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So, tell me the Sanskrit word for `limerick'

Miles Kington
Monday 09 January 1995 00:02 GMT
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Did you remember to cut out and keep our Grand Christmas Quiz? I hope so, because here, at last, are the answers to it.

1. It is the place in London where new names for potatoes have to be submitted and approved of.

2. He is the Car Registration Officer who has to vet new vehicle registration letter combinations and make sure they do not form obscene or suggestive words.

3. It was stolen from the National Underwear Museum in 1979 and never recovered.

4. Dr Ian Paisley (the others are all real doctors).

5. He was known as the joking judge because of his habit of telling prisoners: "I am going to give you a suspended sentence: you are going to be taken out and hung."

6. The man who invented hotel hangers that could not be removed.

7. It is the only island in the West Indies named after a saint who never actually existed. (She was invented for the purpose by a clerk at the Foreign Office.)

8. He was the originator of the theory that somebody somewhere in outer space is receiving all our television programmes and is preparing to obliterate the planet Earth. In order to stop it happening; he surmised that meteorites were part of the campaign.

9. He was the 1994 winner of the David Mellor Opera Karaoke Trophy.

10. It is an old Wiltshire name given to a baked potato that explodes while cooking in the oven.

11. Dr Ian Paisley (all the rest are politicians).

12. He was an 18th-century horticultural philosopher, who said: "If it is possible to have a kitchen garden, why is it not possible to have a bedroom garden or a larder garden or a withdrawing-room garden?" He later created a large series of billiard-room gardens at Longleat, but they were not a success and no one now knows what they looked like.

13. It is the Italian musical term for "hitting the instrument with the wrist".

14. He said: "Until 1994, people thought that the Tory Party was the only party that could govern Britain. But then, until 1994 people thought that Coca-Cola were the only people who could make Coke."

15. It is the only known anagram for "antinomy".

16. It is the name which tailors give to the hole which sometimes appears in men's inside jacket pockets and through which pencils, ballpoint pens, tooth-picks etc fall and then lodge in the lining.

17. Dr Ian Paisley (all the rest are men of God).

18. He is the patron saint of buskers.

19. It was the nickname given to the lavatory in the House of Commons which was to begin with reserved exclusively for the use of Nancy Astor who, for a long time, was the only female MP in Westminster.

20. The Sanskrit word for "limerick".

21. It is the bovine equivalent of purring.

22. Jean-Pierre Daubigny, who for his efforts was created Vicomte de Pjyama.

23. Tranquil Bowel Syndrome.

24. The Tottenham Hotspur team, in 1927, wearing black and white shirts and white shorts. They were all released on bail and later given small fines.

25. It is the Italian musical term for "hitting your wrist with your instrument".

26. It is the only country in the world where attempted suicide is punishable with death.

27. Dr Ian Paisley (all the others have been used to dub Gerry Adams's voice on the news).

28. His tomb was finally unsealed in 1958, but no evidence of Shakespearian connection was ever found. There was, however, a large quantity of marijuana concealed inside.

29. The population expert, Dr Adrian Sackville. He pointed out that 300,000 people go missing every year, and that presumably they all reappear in new identities. This means that over a 10-year period, something like 3 million people - or a third of the population - adopt a false guise. This means, in turn, that all population statistics are basically flawed. Shortly afterwards Dr Adrian Sackville, whose life's work had just gone down the drain, disappeared and has not been seen since.

30. It is the Italian musical expression for "hitting the conductor with your instrument".

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