Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Miles Kington: Any questions? Well, here are the answers

She indignantly refused the Nobel Prize, only to find she had never been offered it in the first place

Friday 30 December 2005 01:00 GMT
Comments

Today, the moment you've been waiting for! Yes, I bring you the answers to our Grand Christmas Quiz.

1. a) James Bond

b) Basildon Bond

c) Jenny Bond

d) Old Bond Street

e) Junk Bond

f) Bondi Beach

2. It was once described by Winston Churchill as "the only book I wish I had never written".

3. Oh, and Flemish bond.

4. She wrote indignantly to the Nobel Academy in Stockholm, proudly refusing the Nobel Prize, only to find, to her great mortification, that she had never been offered it in the first place. It had all been an elaborate prank arranged by Bertrand Russell.

5. It is Lynne Truss's real name.

6. It is the correct way to spell Lynne Truss.

7. It is the pseudonym under which Lynne Truss used to write subtitles for naughty French films.

8. It is the name by which she is better known in Norway, as her real name is actually the trade name of a brand of Norwegian lavatory cleaner.

9. The lethal blow with the cricket bat was adjudged accidental by the court, and he was found not guilty. He went on to play for England another 40 times.

10. The clinical name given to the irrational fear that Ringo Starr will one day be the only Beatle left alive.

11. The only saint in the history of Catholicism who had his sainthood removed after he had been sainted. This was on the grounds that all his miracles could be explained by local atmospheric conditions and were therefore not "miracles" at all. People who have tried praying to him since then have reported getting what they describe as an "unobtainable" tone.

12. For misrepresentation. He was fined £400 for having a sign saying "Baby On Board" in the back window of his car, because at the time he was stopped by the police there was in fact no baby in the car.

13. The old name for incontinence.

14. An auction website based in Yorkshire called "Ebay Gum".

15. A kind of Patagonian spirit made from fermented cow dung.

16. Arsenal, in 1936, wearing red and white stripes. They were all fined £50 and bound over.

17. He was the only man of whom the Queen Mother ever said: "He's more Queen Mum than I shall ever be."

18. The theory that in the era after David Attenborough BBC natural history documentaries will become an extinct species.

19. The name given to a kind of river that rises near the sea and then gets further and further from it.

20. A kind of golf club which is legal only in the Channel Isles.

21. The man now known to have been responsible for ordering Kennedy's assassination.

22. Wilf Sell.

23. It is the only name beginning with "Z" after which a hurricane has never been named.

24. "Mutiny on the Bounty".

25. "Matinee on the Bounty".

26. "Martini on the Bounty".

27. It is the secret reason why the Queen has never allowed a knighthood to be offered to Humphrey Lyttelton.

28. The name by which true Lesbians, ie the inhabitants of the isle of Lesbos, prefer to be known.

29. What misprints were called before the invention of printing.

30. Passive drinking.

31. It is the only major public school which has no school song. At the final assembly of term, the 600 boys merely hum "Jerusalem".

32. The opposite of "happy hour".

33. And so would you, if you were a ballerina and had been given a name like Darcey Bussell.

34. Very like a Bloody Mary, except that in that part of Asia it is made not with tomato juice but with blood.

35. The first (and last) attempt to produce a dictionary in non-alphabetical order.

36. Spotty Dick is believed to have been named after him.

37. Australian slang term for Prince Philip.

38. The longest an office plant has survived without watering.

39. The compulsion to turn every word into an anagram.

40. The sign at the exit of the Croatian city of Split used to read "Split Ends", but it was so often stolen by English tourists that it now reads: "Split Exit".

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in