Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

How much of common knowledge are you holding? Dive into this set of questions to discover.

The Queries

1 Which icon of country music was nearly killed from an ostrich attack in 1981?

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

3 Which initially met at Þingvellir in Iceland in 930?

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

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

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

7 Which person's report led to the adoption of stadiums with only seats in the UK?

8 What piece in chess was initially called the counsellor?

Common Connections

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

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

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

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

13 Boxing; chariot racing; discus throw; javelin; broad jump; pankration; wrestling?

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

15 Cate Blanchett; Cruz star; Diane Keaton; Mira Sorvino; Wiest thespian?

Feeling stumped by the Tordesillas question?

The Solutions

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

3 Althing (parliament).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Mount Vesuvius.

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

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; Hawker Siddeley Nimrod; SAS operation codename.

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

14 Spy titles in books: 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; Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

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