Weekend Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

What amount of common knowledge do you possess? Plunge into the following set of questions to find out.

The Queries

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

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

3 What first convened at Thingvellir in Iceland in 930?

4 In the power industry, what is EfW?

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

6 What BBC sitcom has been airing for 19 years?

7 Whose findings led to the implementation of stadiums with only seats in the UK?

8 Which chess piece was originally known as the counsellor?

What Links

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

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

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

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

13 Pugilism; chariot contests; discus; javelin; broad jump; ancient combat sport; wrestling?

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

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

Feeling stumped by the Tordesillas question?

The Solutions

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Mount Vesuvius.

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

7 Lord Justice Taylor (1990).

8 The queen piece.

9 Lanes in London.

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

11 Nimrod: from Genesis; from Elgar’s Enigma Variations; Nimrod aircraft; codename for SAS operation.

12 Bristol Channel islands.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

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; movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Annie Hall; feature Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway.