Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

How much of common knowledge do you possess? Dive into this collection of queries to discover.

The Queries

1 What icon of country music had a close brush with death by an ostrich back in 1981?

2 Dame Sarah Mullally was named as the 106th what?

3 Which first convened at Thingvellir in the nation of Iceland in 930?

4 Within the energy sector, what is EfW?

5 Lacryma Christi vino comes from wine estates on which mountain?

6 Which British television comedy has been running for nineteen years?

7 Which person's findings led to the adoption of stadiums with only seats in the UK?

8 What piece in chess was initially called the vizier?

What Links

9 Brick; Chancery Lane; Hangar Lane; Leather Lane; Park Lane; Pudding Lane?

10 Urbión Range; Tordesillas town; Zamora city; Oporto?

11 Offspring of Cush; ninth variation in music; naval patrol plane; siege at the Iranian embassy?

12 Caldey; Denny; Flat Holm; Lundy Island; Stert; The Wolves?

13 Boxing; chariot contests; discus throw; javelin throw; broad jump; pankration; wrestling?

14 Agent 007; Leamas character; Pyle figure; Verloc persona?

15 Cate Blanchett; Penélope Cruz; Diane Keaton; Sorvino actress; Dianne Wiest?

Feeling stumped by the Tordesillas question?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Energy from waste.

5 Vesuvius.

6 The sitcom Not Going Out (UK's second longest-running comedy)

7 Taylor Report (1990).

8 The queen piece.

9 Lanes in London.

10 Douro River: rises in Spain; flows through in Spain; reaches Atlantic.

11 Nimrod: from Genesis; in Elgar's Enigma Variations; Hawker Siddeley Nimrod; codename for SAS operation.

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

14 Title spies in novels: Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me; Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Greene’s The Quiet American; Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

15 Won acting Oscars in Woody Allen films: film Blue Jasmine; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; classic Annie Hall; feature Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway.