It was the year of riots, financial crises, Slut Walks and a royal wedding, but how well do you remember it all? Nick Curtis tests your news knowledge

1. What indignity did Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow not endure this year?
a) Seeing his wife Sally naked apart from a bedsheet in ES magazine, and then in the Big Brother house.
b) Being told "you are not f***ing royalty, Mr Speaker" by Mark Pritchard MP, and then seeing the phrase blazoned on T-shirts in the Commons.
c) Missing Novak Djokovic's winning point at Wimbledon because he couldn't see over the person in front.

2. What did Burmese freedom campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi say "made my life more complete"?
a) The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. 
b) A DVD of The King's Speech.
c) Dave Lee Travis's requests show on the BBC World Service.

3. "I don't know if it's my public school background but I immediately thought I'd done something wrong." Who said this, and in what context?
a) Nick Clegg, hearing of the disastrous Lib-Dem results in local elections.
b) Actor Graham Seed, receiving the phone call telling him his Archers character Nigel Pargeter was being killed off.
c) Dean of St Paul's Graeme Knowles, after closing the cathedral in response to the Occupy London protest camp.

4. Who was referred to as Geronimo, and by whom?
a) Shane Warne, by paramour Elizabeth Hurley, on Twitter.
b) Charlie Gilmour by staff at Wandsworth Prison, where he was imprisoned for swinging on a flag at the Cenotaph during student protests.
c) Osama bin Laden, by the American marines who killed him.

5. The following three stories are improbable, but only one of them is made up. Which one? 
a) Sales of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird soared by 123 per cent after the Beckhams revealed they named their daughter Harper Seven after the author.
b) Living statue Dechko Ivanov (aka the Invisible King) was charged with assault after hitting his flatmate and fellow statue Rumen Nedelchev (aka Silver Wizard) with the concrete block he uses as a plinth, after Nedelchev took his pitch on the South Bank.
c) Richard Branson's parents once got him stoned in Bali.

6. What drew 31,000 complaints?
a) Jeremy Clarkson's joke that strikers should be shot in front of their families.
b) Rachel Johnson's article about her 16-year-old daughter's bikini wax.
c) The appearance of a Nescafé branded coffee machine in the This Morning kitchen, after a relaxation of rules on product placement.

7. What cost £550,000?
a) The bespoke kitchen range and rotisserie at Heston Blumenthal's restaurant Dinner, at the Mandarin Oriental.
b) A lease on a private box at the Albert Hall (not including annual service charge). c) The preservation of Roald Dahl's writing shed, according to his granddaughter Sophie Dahl.

8. What, on the other hand, cost £100 million?
a) The damage caused by the London riots.
b) The stake that Goldman Sachs bought in Facebook.
c) The alleged fraud perpetrated by rogue trader Kweku Adoboli at UBS.

9. Which of the following women did not voice her displeasure at David Cameron?
a) Angela Eagle, after he told her to "calm down dear" during a debate on proposed NHS reforms.
b) Abstinence and anti-abortion campaigner Nadine Dorries, after he described her as "extremely frustrated". 
c) Samantha Cameron, after he made her fly Ryanair to Malaga for their Spanish summer holiday.

10. What didn't arrive as anticipated on May 21?
a) Carla Bruni's baby.
b) The "lost" Enid Blyton manuscript, Mr Tumpy's Caravan, which should have been delivered to her publisher on that date several decades earlier.
c) A giant earthquake that would destroy humanity, apart from those taken to heaven in "the rapture", according to American evangelist Harold Camping.

11. Who said "the time for remorse and apology is over"?
a) Simon Cowell, on the sacking of Cheryl Cole from X Factor USA.
b) Barclays boss Bob Diamond, as Britain's banks prepared to pay out £7 billion in staff bonuses.
c) President Bashar al-Assad of Syria as he ruthlessly put down protests.

12. Who vowed to fight "to the last drop of my blood" and for what?
a) "Tiger mother" Amy Chua, to get her daughter into Harvard.
b) Muammar Gaddafi, to resist the rebels in Libya.
c) Ed Miliband, to remain as Labour leader after learning he enjoyed an approval rating of -14 per cent.

13. Which of the following was sacked from a job (and why) but then reinstated after legal action?
a) Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly, allegedly for being too old.
b) Dior creative director John Galliano, for giving a drunken, anti-Semitic rant.
c) Sky sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys for making sexist comments.

14. Why did 300 people descend on the John Snow pub in Soho in April?
a) To stage a mass gay "kiss-in" after two men were barred by the landlord for having a smooch.
b) To celebrate Michael Winner's wedding.
c) Because of an online rumour that Rihanna was filming a video there, topless.

15. Who said "this is the most humble day of my life" and why?
a) Elton John, on the arrival of his and David Furnish's son Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.
b) Rupert Murdoch, answering MPs' questions on phone-hacking.
c) Benedict Cumberbatch, sharing the Evening Standard Best Actor Award with Jonny Lee Miller for their performances in Frankenstein.

16. Why did the horses Marching Song and Fenix Two hit the news?
a) They were the only two to finish the Grand National.
b) Their Derby riders were disqualified for excessive use of the whip.
c) They were electrocuted by a power cable at Newbury Race Course.
17. Which policy was not the subject of a Coalition U-turn?
a) Reform of the NHS. 
b) The promise to hold a referendum on alternative voting.
c) The plan to sell off UK forests.

18. What was "a simple choice between good and evil"?
a) The decision of a Twitter user to reveal Ryan Giggs's affair with Imogen Thomas and other information protected by superinjunctions.
b) Voting for Ken Livingstone or for Boris Johnson in the London 
mayoral election, according to Livingstone.
c) Watching Strictly Come Dancing or X Factor, according to Bruce Forsyth.

19. Who said, apropos tax: "I'd be sitting [in A&E] for five hours if me appendix burst, trains are always late, most state schools are f***ing shit, and I've gotta give like four million quid - are you f***ing having a laugh?"
a) Adele
b) Cherie Booth
c) David Walliams

20. According to the Homes and Communities Agency, work started on how many affordable homes in London in the six months to November?
a) 50,000
b) 3,872
c) 56

21. What was unusual about Sheridan Simone's bestselling book What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex?
a) It was given away free as an iPhone app.
b) It was translated into Farsi at the personal request of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
c) All its pages were blank.

22. Who bequeathed his or her archive to the Bodleian library?
a) Liam Fox's friend Adam Werritty.
b) John le Carré.
c) Elizabeth Taylor.

23. What is E20?
a) A new planet discovered by Nasa's Messenger craft on the far side of Mercury.
b) The second round of quantitative easing agreed by Bank of England boss Mervyn King.
c) The postcode created for the new, vast Westfield Stratford.

24. Why did Carolyn Bourne hit the news?
a) She was the last person painted by Lucian Freud before he died.
b) She jilted Hugh Hefner at the altar.
c) She sent an email to her son's fiancée Heidi Withers criticising her manners.

25. How many cans of hairspray did philosopher AC Grayling have in his bathroom, as reported in the Evening Standard?
a) five
b) nine
c) 12.

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