Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

How much of common knowledge do you possess? Dive into the following collection of queries to find out.

The Queries

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

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

3 What initially met at Thingvellir in Iceland during the year 930?

4 In the power industry, what does EfW stand for?

5 Lacryma Christi wine comes from wine estates on what mountain?

6 Which BBC sitcom has been running for nineteen years?

7 Which person's findings resulted in the implementation of all-seater stadiums in the UK?

8 Which piece in chess was initially called the counsellor?

Common Connections

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

10 Sierra de Urbión; Tordesillas town; Zamora; Oporto?

11 Offspring of Cush; ninth variation in music; maritime patrol aircraft; Iranian embassy siege?

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

13 Pugilism; chariot racing; discus; javelin; long jump; ancient combat sport; wrestling?

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

15 Blanchett actress; Penélope Cruz; Diane Keaton; Mira Sorvino; Wiest thespian?

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Mount Vesuvius.

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

7 Lord Justice Taylor (1990).

8 The queen piece.

9 Lanes in London.

10 River Douro: starts in Spain; travels through Spain; empties into the Atlantic.

11 The name Nimrod: from Genesis; from Elgar’s Enigma Variations; Hawker Siddeley Nimrod; codename for SAS operation.

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

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

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