Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

What amount of common knowledge are you holding? 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 in 1981?

2 Sarah Mullally has been appointed as the 106th what?

3 Which first convened at Þingvellir in Iceland during the year 930?

4 In the power industry, what is EfW?

5 Tears of Christ wine originates from wine estates on what mountain?

6 Which BBC sitcom has been running for nineteen years?

7 Whose findings resulted in the adoption of all-seater stadiums in the United Kingdom?

8 Which chess piece was initially called the counsellor?

What Links

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

10 Urbión Range; Tordesillas; Zamora city; Porto?

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

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

13 Boxing; chariot contests; discus; javelin; long jump; pankration; wrestling?

14 Agent 007; Leamas character; Alden Pyle; Adolf Verloc?

15 Blanchett actress; Penélope Cruz; Keaton performer; Mira Sorvino; Dianne Wiest?

Feeling stumped by the Tordesillas question?

The Answers

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Vesuvius.

6 Not Going Out (second longest-running UK sitcom)

7 Taylor Report (1990).

8 The queen piece.

9 London lanes.

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

11 Nimrod: in Book of Genesis; in Elgar's Enigma Variations; Nimrod aircraft; codename for SAS operation.

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Ancient Olympic events.

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

15 Oscar wins in Woody Allen movies: Blue Jasmine; movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Annie Hall; feature Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway.