Saturday Trivia Challenge: Put Your Smarts to the Test

What amount of general knowledge do you possess? Plunge into the following set of questions to discover.

The Questions

1 Which 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 Which first convened at Thingvellir in Iceland in 930?

4 Within the energy sector, what is EfW?

5 Lacryma Christi vino originates from vineyards on what mountain?

6 What British television comedy has been airing for 19 years?

7 Whose report resulted in the implementation of stadiums with only seats in the UK?

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

What Links

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

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

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

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

13 Boxing; chariot racing; discus throw; javelin throw; long jump; pankration; wrestling?

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

15 Cate Blanchett; Penélope Cruz; Keaton performer; Mira Sorvino; Wiest thespian?

In deep water over the Tordesillas clue?

The Solutions

1 Johnny Cash.

2 Archbishop of Canterbury.

3 Althing (Icelandic assembly).

4 Energy from waste.

5 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; SAS operation codename.

12 Islands in the Bristol Channel.

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; Conrad’s The Secret Agent.

15 Oscar wins in Woody Allen movies: Blue Jasmine; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Annie Hall; feature Mighty Aphrodite; Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway.