Saturday Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

How much of common knowledge are you holding? Plunge into this set of questions to find out.

The Questions

1 What country music legend was nearly killed from an ostrich attack back in 1981?

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

3 What initially met at Þingvellir in Iceland in 930?

4 In the power industry, what is EfW?

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

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

7 Whose report led to the implementation of all-seater stadiums in the UK?

8 What chess piece was originally known as the vizier?

Common Connections

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

10 Sierra de Urbión; Tordesillas; Zamora; Oporto?

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

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

13 Boxing; chariot contests; discus; javelin; long jump; ancient combat sport; grappling?

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

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (parliament).

4 Energy from waste.

5 Vesuvius.

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

7 Lord Justice Taylor (1990).

8 Queen.

9 London lanes.

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

11 The name Nimrod: in Book of Genesis; from Elgar’s Enigma Variations; Nimrod aircraft; codename for SAS operation.

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; Greene’s The Quiet American; Conrad’s The Secret Agent.

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