Which public figure looks like a moustache drawn on an extended middle finger? Who was behind the ‘pig-gate’ allegations? Can you spot a fake grime star? The comedian and columnist lays down a caustic end of year challenge ...

Descriptions round

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Can you work out who’s who from the descriptions below? Composite: Getty Images/Reuters/AP/REX

Regular readers will be aware that my articles often degenerate into little more than a series of heavy-handed derogatory similes. But sometimes I can’t even be bothered to shoehorn them into the relevant article. Which characters from this year’s news am I describing here? Match the description to the photo.

1 He looks like someone has drawn a moustache on an extended middle finger.

2 I sometimes wonder if he only exists to give the work experience girl at Madame Tussauds an excuse to put her half-melted attempt in a suit and hide it behind a bear.

3 He’s like a transatlantic Nigel Farage who’s unaware that his boiler leaks carbon monoxide.

4 He is, essentially, a bouncy castle with Alzheimer’s.

5 His wrinkled face looking like a collage made from elephant vaginas.

6 He was savaged simply for looking and sounding like a cum-nosed space alien.

Quickfire round

Facebook Twitter Pinterest After a year, Simon Cowell has all the X-Factor’s contestants shot in the head and bulldozed into a mass grave like unwanted greyhounds. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex

1 Which contender for Sports Personality of the Year suggested that gay marriage and abortion are about to be joined by the legalisation of paedophilia as humanity enters some kind of biblical endgame?

2 Which senior political figure was behind allegations that David Cameron had sex with a pig’s head?

3 Which senior political figure suddenly fell ill after the allegations?

4 Which well known comic, who once released a show titled “Hello Wembley!”, gave another interview this year puzzled at his lack of respect from fellow comedians?

5 Which monkey-faced billionaire signed an environmental declaration in the same week he unveiled a new Boeing aircraft?

6 Which media mogul bought National Geographic?

7 Which politician said he wanted British workers to be more like the Chinese?

8 Which England forward, who looks like a jelly baby come to life, has scored only 10 goals this season?

9 What record did the Queen set this year?

10 Which politician made the gaffe of reading from Chairman Mao at the dispatch box, allowing tabloids reporting on the budget to focus on that, instead of Jeremy Corbyn’s clothes, or some nonsense they had just made up?

11 Which country elected its first female politicians after allowing women the vote for the first time?

12 World leaders signed up to a climate change deal in Paris, so that they’d know exactly what hard and fast targets to dodge for the next decade. What proposed cap was set on global warming?

13 In May, which country became the first to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote?

14 After a year, Simon Cowell has all the X-Factor’s contestants shot in the head and bulldozed into a mass grave like unwanted greyhounds. But do you know who won this year’s X-Factor?

Multiple choice round

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Border fence in Texas: Did a Republican propose to build a giant wall sealing the US border with Mexico? Photograph: Larry W. Smith/EPA/Corbis

1. In the US presidential race, which of the following has not been proposed by Republican party candidates this year:

a) That the US should refuse to be a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

b) Killing Isis “and their families”.

c) Stopping Muslims from entering the US.

d) A register of Muslims.

e) Giant wall sealing the US border with Mexico.

f) Free dental care.

2. The United States is an example to other nations and a civilising actor on the world stage. How many people were shot dead there in 2015?

a) 1,200.

b) 5,000.

c) 12,800.

True or false?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jon Hamm as Matt Trent in the 2014 Black Mirror Christmas special. Photograph: Channel 4

I pitched the following as an episode idea for the Channel 4 series Black Mirror, but didn’t receive a reply.

A man works for a company that stores people’s masturbatory fantasies on to experiential memory cards. You can stick them on a card and upload them into a machine that lets you experience someone else’s fantasy. The man notices that the glass inside old cards changes reality when you look through it. It glamorises what you see, smoothes the edges. He makes a pair of glasses and wears them as sort of beer goggles. He promotes them as contact lenses and makes a fortune, as people find going back to reality a bit saddening after wearing them. Makers of Valium go out of business.

One day he loses a lens and notices that the news looks the same with and without the lenses. He think that the TV might be made of the same material, or the TV cameras, but they aren’t. Eventually he discovers that we all already have a very advanced version of these lenses put over our eyes at birth. The only way they can be removed is with corrosive acid, at great risk. He feels he must see reality as it is, and uses the acid. We see that his reality is really a horrendous dystopia, our world a sort of concentration camp, just before he goes blind. It ends with him as a blind prophet screaming at people in the street, but they only see a humorous street performer.

Grime round

Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the below named grime stars on stage. Photograph: Ro Murphy

Which of the following is NOT a star of the UK grime scene?

a) Trim.

b) Skepta.

c) Wiley.

d) Angela Merker.

Legal woes

Sometimes the Guardian refuses to run a joke that might put it in an awkward position legally. Which of the following legal worries meant that a joke was cut from a column?

a) That Vladimir Putin would sue for a joke saying he was probably a homophobe because he’d had to go through life with the name of a gay porn star.

b) That Ricky Gervais would sue, because a joke saying that a Syrian refugee’s best chance of survival these days is to dress up as a leopard and hope that he gets saved by Ricky Gervais might suggest that he cared more about animals than people.

c) That David Cameron would sue, because a joke saying that Cobra is the government’s way of showing terrorists they’re not scared by gathering behind steel doors in a bomb-proof room would suggest that he is afraid of terrorists.

d) That Top Gear would sue for a joke that said their viewers were relaxed about the idea of a new female presenter, and didn’t care who presented the show, so long as they were white.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ricky Gervais and tiger cub. Photograph: C4

The answers

Descriptions 1. Bashar al-Assad. 2. Vladimir Putin. 3. Donald Trump. 4. Boris Johnson. 5. Jeremy Clarkson. 6. Ed Miliband.

Quickfire 1. Tyson Fury. 2. Lord Ashcroft. 3. Lord Ashcroft. 4. Michael McIntyre. 5. Richard Branson. 6. Rupert Murdoch. 7. Jeremy Hunt. 8. Wayne Rooney. 9. The longest reign. 10. John McDonnell. 11. Saudi Arabia. 12. 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. 13. Ireland. 14. Louisa Johnson.

Multiple choice 1. f) free dental care. 2. c).

True or false? True.

Grime d).

Legal woes b).

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