The Spectator

2023 Christmas quiz – the answers

issue 16 December 2023

Fairly odd

1. Lilt

2. For driving at 25mph in a 20mph zone

3. India

4. President Joe Biden

5. Boris and Carrie Johnson

6. Pakistan

7. The Seychelles

8. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi

9. Chocolate

10. The Graf Spee, scuttled in 1939

You don’t say

1. Boris Johnson

2. Donald Trump, on appearing in court in Miami

3. Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England

4. President Vladimir Putin of Russia

5. Also President Vladimir Putin of Russia

6. Nadine Dorries, in an open letter to Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, on leaving Parliament

7. Rishi Sunak

8. Suella Braverman, when Home Secretary, saying why immigration should come down

9. The Prince of Wales, of his grandmother.

10. Gillian Keegan after an ‘off the cuff’ remark following an interview by ITV News

Royal icing

1. The Braemar Gathering

2. Spare

3. Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex

4. Queen Mary, consort of King George V

5. The Princess Royal

6. A salmon

7. President Joe Biden

8. The Duke and Duchess of Rothesay

9. Kenya

10. France

Call me al

1. And others (et alii, et aliae, et alia)

2. For example (exempli gratia)

3. That is [to say] (id est)

4. In the year of the Lord; in the specified year of the Christian era (Anno Domini)

5. After midday (post meridiem)

6. That is to say; namely; to wit (videlicet)

7. In the same place (ibidem)

8. In the work previously mentioned or quoted (opere citato)

9. Which was to be demonstrated (quod erat demonstrandum)

10. Which see (quod vide)

Farewells

1. Akenfield

2. Lady Boothroyd, Betty Boothroyd

3. Sir Bernard Ingham

4. Wally Fawkes

5. Barry Humphries

6. Bill Tidy

7. Harry Belafonte

8. Tony Bennett

9. Paul Johnson

10. Jeremy Clarke

’Tis the season

1. E.F. Benson (Mapp and Lucia)

2. Jane Austen (Mr Elton in Emma)

3. Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited)

4. Anthony Trollope (Lucy Morris and Lady Linlithgow in The Eustace Diamonds)

5. E.Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross (Some Experiences of an Irish RM)

6. Henry James (The Spoils of Poynton)

7. Thomas Love Peacock (Headlong Hall)

8. Charles Dickens (Bleak House)

9. Saki (The Unbearable Bassington)

10.

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