Miles Kington: Can you remember anything about this year?

Every year every paper has a quiz to test you on your knowledge of what happened during the year, and you merrily start doing it, only to realise that you can't remember anything much that happened during the year, and you lose all your merriness, especially when you realise that you can't consult the answers, because they are not going to be published for another week, by which time you will have forgotten the questions, and the whole experience leaves you utterly depressed.

That is why I am bringing you a Quiz of the Year with a difference.

This quiz is a relativist quiz.

Ah, but what is relativism?

Hold on - why don't we make that the first question of the quiz?

No sooner said than done.

1. What is relativism? Is it

a) thinking that everyone's religious beliefs are equally valid?

b) thinking that everyone's political beliefs are equally valid?

c) thinking that everyone's answers to a Quiz of the Year are equally valid?

2. Yes, everyone's answers being equally valid (according to a relativist way of thinking), there is no point in my giving you the correct answers, as all answers are equally correct, so let's push on with the Great Quiz of the Year 2005, by asking a few challenging questions to which I want you to provide your own answer, such as: In his five years as an unpaid adviser to Number 10 Downing Street, can you name any single thing that John Birt did?

3. In his six months as President of the EU, can you name anything that Tony Blair did?

4. Can you name Iain Duncan-Smith?

5. It is said that politicians are very bad at quizzes. This is because they do not know how to answer the question directly, only to produce the answer they have been taught beforehand. So, when a politician is asked a quiz question such as "What did the K in Jerome K Jerome stand for?", he or she, not knowing the answer, will almost always reply:"I don't think that is the question we should be asking ourselves. What we should be asking is...."

Which politician in 2005 was worst at answering the question directly?

a) Hazel Blears

6. Name at least three goals scored by George Best.

7. Is Hilary Benn a boy or a girl?

8. Who had the most musicals and plays written about them in 2005?

a) David Blunkett

b) Boris Johnson

9. Would you pay good money to go and see a play or musical about:

a) Conrad Black?

b) Stephen Byers?

c) John Birt?

d) Cod stocks in the North Sea?

10. Existing stocks of Scottish fishermen are at an all-time low. What measures are the EU taking to ensure they go even lower?

11. What is the last make-over by Madonna that you can remember?

12. If John Lennon were still alive today, would he be:

a) Telling Bob Geldof where to get off?

b) Telling Bono where to get off?

c) Telling everyone on Grumpy Old Men where to get off?

d) Telling Yoko Ono where to get off?

13. How on earth did the English win the Ashes?

14. On 3 October 2005, The Daily Telegraph led with this headline: "It's Clarke v Davis" over a story by George Jones, Political Editor. Considering that the eventual winner is not even mentioned in the headline, what does this tell us about modern journalism?

a) Nothing.

b) Everything.

15. Why have we heard so little recently from:

a) Gerry Adams?

b) Jeffrey Archer?

c) The Duchess of Cornwall?

d) Mary Archer?

e) Nigel Kennedy?

f) Charles Kennedy?

16. Why do we always find it so difficult to put a name to:

a) The Chief Executive of

Scotland?

b) The Chairman of English National Opera?

c) Hazel Blears?