Weekend Trivia Challenge: Put Your Smarts to the Test

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

The Queries

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

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

3 What first convened at Thingvellir in Iceland in 930?

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

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

6 What BBC sitcom has been running for nineteen years?

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

8 What chess piece was initially called the counsellor?

What Links

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

10 Urbión Range; Tordesillas town; Zamora city; Porto?

11 Son of Cush; ninth musical variation; maritime patrol aircraft; Iranian embassy siege?

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

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

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

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Answers

1 The Man in Black.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 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: rises in Spain; flows through in Spain; reaches Atlantic.

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

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

14 Title spies in novels: Ian 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; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; classic Annie Hall; feature Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway.