Weekend Quiz: Put Your Smarts to the Test

What amount of common knowledge do you possess? Plunge into the following collection of queries to discover.

The Questions

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

2 Sarah Mullally was named as the 106th what?

3 What initially met at Þingvellir in Iceland during the year 930?

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

5 Lacryma Christi vino originates from vineyards on which mountain?

6 What BBC sitcom has been running for nineteen years?

7 Which person's findings 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 Lane; Hangar; Leather; Park; Pudding?

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

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

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

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

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

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

In deep water by the Tordesillas question?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

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 The queen piece.

9 Lanes in London.

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

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

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

13 Ancient Olympic events.

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