I feel like this is one of those ones that is going to be a lot harder than you think from the outside. And we're going to just feel profoundly embarrassed throughout.

I think that's probably true. And Craig will probably complain.

Craig will too. I do read them, Craig. It's just probably quite hard. Not speak to us at the Christmas party.

Okay, I'll start and then, you know, we'll see how we get along and if things are drastically difficult by question three, I'll start doing accents and giving clues. Right. Okay. It's a crying shame that Lee Anderson never married Kate Middleton. What an amazing power couple they would make. Lee with his strong manly opinions, chiseled draw, genuine concern for others, and can-do personality.

It's Alison Pearson! It's Alison Pearson! Well done.

I'll just finish it off because it's such a great line. Kate with her lustrous legs, perfect figure, and ability to charm the proverbial birds out of the trees. If there were any trees left, since the hard left councils plop them all down to make way for compulsory trans clinics. Craig being Alison, well done, Adam.. That

sounds fair though because you have probably read, you are probably the only person alive who has read every Alison Pearson column. Oh god, I'm not that mad.

All right, here's one. It's absolutely disgusting in this day and age and yet another sign of the unspeakable depravity of this Tory that anyone with the courage to identify as a woman in the 21st century is being forcibly excluded from entering the so-called Garrick Club on pain of death. Willing for a left-wing firebrand? Go on, let Helen take it.

I'm going to say Billy Bragg. No.

Adam? Little Owen Jones.

It's Little Owen Jones. I knew it was Owen Jones, but I don't want to be like, don't look like the person who's obsessed with Owen Jones. That's why I was letting you have it. That was a pity one. Here's

the next one. Sadly, I hadn't been long in Downing Street before I realised it was no place for a Prime Minister. I was literally being held prisoner with a gun to my head by an establishment cabal. Helen. Trust. It's trust. It's

got to be trust.

Next up. If I could own one painting, it would be the Mona Lisa. She reminds me of myself when I was her age. Quiet and thoughtful, yes, but also overflowing with youthful energy and idealism and full of the zeal to create a truly global brand. Yep. Is

it Megan? It's

not Megan. It sounds very Megan-y. I was thinking you would guess Megan Adam who makes big global brands real I can only think of Victoria Beckham it's Richard Branson

ah yeah no but you recently you know I was thinking of that did you see that recently that there was a Victoria Beckham did a launch of something and she brought Harper along who's the youngest of the children the only girl and. And she said, what's your Christmas wish? And Harper Beckham said, one day I would like to create an enormous brand. I just thought there's such a weird, only the child of those particular parents would ever say that.

I hope to achieve synergy between many of my... Superb. Yeah.

Okay, next up. There's an epidemic of Deng fever sweeping the world, wreaking havoc. I've never succumbed to Deng. Touch wood. But last week I felt a slight tickle in my throat. Through a mix of determination and working class guts, I came through. But truly, I fear for today's coddled millennials. Is that

Nadine? It's

Nadine. It's Nadine Doris.

It was the coddled millennials. I was just like, that's Nadine,

isn't it? Come on. Really, is all Just a declaration Of how good Craig is How good he is at channeling All of these people It's extraordinary Okay Stuff and nonsense That's my reaction To the so called stars Non-entities more like Who whinge about so called abuse On Strictly Come Dancing They clearly never fought In the Battle of the Somme Where plucky young soldiers Faced the choice of death At enemy hands Or drawn out misery In filthy, rat-filled trenches.

The trouble is that is a kind of whole style of columnism.

It is. It is a columnist.

I'm going to go Clarkson.

Can I,

I guess?

Older. Yeah, go on. Older than Clarkson. I was going to say Amanda Patel. I'd say a bit

closer. I'm going to get a letter from her libel. Sarah Vine. If it turns out that she's not older than Clarkson.

This lady straddles the divide between columnist and politician. Oh. And is a strictly old hand herself? Anne Whittacombe. It's Anne Whittacombe. There we go. Well done. I feel like I was giving those clues even-handedly. Recently

sacked from the Daily Express. Oh. That was a nicely ambiguous noise. Oh.

That's brand new information. I

continue to be appalled.

That's great. We should just leave it there. By

assaults on traditional family values. Reports coming through of rabid left-wing Muslim London Mayor Sadiq Khan forcing a penguin at the London Aquarium to wear pink to conform with LGBTQ zoo quotas. No, Sadiq, this is not politics. It is bullying, pure and simple. I'm

going to go Lidl on that

one. Not bad, but it's not Lidl. They all

sound like Alison Pearson. I know, I know, I know. It really shows you there is a style of columnism, which is like the sort of Y-O is everybody gay now because of woke?

Yeah, it's another Telegraphy voice. Alistair Heath. Cheryl Jacobs. All the crazies. It doesn't want

to be Alistair Heath, because Alistair Heath would be like, and that's why the doom-pocalypse is upon us. It's Isabel Oakshot. Underrated choice there, yeah.

Okay, here's the penultimate one. If there is a Democratic Party victory, their stated aim is to force us to speak Mexican and wear sombreros in our homes and workplaces. Have you seen how big sombreros are? This disastrous policy would mean widening our doorways at the cost of billions so we could go in and out of our houses in this cumbersome headgear. I

remember this one. I'm thinking how funny it was, but I'm going to say, I know Lionel Shriver did a whole column about wearing a sombrero, so I'm going to say Lionel Shriver. It's not

Shriver. Is

it Musk? It's Musk! I knew it was Musk.

Okay. And here's the final one. There's a portly bumblebee caught in my kitchen skylight.

It's Nigel Slater. It's Nigel Slater.

That one's the one that's got all the adjectives in it, isn't it? I just

really love it. Nigel Slater, I know, because so many people contacted me for about a month before. I'm just saying, please make Craig do the Nigel Slater book. Please make Craig do the Nigel Slater book. It's fantastic.

It's such a good... People wrote letters in about specifically this colour. The musky,

charred, cardamom-scented... That's it. After a struggle, I rescue

him with a long-handled feather duster from Fukuoka, a cherished present from a dear friend and gently place him in my skillet.

Yes, and he cooks the meat. Served with a

tart gooseberry puree and Segovian parsley, Bumblebee fritter makes a perfect mid-morning snack. Lovely. Well, well done, everybody. That's what tortoises are paying the big bucks for, isn't it? So Adam scores nine, but now he's out of the game because he's doing the next round. So he's frozen, that's locked in. He's peaked. And he still has three. Tenon is on two. I

think we all know who's going to win this one.

We never know. If you get every question right in my round... So, it's time for my round, which is called The Year in Hackery. Are you ready? Weapons at the ready, please. Why did Mr Justice Fancourt run through a catalogue of the Eye's golden oldies at the High Court, and who, as the first edition of the Eye in 2024 recorded, was whinging about not being invited? Go for it. It was a half-holiday, and this was their version of watching a video

in court, was to go through great legal stuff that's been covered in private eye. They were all lecturing in board games. Yeah, that's my answer. Like it was in The Lion King. Yeah, exactly. I'll give you a clue. It's

got a royal connection and the person who was winning about not being invited never gets seen anywhere very much these days.

Prince Andrew.

Nope.

Oh.

The other one. Prince Harry. That's the one. Hey. It was the case of the Duke of Sussex and others versus Mirror Group newspapers, which covered Piers Morgan's boasts about having heard Paul McCartney's voicemail messages to his then wife, Heather Mills, in 2011, and the occasion in 2002 when Morgan detailed exactly how easy it was to hack mobile phone messages. Do you remember who he unveiled that to?

Jeremy Paxman.

Jeremy Paxman, Ulrika Johnson, and Sir Victor Blank, the chairman of Mirror Group newspapers, at a lunch. Amazing. Weird lunch to be having. But anyway, yes, all of these were stories that the Eye had revealed up to 13 years earlier, and they all got an airing in court. A moron reacted by whinging none of the lawyers involved had even tried to talk to him. But as we pointed out, that was because the Mirror Group have long since given up trying to pretend he and his fellow editors were unaware of the massive amount of phone hacking going on in their papers. Nice. Next question. also saw the broadcast of mr bates versus the post office which finally exploded the story that richard brooks had been following for the eye since 2011 into the mainstream but which of the following long-running eye investigations is not currently being dramatized for tv a who was really responsible for the lockerby bombing which the eye Hi.

I think they're not doing tainted blood. And

I'm going to say, I think they're not doing Harrods. And I'm afraid the point goes to Andy. That's good. As yet, no plans to dramatise the Fayed story. But that's only because The Crown on Netflix has made such a good job of dramatising exactly what he was like. Spare a thought for the actor Nadim Sawala, by the way, who used to do one-man shows pretending to be Mohamed Fayed and has now completely lost that aspect of his enjoyment. Think about all the

Queen lookalikes who no longer get any work, unless they want them to be on the grave opening a leisure centre

or something. All those poor people who were doing Gary Glitter tribute acts up until about 1999. My Michael Gove work has tailed off completely. It's been very sad since the election. We should put some glasses on you and send you into the spectator offices and see how long it them to do. Like a really cheap version of Ludwig.

He can go and sort of do a bit of copy. The man from the inside. Great. In

February, the report the government commissioned into the Teesside Regeneration Project, championed by Tory Mayor Ben Houchen, or Lord Houchen as he is now, was published. As the eye showed, it confirmed that dubious deals had been struck with no formal decision-making process, the board of the South Tees Development Corporation misled, and that taxpayers were taking all the risk on the project while the businessman involved had no liability at all, but had extracted tens of millions from it. Is there a question at any point? How? It's more of a comment than this question. How did Houchen react to these findings?

He claimed it was a title vindication, the report, and it was actually very supportive. Absolutely.

The phrase I've got written down here is, Dickety Boo, he just said everything was fine, nothing to see. The people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool can welcome this investigation, which sets out in black and white that there is no corruption or illegality at Teesworks. And of course, because, you know, private eye stories have such an enormous effect, they did appear to agree, voting him back in as Tees Valley Mayor in May.

It's

just a deferred retribution, that's all it is. 30 years time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm loving this round of... Extremely boring questions. No, I was

going to say vengeance concealed as quiz. It's brilliant. This is the aren't we great round. Yeah. Oh, OK. Another long question.

No, the questions have been lovely. That one I have, that one was a little chewy. Good luck getting any points, Helen. I'm not, no, you're the tip of the spear. You're the only one who can take down Adam. I'm entirely, I'm throwing this match.

George Galloway won the Rochdale by-election for his Workers' Party of Britain And greeted Private Eye's coverage Of the putinophile outpourings Of some of his supporters By tweeting at us Cry

more Cry

more Cry more Or cry more No, very much not cry war Because then he was defeated by Paul Waugh At the general election Lovely As the Labour candidate But Was Galloway's reign in Rochdale longer or shorter than Michel Barnier's equally unedifying stint as French Prime Minister? Ooh. I mean, you're both going to get a go at this.

I'm going to say I'm going to go longer. And

I'll say shorter. OK, Andy, you were just wrong. And it was very well done, Helen. Longer. Galloway lasted 126 days as MP for Rochdale, which is approximately two and a half Liz Trusses, whereas Barnier managed a mere 90 days as French Prime Minister, which is 1.8 Liz Trusses, or 360 periods of martial law in South Korea. That's very good. Oh, God, these are all really, really long questions. I'll try and edit as I go. No,

I like that. Other people have quizzes that are just simple questions. Yours come with footnotes and explanatory diagrams. All of the questions

are a statement of one length or another, followed by but... How? There's no but in this one. In May, before anyone had found out what Hugh Edwards had really been up to, the Sun declared its disgust at the BBC keeping details of its internal investigation into what they had reported secret. The Eye pointed out the Sun was being equally quiet about its own internal investigation into its former star employee, Dan Wootten, and his catfishing of colleagues, who allegedly tricked them into sending him compromising photos and videos of themselves. On the very day that that edition of the Eye came out, the Sun reacted. But how? There was a but. Hang

on, it reacted to what?

Reacted to the eye coming out, saying they were keeping things secret. Oh, that was kind of joint. We'll let you go, Andy. They completely ignored it? Amazingly, they didn't in this case.

Didn't they fire Dan Wootten?

He was long gone from the son by this point. He'd been fired by GB News by this point. No, they informed the men who'd given evidence to the inquiry that they were going to continue to keep all the details secret and not even tell them what had been found out. But this hasn't, since you asked, stopped The Sun from demanding to know why the BBC didn't do something about Greg Wallace's behaviour sooner. A big row blew up in September after the press caught on to the fact that new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, along with his wife and plenty of his colleagues, had been taking freebies from millionaire Labour donor Lord Ali. Can

I say it's very hard to concentrate when Andy has his bells rocking in a pleasant way? Sorry.

Ready with those bells, Andy. He's putting me off. Because the actual question is coming up. When did iReaders first find out who was paying for Starmer's suits and glasses? Ooh. Go on, Helen. Earlier.

You want to go for a month at all?

I'll say February. It was in June, a month before election day, but it was far from the first time we'd highlighted his freebies because in October 2023, we pointed out that the £4,500 bill for his family summer holiday had been picked up by of all places, a Swansea van leasing company. And we said at that point, his freeloading is starting to look rather conspicuous. Yeah, you heard it here first. Which of the following is not a genuine headline from an Alistair Heath column in the Daily Telegraph, as featured in a Hack Watch this year. We are the West's last generation before the new dark age. Starmer's sinister plan for Britain will end the country as we know it. Armageddon is upon us and Britain will never be the same again. I fear nobody can save Britain from its inevitable

catastrophic collapse. Go

on. I think they're all real. Oh,

it's a trick question.

I think it's a trick question. They're all not all Alistair Heath columns. Oh, dang.

Okay, I'm going to go for number two, whatever that one was.

No, it wasn't. It was number four, because that was his colleague, Sherelle Jacobs, right in December 2023. All genuine Telegraph ones.

Fantastic.