Quizless Mondays

Not lying to you, I’m really missing Quizzy Mondays on TV at the moment. Bridge of Lies has finished for the time being as well, which is a real shame considering that this was on just on time for me to watch when I got back from school. Still, never mind, there’s always the Thursday night quiz to look forward to. 

Ray was the question master on Thursday night, and you’ll get no complaints from me about that. He does what I (probably unfairly) think of as an old-fashioned quiz. That’s not a criticism. Quite the opposite in fact. Ray does a quiz which shows an understanding of the old adage – something for everyone. Each round has a range of questions of different subjects, and I’d say that he takes a bit of time and trouble on his phrasing to make it clear exactly what the question is asking. We did fall foul of the question “what is produced when Mercury reacts with another metal?” – normally I’ve heard this one being phrased as something like “what word is given to any alloy containing mercury?” – to which the answer of course is amalgam.  So, that one foxed us. 

My turn again a week on Thursday. Have I started writing the quiz? Have I hell as like. Watch this space.

Big in the 70s Quiz: Part 2

 Spangles

 

1) Which company introduced Spangles in 1950?

2) Which brand is the only surviving relation of Spangles?

3) Name any of the original flavours of Old English Spangles

4) In 2008, which position did Spangles earn on a nationwide pole to find the discontinued brand of sweets most people would like to see brought back?

5) In which year were Spangles discontinued, not counting a brief and unsuccessful return in the 1990s?

Answers – highlight to reveal

1) Mars Confectionary

2) Tunes – they are the same shape and size

3) Any of these – liquorice – mint humbug – pear drop – aniseed – treacle

4) No.1 – it topped the pole

The Flashing Blade

1) The Flashing Blade was set during which war? (Get this and you’re good or cheating!)

2) How many episodes of 12 minutes long was the series made into for broadcast in the UK – 16 – 18 – 20 – 22?

3) How many episodes were in the series when it was originally shown in France?

4) Episodes of The Flashing Blade were broadcast during the children’s Saturday Morning TV show ‘On the Waterfront’ in 1988. They used a spoof dialogue track written by which BAFTA winning writer?

5) According to the lyrics of the show’s excellent theme, what are the three things that are well worth fighting for?

Answers – Highlight to reveal

1) The War of the Mantuan Succession

2) 22

3) 4 – each was 7 minutes long

4) Russell T Davies

5) Life and Love and Happiness

The Brink of Defeat

A funny thing happened at the quiz last night. We nearly lost. Blimey, that’s arrogant and smug, isn’t it? Sorry. In case you’re new – and you’re very welcome to LAM if you are – the quiz I’m talking about is the quiz in Aberavon Rugby Club in Port Talbot. I first attended in 1995, and I’ve been playing and taking my turn as question master almost ever since. I say almost because I’d pretty much stopped going even before the first lockdown. But a chance meeting with a member of one of the other teams in August last year led to me deciding to go back and give it a go, as reported in this very blog. My daughter Jess and son in law Dan offered to come along, as did our friend Adam, and a team was reborn. Every quiz since then, other than my own, we’ve won, and my team also won my New Year’s Quiz.

Now, one thing you can guarantee about a winning streak is that however long it lasts, each quiz you win brings you closer to the next one you lose. So I’m always wondering at the start of each Thursday quiz – is this the one where we get beat? It looked like it last night. After the first two rounds we were floundering, four points behind the leaders. It was a long old fightback, and we’d only achieved parity after round 6. Round seven saw both of our teams score a full house, so it all rested on the last round. The last round had been announced as a special round. This week would have been the 34th birthday of Katherine, a regular player in the quiz who had tragically passed away recently. In memory of Katherine, the final round was split between 2 of her favourite subjects – Walt Disney and Harry Potter. I have to admit I did feel sorry for the other team when this was revealed. Jess and Dan combined have won whole quizzes on those two subjects. To add to our luck with this round, the only question that they didn’t know – a Harry Potter question – was one I did know. That’s the way it goes.

I hope that the other teams don’t resent it too much. For most of the years I’ve been attending the quiz the vast majority of quizzes have been won by just two teams – the various incarnations of my team, the Boycs, and the various incarnations of the Lemurs. That never seemed to be too much of a problem, and I’m sure that this is at least partly due to the fact that you don’t have to pay anything to play, and there’s no prizes. But I can’t help wondering if some of the teams are becoming a bit sick of just the one team winning. As I’m sure that I’ve said before, I can’t deliberately ‘throw’ a quiz. I can’t help wanting to win and trying to win. The time was when I would have said – well, if you don’t like us winning so much, then do something about it. Put a bit of effort in, make yourself a better quizzer then you’ll be much more likely to win a few. – Thankfully, I’ve mellowed since then. I’d rather another team beat us than anyone start to feel resentful about it. 

Dan and Jess said something which made my heart glad yesterday night as well. They’d really started coming down to give me a bit of company and to make up a team, but they’ve got to the stage now that they really look forward to the quiz on a Thursday. I know where they’re coming from. For so long the quiz has been a significant marker post in my week. It’s something to look forward to which comes at just the right time in the week and marks the gradual downhill run into the weekend. I hope it continues for the foreseeable future.

The History of Mastermind: Towards a 6th Decade

The later years of the fifth decade of the show would bring some of the greatest upheavals since the 2003 TV revival. We’ll come to that.

In the 2014 Grand Final, the man who has faced the black chair on more occasions than any other contender, Hamish Cameron, reached his first Grand final. According to my own database – which may well be less than perfect, I admit, Hamish appeared in no fewer than 8 separate series. I believe he was a 6 times semi-finalist, and reached the final in his last two series, 2014 and 2019. Putting that into perspective, I believe that he faced 15 specialist rounds, and 15 general knowledge rounds in the chair altogether. Sadly, Hamish passed away a matter of days before the broadcast of the 2019 final. In 2014 Hamish was beaten by Clive Dunning, who would go on to add the Brain of Britain title to his CV. Runner up was Brian Chesney, who for a few years was saddled with the reputation of being the ‘nearly man’, after becoming runner up in both Mastermind and Brain of Britain. Well, his time would come.

Up to the 2015 Grand Final, only one of the revived series champions had been a woman. Many people fancied that this could change in 2015. Diane Hallagan had previously reached the Grand Final in 2011. However, in the final Diane fell just a little short, and was eclipsed by Marianne Fairthorne, who won a very tight and exciting final on pass countback, just beating David Greenwood. Marianne had been one of the highest scoring heat runners up, and her victory justified the reinstatement of the repechage places a few years earlier.

Of course, if the 2015 final was tight, then 2016’s would prove to be even tighter and not without controversy. At the halfway stage Jim Maginnis had a 2-point lead over Alan Heath. Alan scored 2 points more on GK than Jim did. Neither contender had passed at all, and so we had a Grand Final Tiebreak. As it happened, we had two, since the contenders both later explained that there had, in fact, been 2 tie breaks, since both Alan and Jim had the same score in the first. The BBC won no friends by editing out the first tiebreak when the final was broadcast. Alan won the second and was duly crowned the champion. The controversy came when, in the broadcast, it was noted that John Humphrys read out the wrong year for Frank Sinatra’s death in Jim’s GK round. Both contenders reacted with grace and dignity. We’re all human, and human beings make mistakes from time to time.

I’ve already paid tribute to Hamish, who made it to the Grand Final on his 7^th attempt. 2017 belonged to another stalwart of the show, Isabelle Heward. Before 2017, Isabelle had appeared in 4 series, losing out in the semi final of the last three. It wasn’t easy for her to reach that 2017 final either, since it required a 3 way tiebreak in her semi-final. Then, in the Grand Final she was 3 points off the lead after the specialist round. However a superb round of 17 on GK brought her the win.

If at first you don’t succeed, in Mastermind, then try, try again. It doesn’t always bring success, but it did so for Isabelle in 2017, and it did again in 2018. Brian Chesney finally laid his grand final hoodoo to rest. Joint leader at the halfway stage after the specialist round, he ran away with a monster score of 19 on GK.

Big changes were in the air. Even before the 2019 series began broadcasting in the Autumn of 2018, the BBC had put the production of the show out to tender from independent production companies. It’s fair to say that the show had come under criticism from some quarters due to the length of the majority of the questions being asked. Many people, me included, felt that the length of the questions did, at times, seem ridiculous. Certainly question setters were under fairly strict instructions as to the way the questions should be couched. The tendering process was won by Hat Trick and Hindsight, who would produce the show from the 2020 series onwards.

In the meantime, the BBC production team introduced a couple of cosmetic changes to the show which left many of us scratching our heads a little bit. Contenders would no longer sit on the side, facing the chair while waiting for their turn. Instead they would have to walk through a neon portal to the chair for their specialist round, then be marched off the set again. They would all be brought back together before the GK round, but not actually told the order in which they would be returning to the chair. To be honest, I couldn’t really see the point of these changes, and I was glad to see them quietly dropped by the start of the 2020 series.

As for the 2019 series, we’ve already seen that Hamish Cameron reached his second final. We would also see Mark Grant reach his third final, an outright Mastermind record. While it would have been fitting for either Hamish or Mark to win and create a treble of perseverance champions in 2017,18 and 19, it was not to be. The final was actually won by Judith Lewis. There was just a little hint of controversy about whether Judith said ‘gerbil’ or ‘jerboa’ in response to a GK question. The discussion was purely academic. Even if Judith had not been given that point, she would still have won on pass countback.

So farewell, then, BBC production, and hello Hat Trick and Hindsight for the 2020 series. I for one was pleased to see that they had sensibly adopted a policy of – if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, but if it is broken then fix it. So the cosmetic changes of the previous season were quietly dropped. Sadly, so were the repechage slots for highest scoring runners up. The questions were still on the long side, but nonetheless there was evidence that the show may well be taking on a renewed vitality. The 2020 Grand Final was won by Dave McBryan. Predictably there was a little comment on the fact that Dave is a professional quiz master. The majority view, that Mastermind is meant to be a serious challenge for the best and you don’t discount applications because the applicant might actually be good is one I have always agreed with.

As the 2021 series began in late 2020, John Humphrys announced that he was stepping down from the question master’s role. On a personal note I have mixed feelings about John Humphrys. I still don’t understand why he couldn’t have just popped his head around the door after the 2008 (2007) final to offer a word before he went. I do think that his was an important hand in lengthening the show’s questions, which I feel had a detrimental effect on the show. However, on set he was a great broadcaster in my view. I will never forget his assured handling of my Grand Final.

Still, as speculation about who would become the new host abounded, the 2021 series continued, and in the shape of Jonathan Gibson we had a challenger to Gavin Fuller’s status as the youngest ever Mastermind Champion. He looked like a good contender in the first round. In the semi final he looked like a great one, and very much a potential champion. Come the Grand Final, he was still younger than Gavin had been in 1993. You might have expected that maybe this would have weighed on him a bit but come the Grand Final and he absolutely smashed it. He led by a point after the first round, and with a brilliant 17 in the GK round he won going away from the pack.

In March of 2021 the news broke that Clive Myrie was to be the new host of Mastermind. The news was greeted with general approval. Although in a couple of quarters fears had been expressed that a light entertainment personality might be parachuted in, most commentators felt that the new host had to have a BBC news background, with the name of Samira Ahmed gaining approval in many quarters. Still, even though she didn’t get the nod, on paper Clive fit the bill well.

Not just on paper, either. With the exception of a few brainless, racist internet trolls, reaction to Clive Myrie as host throughout the most recent series in 2022 has been extremely positive. With regards to his style as question master, many have noticed his willingness to speed up his delivery to match the fastest contenders. Magnus Magnusson himself used to do the same, and I can give no higher praise than that.

Sometimes the final is won by narrow margins, as in 2019. Sometimes it’s won by one contender blowing away the competition, as happened in 2021. In 2022, a similar thing occurred. Coming into the final a couple of the finalists had commendably consistent records in both heat and semi, while others had shown that they were capable of high scores in GK, but also in not so high scores. Alice Walker led after the specialist round. Then, in the GK round she had the round of her life and achieved a monster total of 19 to win by 6 points.

Which all brings us up to date. I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t say how long BBC will choose to continue with Mastermind. Just because a show has lasted in one form or another for 50 years, doesn’t mean that the BBC won’t one day decide that it is surplus to requirements again. Hopefully not for the foreseeable future though, and here’s to us all being here in 2032, celebrating its diamond anniversary. Cheers!

What Becomes of Quiz Ambitions?

In the broadest sense I’ve been a quizzer for as long as I can remember. By broadest sense, I mean that for as long as I can remember I regularly watched TV quizzes and tried to answer the questions before anyone else in the room (including the people taking part on the telly). I would play in any quizzes I could at school – and becoming the inaugural Elthorne High School Mastermind Champion is not the least proud boast I have ever made.- In 1988 I played in my first pub quiz, and within a few weeks I played in my first ever quiz league. In 2004 I played in my first TV quiz.

I could go on. But the point is, that I have had a long quiz career that has mostly brought me enjoyment and satisfaction over the years. There’s not many quiz ambitions that I’ve had that I haven’t achieved. I haven’t won Brain of Britain (although I did get to the final) and I’d love to win it, but it’s unlikely to happen bearing in mind that I have never yet reapplied, I have no plans to reapply at the moment, and to be honest, I’m certainly no better a quizzer than I was last time, and in all probability a lot worse. I would also love to win the CIU (Club and Institute Union) annual quiz, but again, I haven’t played in it for years, my team having broken up, and to be honest the best that happened even when I was a decent quizzer was that we came second.

On a non-national level though, I always had an ambition to become something of a quiz mentor. A quiz what? Well, let me try to explain. Come back with me to 1988, when I played in my first quiz league. In 1988 a local firm, O’Callaghan and McCarthy, sponsored a quiz league in Port Talbot that lasted for a couple of years. Port Talbot had previously possessed a pretty competitive league in the 70s, and the Swansea Bay area had been something of a hotbed of quiz league action in the 70s and 80s.

I was invited to attend the quiz in Port Talbot’s Railway Club by a friend of my wife’s family, Neville. Nev, God rest his soul, wasn’t a great quizzer, but he was a great man, and he became a very good friend. Because I was friends with Nev, and frankly for a complete novice was pretty good in the club quiz, I was invited to play in the club’s team in the O’Callaghan and McCarthy League. This was when I met my own unofficial quiz mentor, Alan Coombs.

If you talk to almost anyone playing in that league set up in the 70s or 80s in Port Talbot, they all remember Alan. Just before I first met Alan my own performance answering questions off the TV, and in the club’s quiz, had led me to the false belief that I was pretty good. Meeting Alan showed me that I had a lot to learn. He was just so good. Looking back 35 years, I know that he didn’t know everything. But it seemed like he did. I used to walk into the opposition’s pub for an away match in that league, and you could honestly see the other team mentally giving up as soon as they saw that Alan was there. In later years, other members of that team who’d known Alan for much longer than I had, told me in all sincerity that by the time I first met Alan he was already on the slide, and not the quizzer he had been. Well, all I could think was that he must have been awesome in his pomp.

I say unofficial quiz mentor because this really wasn’t a sort of Karate Kid thing – wax on wax off and all that. We didn’t talk exclusively about quizzes. But playing in the same team as a quizzer like Alan, you just couldn’t help picking up very useful advice – well, if you had anything about you, that is. We played together for about 3 years in the first place, but then in the early 1990s, the league having folded and a couple of players giving up or moving away, I didn’t see Alan for a good couple of years. Then in 1995 by a chance combination of circumstances, I was invited to join a quiz league team in Neath, at the same time as starting to attend the Aberavon Rugby Club quiz. Alan was drafted into the league team, and on my recommendation, he started coming to the rugby club, playing with a different team. And I selfishly began measuring my progress as a quizzer against Alan, from playing with him in the league, and against him in the club. While I could hope at the time to one day maybe match him as a quizzer, I think I knew that I was never going to match him as a man. Alan was the kind of man about whom nobody ever had a bad word to say. He was humble, self-effacing and very, very good company. I took it all far too seriously, was far too competitive and could be a surly and miserable sod when in the wrong mood.

I really don't know why Alan never chanced his arm in a top level TV or radio quiz like Mastermind or Brain of Britain when he was in his late 70s/early 80s pomp. I don’t recall us ever talking that much about it. For whatever reason he just didn’t seem to fancy it. I think he was always more into playing within a team rather than as an individual quizzer. But he was always really encouraging to me, and truly delighted for me when Mastermind happened in 2007. In quiz terms, I think he saw something of himself as a quizzer in me. I was 24 when we first played together and he was in his 50s, I think. I was keen as mustard, and would have played in any quiz, any time, anywhere. I took it all really seriously and would sulk when I lost – so I’ve been told, Alan was the same in his younger days. And, blowing my own trumpet here, although I was raw, I had some talent for it. Alan certainly had talent for it.

Since the start of the 2010s, I have from time to time thought how nice it might be to be an unofficial quiz mentor to a younger quizzer in the way that Alan was for me. But this would, I thought, take a very special set of circumstances. For one thing, the local quiz scene is quite different from the local quiz scene in 1988. In the 1980s and the early-mid 1990s I played in quiz leagues in Neath, Swansea, Morriston, Llandeilo and Port Talbot. Every one of those leagues has folded. As far as I know, within a half hour’s drive from my home, only one league remains, in Bridgend. Yes, there are still pub quizzes. But I’ll be honest, I’m not convinced that pub quizzes offer the incentive to make yourself into a better quizzer. Not when there’s the possibility of getting beaten by phone cheats, however good you become. Not to mention the temptation of using your phone as a shortcut yourself. . .

Because you’d have to want to make yourself a better quizzer. You’d have to have this desire to win every quiz you entered. I have never entered a quiz and not wanted to win and not tried to win. I’ve entered a huge number of quizzes thinking that the chances of me winning are very slim, and I’ve lost a lot of quizzes in my time, but I’ve always wanted to do my best to win. And I think you’d have to have this desire in order to make yourself into a good quizzer, whether you have a mentor or not. Sad to say, a certain degree of quiz obsession helps.

So, here I am in 2022. I haven’t played in a serious quiz since the 2020 final of Brain of Mensa. It’s probably fair to say that I’m not the quizzer I was back in the noughties, and I wouldn’t say that I’m really quiz obsessed any longer. The only regular quiz in which I play is the rugby club’s Thursday night quiz. As I’ve mentioned in the past few months, the regulars in my team are my youngest daughter Jess, and my son in law Dan, and our friend Adam. All of them have taken their turn as question master recently. Then, last Saturday, Dan said to me out of the blue – you know what you said about connections for a quiz suddenly coming to you out of the blue? Well, it’s been happening to me, and I’ve been writing them down for my next quiz.- So what do you know? Maybe I am becoming a quiz mentor after all, without even realising it.

Big in the 70s Quiz: Part 1

Right then dearly beloved. Mastermind celebrates its 50^th Anniversary this year. In honour of this landmark, I’ve been wracking my brains about some of the other things which were popular in the 1970s, but did not have quite the same staying power. Here’s the first 2 sets of 5.

Raleigh Chopper Questions

1) In which year did the Raleigh Chopper Mark I first go on sale in the UK?

2) What were the sizes of the front and rear wheels?

3) How much did the Chopper cost when it was first launched in 1969?

4) The Chopper was inspired by the Stingray, manufactured in the USA by which manufacturer?

5) Raleigh launched a smaller version called the Chipper, but what was name of the even smaller version launched in 1972

Answers (highlight to reveal)

1) 1969

2) Rear 20 inch – Front 16 inch

3) Basic model £34 and 19 shillings

4) Schwinn

5) Raleigh Tomahawk

The Goodies Questions

1) Who was the youngest of the Goodies?

2) What was the name of the Lancashire Martial Art featured in the episode Kung Fu Capers?

3) The Goodies’ first extended Christmas special was titled “The Goodies and the Beanstalk”. What was the title of their second?

4) Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden hosted which 2004 quiz show, Channel ‘s original replacement for Fifteen to One?

5) One of the most famous episodes featured Kitten Kong, and for years the opening titles sequence showed it demolishing which London landmark

Answers

1) Graeme Garden

2) Ecky Thump

3) The Goodies Rule OK

4) Beat the Nation

5) The Telecom (then The Post Office) Tower

 

TV Experiences

A week ago or so I reviewed the 1 Percent Club, and only earlier today I was reading a post about it on the Contestant Hub on Facebook. Several of the replies from people who have actually participated in editions of the show made the point that they thought that the filming was a less than enjoyable experience. It set me thinking about my own recording experiences over the years. I’m sure that I’ve written about this before, but these are my shows to date: -

Come and Have A Go If You Think You’re Smart Enough – one show – 2004

Eggheads – one show – 2005

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – one show – 2006

Mastermind – one show – 2006

Mastermind – three shows – 2007

Brain of Britain (radio 4) – three shows – 2009

Are You An Egghead – three show - 2009

Only Connect – four shows – 2010

Mastermind Champion of Champions – 2010 – one show

Fifteen to One – one show – 2014

I also appeared on the Antiques Roadshow in 2014 as well. My appearance of that was then ridiculed on Gogglebox later the same week it was shown. That’s TV, folks.

Considering the stories I’ve heard from other people about the way that they’ve been treated on various shows, I count myself lucky that I didn’t have any real complaints about the way that I was treated on all my shows. I remember several friends and acquaintances who appeared on Battle of the Brains in 2009 describing being left standing around in cold corridors for ages, and very inadequate meals for example.

Well, I never really had an experience like that. I was spoilt, if anything, with my first show, “Come and Have A Go. . . “ This was a Saturday Night Lottery show and the Beeb were putting a fair amount of money into the show. We were put up for two nights in a very nice hotel just around the corner from the Royal Albert Hall, and when we got to Television Centre in White City we were given a lovely tour of it, including entry to the Blue Peter Garden. Mind you, it also introduced me to a key principle of recording a TV quiz show – once you’re out, you’re in the way.

Millionaire was another show where I felt very well taken care of. Not a live show like “Come and Have A Go . . . “ but a prime time show, where only one show was made in a day. To be fair everyone was taken into the bar afterwards and bought a drink by Chris Tarrant as well.

Those were probably the biggest budget shows I was ever on, but I have to say that even the TV quizzes where up to 4 shows a day were being made didn’t treat me badly at all. When I appeared on Eggheads we were the first show of the day to be filmed, and even though they must have been on a fairly tight time budget the Eggheads themselves, and Dermot Murnaghan all took time to shake hands, and have a bit of a chat with us.

I only have happy memories of Mastermind, and that includes the 2006 series. I thoroughly enjoyed Only Connect in 2010, although I didn’t request hotel accommodation for the show, bearing in mind it was all shot in Cardiff, about half an hour down the road from home. Champion of Champions was a wonderful experience, - I wouldn’t say that we were treated noticeably any differently from the way that we were treated on regular Mastermind, but I thoroughly enjoyed meeting other champs on the day, and they also sent me a framed photograph as a memento of the show. Nice.

They promised to send us a photograph as a memento when I appeared on Fifteen to One as well, but I never got one. Other than that, though, I cannot complain about the way we were treated on the show. There was a lot of waiting around, because I wasn’t actually on until the last show to be filmed that day. And that is a point worth taking some note of – when you’re a contestant on a TV quiz or game show, there is a lot of waiting around. You usually have to be there hours before you’re due on set, and only so much time can be taken up with briefings from a production assistant or researcher, wardrobe and makeup. If you’ve never taken part in a show like this before, my device would be to take your kindle with you.

If I’m honest, the only negative experience I had, which occurred on “Are You An Egghead?” wasn’t actually anything that happened on the show or in Television Centre. As I recall, the show was filmed right at the end of the month, and it was a month when I was particularly strapped for cash. Allowing for petrol to and from London, I really didn’t have any more at all to spare. The hotel in which we were staying was the Holiday Inn Express in Park Royal. When I got there for the first time I was told that the room had been booked and not paid for. Could I settle the bill now? No, in a word, I could not have, even if I wanted to. In the end, only when I threatened to ring the BBC and tell them the guy on reception was refusing to give me my room, and so I would be off home, did he relent. I spoke at some length to one of the team on the show, and they assured me that for my next appearance, a few days later, this would not happen again. To be fair, it didn’t happen in quite the same way. When I arrived for my next two shows, the receptionist said that, yes, the room had been paid for and could I still pay a £30 deposit, please? In a word, no. He backed down in the end, much as he had the first time.

If you haven’t already worked it out for yourself, I have to tell you that I’m a dedicated cheapskate. There’s a few reasons, all of which are too tedious for me to bore you with right now. But being expected to pay for something which I’d explicitly been told was being taken care of by the production company was just not on in my view.

Which actually reminds me about one of the problems with the 1 percent club. According to what I’ve been told, no travel expenses were offered. With 100 contestants to deal with I kind of understand the stinginess, but nonetheless I wouldn’t apply to the show myself considering this. By all means feel free to disagree, but I do think that you have a right as a contender to travel expenses, to overnight accommodation in a hotel if necessary, and if filming continued for most of the say, a bite to eat is always appreciated. To be honest, I didn’t like it that in many cases you had to provide receipts for train tickets or petrol in order to claim back your travel expenses, and these would be paid in the fullness of time, rather than on the day of the show. Especially considering that in most cases you were going to be walking away with nothing, and you certainly won’t going to receive anything just for appearing on the show.

I did say in most cases, because, as I recall, I did receive a one off payment for appearing in Brain of Britain in 2009/10. I found this radio experience to be a thoroughly enjoyable one, and very different from TV. We only needed to be in Broadcasting House about an hour before the show was due to be recorded. About 20 minutes or so before kick off a member of the team came down to the lobby to fetch us up to the radio theatre. Two shows were recorded in the same evening. You had a little practice, met Russell Davies, and then, off we go. It was really refreshing after all the faffing about which has to go into making a TV show. The whole thing was so much more relaxed and less fraught.

So, bearing in mind the mostly very positive nature of my TV and radio quiz experiences, would I do it again? Yes, I would. I have put in a number of applications since my last TV quiz appearance on Fifteen to One in 2014. Two of them resulted in auditions – one for Nick Hancock’s Breakaway, and one for a show you might recall called 500 Questions. You don’t get paid travel expenses for auditions, and you don’t expect to, but I rather like auditions, being something of a show off myself. So who knows?

A Healthy Serving of Egg on the Face

So, last night my daughter Jess took up the reins as quiz master in the rugby club for the first time. I have mentioned this once or twice before, but it does mean that all of the regular members of the team, Jess, Dan, Adam and I have all taken our turn as question master. I am willing to be corrected on this, but I believe that it’s the first time that all the regular members of a team have acted as question master. That’s certainly true since I’ve been coming, and my participation goes back to 1995.

The ironic thing is that we did have another member of the team playing last night as well. Fran sometimes plays for us, but not regularly. Not last night either. No, last night George played. George is the last remaining player from the Boycs team from when I joined in 1995. Over the years a number of our key players passed away and some others just stopped coming. You know as well as I do that the pandemic changed so many things, and to be honest, my quizzing lost weekend period began before lockdown, and I hadn’t come for a while. George has played with us in one quiz since we started to play again in August, but I think he’s finding it hard to find the oomph to come out on a Thursday night.

Coming back to Jess, she did a fine quiz last night, and she too used the connections format that I’ve written about before. And. . . I’m angry with myself for this, and proud of her for it at the same time, she came up with one connection which we just didn’t see. I’ll ask you the questions, and you may see the connection straightaway:-

1) Which 1976 sci fi film starred Michael York and Jenny Agutter?

2) What name was given to the marching step used by the Wermacht in Nazi Germany?

3) What is the original name of the victim in Cluedo?

Answers

1) Logan’s Run

2) Goose Step

3) Doctor Black

Can you see the connection? Probably. Well we couldn’t, and it was a real egg on the face moment when Jess announced that they were all berries. We’d got ourselves fixated on X Men and just couldn’t get away from that track, even though we knew it was wrong.

Well, as my dear late friend Alan Coombs used to say, the best kind of question is the one where you say ‘I should’ve known that!’ when you’re told the answer. So well done Jess! I’m always proud of all five of you, but I was very proud with the way you presented yourself as quiz master.

The History Of Mastermind Part 4 : BBCTV Mastermind Take Two

Mastermind returned to BBC TV on the last but one day of 2002. I don’t know if this celebrity special was only ever intended to be a one-off, but it certainly spawned the popular Celebrity Mastermind, which has run for 20 series since and shows no sign of running out of steam any time soon. For the record, those first game celebrities were Janet Street-Porter, Vic Reeves, Adam Hart-Davies and winner Jonathan Meades. The main differences between the celebrity version and the regular show are that each show within a series is self-contained. The winner gets a trophy and doesn’t have to go through to a semi final or a final. Another difference is that winning celebrities can still come back on the show, and some have even won more than once.

In may ways the best thing about the first celebrity show is that it made the return of the regular show to the BBC seem a distinct possibility. And indeed, on the 7^th July 2003 the first of 12 heats was broadcast. Heat winners advanced to the semi finals, and the  semi final winners contested the final. In the final civil servant Andy Page won a tight contest to become the first champion of the new, John Humphrys era.

Now that John Humphrys has retired from the show, we can maybe come to a reasoned appraisal of his tenure. I don’t know that he ever became quite as indelibly a part of the show in the public consciousness as Magnus had during the show’s first incarnation. In part this may well be because of circumstances beyond his control. After the 1973 scheduling shift, for the rest of its run to 1997 Mastermind was shown on BBC1. TV audiences for any shows were generally larger for any kind of show in the pre internet and pre satellite/cable days in which the show was first established, so it was far easier for a show to etch itself deeply on the national consciousness.

I’ve always wondered whether Jeremy Paxman’s selection to host “University Challenge” from its revival in 1994 had an influence on John Humphrys’ selection for Mastermind. In the case of UC, Bamber Gascoigne politely turned down the opportunity of picking up the reins for the revival, so it seems to me that the producers may well have gone for a conscious choice of ‘and now for something completely different’. For me that approach hadn’t worked in Discovery Mastermind, with cleverdick Clive Anderson seeming a very poor fit for the question master’s chair. Fair enough. If University Challenge could use BBCTV’s most renowned political interview rottweiler, then surely Mastermind could use BBC Radio’s.

Whatever the case, response to new Mastermind was favourable enough, and by the later semis John H. was inviting members of the public to apply for the 2004 series. While the 2003 series consisted of 17 shows in total, that was raised to 31 for 2004, and every series since has consisted of the same number of shows. 24 heat winners progressed to 6 semi-finals, and the 6 winners progressed to the final. The final was won by barrister Shaun Wallace, who became the first black Mastermind champion. It was the start of a memorable TV career for Shaun. He lost out on becoming an Egghead when defeated by Barry Simmons in the first series of Are You An Egghead?, however he soon became the first Chaser on ITV’s highly popular The Chase.

The 2005 series was won by one of the few quizzers who can challenge Kevin Ashman for the title of the most successful quizzer. Like Kevin, if it’s worth winning, then Pat Gibson has probably won it. A year or two before appearing on Mastermind, Pat had already won the £1 million prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. In the 2005 final Pat answered on Father Ted. I mention it, because this sitcom is often quoted along with Fawlty Towers and Harry Potter as one of the three subjects that more applicants request as specialist subject choices than any other. Runner up in his final was future Brain of Britain champion Mark Grant, who has now, I believe, made more grand final appearances than any other contender. Pat went on to win the joyous 2010 Champion of Champions tournament, which I was privileged to have a ringside seat for having been the highest scoring runner up n the heats, and therefore being stand in for the final.

This leads nicely to the 2006 series, which was won by the 2003 runner up, Geoff Thomas. It was also the series which saw my own first appearance on Mastermind. I was beaten in the heats by Kath Drury who achieved the highest of all the scores in the semi-finals. As one of three highest scoring runners up, I got to attend the semi-finals as a stand in. I didn’t get to take part, but at least I got to watch the semi-finals as they happened. After this I was convinced that Geoff was going to win the final – he honestly looked a different class, Kath’s performance notwithstanding. The other  talking point was the, at the time, record low specialist subject score in the semi finals.

Geoff was presented the trophy for winning the final by Magnus Magnusson himself. Sadly, the following year saw Magnus pass away in the January, and it’s fair to say that the 2007 series rightly served as something of a memorial to the great man. The decision had been made prior to the start of the series to begin broadcasting the heats in the late summer, which meant that the final would not be broadcast until the end of March 2008. However, the shows were all in the can by the middle of June. The final was actually filmed on 15th June 2007, which by coincidence was my birthday. As a tribute to Magnus it was held in Glasgow Caledonian University, a place very dear to Magnus’ heart, where he had served as Chancellor. The trophy was presented by his daughter, broadcaster Sally Magnusson. I’m perfectly fine with not being one of the most distinctive or distinguished champions, but I think my win was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. I was the first – and only – schoolteacher to win during the Humphrys era (and at time of writing am still the last to do so.) Also, I am the only champion to date to be knocked out in the first round of one series, and come straight back to win the very next series.

In the early days of the Mastermind, the first four winners were all schoolteachers or college lecturers, and the first three champions were all women. New Mastermind had its first schoolteacher champion in 2007. 2009 would bring its first woman champion, Nancy Dickmann. Nancy’s series was the first that I covered in LAM, and it’s a matter of some pride to me that I tipped her as the most likely contender in the series to become the first woman to win in the revived show. I did, I will admit, tip Ian Bayley to win the final, while he in fact came second behind Nancy. In my defence, Ian was a top Masterminder, as he would go on to prove in his next final appearance in 2011.

In 2010, the production team finally bowed to requests to reinstate the semi final places for the highest scoring runners up. As series of Mastermind go, I look back on 2010 as a classic. There were so many very fine quizzers involved. Reading my preview back, for the final I couldn’t decide who to tip as the most likely champ between Jesse Honey and Kathryn Johnson, and indeed they did take the first two spots on the podium. In the final Jesse scored a Humphrys era record of 37 – which would, incidentally have won many of the finals in the Magnus era as well. The recording of the heats of the 2010 champions series took place just a couple of days before the broadcast of Jesse’s final. Jesse was runner up in the tournament, however, in his heat he set the all-time record of 23 points for a single round, answering on Flags. That was a 2-minute round as well.

In 2011, Ian Bayley bounced back from his narrow defeat in 2009, to add the Mastermind title to the Brain of Britain title he’d won the previous year. His Brain of Britain performance was the most commanding win in many a long year – I know because I was sitting next to him at the time. He was also a member of the all conquering Crossworders team which won the first series of Only Connect. In 2011 Ian made no mistakes, and won comfortably, equalling Jesse’s modern era record of 37 from the previous final.

During 2010 my team, the Radio Addicts, reached the final of the 4th series of Only Connect. Neil Phillips, captain Gary Grant and I spent a fair bit of time together on the filming days for the show, and skipper Gary shared with us his desire to become a Mastermind champion. He’d reached the semi finals in Nancy’s series in 2009, but this was never going to be enough for him. In 2012 his ambition came to fruition. In the grand final, Gary scored a spectacular 19 on his specialist subject of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, and in the end won with a total of 35, 5 points ahead of Andy Tucker, an excellent quizzer in his own right. Gary was the second medical doctor to win the title, following in the footsteps of 1987 champion Dr. Jeremy Bradbrooke.

So to the 2013 series. In the previous 3 finals the winners had all scored in the high 30s. From 2013 onwards, there was a move towards longer questions, which worked to make monster scores like this very much the exception rather than the rule. Nonetheless the Grand Final in 2013 was a very keenly fought contest, and was won by charity director Aidan McQuade. I’ve never met Aidan yet, nor had any communication with him, but his attitude towards the show is one that I’ve always been able to run up the flagpole and salute. Aidan said that he wasn’t that bothered about winning or losing, for him it was all about the ‘craic’, the giving it a go, and the camaraderie between the contenders. Amen to that.

So that’s our first 10 seasons of the revived series. In the next and final installment, we’ll bring the show up to the present day.

Mastermind 2022 Grand Final Review

Well, dearly beloved, shall we begin the grand final review which inevitably begins with me apologising to all the contenders, and to all of you, for the fact that I had as much success predicting the outcome of this final as I had last weekend in picking a winner in the Grand National? Let’s do just that.

Kicking us off was Ian Wang. The highlight of Ian’s filmed insert was probably receiving a filmed message of encouragement from Sir Steve McQueen himself. He also received a visit in person from Jonathan Gibson, last year’s winner and the youngest ever Mastermind champion. His opinion is that records are there to be broken, and so wished the 23 year old Ian the very best of luck. Well, if you prepare properly, then luck doesn’t need to come into it. Ian has been pretty much perfect on specialist all series, and tonight was no different. 13 meant that he was going to be up among the leaders at the turnaround.

In her filmed insert Alice Walker said that she lives in the Peak District, so maybe being filmed walking amongst that magnificent setting was a little bit of a busman’s holiday. She didn’t seem to mind, though, and indeed, who could possibly complain about it? Alice scored a decent 11 on specialist in the heat, and an excellent 13 in the semi, and her round on the Peak District tonight topped that. A pretty much pitch perfect display saw her set the target at 14, one more than Ian’s score.

Eleanor Ayres’ film concentrated quite a bit on her own specialist subject, her namesake Eleanor of Aquitaine. She visited nearby Cambridge University to speak to ain impressive professor, who professed delight to see someone take Eleanor on Mastermind. There was also a message from Judtih Keppel, the Egghead and first winner of the million on Millionaire. Why? Oh, do pay attention 007! Eleanor of Aquitaine was the subject of Judith’s million-pound question. Eleanor scored 9 in the heat and 11 in the semi final on specialist, and I did highlight this as my main concern about her chances. She matched her semi final score, but this meant that she was now 3 points behind the leader.

Anthony Fish hadn’t really put a foot wrong in either first round heat or semi-final. His film concentrated on his family, and how they have supported his efforts to become a better quizzer, and to be successful in his chosen pursuit. The message of encouragement came from no less a personage than Sir David Jason – although this was in the form of a letter rather than a short film. In the first round Anthony scored 14 on specialist, and in the semi final 13. Sadly, the curse of the Clark tip struck him in his round tonight. He stumbled badly on an early question, and although he rallied himself well, he ended with 11. Being 3 points behind at half time isn’t necessarily a gap you can’t bridge, but it’s hard.

Patrick Buckingham explained in his film that his whole family used to watch the Magnus era of Mastermind together – I know the feeling, sir - but that he’d never found time in his life what with his intense career to do much quizzing until the last few years. He possibly has the best case for regretting that he wasn’t on the show 5 years ago, when his specialist subject of Carole Lombard would surely have bought him a trip to the US to make his film. Well, that was then, and this is now. If you read my preview you’ll know that Patrick was one of my pre-race favourites, and sadly I think the curse of the Clark tip did for him as well. Having scored a brace of 13s in his previous specialists, he languished on 10 after this one.

Finally Sarah Trevarthen got to sit in the chair, as we watched her own filmed insert. She showed us her winning appearance on Pointless with her husband, and again, seems to be another finalist whose interest in quizzing has really developed over the last few years. Her appearance in the recent final of Counterpoint is a pretty good demonstration of this. Like Patrick she came into the final with a brace of 13s in her previous specialist rounds. Unlike Patrick my tipping her for a podium position didn’t seem to do her any harm, as she completed a full set of 13 pointer specialist rounds on Dame Barbara Hepworth.

4 points off the lead, Patrick was looking like the outsider when he returned to the chair. If all the contenders matched their average GK scores from the heats and semis, then he couldn’t win. But nobody seemed to have told him that. Yeah, okay, so he was some way off the lead. It didn’t matter. He threw himself into his GK round, gripped it firmly in his teeth and never let it go until the 2 and a half minutes were over. 17 in a final is a terrific score, more than enough to place the rest of the field within the corridor of doubt. One thing that I was in no doubt about was that Patrick would not be finishing in 6^th place.

The only other contender to have scored 17 on GK this series was Eleanor Ayres, who was the next to take the chair. Eleanor had scored 17 in a brilliant round in her semi-final. This was 5 points better than she managed in the heat. So the big question was, could she reproduce this form? Well, for the first half dozen questions the answer was yes, certainly. However, a golf question stopped her momentum, and several wrong answers followed. By the time she got moving again, it was going to be a case of damage limitation. And indeed, a score of 11, for a total of 22 is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about at all.

So the question now had to be faced – could my pre-race favourite, Anthony, match Patrick’s general knowledge heroics? Well, he certainly gave it a lash. After a minute and a half I thought he was slightly slower than Patrick, but then he had started one point to the good. But he fell behind, and by the time the white line of doom began to snake around the score it looked as if 15 for 26 was going to be the best he could do. Which indeed it was. Another fine GK effort, even if it was not quite good enough on this occasion.

So to Ian Wang, just one point off the lead on 13. In my preview I said that I didn’t think Ian’s general knowledge was quite strong enough to win the big one at this early stage of his quiz career. Well, his first half dozen answers seemed to make a mockery of this observation. Sadly, though, the wrong answers began to creep in. He was never very far away from what he needed, but never quite got the run of five or 6 correct answers in a row when he really needed them. In the end, he levelled out at 12 for 25. So Patrick could not be worse than 3^rd, and with only 2 contenders to go could still end up as champion.

Sarah Trevarthen had scored 15 in her first-round heat GK, and if she could repeat that then she would go into the lead. And for much of the round it looked as if this was going to happen. And yet, when the white line made its first appearance she still wasn’t there yet. In the end it was only her last question which brought her a 14th point. Were we potentially in for a tie break? In a word no, because Sarah led by pass countback.

Finally, Alice Walker came back to the chair. She scored 15 in her GK round in the heat, and a repeat of that would do it with a little bit to spare. In the semi she scored 11, and that wouldn’t do it. Still, with two and a half minutes now, the title was hers to win or lose. What followed, over the next two and half minutes, must have been the round of her life. She faced 22 questions. She passed on none. She gave 3 wrong answers. The mathematically gifted among you will have worked out that this meant she gave 19 correct answers. Nothing slowed her at all. She won’t have realised which answer meant that she was the champion, nor the fact that she went on to give another 6 correct answers after that. It was a perfect example of a contender finding that wonderful head space where you are just totally in the moment, concentrating on each question and for the most part, finding the answers. It was a magnificent performance, and yes, I was standing up and applauding the telly. 33, as Clive pointed out, is the highest score of the series.

Thanks to all of the contenders, not just in this high-quality final, but in the whole series. Without you and your willingness to learn your subjects and brave the chair, then there is no show. Thank you to the production team as well for bringing us another fine series. Especially, thanks to Clive Myrie, for proving that my conviction that he was a good choice to replace John Humphrys was correct. But let’s end with congratulations to Alice Walker, Mastermind of the United Kingdom 2022!

The Details

Ian Wang	The film and TV works of Sir Steve McQueen	13	0	12	0	25	0
Alice Walker	The Peak District National Park	14	0	19	0	33	0
Eleanor Ayres	Eleanor of Aquitaine	11	1	11	0	22	1
Anthony Fish	Open All Hours	11	1	15	0	26	1
Patrick Buckingham	Carole Lombard	10	1	17	0	27	1
Sarah Trevarthen	Dame Barbara Hepworth	13	0	14	0	27	0

New Show - A One and Six Zeroes

Another new show which I’ve only managed to see today on catch up is A One and Six Zeroes, currently showing at 6 pm on Sundays on Channel 4. I think I should probably put my cards on the table and say that now that I’ve watched the show, I think it is a lot of the things that I dislike in a quiz game show.

Let’s talk about the mechanics of the show for a moment. It's a non-adversarial quiz. You're not playing to beat anyone else, simply to win a sizeable amount of cash. A team of three plays. With the one I watched it was a perfectly nice father, mother and daughter from Durham. The team are asked a number of questions, and they must answer 7 multiple choice questions correctly. It’s not quite that simple though. So the first question decides what the value of the coins they are playing for are. Huh? Well, suppose you get it right? In that case you’re playing for a million £1 coins. If you decide you can’t answer it and take another question, then you’re playing for a million 50p coins, so £500,000. If you don’t like that, then you can swap, and instead play for 20ps. You can keep swapping all the way down to 1p for £10,000. You can swap any of the questions. Okay, so if you get the first question right you lock in the first 0 of the prize pot, the second for the second zero and so on. Get one wrong, and you lose a zero. So, taking the show that I watched, they swapped out 2 questions, so that by the time they got to the last question, they were playing for £200,000. They got it wrong, so lost a zero, which meant that they walked away with £20,000. Still a very nice wedge for an evening’s work.

There is a little more to it. After a couple of questions 1 member of the team had to go sit out the rest of the show, and then a few questions later a second team member had to do the same.

Basically, that’s it. Now, as I said, this is lots of things I dislike in a game show. I’m afraid that I can be very misanthropic, and I get worse as I get older. The family on the show I watched were, frankly very nice, very bubbly, the sort of people I can imagine would be very easy to be friends with. But . . . I didn’t really care about them. Sorry, but when it comes to a quiz game, that’s just not why I buy the ticket in the first place. Yet with so few questions – and remember that even if the team swapped out all of their questions once you’d only get 13 questions in a show – a lot of the heavy lifting is going to be done by the host’s interaction with the team. I like Dara O’Briain very much, but he’s hamstrung on this show. He can poke some gentle fun but he really can’t start ridiculing the team playing. Especially after the Dad revealed that he is a stroke survivor. 

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really think that much of the questions either. Yeah, you’d expect a preponderance of entertainment and sport on a prime-time show, fair enough, but I don’t really like multiple choice questions.

And for me this is the real problem with the show. Even if you do like the question format, there are nothing like enough of them to keep interest in a show which is about 45 minutes in length even without the advertising breaks. Maybe you like the conversation and interplay between host and team. I don’t, it’s not my sort of thing, but even with an audience of people who are quite receptive to it, I think the show is taking a hell of a gamble. After all, not all of the teams are going to be interesting enough for you, it stands to reason. Well, are you going to sit around watching when a particular team doesn’t appeal to you, and the conversation falls flat? Maybe some people would, but I’d imagine that a significant amount of your audience wouldn’t.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe a loyal audience will enjoy and stick with this show. But I’d be surprised. The talented Dara is wasted in my opinion, there are too few questions and they’re not all that interesting if truth be told. The only notable thing about the show is the massive prize, and the fact that you can fall quite a long way short of it, and still come away with a very sizeable chunk of cash. And that’s not enough. Sorry, but it’s a no from me.