they were the top five most-streamed albums of 2020.

7. They have all been cited as historical errors in the fourth season of The Crown: the Queen’s salute was wrongly given with a cocked wrist; Princess Anne was an eventer, not a showjumper; Prince Charles’s poor attempts at fly-fishing were criticised in a letter to The Times: “To imagine that any self-respecting fisherman would allow his line to touch down so catastrophically is bad enough, but to then suggest that such a cast could possibly result in the landing of a fine salmon is tantamount to gross – almost criminal – negligence. Never has a television series managed to lose all credibility with such aplomb.”

8. They are all people who were criticised in some quarters for being part of the government’s “chumocracy”, having secured Covid-related work thanks, it is alleged, to their friendships and connections with government figures. 

9. They were all on the Oxford Dictionaries list of “Words of an Unprecedented Year”; the company usually chooses just one word of the year.

10. They were all comments on “A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft”, Maggi Hambling’s controversial piece that was unveiled in Newington Green, London, in November – by Kate Chisholm of The Spectator, Hambling herself, and Rhiannon Lucy Coslett of The Guardian.

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Click here for round six: put a name to these faces