This week, the Spectator Club hosted a quiz night for subscribers – with the ‘Charles Moore’s red corduroys’ team the eventual winners.* The night was such a success we thought other readers would enjoy doing the quiz as well.
There are four rounds of questions below. We’d like to think the questions are fun to work out, and pass the ‘even if you don’t get them, you’ll kick yourself when you hear the answer’ test. If you can beat the winning team’s score we’ll enter you into a draw for a bottle of Pol Roger champagne. Enter your answers here by Friday 6 June.
Round one
1. Which type of pasta was banned from menus for those attending the 2025 papal conclave, because of ancient fears that it could be used to smuggle in notes from the outside world?
2. Which British rock star said in a 1999 interview with Jeremy Paxman that even he didn’t know how to pronounce his own surname?
3. In 1995, a British journalist published a biography of a leading British politician. At the 2005 general election the politican stood down as an MP, while the journalist was elected as an MP. They share the same Christian name. Who are those two men?
4. May 30th was Harry Enfield’s birthday – how old is he now?
5. A report in March 2025 found that recent years have seen a significant drop in children needing surgery after swallowing which item? The item in question historically accounted for 75 per cent of objects swallowed by children, but has undergone a dramatic reduction in everyday use.
6. Between 2002 and 2015, about whom were the following statements made? ‘He appears on high-value stamps in Sweden… he can catch fish with his tongue… he never blinks… he’s confused by stairs… and his left nipple is the shape of the Nürburgring.’
7. Muggsy Bogues, who played for several NBA teams between 1987 and 2001, is the shortest player ever to play in the league. How tall is he?
8. At around midnight on the 14th/15th April 1912, about 425 miles south-southeast of Newfoundland in Canada, some people put some ice in their drinks. Where had that ice come from?
9. James Finlayson was an actor who appeared in 33 Laurel and Hardy films, often uttering a three-letter expression of dismay. In 1988 that expression was adopted, in tribute to Finlayson, by the creators of which fictional character?
10. This musical instrument is played on ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll)’ by AC/DC. A quote often attributed to Oscar Wilde states that the definition of a gentleman is someone who can play this instrument, but doesn’t. Which instrument?
Round two
1. This website and app, launched in 2003, had a five-letter name beginning with S. It was closed in May 2025 due to competition from rivals offering the same service. Which site?
2. Which footballer, who played for England between 1996 and 2007, has the first name Sulzeer?
3. June 1 is Jason Donovan’s birthday – how old is he now?
4. A Donald Trump quote, February 2025 – which word is x? It’s a verb. ‘I try and walk off sometimes without x-ing and I can’t. I have to x.’
5. In 2024 the American author Johannes Lichtman commented on his visit to the headquarters of which organisation, saying that its branch of Starbucks is the only branch in the world where staff aren’t allowed to ask your name?
6. Noel Coward was born in 1899 – in which month?
7. Tony Blair wore the same what for every PMQs of his premiership?
8. Which position in the British cabinet derives its name from the pattern on a cloth used to cover a table in medieval England?
9. Until 1981 the band The Alarm were named Alarm Alarm. They decided on the change after John Peel, grouping them with two other bands, said he was wondering if he should start calling himself John John Peel. Which two other bands?
10. In May 2025 it was announced that, in a bid to tackle a shortage of train drivers, the minimum age for the job would be lowered to what?
Round three
1. In February 2025 Andy Murray revealed that after retiring from tennis he tried a sport he’d always wanted to try, but had never been allowed to because of the risk of injury. At the end of his first day he had to be rescued. Which sport?
2. The Princess of Wales was given one of these items as a Christmas present last year, to help her with her gardening. Its name is the third word of four in the title of a controversial 1974 film. Which item?
3. June 3 will be Jill Biden’s birthday – how old will she be?
4. A very few entertainers can claim the title ‘Egot’, having won at least one award at each of which four ceremonies?
5. How did the 20-year-old American Thomas Matthew Crooks make the news in 2024?
6. In January 2025, Rocky Flintoff, the son of Andrew Flintoff, became the youngest player ever to score a century for the England Lions cricket team. He was 16 years, 291 days old when he achieved the feat against a Cricket Australia XI. Whose record, set in 1998, did he beat?
7. Why, in September 2022, did Morrisons turn down the volume of the beeps on their tills … a West London school postpone its Guinea Pig Awareness Week … and Norwich City Council close a bicycle rack?
8. Which song did George Harrison write while sitting in Eric Clapton’s garden on a bright spring morning in 1969?
9. Which country achieved independence from Spain in 1822, and took its modern name from the fact that it lies on the equator?
10. The Serbian version of which British TV show is called ‘No One Thought of That’?
Round four
1. Which three Presidents of the United States were born in 1946?
2. In 2021, who became the first artist ever to achieve UK top 10 singles in six different decades?
3. Which is the only English county whose name contains five consecutive consonants?
4. Winston Churchill’s first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, on May 13th 1940, didn’t actually contain the phrase ‘blood, sweat and tears’. Instead Churchill said: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, x, tears and sweat.’ Which was word is x?
5. Which 1975 hit single had the word ‘Mongolian’ in its working title, but replaced it with another four-syllable word?
6. June 4 is Angelina Jolie’s birthday – how old will she be?
7. He was a Conservative MP between 1992 and 1997. In 2000, when he was created a life peer, he chose, as the place to go with his title, Ranmore in Surrey. Although this wasn’t a deliberate joke, many people commented that Ranmore was very appropriate. Who are we talking about?
8. The last ever case in Britain of a woman suing a man for breach of promise to marry was in 1969. The woman bringing the case was 19 year-old Eva Haraldsted, described by one magazine as ‘an au pair with the emphasis on pair’. The man she sued was 23 and very probably the most famous man in the country. Who was he?
9. Colonel Gaddafi named his yacht after which 20th century revolutionary leader? Diego Maradona had a tattoo of him, as does Mike Tyson.
10. Which British man, born in 1967, once said of his younger brother that he is ‘a man with a fork in a world of soup’?
*Charles Moore has clarified that he does not own, and has never owned, red corduroy trousers.
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