Christmas Quiz | 11 December 2014

So they say

In 2014, who was quoted as saying:

1. ‘There is no status for the partner of a head of state, and there has never been one.’
2. ‘He’s there to serve a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device.’
3. ‘Money is no object in this relief effort.’
4. ‘I smoked pot as a kid. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.’
5. ‘If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen.’
6. ‘Rush, O Muslims, to your state, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.’
7. ‘William Hague was probably one of the finest foreign secretaries this country has seen.’
8. ‘If I were there, Margaret, I’d throw my hat in the door before I came in.’
9. ‘Respect is the basic rule of politics and there is nothing unusual or odd about having England flags in your window.’
10. ‘I’m feeling a bit tired, did you get all my data? I might take a nap…’

Talking telephone numbers

In 2014:

1. Fyffes and Chiquita wrangled over a planned merger to sell 160 million boxes a year of what?
2. Which distinctive tower-block in the City of London was bought by Joseph Safra, a Brazilian, for more than £700 million?
3. A man who bet £900,000 received a cheque for £1,093,333.33 from William Hill after which result?
4. A signed copy of which dictator’s bestseller fetched $64,850 at auction in Los Angeles?
5. Name the man who faked his own death in 2002, and, so Teesside Crown Court heard, had paid only £121 of a £679,000 proceeds-of-crime order.
6. Whose painting of waterlilies, which had failed to reach its reserve in 2010, sold in London for £31.7 million?
7. Name the South Korean rapper whose ‘Gangnam Style’ video became the first on YouTube to be watched more than two billion times.