When an airline hostess goes berserk, and other quizzical oddities

I hope you all had a Happy Christmas and that most of you have by now nearly finished your Christmas shopping. Anyway, the traditional time has come to bring you the answers to our Grand Christmas Quiz, which I now gladly do.

ARTS

1. It is the only book by Jane Austen never to have been turned into television.

2. Lord Rattle of Birmingham. 3. The full quotation was: "If the people who have been running the Royal Opera House in the 1990s had been selling arms to Saddam Hussein instead, the Iraqis would now all be armed with wooden swords."

4. Swan Lake on stilts.

5. A Spanish film called The Full Amontillado.

6. Because it turned out that although he had been a Booker Prize judge two years running, he had never read any of the novels on the shortlist.

7. It is Salman Rushdie's current address.

8. He has been asked to write Louise Woodward's memoirs. 9. An attempt to mix ballet and cooking.

10. Because when Rossini gave up composing, he became a skilled chef, inventing new recipes, whereas Andrew Lloyd Webber has ended up simply writing a restaurant column, revewing other people's efforts.

GOSSIP

1. Fergie.

2. The ill-fated attempt to make the Monaco Royal Family seem interesting.

3. Fergie.

4. He has been asked if he would be prepared to sing at Elton John's funeral.

5. Fergie.

6. The only homosexual member of the Beatles.

7. What To Tell Your Helicopter About Sex, by Sarah, Duchess of York.

8. It is Angus Deayton's real name.

9. He went to prison after being defended in court by Clive Anderson.

10. She was a Fergie look-alike who sued the Duchess of York for becoming less famous and thus endangering her own income.

SPORT

1. Arsenal, in 1936, wearing red shirts and white shorts. They were each fined pounds 5.

2. The price that Don King wants for a rematch between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield's other ear.

3. They were the first English football club to go into a Premier League match without a single English player in the team.

4. Jonah Lomu's sister.

5. Because a greater percentage of people die from Formula One-linked deaths than from smoking-related diseases.

6. The only England cricketer ever to have an after-shave named after him.

7. A religious cult in southern India which believes that Brian Johnston is still alive.

8. The Pope's favourite baseball team.

9. Mixed singles.

10. The only time a game of boules has been played in the middle of the M4.

TRAVEL

1. The name of a virulent bug which can only live in airline meals.

2. There is no connection between Potters Bar and Beatrix Potter. (Potters Bar is, of course, named after Stephen Potter.)

3. A new restaurant at Terminal One, Heathrow, called The Firehouse.

4. He is the only film director who has specifically banned his own movies from being shown on international air flights, supposedly to avoid the risk of having to watch them.

5. A day return to Gibraltar.

6. Because every time Richard Branson has a balloon disaster, bookings for Virgin Airlines drop by 20 per cent.

7. The emergency procedure that has to be followed when an airline stewardess goes berserk and starts attacking the passengers.

8. In order to protest against the ludicrous cost of air fares to Paris, he attempted to send himself there by parcel post.

9. Swimming across the Channel without a passport.

10. The annual football match between Newport Pagnell Service Area Northbound and Newport Pagnell Service Area Southbound.

I'll bring you more quiz answers as and when space permits.