The 2010 Whitaker’s Almanack Quiz answers
International affairs
1) April; 2) Indonesia; 3) The House of Representatives; 4) Burma (Myanmar); 5) The Dalai Lama; 6) Serbia; 7) Russia and Georgia; 8) Bono; 9) b. Illegalising the Islamic veil in public places; 10) a. Inciting the subversion of state power
Art and literature
1) Alberto Giacometti; 2) 100 million; 3) Jonathan Franzen; 4) The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas ; 5) The Literary Review's "Bad Sex Award"; 6) Berlin; 7) ForgingEexpressionist paintings; 8) The Gruffalo; 9) North Korea; 10) Philip Larkin; 11) T. S. Eliot (won the TSE prize; hosted the TSE festival; staged a version of TSE's The Waste Land); 12) The Pale King
Business and the economy
1) Orange and T-Mobile; 2) b. Wallis; 3) German Chancellor Angela Merkel; 4) Metro Bank; 5) Toyota; 6) c. Greece, Ireland, The Netherlands; 7) b. 6 million; 8) Northern Cyprus; 9) BA and Iberia
Election Special
1) Rochdale; 2) An Elvis impersonator; 3) John Prescott (Baron Prescott); 4) Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; 5) David Laws; 6) Tony Blair; 7) Alastair Campbell; 8) a. The Guardian – Liberal Democrats; b. The Sun – Conservatives; c. The Mirror – Labour (but urged readers to tactically vote Lib Dem where necessary to keep the Conservatives from power); 9) Nigel Farage, UKIP candidate for Buckingham (he and the pilot escaped with injuries)
Celebrity
1) Hampstead, London; 2) Lady Gaga; 3) They refused to post on either site until the sum of $1m (£640,000) was raised for the Keep a Child Alive charity; 4) Ann Widdecombe; 5) Sarah Palin's; 6) 1b (Matt Smith – Cardiff); 2d (HRH the Duchess of Cornwall – Bath); 3a (Jedward – Braehead shopping centre, Glasgow); 4c (Joe McElderry - Regent Street); 7) Cheryl Cole, Didier Drogba; 8) Stacey Solomon; 9) Pete Doherty
Sport
1) He accidentally entered the England football team's dressing room and confronted the players after a poor performance against Algeria; 2) WBA heavyweight title fight – David Haye v Audley Harrison; 3) a. Zero; 4) Maria Sharapova (annual income of $24.5m); 5) Women's Skeleton; 6) c. 14; 7) The New York Post; 8) Her Twitter account name is @theashes, which led to her receiving tweets relating to the Ashes cricket series; 9) John McEnroe discussing the record-breaking Wimbledon first round men's singles match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut; 10) Langur monkeys
Music
1) Because there will be a shortage of portable toilets as a result of the 2012 Olympic Games; 2) The Walkman; 3) Wyclef Jean; 4) Roxy Music; 5) She had a number one album in the UK and USA simultaneously for the second time in a year; 6) Robbie Williams; 7) Andy Murray; 8) "Suspicious Minds"; 9) They have all performed at the Super Bowl halftime show; 10) c. "This Charming Man" by The Smiths (it was one of David Cameron's selections in 2006)
Science and Environment
1) Graphene; 2) 14 peregrine falcon eggs; 3) Static kill; 4) Arsenic; 5) The Exmoor Emperor; 6) Ozzy Osbourne; 7) Ununseptium; 8) Alcathoe's bat; 9) It was frozen (at £4.6bn) for four years; 10) At the CERN laboratory in Switzerland
Go figure
9,000 (i); 183 (a) 622 (c); 57 (b); 51,300,000 (g); 50,000,000,000 (d); 2,450,000 (e); 72,000,000,000 (h); 67.08 (f)
PM's Gift List
1) Set of ties – d. Silvio Berlusconi; 2) Pen set – a. Nicolas Sarkozy; 3) iPad – e. Michael Bloomberg; 4) Jewellery and clock – b. King of Bahrain; 5) Painting – c. Barack Obama; Bonus question: None (he bought an iPad given by Mike Faith)
Quotes
1) Naomi Campbell; 2) Boris Johnson; 3) Sarah Palin; 4) Mario Sepulveda (rescued Chilean miner, one of "Los 33"); 5) Silvio Berlusconi ; 6) Christine O'Donnell (Tea Party candidate, Delaware); 7) Bernard Madoff ; 8) Nick Clegg; 9) Vladimir Putin; 10) Sandra Bullock
Births, Marriages and Deaths
1) Katy Perry and Russell Brand; 2) HRH the Duke of Gloucester (each of his children had a baby girl – one in May, one in June and one in July); 3) His owners at the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany reported he had died in October; 4) The prime minister's family were holidaying near to the Cornish village of St Endellion when Mrs Cameron went into labour; 5) Claire Rayner; 6) Alex "Hurricane" Higgins; 7) Westminster Abbey; 8) Diana, Princess of Wales; 9) Jamie and Jools Oliver
Media
1) Deputy Director of the BBC Mark Byford; 2) Google; 3) Red; 4) c. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood; 5) Kinect; 6) Martin Freeman; 7) They all won reality TV shows this year (Masterchef, Big Brother and Junior Apprentice); 8) Toy Story 3; 9) Daybreak; 10) c. Katie Price
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