1 A mother and daughter died within a day of each other, and were honoured in Hollywood. Carrie Fisher died aged 60; her mother was 84, but who was she? Clue: her breakout role was as Kathy Selden in a 1952 film.

2 Who was made a World Health Organisation goodwill ambassador, an appointment revoked within days?

3 Canadian Eric Monkman (Wolfson College) fought a delightfully high-profile University Challenge campaign against Bobby Seagull (Emmanuel). But who won the final?

4 “Twenty years ago today a world that I had lived in alone was suddenly open to others. It’s been wonderful. Thank you.” So tweeted an author. The less than gentlemanly reply – “20 years of conning the easily mesmerised masses with execrable literary hogwartwash. Congrats” came from which character, recently found in a YouGov survey to most resemble, along with Mr Trump, the public figure most likely to be in Slytherins?

5 “Ohhh Jeremy Corbyn,” chanted a delighted Glastonbury. An anthem inspired by which band, and which song?

6 Which US magazine broke the Harvey Weinstein story? And which UK newspaper was branded by Wikipedia an “unreliable source”?

7 What became the most expensive painting ever sold at auction?

8 Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said that what would be gone on most routes by the end of next year: unions, or paper railway tickets?

9 Who said it was “disgusting” to keep a washing machine in the kitchen?

10 “So much of what they do sounds like the Blair government in exile. It’s ticking the boxes against the disabled, the aged, LGBT, the ethnic communities and the rest of it, and something gets lost along the way.” Sir Roy Strong, speaking against which once august body?

11 A member of the House of Keys was granted leave to introduce a bill legalising what in the Isle of Man (a full 50 years after the rest of the UK)?

12 What date and precise time was set in stone as Brexit Day? For the moment…

13 What was banned by the pub chain Wetherspoons this year?
a) Mobile phone charging
b) Staff wearing poppies
c) Plastic straws

14 Austria decided to ban full-face veils in public places to placate the right-wing opposition. Similarly, in which other European country, pre-election, did a moderate party take out full-page newspaper adverts which told immigrants: “Behave normally or go away.”

15 Which little Scottish company sent, on spec, Meghan Markle a midi-tote burgundy handbag – only for the American actor to be photographed with it on her first public engagement with Harry? Orders have since skyrocketed. Bonus: how much does the bag (normally) cost?

16 Mrs May and Mr Trump were photographed hand in hand as they negotiated a West Wing colonnade; the press suggested that he suffers from bathmophobia – one of the mildest things suggested about Mr Trump this year. What is it?

17 What did Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan, do when Mr Trump finally released his hand after shaking it for 19 seconds?

18 The president of which African country used to work as a security guard in London’s Holloway Road Argos?

19 Which City firm banned employees from drinking between the hours of nine and five?

20 Lubaina Himid made history when she became the first black woman, and oldest person, to win which prize?

21 Which country won a case at the European Court of Human Rights obliging Muslim parents to send their daughters to mixed swimming lessons?

22 Jodie Whittaker is the new Doctor Who. What thriller is she best known for, and what series did she also star in this year? And which former professional footballer becomes her sidekick?

23 How did Boris react to a poster of Tintin sitting in a burning boat, which reportedly hangs in the EC’s Brexit task force meeting room?

24 The 4th Viscount St Davids offered, on Facebook: “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first-generation immigrant, this fucking boat jumper.” To whom was he referring?

25 The BBC suspended release of which forthcoming Agatha Christie adaptation in the wake of rape allegations against the lead actor?

26 Which Colson Whitehead novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction?

27 What was the name of the hurricane which devastated Florida and much of the Caribbean in September?

28 Which ex-president was driven to remark, after an inauguration speech in January: “That was some weird shit”?

29 Which hard-leftie warned – at the start of the year, obviously – that if in 2019 opinion polls were “still awful”, Jeremy Corbyn would consider his position as leader of the Labour party?

30 Asked on Newsnight what Labour’s position was on Europe, how did Peter Mandelson reply?

31 Tobias Ellwood tried to save the officer fatally attacked outside Parliament in March. He lost his own brother in which 2002 atrocity?

32 Why did mother Sarah Hall from Newcastle want a fairytale, a reworking of the Sun, Moon, and Talia by 17th-century Italian poet Giambattista Basile, removed from her child’s school reading list?

33 Who is Dr David Dao, and why did a video of him go viral?

34 Pope Francis put up a sign saying: “Vietato Lamentarsi” on the door of his modest living quarters in the Santa Marta hotel in the Vatican. What, colloquially, does it translate as?

35 Which country blocked Wikipedia, sacked 4,000 officials and suspended 9,000 police suspected of having links to an exiled cleric?

36 A scary monster and super-creep was part of the year’s gentlest Twitter feud, between which two museums tussling, albeit with wit, for one-upmanship?

37 In a radio interview, Diane Abbott said Labour would recruit 10,000 more police for £300,000. When queried, to what number did she revise the cost?

38 In April, leaders of the 27 EU countries took just four minutes to agree… What?

39 The 38-year-old homosexual son of an Indian immigrant was elected as leader of which party in the British Isles?

40 Borough Market slaughter ringleader Khuram Butt had featured in which 2016 C4 documentary?

41 To Mrs May: “If I was sitting in Brussels and I was looking at you as the person I had to negotiate with, I’d think, she’s a blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire.” Elsewhere Mr Corbyn, in another pre-election interview, declared: “I never met the IRA.” Who were the respective interviewers?

42 What did McDonald’s begin to supply at its restaurants in France, in a nod to Gallic etiquette?

43 Who overtook Giselle Bündchen, for the first time since 2002, as the world’s highest – paid model?

44 Designer Christopher Bailey stepped down as chief executive of which British house, which he was credited with helping transform into a global fashion brand? And which other London house, established in 1884, went under after failing to find a buyer?

45 The creator of Olga da Polga, Parsley the Lion and Monsieur Pamplemousse died at 91. What was his most famous creation?

46 Why was the Queen late for Royal Ascot?

47 Which country outlawed plastic carrier bags, with swingeing four-year jail sentences for anyone found even carrying one?

48 Once the leading centre-right candidate for the French presidency, now all but forgotten, who apologised for payments made to members of his family?

49 Which particular outrage led all political parties to (briefly) suspend pre-election campaigning?

50 Malaysia, Kuwait and a cinema in Henagar, Alabama, either banned or cut the Disney film Beauty and the Beast. Why?

51 What two items were added to the typical “basket of goods” used to measure inflation, both reflecting encroaching hipster culture in terms of preferred drink and mode of transport?

52 Who or what was WannaCry?

53 Who first coined the term Maybot, which went huge during Theresa’s “strong and stable” campaign?

54 The charity behind what London project closed this year despite over £46m of public money having been spent on it?

55 Items of which street furniture are to be cut from 40,000 to 20,000 around Britain?

56 Indian police arrested four suspected of leaking an episode of which television programme?

57 Which company sacked James Damore for a memo suggesting that “the abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes”?

58 Ruth Davidson, Scottish Tory leader, was paying mildly sarcastic homage to whom when she ran through a field of wheat?

59 Which BBC1 show was this year’s Jamaica Inn, in that it garnered a host of complaints about muddy sound and mumbled dialogue?

60 “I quite like, sort of, ties… I mean, like… jackets. Stuff like that.” Truly a high point for which captivating interviewee on The One Show?

61 Which golf club, founded in 1744, and taunted by a bookmaker’s with a “Welcome to Jurassic Park” sign, finally voted to admit female members?

62 Who was sacked after only 10 days as a pottymouthed White House communications director?

63 Chris Froome won the overall Tour de France. But in how many of the 21 individual stages was he the victor?

64 A love letter to Britain (“zebra crossings, skinheads, tweed, Winnie-the-Pooh, the NHS, Joe Orton, Kenneth Williams, corner shops”), by which Oscar-winning director, featured in the first issue under its new editor of which fashion bible?

65 What was the most tweeted about fashion brand of the year? And what was 2017’s most-liked Instagram photo, with 11m taps? Surprisingly, no it’s not one of Manila’s domestic water management systems: rather a celeb’s pregnancy.

66 A new lion logo caused a row between whom and whom?

67 In Australia, 61.6% of those who voted backed the introduction of what?

68 Warren Beatty is holding an envelope. But what happened next and which accountancy firm was blamed?

69 Which team’s reserve goalkeeper, Wayne Shaw, resigned after it was revealed a bookmaker had taken bets at 8-1 on his eating a pie on camera, which he did, against Arsenal, the biggest FA rivals in their non-league history?

70 French tennis player Maxime Hammou was interviewed on TV. What happened next?

71 Who said that further sanctions against North Korea would be useless as: “They’d rather eat grass than give up their nuclear programme”?

72 A man died after running into a fire at which festival?

73 What, for some unaccountable reason, did Eurotunnel change its name to?

74 “It was pretty stupid and he is pretty lucky… I don’t know what sort of wildlife show Scott has been watching.” The Ospreys rugby coach reacts to Scott Baldwin’s injury in Bloemfontein, having tried to stroke what?

75 Which city revoked its 1997 decision to grant its freedom to Aung San Suu Kyi, de facto leader of Myanmar, in the face of her studied inaction to the plight of 500,000 Rohingya Muslims?

76 Whose autobiography recalled, with some wit among the fiscal dryness, Silvio Berlusconi trying to get Naomi Campbell’s phone number from him at a G20 summit?

77 The Kremlin claimed they were “selling like hot cakes” in the UK, even though the BBC could subsequently find no British stores which even stocked them? What “ironic”, not to say queasily soft-porn, items?

78 How many leaders has UKIP had this year?

79 Who was branded an “old lunatic, mean trickster and human reject.” Who, in turn, was “rocket man”?

80 Why did Anne Frank make a sudden surprising appearance on American websites in October?

81 People aged 16-24 were found to be spending 3.8 hours a day on their phones. Was this more or less than in 2016?

82 Stars from which “sitcom” were shamed for dodgy tax arrangements in the Paradise Papers?

83 Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia arrested 11 princes and imprisoned them in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. They included Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal – who owns which London hotel?

84 Which high-profile American registered, in Edinburgh, a particular blue tartan?

85 In Sweden, it was the first year since 1962 that Volvo was outsold. By which brand/model of small family car?

Answers

Fake answers
All even numbers (except 36): Donald Trump
All odd numbers (except 19): Brexit
19, 36: Harvey Weinstein

Real true answers

1 Debbie Reynolds

2 Robert Mugabe

3 Trick question, sorry; neither. It was won by Balliol, Oxford

4 Piers Morgan

5 The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army

6 New Yorker; Daily Mail

7 Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi

8 Paper rail tickets

9 Kirstie Allsopp

10 The National Trust, which found itself embroiled in rows over dropping the word ‘Easter’ from its chocolate hunt, ‘bullying’ volunteers into wearing gay pride badges and even its recipe for flapjacks (fat and sugar have been reduced in line with public health guidelines)

11 Abortion

12 11pm GMT on 29 March 2019

13 a) and c). The poppy thing was a hoax by a fake Twitter account

14 Holland

15 Strathberry; £495

16 Fear of stairs

17 Raised his eyes to heaven

18 Gambia

19 Lloyd’s of London

20 Turner

21 Switzerland

22 Broadchurch; Trust Me – Bradley Walsh

23 He went jogging in a T-shirt bearing Captain Haddock’s favourite expletives, blistering barnacles and the rest, in French

24 Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller

25 Ordeal by Innocence

26 The Underground Railroad

27 Irma

28 George W Bush

29 Unite secretary Len McCluskey

30 ‘Search me’

31 The Bali bombing

32 She objected to the fact that the Prince wakes Sleeping Beauty from her 100-year sleep with a kiss to which she had not given her consent

33 The man hauled bloodily off a United Airlines flight because of overbooking

34 ‘No whining’

35 Turkey

36 Natural History and Science

37 £80m

38 Their year’s entire Brexit strategy

39 Fine Gael

40 The Jihadis Next Door

41 Jeremy Paxman; Andrew Neil

42 Cutlery

43 Kendall Jenner

44 Burberry; Jaeger

45 Paddington Bear

46 The Queen’s Speech had to wait days to let the PM stitch up a deal with the DUP

47 Kenya

48 François Fillon

49 The Ariana Grande Manchester bombing

50 It featured the studio’s first gay character

51 A bottle of gin and a cycle helmet

52 The computer virus which almost broke the NHS in May

53 Guardian sketchwriter John Crace

54 London’s ‘garden bridge’

55 BT phone boxes

56 Game of Thrones

57 Google

58 Theresa May, who had earlier revealed her ‘naughtiest’ moment ever was running through a wheatfield

59 SS-GB

60 Philip May. His wife, a prime minister, was no less scintillating when she revealed that her childhood in a vicarage had been ‘very stable’

61 Muirfield, near Edinburgh

62 Anthony Scaramucci

63 None

64 Steve McQueen; Vogue

65 Tommy Hilfiger. Beyoncé avec bump

66 UKIP unveiled the logo on the left: the Premier League was less than gruntled

67 Single-sex marriage

68 Warren Beatty wrongly announced La La Land as best picture, rather than Moonlight. The Price Waterhouse Coopers accountant who handed Beatty the wrong envelope was tweeting at the time

69 Sutton

70 He was barred from the French Open for repeatedly trying to kiss and grope the TV reporter

71 Vladimir Putin

72 The Burning Man Festival

73 Getlink

74 A caged lion

75 Oxford

76 Gordon Brown’s

77 Vladimir Putin 2018 calendars

78 Three (Paul Nuttall, Steve Crowther, Henry Bolton)

79 Donald Trump; Kim Jong-un

80 Anne Frank costumes were advertised for Halloween

81 Less: it was 3.9 hours last year

82 Mrs Brown’s Boys

83 The Savoy

84 Barack Obama

85 VW Golf