Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

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

The Queries

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

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

3 What initially met at Thingvellir in Iceland in 930?

4 Within the energy sector, what does EfW stand for?

5 Tears of Christ wine comes from vineyards on which mountain?

6 Which British television comedy has been running for 19 years?

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

8 What piece in chess was initially called the counsellor?

What Links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Mount Vesuvius.

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

7 Taylor Report (1990).

8 Queen.

9 London lanes.

10 Douro River: rises in Spain; flows through in Spain; empties into the Atlantic.

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

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Ancient Olympic events.

14 Title spies in novels: 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 Oscar wins in Woody Allen movies: film Blue Jasmine; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Annie Hall; Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway.