Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

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

The Questions

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

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

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

4 Within the energy sector, what is EfW?

5 Lacryma Christi vino originates from wine estates on what mountain?

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

7 Whose report led to the adoption of all-seater stadiums in the United Kingdom?

8 What chess piece was originally known as the vizier?

Common Connections

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

10 Urbión Range; Tordesillas; Zamora; Porto?

11 Son of Cush; ninth musical variation; naval patrol plane; Iranian embassy siege?

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

13 Boxing; chariot contests; discus; javelin; broad jump; pankration; grappling?

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

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

Feeling stumped by the Tordesillas question?

The Answers

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 (second longest-running UK sitcom)

7 Lord Justice Taylor (1990).

8 The queen piece.

9 London lanes.

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

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

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Ancient Olympic events.

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

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