Which way does Google suggest the following searches be completed?

1. Why am I ...
... still single
... always tired
... Googling this again

2. Who was responsible for ...
... 9 11
... the Irish famine
... My Family

3. Are we ...
... going to die in 2012
... there yet
... gay

4. The best thing to do when ...
... you are bored
... you have a cold
... the body won't decompose

5. Are my parents ...
... overprotective
... getting a divorce
... on fire

6. The best thing to do with ...
... an iPad
... 10000 dollars
... strontium

7. How to fix ...
... a cat
... a zipper
... Grandpa

8. Am I really ...
... pregnant
... in love
... Sidney Poitier

9. My dog has ...
... fleas
... eaten chocolate 
... a history

10. Why does he always ...
... snore
... stare at me
... make couscous

11. The real reason ...
... for Christmas
... Katie and Peter split
... for Shrek

12. What is wrong with ...
... football today
... me
... Hinckley & Rugby Building Society

13. Who in the hell is...
... this girl
... Mel Kiper
... standing in my shower

14. I want to kill...
... my mom
... everybody in the world
... people named Rusty

15. Playing guitar like ...
... a bass
... Jerry Garcia
... Stephen Hawking

16. The best thing I ever ...
... got for Christmas
... ate
... fondled

17. What to do if you are ...
... being bullied
... homeless
... Presbyterian

18. The easiest way to ...
... be rich
... die
... broil a panda

19. Please do not ...
... smoke
... hesitate to contact me
... assemble a clarinet

20. Duke Ellington and ...
... his orchestra
... John Coltrane
... bacon

ANSWERS
In each case, the second response is the one first suggested by Google. Today, anyway.

Rate yourself
20 = unbelievable; 17-19 = brilliant; 13-16 = excellent; 10-12 = very good; 7-9 = good; 4-6  = okay; 0-3 = what the fuck is the matter with you?

1. You're single because you're Googling this again.
2. Lord Treveleyan
3. Maybe tomorrow.
4. Take a Lemsip and/or Panadol.
5. See Philip Larkin.
6. Buy a second-hand car
7. Hire a home-help.
8. She's pulling your strings.
9. It won't die.
10. Because he's done Q2, and he's gay.
11. Babies will strain any relationship.
12. Nothing, it's just a stressful day.
13. Presumably no relation to Mel Tormé.
14. See Q5.
15. Is impossible for Joe Bloggs.
16. Was probably cooked in Italy.
17. Be thankful you're one of the Elect.
18. Roast like a pig on a spit.
19. In case of emergency
20. May be talented, but best left to connoisseurs to adjudicate.

2. The long range comet that near-missed then but is coming back in 2012.

18. Mornington Crescent

1.  What is the correct response to someone who abandons work on a tricky assignment in favour of saying "I'll leave it in your capable hands?"

2. Is it only acceptable for a man to wear a bow-tie once his hair turns grey?

3. Can there really be any point to it, to any of it, or is it best to just think about something else until it's time to go to sleep?

4. What kind of a child names his hamster Sellafield?

5. Is there any truth to the rumour that the late college gridiron coach Woody Hayes played bass on the Starland Vocal Band's hit "Afternoon Delight"?

6. Why do we spell Philippines with a Ph but Filipino with an F?

7. For crying out loud, would you stop sniffling? Get a tissue, will you, you knob?

8. Was that last track we heard overly commercial or merely accessible?

9. Whatever happened to Bob Ticuusurkara?

10. When a woman says with a sneer that she kept her maiden name because she doesn't see why she should have to use her husband's, is it okay to point out she's using her father's?

This one's late, I know, but my dog ate the Internet.

1. Juan erects twice as many fenceposts in one day as Troy, but is paid half as much. Does this question carry a sinister political bias?

2. "Simon Says" ... "Simple Simon" ... Who is this Simon guy; doesn't he have a goddamn last name?

3. Can you ever be lucky to hit the post, or are you always unlucky?

4. If my cautiously incisive plastic knife breaks in two in an attempt to slice open my cautiously flavoursome scone, is it the fault of the knife or the scone, or just another of those indictments of contemporary British society?

5. It would be unlikely that the soul singer Chaka Khan would marry the right-wing political commentator John Lott. But shouldn't she do it anyway, just for the name?

6. If you could come back in the next life as a roll of aluminium foil, which brand would you choose, and why?

7. Has anyone raised a laugh with a joke that begins: "When I worked as a derivatives trader ..."?

8. What is the smallest municipality in Senegal in which it's possible to buy a shrink-wrapped, legitimate copy of a Marvin Hamlisch CD?

9. Why? No, why the hell should I stop? Just because you don't think it's funny? Let me tell you something, mate, Jasper Carrott is a fucking millionaire.

10. Any truth to the rumour that if you read the Guiness Book of World Records backward you receive an invigorating Satanic massage?

Own goals.

1. We often complain that this or that person "really makes me sick". But in what way? Vomiting? Diarrhoea? Scabies?

2. If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too? Or would you say you would but bottle it once you peered over the edge, you big pussy?

3. Did Sir Stanley Matthews have a favourite baritone saxophonist?

4. Does anyone still think it was wise to "party like it's 1999"?

5. Who would win in an all-out fight between an oven light and a pencil?

6. You know it's stupid, but you still do it, don't you? What is wrong with you?

7. In special-event terms, what's the typical percentage increase between " ... and much more" and "... and much, much more"?

8. Do pyromaniacs refuse to blow out the candles on their birthday cake?

9. Are people named Olive, on average, older than people named Ethel?

10. Given the choice between a "hot chick" and a "cool chick", which do I choose? And does it make any difference if I'm a vegetarian?

9. No.

In the 1890s, Ethel was the 8th most common name among female American babies - over 6,000 of every million girls born were given this name each year. After that, it fell precipitously. By the 1920s, it had fallen to about 2,000 per million, and by 1970, it was under 100 per million. If you're still alive, and your name is Ethel, the likelihood is that you're 80 years of age or over.

Olive was never as poplar a name as Ethel. At its peak in the 1880s, about 1200 girls per million were being named Olive, making it the 88th most popular name in the US. By the 1930s, fewer than 100 girls per million were being named Olive, and it disappeared from use until this decade, when it made a re-appearance. So you have essentially a bimodal distribution for the name Olive - a bunch who are over 80 and a bunch who are under 10, meaning the average is somewhere in the 40s or 50s, much lower than for Ethel.

If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too? Or would you say you would but bottle it once you peered over the edge, you big pussy?

I was once in a similar situation (not a coastal cliff, but a water-filled quarry with 30-foot-high walls) and my reaction was decidedly feline.

So was everybody else's – bar one. The non-pussy's reaction was a broken pelvis and Christ knows what else.

There was no really serious long-term damage, as far as I can remember. However, a year and a half later, on his sixteenth birthday, his parents gave him a moped. Within a week, he came off it and broke at least one of his legs.

He also used to insist on writing in green ink in his exercise books at school, although I'm sure that had no bearing on his cheating death every couple of years.

1. What proportion of Premier League throw-ins are actually taken correctly?

2. Do funeral directors ever attend conferences where they discuss "heightening the brand experience"?

3. The bottle of still water in front of me says "Once opened, keep refrigerated and consume within three days." What will happen to me if I drink some on day four?

4. If Darren is twice his brother's age, but half his sister's, and his mother is named Julia, isn't it about time his Dad had a vasectomy?

5. What can you tell me about "ocelot harnessing", and does it have anything to do with Alan Shearer?

6. Is this really all there is? I mean, there's not some sort of private curtain you can pull back to reveal what's still to come?

7. Who would win in a knife fight between a trainee chiropodist and an oriental rug salesman?

8. What's "quantitative easing" in Cockney Rhyming Slang?

9. Jesus Christ, was that a deer just there?

10. Has anyone ever been killed by a falling potato?

Not necessary. From an OFT survey:

8. Anaesthetic. As in "anaesthetic freezing".

8. Anaesthetic. As in "anaesthetic freezing".

You've been watching too many repeats of Minder.

The version I grew up with was "monotonal", as in "monotonal wheezing".

The Exploding Vole wrote:


Well, indirectly, yes. Sort of.

1. Which is the more impressive accolade: the best jazz bassoonist in Papua New Guinea, or the best luge repairer in Qatar?

2. In China, "Coca Cola" apparently translates as "bite the wax tadpole". But under what circumstances would you ever use this phrase?

3. They laughed at the Wright Brothers when they tried to get an airplane off the ground. But who's laughing now, apart from that one guy?

4. So how about it, then? The lava won't be that molten now, will it?

5. Shouldn't there be a Nobel Prize for Keeping Pretty Much to Yourself?

6. What would happen to Alex Salmond if, in public, he referred to David Cameron as a "bawbag"?

7. Who has put up more shelves over the last few years, Admin2 or Admin5?

8. Has a cricket match ever been abandoned because of a impending feeling of malaise?

9. If Mike Tyson were to take, say, Nana Mouskouri out to dinner, would he offer to remove her coat before they took their seats?

10. Which particular brand of moist towelettes would you say most closely resembles the arctic tundra?

1. When they implore you to "put your hands together" for someone, aren't you meant to separate them again at some point?

2. Does anyone consider himself "an avid commuter"?

3. That Monty Python football sketch where the Bournemouth Gynaecologists played the Watford Long John Silver Impersonators: which other teams were involved in the competition?

4. Any point in my developing a port-a-loo for compulsive Tweeters and calling it the Twitter Shitter?

5. The manager has lost the dressing room, but he knows it's around here somewhere. Can you help him find it?

6. No man is an island, but how close did William Howard Taft come?

7. If you were a cab driver, and picked someone up who told you to "Follow that car!" would you do so in a circuitous way, to bump up the fare?

8. Do you think George Benson ever watches Ultimate Fighting?

9. And did you have anything from the mini-bar, sir?

10. What's the youngest age at which anyone from Mali has navigated a submarine?

1. 6
2. 9
3. 2

1. If you changed your name so that it included an exclamation mark at the end, would you end up with more friends?

2. Which former Queen of the South star was nicknamed "the Presbyterian David Nish"?

3. Do mosquitoes ever get drowsy?

4. Does the market research behind Surf labelling a variant of fabric conditioner "Mystic Waterfalls" suggest that we are a nation with a screw loose?

5. I ask you, what's so bloody hard about putting it in the fucking bin, mate?

6. Do you honestly wish the court to believe that the reason you were in the High Street with a sawn-off shotgun was that you were trying to find someone to repair it, and that the stocking over your head was the result of an unsuccessful attempt to dress yourself in the dark?

7. If you are trying to charm the pants off someone, shouldn't you first charm their shoes off, to, you know, make things easier?

8. Baked potato, hash browns, French fries, or Tallulah Bankhead?

9. It's not really "Match of the Day", is it?

10. What is the most number of scoops of ice cream any man has melted under his armpit - and what's his star sign?

1. In her book Self-Awareness for Fucking Knobheads, what does author Cornelia Wurstspigot regard as the most effective way of dealing with people who stand in the middle of a busy, narrow pavement looking at their mobile phone?

2. Why is it called the "Department of the Interior" when it has to do with everything that's out-of-doors?

3. How many times during his illustrious career was Gordon Banks booked for removing his shirt after saving a penalty?

4. No Coke. Is Pepsi okay?

5. According to the long-forgotten Finnish proverb, if the tallest man in the village chops down the tallest pine in the forest, how long must he wait before his true love will take one up the Khyber?

6. How many dogs in Bhutan are named after famous heavyweight boxers?

7. Would you trust anyone who said, out loud, "Ooooh, look, a Wal-Mart!"?

8. Is it right that Mr Universe always comes from Earth?

9. Celtic, Rangers ... what's the difference, eh? Eh?

10. What proportion of grounds in Serie A have wind-chimes?