Weekend Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

How much of common knowledge are you holding? Plunge into the following set of questions to discover.

The Queries

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

2 Dame Sarah Mullally has been appointed as the one hundred and sixth what?

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

4 Within the energy sector, what is EfW?

5 Tears of Christ vino comes from vineyards on what mountain?

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

7 Whose report resulted in the adoption of stadiums with only seats in the UK?

8 What piece in chess was originally known as the vizier?

What Links

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

10 Urbión Range; Tordesillas; Zamora city; Porto?

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

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

13 Pugilism; chariot contests; discus throw; javelin; long jump; pankration; grappling?

14 James Bond; Leamas character; Pyle figure; Adolf Verloc?

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

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

12 Bristol Channel islands.

13 Ancient Olympic events.

14 Spy titles in books: Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me; John 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; Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway.