Weekend Trivia Challenge: Test Your Knowledge

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

The Questions

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

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

3 What first convened at Þingvellir in the nation of Iceland during the year 930?

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

5 Tears of Christ wine comes from vineyards on which mountain?

6 What BBC sitcom has been running for nineteen years?

7 Whose findings led to the adoption of stadiums with only seats in the United Kingdom?

8 What piece in chess was originally known as the counsellor?

What Links

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

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

11 Offspring of Cush; ninth variation in music; maritime patrol aircraft; Iranian embassy siege?

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

13 Pugilism; chariot racing; discus; javelin throw; long jump; ancient combat sport; wrestling?

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

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 The Man in Black.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

3 Althing (parliament).

4 Waste-to-energy.

5 Vesuvius.

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

7 Taylor Report (1990).

8 Queen.

9 London lanes.

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

11 The name 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: Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me; Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Greene’s The Quiet American; Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

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