Saturday Trivia Challenge: Put Your Smarts to the Test

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

The Queries

1 Which icon of country music was nearly killed from an ostrich attack back in 1981?

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

3 What initially met at Thingvellir in Iceland in 930?

4 In the power industry, what does EfW stand for?

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

6 Which BBC sitcom has been airing for nineteen years?

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

8 Which chess piece was initially called the counsellor?

What Links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feeling stumped over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Canterbury Archbishop.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Energy from waste.

5 Mount Vesuvius.

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

7 Lord Justice Taylor (1990).

8 Queen.

9 Lanes in London.

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

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

12 Bristol Channel islands.

13 Events in the ancient Olympics.

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

Kenneth Bell
Kenneth Bell

A tech strategist and writer passionate about digital transformation and emerging technologies.