Christmas quiz: Miscellany

1. "We had access to too much money and little by little we went insane." Of which film was this said by its director?

2. What does Harry Redknapp lack that Wordsworth (below) also lacked and Stevie Wonder partially lacks?

3. Which song did Ronald Reagan (right) order to be played at the White House for the visit of the Austrian president Rudolf Kirschläger, believing it to be the Austrian national anthem?

4. "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." What was John Adams talking about?

5. What three-word phrase links Mao's widow Jiang Qing and the singer Jon King?

6. The biggest-selling book in Irish history is, as you might imagine, the Bible. But whose autobiography is the second-biggest seller?

7. In 1960, British servicemen had their pay docked by sixpence each to pay for a marble commode as a wedding present for whom?

8. "This the hairy man that stands here/ Who brought the sun and caused it to shine/ A step up, another step upward/A step up, another step upward! The sun shines!" What is this a translation of?

9. In the 1960s, in an effort to have it removed from the shelves, which game was described by rival manufacturers as "sex in a box"?

10. In 1981, when Bjørge Lillelian was commentating at the end of Norway's 2-1 win against England (above), he listed seven English and one Canadian figure, living and dead, ending with the undeniable statement that: "Your boys took a hell of a beating." Who were they?

11. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, "autointoxication" was blamed for around 90 per cent of all diseases, as well as baldness and premature senility. In the 1920s, it was variously described as "the universal menace", "the failure of civilisation" and "the foe of beauty". What do we call it now?

12. "Here am I, rich as Croesus, married to the most beautiful woman in the world, but what I'd give for a pint and a shag up against the wall in Merthyr." Who said it?

13. What does Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary define as: "an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral"?

14. Gore Vidal did uncredited work on the screenplays of two films set largely in ancient Rome. A point for each.

15. In no particular order, what are the five best-selling music albums of all time?

16. Ten countries in the world have four letters in their name. Which?

17. A metre was once defined as one ten-millionth of the distance between A and C, passing through B. What were A, B and C?

18. What, or who, links the painters John Byrne and Sandro Kopp?

19. They died within a month of each other in 1984, in very similar circumstances. Who?

20. "Rhinotillexomania" is the medical term for what?