1. Peter Jackson’s Get Back ends with the Beatles’ last live performance, on the roof of their record company offices in … ?

   1. Carnaby Street

   2. Penny Lane

   3. Savile Row

2. How long did it take for Adele’s 30 to become 2021’s biggest selling album?

   1. 3 minutes

   2. 3 hours

   3. 3 days

3. Which novelist won’t allow their new hardback to be sold by Amazon US?

   1. Sally Rooney

   2. William Gibson

   3. Dave Eggers

4. 

   How many Grammy nominations have recently reunited Abba had since 1972?

   1. 0

   2. 1

   3. 2

5. Zadie Smith’s debut play The Wife of Willesden is a reworking of which work?

   1. Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath

   2. Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor

   3. Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife

6. By whom was Clean Bandit’s 2017 hit Symphony famously danced to this year?

   1. Britney Spears

   2. Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice

   3. Michael Gove

7. Which satirist this year wrote a book-­length poem in response to the pandemic?

   1. Ian Hislop

   2. Armando Iannucci

   3. John Oliver

8. 

   Which Conservative party figure attended the No Time to Die premiere?

   1. Boris Johnson

   2. Carrie Johnson

   3. Owen Paterson

9. Which Sopranos character is not seen in prequel The Many Saints of Newark?

   1. Big Pussy Bonpensiero

   2. Tony Soprano

   3. John 'Johny Sack' Sacrimoni

10. From which did Donald Trump resign after being threatened with expulsion?

    1. The Screen Actors Guild

    2. The Television Hall of Fame

    3. The Friends of American Opera

11. 

    A “semi-­ drunken” talk to a friend about families and what inspired Damon Galgut’s Booker winner The Promise?

    1. Weddings

    2. Funerals

    3. Christmases

12. Who included, “So lock me up and throw away the key” in an anti-vax song?

    1. Van Morrison

    2. Eric Clapton

    3. Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend

13. When the late Stephen Sondheim was 10, he first met which giant of American musicals who became his lifelong mentor?

    1. Cole Porter

    2. Irving Berlin

    3. Oscar Hammerstein II

14. The new biography of which British novelist tells of a mislaid swastika brooch given by an SS officer boyfriend?

    1. Nancy Mitford

    2. Barbara Pym

    3. Muriel Spark

15. 

    The retirement village in Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and The Man Who Died Twice is where?

    1. West Sussex

    2. Essex

    3. Kent

16. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black composed a song in praise of which lockdown star?

    1. Jonathan Van-Tam

    2. Jackie Weaver

    3. Joe Wicks

17. 

    Graffiti on Edvard Munch’s The Scream, reading “can only have been painted by a madman”, was identified this year as having been written by … ?

    1. A critic

    2. A vandal

    3. Edvard Munch himself

18. Monique Roffey crowdfunded what aspect of her Costa book of the year winner The Mermaid of Black Conch?

    1. Printing

    2. Publicity

    3. A research trip to the Caribbean

19. Which Labour figure and football fan’s autobiography is Always Red?

    1. Angela Rayner

    2. Len McCluskey

    3. John McDonnell

20. 

    Who was filmed defacing a Banksy artwork this year?

    1. An artist

    2. An actor

    3. Banksy himself

21. Who in 2021 became the oldest male solo artist to top the UK charts?

    1. Tom Jones

    2. Paul McCartney

    3. Bob Dylan

22. What made Morrissey complain about there being no hate laws to protect him?

    1. Rick Astley performing Smiths songs

    2. A parody of him in The Simpsons

    3. His autobiography going out of print

23. 

    The first part of Jonathan Franzen’s new American family life trilogy is … ?

    1. Coronations

    2. Crossroads

    3. Neighbours

24. Which 2021 Oscar winner accepted with a “very realistic howl of a wolf”?

    1. Anthony Hopkins

    2. Daniel Kaluuya

    3. Frances McDormand

25. 

    Nobel literature prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah recently retired as a Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of … ?

    1. Paris

    2. Zanzibar

    3. Kent

26. Which prominent culture and media figure allegedly once told a journalist, “I will nail your balls to the floor ... using your own front teeth”?

    1. Succession’s Logan Roy

    2. Jordan Peterson

    3. Culture secretary Nadine Dorries

27. 

    When Christie’s sold NFT Everydays by digital artist Beeple for $69.3m, it became the third most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction. Who topped the list?

    1. Jeff Koons

    2. Jasper Johns

    3. Damien Hirst

28. 2021 saw the 200th anniversary of the death of John Keats. Which Anthony Burgess novel chronicled his final days?

    1. Earthly Powers

    2. Abba Abba

    3. Nothing Like the Sun

29. A former contestant of which reality TV show had their book withdrawn after allegations of plagiarism?

    1. The Great British Bake Off

    2. The Great British Sewing Bee

    3. MasterChef

30. 

    This year was the 100th anniversary of Roots author Alex Haley’s birth. Which post was created for him in the US Coast Guard following his wartime service?

    1. Chief journalist

    2. Chief genealogist

    3. Chief biographer

31. Classical composer Mark-Anthony Turnage’s most recent work commemorates which football occasion?

    1. England losing the Euros on penalties

    2. Gazza crying in Italia 90

    3. Arsenal’s First Division win in 1989

32. 

    Rebecca Solnit’s study of George Orwell focused on his enthusiasm for … ?

    1. Golf

    2. Gardening

    3. Gambling

33. Which piece of classical music ominously recurs in Netflix’s Squid Game?

    1. The Blue Danube waltz

    2. The Ride of the Valkyries

    3. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

34. Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel about online life, No One is Talking About This, referred to the internet as … ?

    1. The portal

    2. The circle

    3. The infobahn

35. Which 2021 theatrical memoir recalled making back-to-back films with Stanley Kubrick, then the Spice Girls?

    1. Miriam Margolyes

    2. Alan Cumming

    3. Stanley Tucci

36. 

    Minus their words, can you still spot some of this year’s cultural highlights?

    1. Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead

    2. The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

    3. The Promise, by Damon Galgut

37. 

    1. A Calling for Charlie Barnes, by Joshua Ferris

    2. The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak

    3. The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki

38. 

    1. Succession

    2. The White Lotus

    3. Hacks

39. 

    1. Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

    2. Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout

    3. The Magician, by Colm Tóibín

40. 

    1. Sorrow and Bliss, by Meg Mason

    2. Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney

    3. Second Place, by Rachel Cusk

41. 

    1. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

    2. The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk

    3. What Strange Paradise, by Omar El Akkad

42. 

    1. Passing

    2. Promising Young Woman

    3. Spencer

43. 

    1. The Coen brothers’ The Tragedy of Macbeth

    2. The Father

    3. tick, tick … BOOM!

44. 

    1. Crawler, by Idles

    2. For The First Time, by Black Country, New Road

    3. Seventeen Going Under, by Sam Fender

45. 

    1. Call Me If You Get Lost, by Tyler, the Creator

    2. We’re All Alone in This Together, by Dave

    3. Montero, by Lil Nas X

46. 

    1. Dune

    2. Minari

    3. Titane

Solutions

1:C, 2:C, 3:C, 4:B - Abba received their first ever Grammy nomination this year for their song I Still Have Faith in You, 5:A, 6:B - On Strictly Come Dancing, a segment of the song was muted to reflect the experience of Ayling-Ellis who is deaf, 7:B, 8:B, 9:C, 10:A - Trump still receives an annual pension of $110,000 for his work in projects including Home Alone 2 and Zoolander, 11:B, 12:B, 13:C, 14:B, 15:C, 16:B, 17:C, 18:B - Roffey raised £3,000 to hire a public relations consultancy, 19:B, 20:B - Christopher Walken painted over a work specially created for BBC’s The Outlaws, 21:A - Jones was 80. Vera Lynn remains the oldest solo artist to get to No 1 when aged 92, 22:B, 23:B, 24:C - Frances McDormand howled to honour a crew member known as Wolf who had recently died, 25:C, 26:C, 27:A, 28:B, 29:C, 30:A, 31:C, 32:B, 33:A, 34:A, 35:B, 36:A, 37:B, 38:B, 39:A, 40:B, 41:A, 42:C, 43:A, 44:A, 45:B, 46:A

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