Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night

Just a quick last Christmas Eve post to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Have a good one.

LAMMY Awards 2023: Committee's Special Award

Yes, a special award goes to Clive Myrie, who had the mortifying experience of having 2 celebrities in the same show fail to score any points in their specialist rounds on Celebrity Mastermind last Friday. What made it worse was that I don’t believe that anyone has ever failed to score in their specialist round before. No, I’m no going to name the celebrities. I don’t think that they should be held up to ridicule just for trying to earn a few quid for a worthy cause.

There’s an interesting debate over on the Contestant Hub on Facebook about Celebrity versions of quiz shows. It’s a tricky one. While sleb versions of The Weakest Link, Pointless, Bridge of Lies etc. are perfectly watchable, Sleb Mastermind can be an uneasy watch at times. To compare it with UC at Christmas, he teams are made up of journalists, writers and academics for the most part and I’m still ofen surprised by what they don’t know. Which I really shouldn’t be, because they’re not quizzers. But at least in that show the contestants are part of a team, and it’s easier to laugh off a bad performance as part of a team.

Yes, I know that anyone going on Celebrity Mastermind really should know what they could be letting themselves in for. But when it becomes an uncomfortable experience for the viewer as well as the poor sleb in the chair, then you have to question when this stops being entertainment.

So well, done to Clive Myrie who did his level best to maintain the positive atmosphere and the bonhomie in this particular edition. It can’t have been easy.

LAMMY Awards 2023 : Award for Achievement in Question Mastery

Right, I have searched my soul about the 2023 Award for the Best Achievement in Question Mastery. I know that I am leaving myself open to accusations of nepotism and favouritism in my nominations. I have played in two quizzes regularly in 2023, and two other quizzes. Starting with the others, the second was a quiz in Mumbles. Each round was interspersed with ‘you all have to join in’ Play Your Cards Right. Not a great evening. The first was in Aberdare, and it wasn’t bad. Not as good as the best quizzes in the rugby club. I’ve posted about the monthly film quiz in the Gwyn Hall, and the question masters do put a lot of time ad effort into it. But when you get right down to it, I don’t enjoy them as much as I do the quizzes in the rugby club. And I’m very sorry, but the best quizzes I the club this year have been done by

Dan Ayres

Jessica Ayres

Adam Cook –

who, incidentally, are all members of my team. Dan is my son in law, married to Jessica (my youngest daughter) and Adam is their good friend, who I am proud to say is also now my good friend. Dan won the LAMMY last year for his single handed revival of the music round. Jess has produced some fine quizzes – some which have been at quite short notice. But I think that the single quiz I have enjoyed most this year was Adam’s last one for the club. So the LAMMY award for the achievement in question mastery goes to

Adam Cook

Many congratulations, this is well deserved.

So farewell, then. . .

So farewell, then, A Question of Sport. Perhaps we should clarify that. The BBC have said that they’re not cancelling the show, they’re just not going to make it any more. Almost worthy of Sir Humprey Appleby that one, chaps. (eg the irregular verb - I give confidential briefings, you leak, he is being prosecuted under the official secrets act.)

I have some observations to make. Believe it or not I have been watching it for most of its fifty three year run. In the early 70s it was one of those shows which I sort of watched by osmosis – my father, who had not the least interest in sport – had a default mode of BBC1 – so if there wasn’t anything he wanted to see on ITV the telly would be on BBC1 (he was very much not a BBC2 sort of guy.) By the mid-late 70s I would really enjoy it, having developed an interest in sport through my schoolmates. I fact, it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve really got out of the habit of watching it.

Look, a fifty plus year run is incredible for any TV show. But things do have their natural shelf life. And once a TV show has reached its old age, the rules change. Once a show gets to about 10 years old, then it can often do with freshening up a bit. But once it gets past 20, it works differently. The show will have a regular and loyal audience, to whom it has become a comfortable little luxury. To change the show, make it less comfortable and more, for want of a better word – ‘edgy’ is a dangerous thing to do. In 2021 AQOS did that big time. The show had been fronted by popular host Sue Barker for over 20 years. The two team captains, Tuffers and Matt Dawson had been with her for over fifteen years. All the familiar faces were swept out in one go. It was a brave, and dare I say it, foolhardy move.

You see, taking its lead from shows on other channels, the sport content, which to my mind had been reduced from the noughties onwards was reduced even further to be replaced with more family panel game entertainment. Which is not why we bought the ticket in the first place.

Who’s to say it won’t ever be brought back, though? But if it is, then the producers could do a lot worse than watching an old edition from the 80s and 90s to see how it’s really done.

2023 LAMMY Awards: Award for the best performance in a broadcast quiz

Yes, dearly beloved, it’s time to present the award for best performance in a broadcast quiz. What a crop of worthy nominees we have, too. They are:-

Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Williams, Joshua Mutio – The Strigiformes

Harry Scully, Chloe Margaux, Alex Radcliffe, Bea Bennett – Durham University

Stuart Field

Daniel Adler

To be honest any of our nominees would be worthy recipients of a LAMMY. The Strigiformes won Only Connect, a massive achievement which requires great all round knowledge. The University Challenge Grand Final back in May was a replay of the first heat of the first round, as Durham saw off a superb Bristol team to become the champions. As I say, all of these are worthy champions.

In April Stuart Field beat the Clark prediction that he would be second in the Mastermind Grand Final, where a brilliant specialist round and a fine GK round gave him the won. Now, for fairly obvious reasons I love Mastermind, and in a normal year Stuart would be adding a LAMMY to his trophy cabinet. But it’s not a normal year. For this is the year that this year’s LAMMY winner –

Daniel Adler

Added the Brain of Britain title to his Counterpoint title won a few years ago. Serial finalist Daniel is also a LAM reader and contributor. Who could ask for more?

2023 LAMMY Awards: Best New Quiz Show of 2023

Yes, gentle reader, it’s that time of the year again, when we at LAM Towers (me) hand out the gongs popularly known as the LAMMYs. As is traditional we begin with the ever popular award for the best new quiz show of  the year. Here are the shows that I reviewed this year :-

New shows 2023

Puzzling

007: Road to a Million

Alan Carr’s Picture Slam

The Finish Line

Cheat

In With A Shout

Working from the bottom upwards – April saw the debut of In With A Shout. Now we all know that one of the great pleasures of watching a quiz show is shouting out the answers. So why not get the contestants to the show to do just that? Sorry, but it left me cold.

In the same month Netflix gave us Cheat. I like Ellie Taylor and don’t dislike the scion of royalty, Danny Dyer. But the whole cheating and calling out the cheats dynamic just didn’t work for me and I thought Ellie was under used.

In September the humble picture quiz round proved the inspiration or Alan Carr’s Picture Slam. I’m not a fan of picture rounds, and Alan C’s particular form of hysteria did nothing for me either.

Other streaming services than Netlix are available and one of them, Amazon Prime gave us 007: Road to a Million. This was an unusual hybrid between a challenge based show like, say, Survivor, and a straight quiz. It was not without interest, but I found each edition too long for the amount of content it actually provided.

So all of this leaves us with a shortlist of two, and the awards committee (me) had a real dilemma. One of the two shortlisted shows was a pure quiz, with a gimmick, which was a little easier than I would have liked but was relatively undemanding and enjoyable viewing in the afternoon slot. The other was absorbing, very challenging, had great play at home potential, but was not a pure quiz. The former, the Finish Line is a perfectly good afternoon quiz – better than the Tournament, but not as good as last year’s LAMMY winner Bridge of Lies. My opinion, feel free to disagree. But the 2023 Best New Show goes to (drum roll)

Puzzling

It’s difficult to describe the show without mentioning some similarities to Only Connect. Well, if you’re going to take inspiration from an existing show, it makes sense to take it from a good ‘un. Cogratulatios to Lucy Worsley and all involved.

University Challenge at Christmas

No, don’t panic, I’m not reviewing every edition of University Challenge at Christmas. No, but I did think that I might just mention last night’s show, being Amol’s first.

It isn’t easy finding exactly the right words to discuss an edition of the Christmas shows. After all, it’s Christmas. Nowadays the people invited to be members of teams of their own alma mater tend to be largely academics, writers and broadcast journalists. These are people perfectly secure in their own intelligence, who have nothing to prove to anyone. They were invited on the show, and probably get nothing from it other than the fun of it, so I feel a bit of a heel if I criticise.

The thing is though, on some shows you forget that possibly none of these people have a quiz background. Then when you forget that fact, you can be struck with how much they don’t know. This always threatens to lead me down a slippery slope to criticism. So I’ll simply say that I enjoyed last night’s show, albeit that the questions were to me noticeably easier than the regular show. Amol took to this like a duck to water as I think you’d expect, although I did think that he showed off just a little bit – for example when nobody knew a quote from Macbeth he started reciting more of it. Not going to win friends and influence people that way, Amol.

Mastermind 2024 first round heat 17

Well, there it is. The last first round heat before Christmas. I didn’t hold out much hope for a reasonable score on specialist aggregate, as you’ll know if you read my preview.

First off we had my supposed ‘banker’ subject, Meat Loaf, offered to us by Thomas Roebuck. I will be honest, I was surprised to get 3 of these. Oh. Don’t get me wrong, I was delighted as well. I doubt that Thomas would have been delighted if he’d only got three. So it was probably just as well that he got a highly respectable 8. It’s a funny score in this era of the show, is 8. 15 years ago that would have put you out of it at half time in most contests, but now it’s certainly competitive and gives you a springboard for the GK round.

Our second contender last night was recidivist Helen Lippell, who played in the first rounds of both 2016 and 2020. She is also an alumnus of Only Connect. So I had no doubt that the black chair would not affect her nerves at all. This was well founded. Answering on Grinling Gibbons Helen produced a first class specialist round, amassing 12 points. I was delighted to get 4 on this round myself – I wouldn’t claim to know a lot about Gibbons, but I do know quite a bit about that period in London.

Sian Bladon was answering on cricket, specifically England Women’s Cricket in the 21^st century. Now, we saw last week that if you take a subject like this with quite a small subject area, the setters are going to expect you to know it inside out, and they’re going to throw more than a few bouncers and doosras at you. I actually got two of these through pure blind luck in guessing countries correctly. I was glad for Sian that she got the last question on the buzzer correct to take her score up to 5.

Finally Jon Phillipson Brown took to the black chair to answer his round on Gerard Manley Hopkins. Well, gentle reader, if you read my preview I speculated how much I would remember after 40 years. The answer was not a lot. I took two. By contrast Jon did exceptionally well. He didn’t quite get to Helen’s 12, but did himself proud by getting 11. Now, the mathematically gifted among us will have worked out that contrary to my Jeremiah-like prediction, I did get my aggregate into double figures, with 11 points.

Not time for us to dwell on that though since the GK round was starting. You know me, I am always impressed when a contender whose SS round has not maybe gone as well as they would have hoped comes back to the chair and gives it a really good lash in the GK. Welcome back Sian Bladon. In cricketing parlance this was a really good example of building an innings. Sian seemed to have decided on the tactic of pass if you don’t have a Scooby, and this meant that she kept her round moving onwards until the beeps. She scored a good 10 to take her total to 15.

Next up was Thomas Roebuck. You know how sometimes I say that a contender’s GK answers lead me to suspect that they are a quizzer? Well, that was the distinct impression that I formed as Thomas built his round of 13 points. This score took him to a total of 21 points. I’ve often banged on in the past about how you need to put your opposition into the corridor of doubt by making the highest score that you possibly can. Well, this was a fine demonstration of just that.

John Phillipson Brown had a go. He needed 11 to go into the outright lead, and 10 with no passes to force a potential tie break. As I say, he gave it a go, but when he made his first pass it meant 10 would not be good enough. He got as far as 9 but time ran out, leaving him a metre or two short of the tape.

Which meant that Helen Lippell would do it if she scored 10 and any number of passes. If she fell short then she had to score 9 points with no passes to force a tie break. Well, she did fall short of 10. She did score 9. And . . . she did not pass. Tie break! Thomas went first, and knowing the answers to the questions, I knew that he’d only scored one. As Helen returned I knew after the first three questions that she had won. Hard lines for Thomas, but very well done to you both, and Helen, best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Thomas Roebuck	Meat Loaf	8	0	13	0	21	0	22
Helen Lippell	Grinling Gibbons	12	0	9	0	21	0	25
Sian Bladon	England Women’s Cricket since 2000	5	1	10	4	15	5
Jon Phillipson Brown	The Life and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins	11	0	9	2	20	2

Mastermind Heat 17 Preview

Sorry, a bit late with today’s preview. I’ve been to breakfast with my two oldest grandsons and Santa and since then I’ve been working on commissions – 1 pen and ink drawing and 3 paintings. Still, I’m here now.

Tomorrow’s specialist subjects will be:-

Meat Loaf

Grinling Gibbons

England Women’s Cricket since 2000

The Life and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Yeah, I’m not expecting a points bonanza on the aggregate for me in this show. Going through the subjects:-

Meat Loaf – well I was quite partial to a bit of Meat Loaf back in my early 80s headbanging days, so it’s not impossible that I might get one or two of these. On the other hand it’s just as likely I’ll get nowt.

Grinling Gibbons – or ‘funky Gibbons’ as I’d like to think that Sir Christopher Wren would call him in his more jocular moments. Maybe the kind of subject where general knowledge might enable one to blag a point or two

Egland Women’s Cricket since 2000. I’m sorry, but I’m not really a follower of any kind of cricket. For me this round has the potential for zero written all over it.

The Life and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Right, are we sitting comfortably? Then I will begin. I did have to study Hopkins’ “The Wreck of the Deutschland” for A level Eng. Lit and it’s probably fair to say that I didn’t get either it or him. Then a couple of years later I was fortunate to attend a series of seminars on Hopkins run by one of the finest teachers I ever met, Stan Tottman, head of the English Faculty at Goldsmiths. Unlike other lecturers there was no way you could blag your way through Stan’s seminars. If you hadn’t done the pre-reading then you were sunk. If you were not prepared to offer an opinion, you were sunk. If you did offer an opinion and you wouldn’t or couldn’t defend it, then you were sunk. But if you managed to float, you got so much more out of these seminars than almost any others I ever attended. He was that good. The trouble was, though, that I ever thought I could write about Hopkins afterwards, because the process of getting what Stan had got out of us down into essay form was just too reductive. Well, that’s my excuse. I’d like to think I’ve retained enough in the last forty years to get one or two. We’ll see.

Prediction. Anything over five would be a triumph.

The film quiz league reaches its anti-climax

It was the final film quiz of the year last night, dearly beloved, in the Gwyn Hall in Neath, and as a consequence, also the final quiz of the league, instituted this year.

Normally we don’t attend the Christmas films quiz, because we’re not that interested in them. However, being as we thought that we were going to be proclaimed league champions we were definitely going to turn up.

OK. As for the quiz itself, we thought we were completely out with the washing, after two absolutely dreadful rounds. Much to our surprise we came joint second. It would make no difference to the league, but it was nice to look back on a year of 11 quizzes in which we had won 7 outright, been joint winners in 2 and had a second place and a joint second place.

So, the time came when the scores were announced. Then, as what appeared no more than an afterthought the QM announced – yeah, about the League. . . I’ll put a post on Facebook about it in the New Year.

Let’s put a brave face on it. Maybe he wants to compile everyone’s scores and show every team that took part in any of the 2023 quizzes where they finished in the League. Maybe. But let’s be honest, they knew who the League winners were by the end of last month’s quiz, so they could at least have announced it. One of the more charitable members of our team suggested that maybe it was because they didn’t want to overshadow last night’s winners. Well, again, maybe. Still, I’ll be interested to see what the post says when it eventually appears, and whether, indeed, there is going to be any prize at all. As we all know, no prize is a better prize than panto tickets. But I did feel that last night was an anti-climax.

University Challenge Round Two - York v. Birkbeck

The Teams

York

Emma Giles

Emma-Mae Smith

Ollie Smith (Capt)

David Bachelor

Birkbeck

Danny McMillan

Olivia Mariner

Samir Chadha (Capt)

Margherita Huntley

Well, no prizes for guessing which team were the recipients of the dubious benefit of support from the Clark sofa last night. Birkbeck being from the University of London, and having a captain from my home borough of Ealing were always going to win that one. But could they win the show?

Well, first blood fell to David Bachelor who recognised a reference to Shakespeare’s Henry V. They went on to take a full set on the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. It was double bubble for David Bachelor as he recognised a description of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge for the second starter – good shout. They took two bonuses on the Roman Empire in North Africa and were a little unlucky not to get a full set. None of us knew about the post war Survey of English. If you stuck with the next question it eventually became obvious we were needing the name Simon de Montfort. This allowed Danny McMillan to take Birkbeck’s first points. A full set of unfathomable (for me) questions on complex numbers narrowed the gap significantly. Danny McMillan completed his double recognising various people who shared Henrietta as one of their names. Jacobean playwright Thomas Middleton brought Birkbeck nowt. So to the first picture starter, and the teams were shown script and asked to identify the language. Now, it was correctly identified as Thai by Emma-Mae Smith. For the show, since she shared her last name with her skipper, she was called E. Smith and he O. Smith. So when Roger Tilling called her name it sounded just like ‘Yorkie Smith’, and this conjured up mental pictures of a cheeky chappie late-middle aged man on his way to the allotment where he grew his rhubarb, accompanied by his whippet. I can only apologise – I’m a product of my upbringing so please feel free to blame my parents. More scripts derived from the Brahmi script of ancient India brought two correct answers. This meant that as we approached the ten-minute mark, York led by 65 – 35.

If a question unites the words Damon Runyon and musical, then you answer Guys and Dolls. Margherita Hutley won the buzzer race to supply that correct answer. Bonuses on the Belgian F1 Grand Prix brought one bonus. Danny McMillan interrupted on a quotation about Kant (Immanuel rather than Brian, I should think) and turned away in shame. Don’t beat yourself up, Danny. York could not capitalise. I was glad to see that the interruption penalty did not deter Danny McMillan from buzzing for the next starter, giving the correct answer that Harold Pinter had written the screenplay for the film The Go Between. The Royal Society’s most influential women in British Science history brought us both one bonus for Dorothy Hodgkin, and I set off on my lap of honour. Margherita Huntley took the next starter on chickpea flour, to put Birkbeck into the lead. 2 bonuses on women who have played the lead I Hamlet (the play, not the cigar advert) took Birkbeck further ahead. The music starter that followed led us into the unfamiliar realms of jazz hip hop. None of us identified the stylings of Mr. Eric B and his friend Mr. Rakim. For the next starter Samir Chadha recognised titles of works by Angela Carter. This earned the music set of bonuses brought two more correct answers. Danny McMillan’s nippy buzzer finger won the race to identify Joseph Lister for the next starter. Hydrocarbons brought just the one bonus, but this was enough to make Amol issue York with some encouragement. 3 minutes before they were in the lead. Now they were fifty behind. It seemed to work as David Bachelor was first to work out that clues in the question were pointing towards Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Sadly for them the bonuses on the French Left Bank group eared nul points. Nobody could find 2 of the three countries – Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi – which had been German colonies. This meant that Birkbeck led by 115 – 75 as we approached twenty minutes.

Danny McMillan zigged with Liz Gaskell’s North and South for the next starter which allowed Yorkie – sorry – Emma-Mae Smith to zag with Mary Barton. Historians know by initial(s) and surnames brought a further ten points. Neither team knew something about the letter Q in Physics. Emma-Mae Smith came in too early on the next starter and gave ISIS allowing Margherita Hutley in with Daesh. Artists who have sampled Rick James’ Super Freak brought a brace of correct answers. Neither team recognised the work of Pierre Auguste Renoir for the second picture starter. Danny McMillan groaned as he supplied the wrong answer but soon provided the right one – Descartes for the next. Further depictions of knitting or needlework in art brought one bonus. With a lead of over fifty points Birkbeck were looking pretty secure. Amol offered encouragement and David Bachelor struck again recognising several species of whale. Nobel Laureate Barbara ‘Frank’ McClintock brought us both two bonuses – I nearly awarded myself a second lap of honour for bacteriophages. Not to worry for Birkbeck, since Danny McMillan took the next starter on the musical Groundhog Day. Not to worry for Birkbeck since Danny McMillan took the next starter on the musical Groundhog Day (geddit?) They took one bonus on verse forms. A fifty point lead with maybe 3 minutes to go. A rush of blood to the head saw Danny McMillan lose five for an early buzz which saw him say that the French word for butterfly, for example, began with P – O. This allowed David Bachelor in with P-A. It was even more costly when York managed a full house on events of the 70s. That one set reduced the gap by 30. Captain Yorko Smith – sorry – Olllie Smith took the next starter, knowing the SI unit the Pascal. A full house would win the match. They took the first on Honfleur. They took the second. But oh, lack of knowledge about the French Impressionists cost them again. We had a tie. Would it be Mr. Bachelor or Mr. McMillan to take the last starter? It was fearless Danny McMillan who knew that the sensory organ required for the answer was the eye.

Well played both teams. A great fightback from York, and neither team really deserved to lose. For the record York had a BCR of 67, while Birkbeck, who took more starters, had a BCR of 47.

How is Amol Doing?

Look, I think I may well stop doing this section in the reviews, because he’s great. One of the things I judge a question master on is whether they make the job look easy. Amol does just that, while I’m sure it really isn’t easy at all. Good job, sir.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Frances de la Tour became he first woman to play the lead in Hamlet on the English stage in 1979.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

The complex argument for any complex number z, what two word term denoted the complex number found by reflecting the argand plot of Z in the X axis typically written z-bar.

The answer turned out to be complex conjugate. Too complex conjugate for me. Mind you, I do remember the Argands from the original series of Star Trek. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2024 First Round Heat 16

Hello, good afternoon and welcome. One of the things I’m going to check when I have the time and inclination is whether the average score for this series is lower than it was for last year’s. My impression is that it maybe is- but impressions are not always correct. So I may well have a go when I can.

I’m not trying to cast aspersions on any individual player, but merely wondering if we are witnessing a trend. If there is a trend for lower scores, then we can consider the reasons later on.

So let’s get to the 4 individuals who contested last night’s match, beginning with Elliott Hooson. Elliot was answering on the artist Bridget Riley. I’m a little ashamed that I didn’t manage to get any points on this round, bearing in mind that she is a fellow Goldsmith’s College, University of London alumnus, albeit she was there three decades before I was. Elliott had prepared thoroughly, and as we’ve seen in this series, 9 has become a good score, and so he would be in with a chance in the GK round.

When I was previewing this heat I did mention that the fact that Thomas Wetherill’s specialist round on the Winter Olympics only covered those in the 21^st century, then he was likely to get questions really probing for in depth knowledge. Me, I was delighted to get the easy one he was asked about GB’s success in the skeleton bob in successive games. Again, I can’t sugar coat this – sadly Thomas scored 4 on what I felt was a very tricky round.

The sitcoms of Peter Kaye was my ‘banker’ round for the show. Not as much as it was Faye Tryhorn’s though. She didn’t miss much at all, and managed to get into double figures. I was interested that the round asked several questions about From the Cradle to the Grave, based on Danny Baker’s first volume of autobiography, where the great man really shone as Danny’s dad, Spud. Typically I didn’t get any of those ones right, but managed 3 on some of the other sitcoms.

Now, as much as Thomas’ winter Olympics round called for very specialist knowledge, Liz Davison’s round on St. Albans was the kind of round that a decent general knowledge would gift you the answers to some of the questions. 4 to be precise, and none of those referenced my naughty 4x great uncle Jabez Rainbow either.

Well, we’ve already seen this series how what looks like a two horse race at half time can be won by a backmarker with exceptional general knowledge, so I was making no pronouncement’s on the most likely winner this time. First back to the chair was Thomas. When someone has a score that they are probably disappointed with in specialist it’s always interesting to see how they manage to rally themselves for GK. In Thomas’ case the answer was – very well indeed, thank you. When Clive announced that his score was 14 he looked disappointed. I get it, but he’d had to produce a good, competitive GK round to get there and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Liz Davison did even better with her GK round. She wasn’t snapping the answers out, but her measured responses built the total until she finished the round with a good 11. The target she had set was 17. Normally you wouldn’t have thought that this was going to be quite enough to take the win, but we’ve seen some funny things happening in the last few weeks, so all bets were off.

Until, that is, Elliott Hooson passed Liz’s 17 with a couple of questions remaining. Like Thomas, Elliott scored double figures. His 10 raised the target to 19 points. We’d seen three consecutive double figure rounds on GK. If Faye Tryhorn also got double figures, she would win. If she scored 9 she already had too many passes, so she would not. So bearing that in mind I think that her tactic of passing quickly on things she didn’t have a clue about was probably sensible. Unfortunately though there were just too many questions she couldn’t answer. By the time we got to the last 20 seconds or so it was pretty clear she was going to fall short. Not bby much – she scored 8 to take her total to 18, just one point behind Elliott. But that was enough of a gap, and a surprised Elliott, if his piece to camera at the end was anything to go by, took the win. Best of luck to you in the semi-final, sir.

The Details

Elliott Hooson	Bridget Riley	9	0	10	1	19	1
Thomas Wetherill	Winter Olympics 2002 - 2022	4	2	10	3	14	5
Faye Tryhorn	The Sitcoms of Peter Kaye	10	1	8	5	18	6
Liz Davison	The History of St. Albans	6	1	11	3	17	4

 

 

An appropriate prize for winning the film quiz league?

Here’s a question for you. We’ve been playing in a monthly film quiz for the last couple of years. This year, 2023, the organisers decided that all points scored during the 11 quizzes of the year (no quiz in August) will go into a league and there will be a prize for the league winners at the end of the year. Alright, alright, I’m heading in the vague general direction of the question. The winners of each monthly quiz get free cinema tickets. But. . . we have no idea what the prize will be for winning the league. It may sound arrogant me wondering about prizes before the last quiz has been held, but, well, we have actually already won the league. Even if we don’t turn up on Wednesday we already have an unbeatable points total. Of course, we are going to turn up on Wednesday. Still, between our team there has been a lot of speculation about the question (told you). . . what would be an appropriate prize for winning the League?

Bear in mind that you get cinema tickets for winning just one of the monthly quizzes. So – I don’t know what’s going to happen. We are praying that it won’t be tickets to the pantomime which the venue is hosting. That would, frankly, be worse than no prize at all. Altogether now – Oh yes it would!

Mastermind - Heat 16 preview

What, preview time already? Hey, count yourselves lucky I’ve been ill then away for the last few days, or you would have had it even earlier.

So tomorrow night’s specialist subjects will be : -

Bridget Riley

The Winter Olympics 2002 – 2022

The Sitcoms of Peter Kay

The History of St. Albans

Going through them, I would say unless I have a lucky guess there’s really nothing for me in Bridget Reilly. A point if I’m lucky. The Winter Olympics. Now, the fact that this is limited to the Winter Olympics of the 21^st century, that suggests that in depth knowledge of each event in each games is going to be required. (What’s that? In 2006 you took on the Summer Olympics – all of them, didn’t you, Dave? Well, alright, I did, but that was then and this is now.) Because I don’t think there’s going to be that much general in them I think maybe 1 or at most 2. As for the sitcoms of Peter Kay, well I’d say that this is the closest thing I have to a banker subject in this show, but even then my love of Phoenix Nights, Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere and Car Share are by no means guaranteed to bring much here. Let’s say a maximum of three. Finally, the History of St. Albans. Little chance of points here unless it asks about Verulamium, Francis Bacon, or my several times great uncle Jabez Rainbow, who was found guilty of trying to murder his mistress in a hotel in St. Albans by slitting her throat. She survived, and it was her testimony in his favour at the trial – apparently he was off his . .  . head on laudanum, that persuaded them to downgrade his original death sentence to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. And let’s be honest . . . they ain’t going to ask about him, are they?

So – 3 – 6 I would say. Pools forecast, I’d tear up your coupon if I were you.

Popmaster Series 2 - Application form link

 Yes, dearly beloved, here t'is - a link to the application form for Popmasters. Tell 'em Dave sent you.

Popmasters Application form

University Challenge Round Two - Manchester v. Edinburgh

The Teams

Manchester

Bluma De Los Reyes – White

Ilya Kullmann

Hiru Senehedheera (capt.)

Dan Grady

Edinburgh

Matt Stafford

Frances Hadley

Arun Uttamchandani (capt.)

Matt McGovern

Alright, alright, it’s Thursday and the match was played days ago. Sorry. It’s been one of those weeks. So, a very interesting match on paper – Manchester made it a late,late show in their first round match. Seemingly out with the washing at 20 minutes they roared back to take it to a tie break and win. While Edinburgh achieved a rare 30+ score in their first match. You pays yer money and takes yer pick.

First blood to Edinburgh. Matt McGovern knew that the president of the USA at the time of substantial land gains, including the annexation of the Republic of Texas was James K. Polk. Bonuses on Crete, a island I am very fond of, brought them nothing. Ilya Kullmann knew his way around the lymphatic system for the next starter. Me? No, I was just as likely to have said Hanger Lane Gyratory System. People whose given name is the same as their surname produced a couple of bonuses. With the next starter both teams sat on their buzzers, failing to name a ballroom dance until Amol had practically given the answer, the waltz. None of them strictly fans I guess. Hiru Senehedheera took that one. Bonuses on time loops took us into the unfathomable world of video gaming, which Manchester returned from clutching one correct answer. Salt Water Ballads – poet laureate in 1930 – had to be John Masefield, didn’t it? Well, yes it did, but neither team got it. So none of them Strictly Come Poetry fans either. Construction material – and – embedded metal were enough to send Hiru Senehedheera racing for his buzzer to provide he correct answer of reinforced concrete. Types of chromatography brought two bonuses. So to the first picture starter. This showed an overhead view of central America, with the areas of various ethnic groups coloured in. Asked which ethnic group was indicated on what was clearly the Yucatan Peninsula I shouted ‘Mayans!’ and soon after Matt Stafford buzzed in with the same answer. More ethnic groups and polities on the map brought a timely full house to nail back a lot of the Manchester lead. Dan Grady knew that Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’ song that is one of the most sampled in history is La di da di. I remember their track ‘The Show’ (was it called that? Something like it.) Geographical panhandles brought Manchester just the one bonus. Still that was enough to give them a 70 – 35 lead at the 10 minute mark.

Neither team took the next starter. Not surprised. This one gave me my first non-sciences Baby Elephant Walk Moment of the series. The answer was syllable. Did I get it right? Sylla question – I didn’t even make it as far as the question mark. Dan Grady knew the astronomical term standard candle. A full house on artist Veronica Ryan stretched the lead. The next starter referenced the abolition of a centuries old civil service. That surely was China. Hiru Senehedheera thought so too and added ten more points to his team’s lead. Two bonuses on novels set in Berlin were taken. Ah, Berlin, my Mary Poppins destination. Practically perfect in every way. I studied Sartre’s ‘Les Mouches’ for my French A Level, so I knew that the Greek God referenced I the next question was Zeus, and so did Manchester’s excellent captain Hiru Senehedheera. What a contest he was having. The Physics bonuses that followed allowed the internal orchestra to start dum de dumming in full burst. I did notice that the answer to one of them was The Ultraviolet Catastrophe, another good name for a 70s Prog Rock group.  Still after that I guessed that the physicist giving his name to numerous research institutions might be Max ‘one short’ Planck.  I set off on my lap of honour, arthritic toes notwithstanding. For the music starter Matt McGovern recognised the elegant stylings of Judas Priest, a popular beat combo of years gone by. More in the same genre provided a much-needed full house. You had to hold your nerve with the next starter about a religious festival until the mention of Quechua, which pinpointed the country in question as Peru. Ilya Kullman took that one. Bonuses on the Peace of Westphalia did nothing for any of us. Nobody knew about delay lines in computers either. I guess they’re like ley lines, just slower. I got the next starter on cricket right – a rare occurrence for me – but Antigua and aggressive batting had to mean Sir Vivian Richards. Not a huge fan of cricket but I saw the great man bat against England at the Oval in 1984. Hiru Senehedheera – who else – took that one. Cultural figures in the Le Tigre song Hot Topic brought the score to 165 – 55 in Manchester’s favour.

Neither team could quite pinpoint the west country city of Truro for the next starter. Ilya Kullman knew a question about megakaryocytes – nope, me neither – when he heard one for the next starter. Youngest debuts for the England Men’s International soccer team proved to be very much to Manchester’s collective liking and they took a full house. The picture starter showed us an illustrated plate from years gone by showing a constellation.  It was a young woman and with hindsight I’d say that the big clue was the chain around her wrist. None of us could see it was Andromeda. Dan Grady just beat music specialist Frances Hadley to answer the musical term Picardy Third for the next starter. This earned the dubious prize of the picture bonuses of which they answered none correctly. Not surprised. Gawd alone knew what was in the designer’s mind when he created the pictures.  Captain Arun Attamchandani identified the scientific name for nail biting for the next starter. Surely Edinburgh were too far behind for a realistic comeback? Well, they took a lightning-fast full house on probability. Incidentally, my tactic of answering one to any what is the value of – questions brought me a bonus too. Medical specialist Ilya Kullmann came in quickly to answer the next question about muscle loss in diseases like cancer. Did you know that cli-fi is the genre of fiction dealing with climate change. If not, remember you heard it here first. As soon as Amol explained this I thought of ‘The Drowned World’. Which turned out to be the subject of the first question. Manchester took one bonus but it was all academic now and couldn’t affect the result of the match. Matt Stafford was first to buzz when he heard the term Althing and supplied the correct answer of Iceland. I will never forget the sightseeing trip I took from Reykjavik which went out to Thingvellir, where the Althing was held for centuries – a truly magical day. Bonuses around the word symposium put Edinburgh one question away from triple figures. I did not know that foible also means the weak point of a sword blade. Neither did anyone else. I did know that the flag with the white cross on a black background is the flag of St. Pirran. Nobody else did, and Edinburgh sadly lost five due to a incorrect interruption. Arun Attamchandani knew you can have arctic erns, foxes and hares (and rolls) for the next starter. Now on triple figures Edinburgh added one bonus on Royal Assassinations. Nobody knew about dysphemisms for the next starter. That was that. The match was gonged, and Manchester had won comfortably by 215 to 105.

It's a familiar story – you win the most buzzer races, you win the match. Edinburgh’s BCR was 61 which was actually better than Manchester’s 7, but they just didn’t have enough bonus sets to answer. Bad luck. Sometimes it ain’t your night.

How is Amol Doing?

He’s enjoying himself is our Amol, and good thing too for that sort of thing is infectious. He pounced on Hiru Senehedheera trying to nominate Dan Grady and not quite getting his name out at first. His first encouragement to Edinburgh was issued just after the 12^th minute, so for once he was right that there was plenty of time left. Mind you, it can’t have done much for Edinburgh’ morale when he felt the need to repeat this after the next set. A couple of times the subtitle ‘Amol chuckles’ appeared and I don’t remember that happening with JP. Amol is doing it his way – good job too.

Interesting Fact that I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

1)   The technical term for biting your nails is onychophagia.

2)   The opposite of a euphemism is a dysphemisim

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

What word is this? Shakespeare uses it to mean ‘least portion’ for example in Macbeth’s tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech. The US poet Charles Olsen described it as “the king and pin of versification what rules and holds together the lines.” And in linguistic terminology it describes a prosodic phonological structure that can be closed or open, heavy or light.

See, it’s not just the Sciences. Theoretically this is the sort of question I should get, but once Amol had got as far as the word ‘prosodic’ all I could think of was dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind First round Heat Fifteen

Hello there. Well, the last couple of shows have certainly been interesting, haven’t they? Alright, I’ll start the review before I say too much in this opening.

The poetry of Carol Ann Duffy was the subject offered by our first contender Kimia Etemadi. Thinking about it, of all the possible literary specialist subjects, poetry should probably come with a government health warning, more so than novels or plays. There’s no way I can think of to sugar coat this – Kimia didn’t have the kind of round she would have liked, and scored 3. Kimia, please don’t let it get you down. You came and you had a go – not many can say that. At the end of the day it’s only a game, as Magnus Magnusson used to say.

I’d managed 2 on Kimia’s subject. I didn’t know if I was in with a shout of getting any on Sharon Chambers’ subject, “The League of Gentlemen”. Back in the day I rarely watched it, although I did like the radio show. In the end I got a couple of easy ones. Sharon did a lot better, scoring a very respectable 8. Normally I would have thought that this would leave her a fair amount of work to do in GK, but after last week, well, anything was possible.

It’s been a little while since we saw a contender have an absolute barnstormer of a specialist round. Well, Graeme Barton gave us exactly that in his round on Nigel Mansell. This was a wonderful round by anyone’s standards. 13 asked and 13 answered correctly. Nothing phased him at all. It makes me feel almost ashamed to admit that I only had 3 on what I’d pegged as my banker round. However I was happy to take the money and run with this since it was already my highest aggregate  for 3 weeks.

Finishing the round was Matthew Harper. He was answering on Rene Magritte. Yes, I did add one to my score taking me to 10 for the aggregate. Matthew did a lot better than that. He ended in 3^rd place at the turn around with a respectable 7. Putting that into perspective though it meant that he was 6 behind Graeme.

At the end of the day, you can only do your best and sometimes, whoever you are and however good you are, sometimes it just ain’t your night. Kimia, on returning to the chair, battled her way to the respectable 7 she needed to take double figures. She won points from me for smiling at Clive when she sat down for this second round, obviously accepting the slings and arrows with fortitude.

Matthew Harper needed to open the corridor of doubt to the remaining two contenders, and this would take a double figure GK score. Well, he certainly provided that, and then some. He added a rousing 13, to put him on the psychologically important score of 20.

Sometimes, as we’ve noted, it’s not your night. Sometimes, however, it most emphatically is your night. This is exactly what Sharon Chambers found. Fair play to Sharon, as she sat down for the GK round she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. She certainly didn’t let any hint of nerves affect her performance. Sharon scored 16. I’ll say that again. Sharon scored 16. It’s not the highest GK score of the Clive Myrie era, but it must be in the top five or so. I think it’s the highest GK score of the series so far, but am willing to be corrected on this. A magnificent round. Sharon demonstrated that if you snap the answers out quickly, Clive’s speed of delivery increases, and this was a round that got faster and faster, and better and better. Beat that!

Well, Graeme Barton certainly tried. He didn’t need to equal Sharon’s 16, but he needed 11 and no passes to force a tie break, and 12 to win outright. It was desperately close. Graeme would get a couple right and seem to be building momentum, but then be foiled by the next question. He inched towards the line, but the white line of death beat him across the finish line. In the end, Graeme scored a good 10 for 23. Bad luck, sir.

Sharon was modest in her piece to camera, saying that her GK round went quite well. I was interested to hear her say that she plays in a pub quiz in Cardiff, not so very far away from LAM Towers. Well, Sharon, if you play like that I bet you win more often than you don’t. I wish you the very best of luck in the semi finals.

 

Kimia Etemadi	The poetry of Carol Ann Duffy	3	0	7	0	10	0
Sharon Chambers	The League of Gentlemen	8	0	16	0	24	0
Graeme Barton	Nigel Mansell	13	0	10	0	23	0
Matthew Harper	Rene Magritte	7	0	13	0	20	0