Decisions, decisions
I think that it was probably Ursula the Sea Witch in Disney's "The Little Mermaid" who said "Life's full of tough decisions, ain't it."
Regular readers may have read past entries where I have mentioned the quiz at the Pill Harriers Rugby Club in Newport on a Monday Evening. Those who haven't may prefer to skip this part and go straight to "We Came - We Had A Go - We Weren't Smart Enough" the next section of this entry.
Right, now that they've gone, lets get to the heart of the matter. I like League quizzing. There we are, its out in the open. Time was, a little over a decade ago I was competing in three leagues each week - Neath on Tuesday - Morriston Hospitals League on Wednesdays - South Wales Echo League on Sundays. Alas, all three of these are no more. The Swansea Independent League still exists, so I'm told, but my sources tell me that is in sad decline - apologies to all concerned if I'm wrong. The only healthy quiz league between Swansea and Cardiff now is the Bridgend Quiz League. Matches are played on a Monday night. Last Sunday my friend John told me that he'd been invited to play for a team in the League for a friend who was going on holiday. I told him I was jealous - I meant it too.
The upshot of this was that John rang me on Tuesday evening. He'd played in the league match the night before, and really enjoyed it, and the team had asked him if there was anyone he knew who could play on this coming Monday. Would I like to ? To use the vernacular, not 'alf !
However -
The thing is , due to adverse weather conditions I haven't made the journey to Newport for the Pill Harriers quiz for the last 2 weeks. Now that is not the end of the world. However the fact is that I've already told my friends Alan and Barry that, barring unforeseen circumstances I'll go with them on Monday. Now, yes, they could go on their own without me. But its not as simple as that. You can go there as a group of three, and even if nobody else joins up with you on the evening you can still be competitive. But go there as just two of you, and you risk a most frustrating and unfruitful evening. Its quite possible that if I don't go, neither will they. So can I bear having it on my conscience that I have cost the boys an evening's quizzing ? On the other hand, is it fair to lay upon myself the power of having the ultimate say in whether the boys go out to the quiz or not ? I feel a little like the Lord High Executioner here, and its not a pleasant feeling. Which friend should I let down ? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.
We Came - We Had A Go - We Weren't Smart Enough
Welcome back to all of you who have rejoined us at this point. If you read my entry earlier this week about the second series of "Battle of The Brains" you may have noticed that I mentioned in passing that I once appeared on "Come and Have A Go If You Think You're Smart Enough", Nicky Campbell's previous BBC quiz show.
This was my first ever appearence on television, and as such it has a special place in my heart. If you don't remember the show, it ran for two seasons, in 2004 and 2005, I think. My appearence was in the first series. Nicky Campbell either left, or was replaced, and the second series, called just "Come and Have A Go. . . " was fronted by Julian Clary. I have to admit that although Julian Clary is an alumnus of Goldsmiths College of the University of London, like myself, I didn't actually catch any of the second series.
The show had a unique ( or fairly unique ) selling point. As well as the four teams in the studio at the start of the show, teams across the length and breadth of the country could play along interactively at home, and by the magic of the interweb, their scores would be registered with the BBC. Teams answered multiple choice questions, and at the end of each round, one team was eliminated. When only one team was left in the studio, then there would be a break for the National Lottery, and after this the team in the studio would go head to head against the best team at home for a large cash prize. Usually the team at home would win, since there was no way of regulating the number of players in a home team.
A few things about the show stick out in my memory. Firstly , I remember thinking at the time that we were being well treated. Chauffeur driven limousines took us from Paddington to the very posh Kensington Hotel where we were staying. My subsequent experiences with the BBC would prove that this was very much out of the ordinary. As I hinted at in my previous entry, Nicky Campbell was extremely impressive in the way he remained calm and in control in the middle of it all. Don't ever think that Television presenters don't earn their money.
On a slightly less positive note, I was struck by the way that once you're on a show like that and you lose, then you are very much surplus to requirements. Both Come and Have A Go and Eggheads virtually gave us the bum's rush to get out of the studio as soon as the show was safely in the can. Actually with "Come and Have A Go" we were back in the hotel in time to watch the second half of the show !
Good old Mastermind,to be fair, does put on refreshments for contenders after the show. Mind you, that's a mixed blessing. For one thing they can shoot as many as four shows in a day, and if you're show isn't the last, then really and truly you are a little bit in the way when your show has finished. Its not just that though. When I lost on Mastermind I just wanted to get out and away from the studio, away from other people, and to start the long journey home. When I won on Mastermind - well, I just wanted to get out and away from the studio where I could enjoy my feelings of self satisfaction without coming across as a heartless git to the people who didn't win. Although the reception after the final was a different class, having said that. However, on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ? " in 2006 it took a day to make a whole show. So after filming finished, between 9:30 and 10pm, it was everyone into the bar, and who was both buying and serving the drinks - Chris Tarrant. Believe me, in and out of the studio that man is a class act.
Coming back to "Come and Have A Go", even though we were narrowly beaten my main feeling on the train journey home on the Sunday was that it had all been tremendous fun. Believe it or not, appearing in a quiz or game show really is a lot of fun, and actually winning it is not the be all and end all. I loved appearing on "Come and Have A Go". Losing my first round heat of "Mastermind" in 2006 was a blow, but it was only a matter of days before the disappointment was replaced by a feeling of - well, that was fun, and I definitely want to do it again. Even "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ? " Yes, I could have walked out of that studio at least £15,000 richer than I did, but it doesn't change the fact that up until my wrong answer I had just had one of the most amazing, fantastic days of my life. My "Eggheads" experience I don't look back on with quite such fond memories, but then that has nothing to do with what happened on the show, and everything to do with team politics in the bar of the hotel the evening before.
Its funny the way that I appeared on 7 TV shows in a space of just 3 years since, but in the 20 months since my last appearence, I haven't appeared on one. Partly that's due to the fact that I had given an undertaking not to appear in any other TV show until my final appearence on Mastermind was shown. However its been more than ten months since the final was broadcast.I fancied going on both "Only Connect" and "Battle of the Brains". Series 2 of "Only Connect" needs you to be able to commit to being available for filming three consecutive days, and I'm afraid that I just can't do that, since the three days in question do not coincide with my holidays at school. One of the pitfalls of our wonderful long teachers ' holidays is that you can't pick and choose when you take them. As for "Battle of the Brains", putting together a team of 7 people, many of whom will be working, for an audition is hard enough - but getting them to be able to commit to possibly being away for a couple of days or more until their involvement in the show is over is a nightmare. I've also applied for Terry Wogan's Perfect Recall, also a new Sky TV show that's in the pipeline, and I've asked if the Brain of Britain team will send me an application form when they start sending them out in the summer.
Friday, 13 February 2009
Mastermind Heat 17
Mastermind - First Round Heat 17/24 - Friday 13th February
Four more brand new contestants took to the chair this week, although, as John Humphrys was at pains to point out, Shrirang Raddi had actually taken part in Mastermind India. A little more on that in a moment.
Adrian Corbett kicked us off with this week's popular culture subject, Marillion. It seemed there were a lot of questions about venues where they played at one time or another, but it didn't phase Mr. Corbett, who posted a very good 13. John Sandalls followed, answering on atom spy Dr. Klaus Fuchs. A point of controversy occurred in this round. John Humphrys asked in which pub - etc. etc., and Mr. Sandalls looked confused. In his answer he said that it actually took place in two pubs, and named both. John Humprhys accepted this, but said that the second answer was right. Now - I am surprised that they didn't reshoot that question , rephrasing it perhaps to make it obvious that the second answer was the one required. Oh well, 11 was a good score, but you couldn't help thinking that this might not be enough tonight. Shrirang Raddi was answering on the Kashmir War. I know nothing about the subject so cannot possibly comment on the level of difficulty, but I know a perfect round when I see it, and this was one. Sixteen questions, sixteen correct answers. Follow that ! As it happened Sue Read made a perfectly decent fist of her round on Pushkin, but 11 points left her 5 behind, and that's a hell of a gap to have to bridge.
John Sandalls made a very spirited defence of nuclear power in his chat with John Humphrys, but made very heavy weather of his GK round. The question about the western TV show which featured the Cartwright family caused him all kinds of problems - he knew that they lived on the Ponderosa, but just couldn't dredge up the name of the show. He finished on 18. Sue Read pitched in with the best GK round of the night. As I've said before, double figures on GK is pretty respectable, and she scored 11, to match her specialist score. Adrian Corbett had a 2 point advantage over Sue Read at the halfway stage , but he couldn't make it count, and scored 8 to give him 21. So, finally Shrirang Raddi. John Humphrys probed him about his experiences on Mastermind India. Apparently contenders take, or took, it much more seriously than this show, because they were still revising in the last few minutes leading up to the show. Well, far be it from me to cast nasturtiums, but if you haven't completely learned your stuff by then, I don't see that any revision you do on the actual day is going to make the slightest bit of difference.Mr. Raddi showed a very likeable sense of humour when John Huprhys asked him how he did on Mastermind India, and he replied "Terribly" - saying that the subject of poisonous snakes proved very poisonous to him. Mr. Raddi only needed 7, but after a decent start he began to struggle, and seemed to be falling into a pass spiral. However he didn't panic, and therefore managed to answer the ones he knew, and scored 8 to give him just a tiny bit of daylight. Is he a potential finalist ? Well, anyone who reaches the semis is a potential finalist, but he'll need a better performance on GK to give him a halfway decent chance.
The Details
Four more brand new contestants took to the chair this week, although, as John Humphrys was at pains to point out, Shrirang Raddi had actually taken part in Mastermind India. A little more on that in a moment.
Adrian Corbett kicked us off with this week's popular culture subject, Marillion. It seemed there were a lot of questions about venues where they played at one time or another, but it didn't phase Mr. Corbett, who posted a very good 13. John Sandalls followed, answering on atom spy Dr. Klaus Fuchs. A point of controversy occurred in this round. John Humphrys asked in which pub - etc. etc., and Mr. Sandalls looked confused. In his answer he said that it actually took place in two pubs, and named both. John Humprhys accepted this, but said that the second answer was right. Now - I am surprised that they didn't reshoot that question , rephrasing it perhaps to make it obvious that the second answer was the one required. Oh well, 11 was a good score, but you couldn't help thinking that this might not be enough tonight. Shrirang Raddi was answering on the Kashmir War. I know nothing about the subject so cannot possibly comment on the level of difficulty, but I know a perfect round when I see it, and this was one. Sixteen questions, sixteen correct answers. Follow that ! As it happened Sue Read made a perfectly decent fist of her round on Pushkin, but 11 points left her 5 behind, and that's a hell of a gap to have to bridge.
John Sandalls made a very spirited defence of nuclear power in his chat with John Humphrys, but made very heavy weather of his GK round. The question about the western TV show which featured the Cartwright family caused him all kinds of problems - he knew that they lived on the Ponderosa, but just couldn't dredge up the name of the show. He finished on 18. Sue Read pitched in with the best GK round of the night. As I've said before, double figures on GK is pretty respectable, and she scored 11, to match her specialist score. Adrian Corbett had a 2 point advantage over Sue Read at the halfway stage , but he couldn't make it count, and scored 8 to give him 21. So, finally Shrirang Raddi. John Humphrys probed him about his experiences on Mastermind India. Apparently contenders take, or took, it much more seriously than this show, because they were still revising in the last few minutes leading up to the show. Well, far be it from me to cast nasturtiums, but if you haven't completely learned your stuff by then, I don't see that any revision you do on the actual day is going to make the slightest bit of difference.Mr. Raddi showed a very likeable sense of humour when John Huprhys asked him how he did on Mastermind India, and he replied "Terribly" - saying that the subject of poisonous snakes proved very poisonous to him. Mr. Raddi only needed 7, but after a decent start he began to struggle, and seemed to be falling into a pass spiral. However he didn't panic, and therefore managed to answer the ones he knew, and scored 8 to give him just a tiny bit of daylight. Is he a potential finalist ? Well, anyone who reaches the semis is a potential finalist, but he'll need a better performance on GK to give him a halfway decent chance.
The Details
| Adrian Corbett | Marillion | 13 -1 | 8 - 3 | 21 - 4 |
| John Sandalls | Life and Career of Klaus Fuchs | 11 - 1 | 7 - 3 | 18 - 4 |
| Shrirang Raddi | Kashmir War | 16 - 0 | 8 - 4 | 24 - 4 |
| Sue Read | Life and Poetry of Alexander Pushkin | 11 - 2 | 11 - 3 | 22 - 5 |
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
New Improved Battle of The Brains Mark Two
Battle of the Brains - Series Two
Would it be unkind if I were to start by saying "If at first you don't succeed . . . " ? Probably. Back in the misty past, in August just after I started this blog, the first series of "Battle of the Brains" aired to distinctly mixed reviews. By the end of the series many people, this reviewer included, felt that it had been something of an opportunity missed. To summarise some of the criticisms which were made of the show : -
*Paddy O'Connell, the presenter is a very witty man and an accomplished broadcaster, but he did not manage to project this on the show, and lacked charisma and personality
*Some of the individual head to head rounds were decided by one single question
*One of the sets of individual rounds would involve guessing numbers, plucking them from thin air almost.
*In the final round for the money every fourth or fifth question was so difficult that it was virtually impossible for anyone to win the money.
*Generally the pace of the show was too slow, with too few questions in a half hour.
So, now that we've seen the first few shows of the new, improved BOTB, how have these criticisms been addressed ?
*Nicky Campbell has replaced Paddy O'Connell. Nicky Campbell is an experienced game show hand. He fronted ITVs Wheel of Fortune and BBCs Come and have a Go If You Think You're Smart Enough. When I appeared on the latter I was impressed with his total command of the situation. Like Paddy he's a witty man as well. I do think as much as Paddy was guilty of underselling the show, Nicky needs to be careful that he doesn't oversell it. A little less shouting, a little less hyperbole, would do the trick.
* One of the individual rounds each day is still decided by a single question, although so far its always been a 'Going for Gold' style "Who Am I " question, along with multiple clues and freezing out after a wrong guess.
* Thank goodness the 'Name a Hairy Dog' number guess questions seem to have disappeared.
* In two out of the three shows so far the money questions have been much, much easier.
*The pace of the show could still be picked up more.
There are some other considerations. There's a clearly visible studio audience. I'm not sure how much this adds to the show in terms of atmosphere, but I certainly don't think its detrimental. The teams that we've seen so far haven't really matched the teams of the first series for quality. There has been talent in both of the winning teams so far, but spread thinly compared with many of the teams from the last series. But then considering the number of really great quizzers who took part in the first series, and didn't have the most enjoyable experience, then that's not really a surprise.
Its early days yet, so any judgement I pass has to be qualified. I do still think that 7 per team is too many, and I do still think that it doesn't deliver enough questions per show. I do still think that some of the question sets are unbalanced. But its good to see that some of the criticisms that I and others made of the first series do seem to have been taken on board. Its been a more promising start, and I shall continue to watch with interest.
Would it be unkind if I were to start by saying "If at first you don't succeed . . . " ? Probably. Back in the misty past, in August just after I started this blog, the first series of "Battle of the Brains" aired to distinctly mixed reviews. By the end of the series many people, this reviewer included, felt that it had been something of an opportunity missed. To summarise some of the criticisms which were made of the show : -
*Paddy O'Connell, the presenter is a very witty man and an accomplished broadcaster, but he did not manage to project this on the show, and lacked charisma and personality
*Some of the individual head to head rounds were decided by one single question
*One of the sets of individual rounds would involve guessing numbers, plucking them from thin air almost.
*In the final round for the money every fourth or fifth question was so difficult that it was virtually impossible for anyone to win the money.
*Generally the pace of the show was too slow, with too few questions in a half hour.
So, now that we've seen the first few shows of the new, improved BOTB, how have these criticisms been addressed ?
*Nicky Campbell has replaced Paddy O'Connell. Nicky Campbell is an experienced game show hand. He fronted ITVs Wheel of Fortune and BBCs Come and have a Go If You Think You're Smart Enough. When I appeared on the latter I was impressed with his total command of the situation. Like Paddy he's a witty man as well. I do think as much as Paddy was guilty of underselling the show, Nicky needs to be careful that he doesn't oversell it. A little less shouting, a little less hyperbole, would do the trick.
* One of the individual rounds each day is still decided by a single question, although so far its always been a 'Going for Gold' style "Who Am I " question, along with multiple clues and freezing out after a wrong guess.
* Thank goodness the 'Name a Hairy Dog' number guess questions seem to have disappeared.
* In two out of the three shows so far the money questions have been much, much easier.
*The pace of the show could still be picked up more.
There are some other considerations. There's a clearly visible studio audience. I'm not sure how much this adds to the show in terms of atmosphere, but I certainly don't think its detrimental. The teams that we've seen so far haven't really matched the teams of the first series for quality. There has been talent in both of the winning teams so far, but spread thinly compared with many of the teams from the last series. But then considering the number of really great quizzers who took part in the first series, and didn't have the most enjoyable experience, then that's not really a surprise.
Its early days yet, so any judgement I pass has to be qualified. I do still think that 7 per team is too many, and I do still think that it doesn't deliver enough questions per show. I do still think that some of the question sets are unbalanced. But its good to see that some of the criticisms that I and others made of the first series do seem to have been taken on board. Its been a more promising start, and I shall continue to watch with interest.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Congratulations to Manchester
University Challenge Semi Final 1 : Monday 8pm BBC2
University of Manchester v. Lincoln College, Oxford
Matches aren't played on paper. On paper this would have been a contest that was too close to call. If you read my comments after the 4th quarter final last week you'll have seen how close the stats of these two teams were, with Lincoln College just having the edge between them. Looking at if from Lincoln's point of view, what went wrong ?
All seemed well at the start. Lincoln buzzed in to take the first starter along with bonuses. Then for the next ten minutes or so it was all Manchester. They were very assured on the buzzer, and very few bonuses slipped through their fingers. Last time we saw them it was Lincoln who were buzzing in to take almost all of the starters. Tonight, though, they were comprehensively beaten to the buzzer by a very good Manchester team. As time wore on, and Manchester's lead increased Lincoln College tried bravely to get back into the match, and thus found themselves having to jump the gun on the starters. As we have seen before, making a premature stab at a starter is a risky business, and it just didn't come off. Lincoln were actually better value tonight than their score suggests, and they are a better team than tonight's performance suggests. Chalk it down partly to the strength of the Manchester team, and partly to a bit of an off night, compared with their imperious performance in the quarters. Do not forget, this is a team that scored 335 in the quarter final, and beat St. John's Cambridge in the first round.
As for the final score, Manchester won by 345 to 30. In both the first and second round they were knocking on the door of 300 points with 285 and 280 respectively. Tonight they kicked that door wide open. This was all the more impressive for being achieved in a semi final.
So Manchester are through to the final. Should they face St. John's , then we have the interesting prospect of them playing a team who were beaten in the first round by the team that they have just beaten in the semis. Of course, the favourites to join them are Corpus Christi, Oxford. Its interesting to compare Manchester to Corpus Christi. In the quarters, Pertinez of Manchester dominated. Tonight he played his part, but you have to say that the rest of the team were all as good too. Tonight they looked the complete package. In their quarter final, Gail Trimble of Corpus Christi put on as good an individual performance as I've ever seen in UC. How will the rest of the Corpus Christi team perform if she has an off night ?
Well, we'll find out some more of the answers next week. Yes, I've tipped Corpus Christi and I'm happy to stick with them, but as tonight shows, past form is not necessarily any guide to what is going to happen. I can't wait.
University of Manchester v. Lincoln College, Oxford
Matches aren't played on paper. On paper this would have been a contest that was too close to call. If you read my comments after the 4th quarter final last week you'll have seen how close the stats of these two teams were, with Lincoln College just having the edge between them. Looking at if from Lincoln's point of view, what went wrong ?
All seemed well at the start. Lincoln buzzed in to take the first starter along with bonuses. Then for the next ten minutes or so it was all Manchester. They were very assured on the buzzer, and very few bonuses slipped through their fingers. Last time we saw them it was Lincoln who were buzzing in to take almost all of the starters. Tonight, though, they were comprehensively beaten to the buzzer by a very good Manchester team. As time wore on, and Manchester's lead increased Lincoln College tried bravely to get back into the match, and thus found themselves having to jump the gun on the starters. As we have seen before, making a premature stab at a starter is a risky business, and it just didn't come off. Lincoln were actually better value tonight than their score suggests, and they are a better team than tonight's performance suggests. Chalk it down partly to the strength of the Manchester team, and partly to a bit of an off night, compared with their imperious performance in the quarters. Do not forget, this is a team that scored 335 in the quarter final, and beat St. John's Cambridge in the first round.
As for the final score, Manchester won by 345 to 30. In both the first and second round they were knocking on the door of 300 points with 285 and 280 respectively. Tonight they kicked that door wide open. This was all the more impressive for being achieved in a semi final.
So Manchester are through to the final. Should they face St. John's , then we have the interesting prospect of them playing a team who were beaten in the first round by the team that they have just beaten in the semis. Of course, the favourites to join them are Corpus Christi, Oxford. Its interesting to compare Manchester to Corpus Christi. In the quarters, Pertinez of Manchester dominated. Tonight he played his part, but you have to say that the rest of the team were all as good too. Tonight they looked the complete package. In their quarter final, Gail Trimble of Corpus Christi put on as good an individual performance as I've ever seen in UC. How will the rest of the Corpus Christi team perform if she has an off night ?
Well, we'll find out some more of the answers next week. Yes, I've tipped Corpus Christi and I'm happy to stick with them, but as tonight shows, past form is not necessarily any guide to what is going to happen. I can't wait.
Sunday, 8 February 2009
A Question of Questions - Weekend Mini Quiz Two
Its my turn to set the quiz for this coming Thursday evening in the Aberavon Rugby Club. I probably enjoy setting the quiz and being the question master about as much as I enjoy playing in the quizzes, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I do face two concerns every time I compile a quiz.
Getting the Level right
Yes, you'd think that with 14 years experience I'd be able to pitch the quiz at the right level of difficulty. You don't pitch it for your best teams, and you don't pitch it for your worst teams - you aim for the middle. If in doubt, then make it easier. Yet every time I nearly always end up with a quiz that proves to be more difficult than I think it is. There's a team made up of mostly younger players who always struggle with my quiz, however easy I think I make it. They manage ok with any other question master.
Getting some new questions
Yes, one of the problems you may find as a question master is that you start to repeat yourself. I'm not talking about being like Reg, who just recycles pretty much the same quiz each time he does it. No, I'm just talking about the fact that there are certain questions which you just find yourself reusing, albeit three or four years down the line. If it strikes you as a good question to answer once, then it will probably strike you as a good one to ask again some time. So you consciously look for new questions, that you haven't ever used before, to enliven your quiz and make it a bit more interesting. But where do you find them ?
Well, obviously there's news and current affairs, and as a quizzer you really need to be keeping abreast of them anyway. However a few of these questions tend to do the rounds in almost every quiz you go to for a week or a fortnight, and then they're gone, probably forever, into the Well of Lost Questions.
Ok then - you can fall back to some extent on your own resources. You can use things you've heard, read, or seen to provide new questions, and if you're a quiz master you probably do this anyway. But these can sometimes be rare beasts , and there's no guarantee any will come along when you need them. Where then ?
There's always your quiz reference books, like Trevor Montague's brilliant " A to Z of Almost Everything" . I still quite like the "Pears Quiz Companion", and have been known to dip into "The Guinness Book of Answers ", although more than a decade has gone by since the latest edition was published. I use at least "The A to Z of almost Everything" every time I write a quiz. However even there I only use it sparingly. This is not because there are any flaws with the book , no. Its simply that once I get stuck into using it I tend to find I'm tempted into putting much harder questions into the quiz, and a very little of that goes a long way.
So we're left with quiz books. I'm sure that I'm no different from many many other quizzers when I say that I have a large collection of quiz books, and I'm always in the market for another , especially if it has something fresh on the menu. To this extent I was delighted when my wife, who works in a local charity shop, bought me a small collection of fairly recent quiz books for a very reasonable price when they were brought into the shop. Most of them were of the Collins series - Nick Holt's Quiz Master - Pub Quiz 1 and 2 - Quiz Night - Quiz Notes, and there was also David Pickering's Perfect Pub Quiz. I'm not writing this to be critical - well, not very critical, anyway. They all have a large enough number of questions, and I'm not saying that they haven't been put together with love and care, but I am saying that they're all uninspired. If you're a regular quizzer you'll have to look fairly hard to find any questions that you haven't already heard many, many times before.
I have a process I go through whenever I make a quiz. Don't worry , this isn't a digression, and I'll be coming back to quiz books again in a minute. So I have a process, and as the last stage of the process I usually take the finished quiz into work early in the week, and try out the questions on my colleagues on a lunchtime. They say they enjoy it, and it helps give me a good a idea whether I need to change the way that I have phrased a question, and whether I need to make any particular round a bit easier.( Its a fair bet that I won't have to make it any harder ) Its valuable feedback. Now, my Head of Department is always asking me why I don't write a quiz book. - There - I told you I'd get back to it in a moment or two. Especially after the final of Mastermind was shown on TV. And well, I have to say that the idea is not without appeal. But then again, why should any publishing firm want a quiz book off me ? Seriously its a competitive world out there, and there's tons of quiz books on the market. More to the point, though, I'm not 100% sure that I could find enough time to write a quiz book that is significantly different from others, that would have enough new questions to interest a proper quizzer. It wouldn't be a matter of just collecting together 20 or 30 of my last quizzes. For one thing, quite a few questions would end up being repeated. For another thing I'd have to replace the 'in the news' questions as well. Then after all that I'd maybe find that I'd written a book which was too difficult to appeal to a significant proportion of the quiz book buying public.
Out of interest, here's 2 lists. The first contains books that I've found useful when setting quizzes. The second contains books that I haven't necessarily used a lot when making up quizzes, but I've enjoyed working my way through.
A Few Useful Books for Making a Quiz
The A to Z of Almost Everything
The Prince of Wales Quiz Book
The Pears Quiz Companion
On the Tip of My Tongue ( David Gentle )
15 to 1 - 2000 for 2000 et al
The People's Quiz ( good for popular culture questions , but not a lot else )
Ask the Family quiz books 1 - 3 ( number puzzles always go down well )
Some quizbooks I've really enjoyed working through
The Prince of Wales Quiz Book
Magnus Magnusson's Quiz Book
Magnus Magnusson's Family Quiz Book
Bamber Gascoigne's Universally Challenging Quiz Book
The Round Britain Quiz book
The Brain of Britain Quiz book ( Ian Gillies )
University Challenge Quiz Book ( 1978 Arrow books )
I'll let you know how the quiz goes down later on in the week.
Weekend Mini Quiz One answers
Round One
1) Twenty One
2) Top of the World
3) Take Your Pick ( Double Your Money debuted a day or two later )
4) Joe West - 22 on specialist subject
5) Bob Johnson was the man who answered Turkey to several consecutive questions on "Family Fortunes "
Round Two
1) Eamonn Coghlan
2) Prince Henry - son of James I
3) London Underground Stations
4) The Wizard of Oz
5) Megalosaurus
Well, how did you do ? If you fancy another go, then I am pleased to announce : -
Weekend Mini Quiz Two
Round One- Water Water Everywhere
1) Name the famous lighthouse built off the coast of Tiree by Robert Louis Stevenson's uncle Alan Stevenson
2) In which British dockyard did Peter the great once work as a ship's carpenter ?
3) In which novel by Charles Dickens is a heroine the daughter of a man who drags dead bodies out of the River Thames for a living ?
4) Name the last British swimmer before Rebecca Adlington to win two gold medals in the same Olympics
5) Who played the scheming civil servant in the film "Water" ?
Round Two - General Knowledge
1) Who is the only person other than the 6 Pythons to receive a writing credit on an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus " ?
2) Name the writer behind "The Henry Root Letters "
3) If its spelled with - er - then its too high , but if its spelled with an - o - then its too low. Which medical conditions am I referring to ? ( There's a couple of different acceptable answers to this one )
4) In which English town or city would you find the national Bagpipe museum ?
5) If William Stayley was the last, and William Wallace the first, what am I referring to ?
Answers will be posted next weekend. Best of luck.
Getting the Level right
Yes, you'd think that with 14 years experience I'd be able to pitch the quiz at the right level of difficulty. You don't pitch it for your best teams, and you don't pitch it for your worst teams - you aim for the middle. If in doubt, then make it easier. Yet every time I nearly always end up with a quiz that proves to be more difficult than I think it is. There's a team made up of mostly younger players who always struggle with my quiz, however easy I think I make it. They manage ok with any other question master.
Getting some new questions
Yes, one of the problems you may find as a question master is that you start to repeat yourself. I'm not talking about being like Reg, who just recycles pretty much the same quiz each time he does it. No, I'm just talking about the fact that there are certain questions which you just find yourself reusing, albeit three or four years down the line. If it strikes you as a good question to answer once, then it will probably strike you as a good one to ask again some time. So you consciously look for new questions, that you haven't ever used before, to enliven your quiz and make it a bit more interesting. But where do you find them ?
Well, obviously there's news and current affairs, and as a quizzer you really need to be keeping abreast of them anyway. However a few of these questions tend to do the rounds in almost every quiz you go to for a week or a fortnight, and then they're gone, probably forever, into the Well of Lost Questions.
Ok then - you can fall back to some extent on your own resources. You can use things you've heard, read, or seen to provide new questions, and if you're a quiz master you probably do this anyway. But these can sometimes be rare beasts , and there's no guarantee any will come along when you need them. Where then ?
There's always your quiz reference books, like Trevor Montague's brilliant " A to Z of Almost Everything" . I still quite like the "Pears Quiz Companion", and have been known to dip into "The Guinness Book of Answers ", although more than a decade has gone by since the latest edition was published. I use at least "The A to Z of almost Everything" every time I write a quiz. However even there I only use it sparingly. This is not because there are any flaws with the book , no. Its simply that once I get stuck into using it I tend to find I'm tempted into putting much harder questions into the quiz, and a very little of that goes a long way.
So we're left with quiz books. I'm sure that I'm no different from many many other quizzers when I say that I have a large collection of quiz books, and I'm always in the market for another , especially if it has something fresh on the menu. To this extent I was delighted when my wife, who works in a local charity shop, bought me a small collection of fairly recent quiz books for a very reasonable price when they were brought into the shop. Most of them were of the Collins series - Nick Holt's Quiz Master - Pub Quiz 1 and 2 - Quiz Night - Quiz Notes, and there was also David Pickering's Perfect Pub Quiz. I'm not writing this to be critical - well, not very critical, anyway. They all have a large enough number of questions, and I'm not saying that they haven't been put together with love and care, but I am saying that they're all uninspired. If you're a regular quizzer you'll have to look fairly hard to find any questions that you haven't already heard many, many times before.
I have a process I go through whenever I make a quiz. Don't worry , this isn't a digression, and I'll be coming back to quiz books again in a minute. So I have a process, and as the last stage of the process I usually take the finished quiz into work early in the week, and try out the questions on my colleagues on a lunchtime. They say they enjoy it, and it helps give me a good a idea whether I need to change the way that I have phrased a question, and whether I need to make any particular round a bit easier.( Its a fair bet that I won't have to make it any harder ) Its valuable feedback. Now, my Head of Department is always asking me why I don't write a quiz book. - There - I told you I'd get back to it in a moment or two. Especially after the final of Mastermind was shown on TV. And well, I have to say that the idea is not without appeal. But then again, why should any publishing firm want a quiz book off me ? Seriously its a competitive world out there, and there's tons of quiz books on the market. More to the point, though, I'm not 100% sure that I could find enough time to write a quiz book that is significantly different from others, that would have enough new questions to interest a proper quizzer. It wouldn't be a matter of just collecting together 20 or 30 of my last quizzes. For one thing, quite a few questions would end up being repeated. For another thing I'd have to replace the 'in the news' questions as well. Then after all that I'd maybe find that I'd written a book which was too difficult to appeal to a significant proportion of the quiz book buying public.
Out of interest, here's 2 lists. The first contains books that I've found useful when setting quizzes. The second contains books that I haven't necessarily used a lot when making up quizzes, but I've enjoyed working my way through.
A Few Useful Books for Making a Quiz
The A to Z of Almost Everything
The Prince of Wales Quiz Book
The Pears Quiz Companion
On the Tip of My Tongue ( David Gentle )
15 to 1 - 2000 for 2000 et al
The People's Quiz ( good for popular culture questions , but not a lot else )
Ask the Family quiz books 1 - 3 ( number puzzles always go down well )
Some quizbooks I've really enjoyed working through
The Prince of Wales Quiz Book
Magnus Magnusson's Quiz Book
Magnus Magnusson's Family Quiz Book
Bamber Gascoigne's Universally Challenging Quiz Book
The Round Britain Quiz book
The Brain of Britain Quiz book ( Ian Gillies )
University Challenge Quiz Book ( 1978 Arrow books )
I'll let you know how the quiz goes down later on in the week.
Weekend Mini Quiz One answers
Round One
1) Twenty One
2) Top of the World
3) Take Your Pick ( Double Your Money debuted a day or two later )
4) Joe West - 22 on specialist subject
5) Bob Johnson was the man who answered Turkey to several consecutive questions on "Family Fortunes "
Round Two
1) Eamonn Coghlan
2) Prince Henry - son of James I
3) London Underground Stations
4) The Wizard of Oz
5) Megalosaurus
Well, how did you do ? If you fancy another go, then I am pleased to announce : -
Weekend Mini Quiz Two
Round One- Water Water Everywhere
1) Name the famous lighthouse built off the coast of Tiree by Robert Louis Stevenson's uncle Alan Stevenson
2) In which British dockyard did Peter the great once work as a ship's carpenter ?
3) In which novel by Charles Dickens is a heroine the daughter of a man who drags dead bodies out of the River Thames for a living ?
4) Name the last British swimmer before Rebecca Adlington to win two gold medals in the same Olympics
5) Who played the scheming civil servant in the film "Water" ?
Round Two - General Knowledge
1) Who is the only person other than the 6 Pythons to receive a writing credit on an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus " ?
2) Name the writer behind "The Henry Root Letters "
3) If its spelled with - er - then its too high , but if its spelled with an - o - then its too low. Which medical conditions am I referring to ? ( There's a couple of different acceptable answers to this one )
4) In which English town or city would you find the national Bagpipe museum ?
5) If William Stayley was the last, and William Wallace the first, what am I referring to ?
Answers will be posted next weekend. Best of luck.
Friday, 6 February 2009
TV Watch - Mastermind Heat 16 - Only Connect Two
Mastermind - Heat 16/24
Four more newcomers to Mastermind took to the black chair tonight. Chris Stuchfield described himself as a 'house husband', and before the GK round John Humphrys spent quite a bit of time going into this apparently simple concept. From which we must surmise that The Peninsular War is a subject which just doesn't light his candle. 11 seemed a pretty decent score in this subject. Next came Angela Rutledge. Judging from her accent I would guess that she is either American, or has spent a lot of time in the USA. Hers was probably the most obviously populist specialist subject, but as we have seen, popular culture subjects don't actually give you any undue advantage, and I thought that 14 looked like a good score. In the interval chat, John Humphrys came out with the interesting revelation that Morrisey is actually very big in Mexico. I somehow think that the researchers winkled this fact out of Ms. Rutledge beforehand for him. If Benjamin Skipps isn't the youngest contender in the series so far , he certainly looks like he is. He certainly knew his stuff on Chichester Cathedral to score 14 as well. Finally Gareth Kingston. I will confess that I do know Gareth through an internet forum, and I have exchanged messages on his appearence since the show aired a couple of hours ago. Gareth achieved a perfect 16 out of 16, with no wrong answers and no passes, which was certainly the pick of the specialist rounds, and one of the finest we've seen in this series so far.
So to the GK round. Chris Stuchfield went for accuracy rather than speed, and as such did spend a lot of the round hesitating. 8 scored for a total of 19 was nothing to be ashamed of, but to be honest this never looked like a winning total. Angela Rutledge started her round well, but lost her way after the first half a minute or so, and really rather struggled to the end of the round. 6 points gave her 20 and the lead, but it was a slender one that was unlikely to see her through. I do tend to think that it must be more difficult for someone in their teens or their early twenties to post a really good score in GK, and Benjamin Skipps found it so, scoring 5 to level out at 19. Gareth has told me that, without being arrogant, he knew that he pretty much had the job done when he sat in the chair, needing only 5 to win, and he feels that he probably relaxed too much during the round. Still he joint top scored in the GK round with 8, and progresses comfortably into the semis.
Maybe this is just me, but I felt John Humphrys was a little fussy tonight. It seemed to me that far more than normal he was wasting contenders' time by either repeating their correct answers, or expanding on them - eg - one question asked who began his monthly TV show in 1958 - etc. etc. - to which the contender answered
Moore
and John Humphrys felt it necessary to add
Correct - PATRICK Moore !
Well, to be honest , John, we didn't think he meant Demi Moore ! Or even Ilkley Moor for that matter.
Well, that's two thirds of the first round heats done now.
The Details
Stop Press - Only Connect 2
Oh frabjous day ! An email message from David Bodycombe via the UK Gameshows Yahoo Group informs me that there will be a new series of Only Connect. What's more applications are currently invited, and if you're interested, they must be returned to the BBC no later than the 17th February - so you'll need to get your skates on.
Four more newcomers to Mastermind took to the black chair tonight. Chris Stuchfield described himself as a 'house husband', and before the GK round John Humphrys spent quite a bit of time going into this apparently simple concept. From which we must surmise that The Peninsular War is a subject which just doesn't light his candle. 11 seemed a pretty decent score in this subject. Next came Angela Rutledge. Judging from her accent I would guess that she is either American, or has spent a lot of time in the USA. Hers was probably the most obviously populist specialist subject, but as we have seen, popular culture subjects don't actually give you any undue advantage, and I thought that 14 looked like a good score. In the interval chat, John Humphrys came out with the interesting revelation that Morrisey is actually very big in Mexico. I somehow think that the researchers winkled this fact out of Ms. Rutledge beforehand for him. If Benjamin Skipps isn't the youngest contender in the series so far , he certainly looks like he is. He certainly knew his stuff on Chichester Cathedral to score 14 as well. Finally Gareth Kingston. I will confess that I do know Gareth through an internet forum, and I have exchanged messages on his appearence since the show aired a couple of hours ago. Gareth achieved a perfect 16 out of 16, with no wrong answers and no passes, which was certainly the pick of the specialist rounds, and one of the finest we've seen in this series so far.
So to the GK round. Chris Stuchfield went for accuracy rather than speed, and as such did spend a lot of the round hesitating. 8 scored for a total of 19 was nothing to be ashamed of, but to be honest this never looked like a winning total. Angela Rutledge started her round well, but lost her way after the first half a minute or so, and really rather struggled to the end of the round. 6 points gave her 20 and the lead, but it was a slender one that was unlikely to see her through. I do tend to think that it must be more difficult for someone in their teens or their early twenties to post a really good score in GK, and Benjamin Skipps found it so, scoring 5 to level out at 19. Gareth has told me that, without being arrogant, he knew that he pretty much had the job done when he sat in the chair, needing only 5 to win, and he feels that he probably relaxed too much during the round. Still he joint top scored in the GK round with 8, and progresses comfortably into the semis.
Maybe this is just me, but I felt John Humphrys was a little fussy tonight. It seemed to me that far more than normal he was wasting contenders' time by either repeating their correct answers, or expanding on them - eg - one question asked who began his monthly TV show in 1958 - etc. etc. - to which the contender answered
Moore
and John Humphrys felt it necessary to add
Correct - PATRICK Moore !
Well, to be honest , John, we didn't think he meant Demi Moore ! Or even Ilkley Moor for that matter.
Well, that's two thirds of the first round heats done now.
The Details
| Chris Stuchfield | The Peninsular War | 11 - 1 | 8 - 4 | 19 - 5 |
| Angela Rutledge | Life and solo career of Morrissey | 14 - 2 | 6 - 3 | 20 - 5 |
| Benjamin Skipp | The History of Chichester Cathedral | 14 -1 | 5 - 2 | 19 - 3 |
| Gareth Kingston | The Great Fire of London | 16-0 | 8 - 0 | 24 - 0 |
Stop Press - Only Connect 2
Oh frabjous day ! An email message from David Bodycombe via the UK Gameshows Yahoo Group informs me that there will be a new series of Only Connect. What's more applications are currently invited, and if you're interested, they must be returned to the BBC no later than the 17th February - so you'll need to get your skates on.
Natural Born Quizzers
Top of the Form
Nature v. Nurture
I'll start by coming clean. Originally I was only going to look at the idea that quizzers can be divided up into 'born quizzers' and 'manufactured quizzers'. However when I chose the above title there was something in the back of my mind that rang a bell. So I googled it, and came up with the fact that this was also the title of episode 5 of Steve Coogan's 1995 TV comedy series "Coogan's Run".
You might not remember Coogan's Run, but it was a series of 6 half hour shows with the talented Mr. Coogan showcasing a different comedy character each week. Probably the best remembered is "Get Calf" where he reprised the dual role of twins Paul and Pauline Calf.
"Natural Born Quizzers" if I remember correctly told the story of two men who had been turned into psychopathic killers through a losing appearence on a TV quiz show for schoolkids - a thinly disguised version of "TV Top of the Form" I think. A brief examination of IMD and some fan sites reveals that it was probably the least popular episode of the whole series. Still, for our purposes thats neither here nor there really. What I find interesting, if not puzzling, is that despite the long run that "Top of The Form " had on TV, and the much longer run that it had on the radio, I can't name hardly a single person who appeared as a contestant on the show who ever became famous in later life.
Compare this to , say, "University Challenge". If you're reading this blog out of choice rather than by accident, then its a good safe bet that you could instantly name Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Clive James, Malcolm Rifkind and Sebastian Faulks all as former contestants. Granted , you'd expect a large group of student contestants, many from Oxbridge, to contain at least a few who would make their mark somehow, especially in the media. But surely one or two former Top of the Formers must have made it somehow. For heavens' sake, even "Blockbusters" could boast Stephen Merchant ( ahh, "The Office" - ahh, "Extras" ) as a former contestant.
You might recall me mentioning Marcus Berkmann's "Brain Men" a while ago. In the book Marcus Berkmann reckons that an appearence on "Top of the Form" was something that you'd want to keep quiet about, and maybe he's right, although I can't really see why. Personally I'd have loved to see my school take part in anything televised. Throughout my childhood years, I can't recall seeing a school in the London Borough of Ealing take part in any TV shows like "We Are the Champions" etc. - although I'm willing to concede that one of them might have made some kind of appearence when I wasn't actually looking. I do recall that there was a one off series of a show called "Hobby Horse", where a team from Ealing won the final. My friend Alfie appeared in an episode of "I, Claudius" playing the son of Sejanus. Sejanus, you recall, was played by Patrick Stewart in his pre-Picard days. My mum banned me from watching it when it was first on because it had some "naughty bits" . Another friend of mine auditioned to be part of the "Why Don't You" gang, but got turned down, probably when he told them that his hobbies and interests consisted of watching the telly and very little else.
Then there was another comprehensive school in the Borough which featured in a Panorama documentary. I'm not going to mention the name of the school because they were treated very unfairly in it. The headteacher was daft enough to allow the cameras in, and the producers did a real hatchet job on it. There was something of a mini national scandal about it at the time, and its notoriety lasted for quite a few years. I kid you not. Several years later when I moved to South Wales in 1986, and I was studying for my Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Swansea University, in one of the tutorials the tutor actually played us the video of this show as an example of how not to teach ! However I digress, and back to "Top of the Form".
If you're reading this, and you actually appeared on "Top of the Form" ( TV or Radio versions ) , you do have my respect, and so I'm going to ask you for a favour. Help me pay the show its belated dues.You don't have to be famous and/or successful either ( although I'm sure that you're the latter ). Just drop me a line to my email address
londinius@yahoo.co.uk
and tell me what you can about it, and then I will personally include you upon a role of honour for people who appeared on the show.
For younger readers, I'll do the same for "Blockbusters" if you do the same and drop me a line.
So then, nature versus nurture. School has been quite disrupted this week with the closure on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the small numbers of children attending for the rest of the week. So much so that we've had to mix and match a bit with classes, and leave some normal lessons to one side for the time being. This resulted me giving a lesson on memory techniques to several groups of children.
Don't worry, I am getting towards the point. One of the kids expressed a widely held view, saying something along the lines of
" Well, its just a matter of luck, isn't it ? You've either got a good memory, or an OK one, or a bad one. " Of course, I argued against it, and said that I think that potentially everyone has got a good memory, but some of us need to learn techniques to help us use our memories more effectively - God, I do sound like a teacher, don't I ? -
But it did set me to thinking. I don't agree that being a good quizzer is only about having a god memory, but I do think that memory is very important. I personally think about memory as being split into two different functions, retention and recall. Retention means the function of actually keeping facts,or if you like, its all about what you actually hold in your memory. Recall means the the function of bringing your handy fact to the forefront of your conscious mind. One without the other isn't any good. You may have fantastic recall, but if the answer you're looking for isn't held in your memory, either because you never knew it in the first place, or its gone from your memory, then you're not going to come up with the answer. Likewise, you may have the most fantastically well stocked store of knowledge, but if you can only dredge up a relevant fact after you've been given half an hour's prior warning, then that's no good either.
Of course, I do agree that there's more to winning quizzes than recalling facts that you have committed to memory. An essential skill is being able to use what you do know to help you figure out what you don't know. For example, you don't know which flower has the scientific name Helianthus. However you do remember that Helios was a greek God of the Sun. So its an educated guess to say that Helianthus might be a sunflower. However I don't think its unreasonable to say that most successful quizzers have an unusually large store of facts committed to their memories, which they can recall quickly when needed for an answer to a question.
OK - so far so good. How, though, do you reach this enhanced state of being ? Are some people just born with the ability to absorb, retain, and recall knowledge through a form of osmosis ? Can anyone make themselves into a great quizzer through hard work, and the acquisition of some effective memory techniques ? I can't help saying that I think the answer to both questions is probably in the affirmative.
If I'm honest, I admit that I myself am probably a lot closer to the osmosis end of the scale than I am to the hard work end of it. In fact, leaving aside Mastermind, I can only really remember 2 occasions in the 21 years of my quizzing career that I have been moved to sit down and formally learn a body of knowledge solely for use in quizzes. The first time was either in 1989 or 1990. The team from the Railway Club in Port Talbot, of whom I was a proud member, had won the local league and cup double for two years running. We were playing in an open quiz, and some of the team couldn't make it. There was a round on American state capital cities, unusual ones, and we blew the whole quiz on that one round, because our Geography expert wasn't there. I was so angry about the whole experience that I spent the best part of an evening committing all 50 of them to memory. Which I have to say that I have never regretted, since they have been a secure source of quiz points ever since.
On the other occasion, playing for Neath Workingmen's Club in the Neath Quiz League, we were taken to the wire by half a dozen questions on the scientific names of british birds. So, in case the team setting the questions tried this again, I learned about 60. I can't say that this has been anything like as fruitful a time investment as the state capitals, but they come in handy at odd times, and in odd places.
That's it really. Having said that you do pick up a hell of a lot from setting your own quizzes. By and large, as a natural born quizzer you often find answers coming to you from absolutely nowhere - and these are answer type three and type four in the Clark taxonomy of questions, which you may recall is as follows : -
Type 1 - The questions you know that you know
Type 2 - The questions you know that you don't know
Type 3 - The questions you don't know that you know
Type 4 - The questions you don't know that you don't know
it requires a lot of experience of yourself to be able to tell the difference.
Compare this with John. If you're new to the blog, John is my best quizzing mate, and in many ways my quiz mentor. John is very much a self made quizzer of the old school. Mnemonics ? You betcha. Lists ? All present and correct. John's success rate with questions that he answers is amazing. He nearly always knows when he knows something, and he almost always knows when he doesn't know something. However, its where he doesn't know something that the difference between us becomes more obvious. John rarely has a flash of intuition or inspiration which helps him pluck an answer out of the ether. This is one of the reasons why, as a team, we complement each other, and I have to say that we are more than the sum of our parts.
Could you, I wonder, take an ordinary member of the public with an ordinary amount of general knowledge, and in the space of a few weeks, work intensively to turn them into a self made quizzer, of a good enough standard to be competitive on, for the sake of argument, Mastermind ? I can't help thinking that this would be a highly interesting experiment, and would make a good "Faking It " style show.
Coming back to the Nature v. Nurture discussion, last night's quiz in the Aberavon Rugby Club was not an occasion where intuition was likely to prevail. Brian produced a good , old fashioned quiz, of the type he used to produce every time he made a quiz some ten years ago. I would say that there were 8 or 9 questions in each round of 10 that a good quizzer should have been confident of answering correctly. That's a hell of a lot of bread and butter. Somehow I can't help thinking that the 1 or 2 toughies in each round didn't really make that much difference to the final result. Last night was a night when certainty was needed, and any second guessing of ourselves could have led to disaster. All square going into the last round, there were 6 answers out of 10 we were certain of, and another 2 we thought were right, but at this late stage we weren't absolutely 100% certain. It required a cool head to lave the answers we first thought of, a decision which thankfully paid off as we scored 9 out of 10 to our rivals' 6. Out of interest, this was my first quiz since last Sunday. I think I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Roll on Monday.
Nature v. Nurture
I'll start by coming clean. Originally I was only going to look at the idea that quizzers can be divided up into 'born quizzers' and 'manufactured quizzers'. However when I chose the above title there was something in the back of my mind that rang a bell. So I googled it, and came up with the fact that this was also the title of episode 5 of Steve Coogan's 1995 TV comedy series "Coogan's Run".
You might not remember Coogan's Run, but it was a series of 6 half hour shows with the talented Mr. Coogan showcasing a different comedy character each week. Probably the best remembered is "Get Calf" where he reprised the dual role of twins Paul and Pauline Calf.
"Natural Born Quizzers" if I remember correctly told the story of two men who had been turned into psychopathic killers through a losing appearence on a TV quiz show for schoolkids - a thinly disguised version of "TV Top of the Form" I think. A brief examination of IMD and some fan sites reveals that it was probably the least popular episode of the whole series. Still, for our purposes thats neither here nor there really. What I find interesting, if not puzzling, is that despite the long run that "Top of The Form " had on TV, and the much longer run that it had on the radio, I can't name hardly a single person who appeared as a contestant on the show who ever became famous in later life.
Compare this to , say, "University Challenge". If you're reading this blog out of choice rather than by accident, then its a good safe bet that you could instantly name Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Clive James, Malcolm Rifkind and Sebastian Faulks all as former contestants. Granted , you'd expect a large group of student contestants, many from Oxbridge, to contain at least a few who would make their mark somehow, especially in the media. But surely one or two former Top of the Formers must have made it somehow. For heavens' sake, even "Blockbusters" could boast Stephen Merchant ( ahh, "The Office" - ahh, "Extras" ) as a former contestant.
You might recall me mentioning Marcus Berkmann's "Brain Men" a while ago. In the book Marcus Berkmann reckons that an appearence on "Top of the Form" was something that you'd want to keep quiet about, and maybe he's right, although I can't really see why. Personally I'd have loved to see my school take part in anything televised. Throughout my childhood years, I can't recall seeing a school in the London Borough of Ealing take part in any TV shows like "We Are the Champions" etc. - although I'm willing to concede that one of them might have made some kind of appearence when I wasn't actually looking. I do recall that there was a one off series of a show called "Hobby Horse", where a team from Ealing won the final. My friend Alfie appeared in an episode of "I, Claudius" playing the son of Sejanus. Sejanus, you recall, was played by Patrick Stewart in his pre-Picard days. My mum banned me from watching it when it was first on because it had some "naughty bits" . Another friend of mine auditioned to be part of the "Why Don't You" gang, but got turned down, probably when he told them that his hobbies and interests consisted of watching the telly and very little else.
Then there was another comprehensive school in the Borough which featured in a Panorama documentary. I'm not going to mention the name of the school because they were treated very unfairly in it. The headteacher was daft enough to allow the cameras in, and the producers did a real hatchet job on it. There was something of a mini national scandal about it at the time, and its notoriety lasted for quite a few years. I kid you not. Several years later when I moved to South Wales in 1986, and I was studying for my Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Swansea University, in one of the tutorials the tutor actually played us the video of this show as an example of how not to teach ! However I digress, and back to "Top of the Form".
If you're reading this, and you actually appeared on "Top of the Form" ( TV or Radio versions ) , you do have my respect, and so I'm going to ask you for a favour. Help me pay the show its belated dues.You don't have to be famous and/or successful either ( although I'm sure that you're the latter ). Just drop me a line to my email address
londinius@yahoo.co.uk
and tell me what you can about it, and then I will personally include you upon a role of honour for people who appeared on the show.
For younger readers, I'll do the same for "Blockbusters" if you do the same and drop me a line.
So then, nature versus nurture. School has been quite disrupted this week with the closure on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the small numbers of children attending for the rest of the week. So much so that we've had to mix and match a bit with classes, and leave some normal lessons to one side for the time being. This resulted me giving a lesson on memory techniques to several groups of children.
Don't worry, I am getting towards the point. One of the kids expressed a widely held view, saying something along the lines of
" Well, its just a matter of luck, isn't it ? You've either got a good memory, or an OK one, or a bad one. " Of course, I argued against it, and said that I think that potentially everyone has got a good memory, but some of us need to learn techniques to help us use our memories more effectively - God, I do sound like a teacher, don't I ? -
But it did set me to thinking. I don't agree that being a good quizzer is only about having a god memory, but I do think that memory is very important. I personally think about memory as being split into two different functions, retention and recall. Retention means the function of actually keeping facts,or if you like, its all about what you actually hold in your memory. Recall means the the function of bringing your handy fact to the forefront of your conscious mind. One without the other isn't any good. You may have fantastic recall, but if the answer you're looking for isn't held in your memory, either because you never knew it in the first place, or its gone from your memory, then you're not going to come up with the answer. Likewise, you may have the most fantastically well stocked store of knowledge, but if you can only dredge up a relevant fact after you've been given half an hour's prior warning, then that's no good either.
Of course, I do agree that there's more to winning quizzes than recalling facts that you have committed to memory. An essential skill is being able to use what you do know to help you figure out what you don't know. For example, you don't know which flower has the scientific name Helianthus. However you do remember that Helios was a greek God of the Sun. So its an educated guess to say that Helianthus might be a sunflower. However I don't think its unreasonable to say that most successful quizzers have an unusually large store of facts committed to their memories, which they can recall quickly when needed for an answer to a question.
OK - so far so good. How, though, do you reach this enhanced state of being ? Are some people just born with the ability to absorb, retain, and recall knowledge through a form of osmosis ? Can anyone make themselves into a great quizzer through hard work, and the acquisition of some effective memory techniques ? I can't help saying that I think the answer to both questions is probably in the affirmative.
If I'm honest, I admit that I myself am probably a lot closer to the osmosis end of the scale than I am to the hard work end of it. In fact, leaving aside Mastermind, I can only really remember 2 occasions in the 21 years of my quizzing career that I have been moved to sit down and formally learn a body of knowledge solely for use in quizzes. The first time was either in 1989 or 1990. The team from the Railway Club in Port Talbot, of whom I was a proud member, had won the local league and cup double for two years running. We were playing in an open quiz, and some of the team couldn't make it. There was a round on American state capital cities, unusual ones, and we blew the whole quiz on that one round, because our Geography expert wasn't there. I was so angry about the whole experience that I spent the best part of an evening committing all 50 of them to memory. Which I have to say that I have never regretted, since they have been a secure source of quiz points ever since.
On the other occasion, playing for Neath Workingmen's Club in the Neath Quiz League, we were taken to the wire by half a dozen questions on the scientific names of british birds. So, in case the team setting the questions tried this again, I learned about 60. I can't say that this has been anything like as fruitful a time investment as the state capitals, but they come in handy at odd times, and in odd places.
That's it really. Having said that you do pick up a hell of a lot from setting your own quizzes. By and large, as a natural born quizzer you often find answers coming to you from absolutely nowhere - and these are answer type three and type four in the Clark taxonomy of questions, which you may recall is as follows : -
Type 1 - The questions you know that you know
Type 2 - The questions you know that you don't know
Type 3 - The questions you don't know that you know
Type 4 - The questions you don't know that you don't know
it requires a lot of experience of yourself to be able to tell the difference.
Compare this with John. If you're new to the blog, John is my best quizzing mate, and in many ways my quiz mentor. John is very much a self made quizzer of the old school. Mnemonics ? You betcha. Lists ? All present and correct. John's success rate with questions that he answers is amazing. He nearly always knows when he knows something, and he almost always knows when he doesn't know something. However, its where he doesn't know something that the difference between us becomes more obvious. John rarely has a flash of intuition or inspiration which helps him pluck an answer out of the ether. This is one of the reasons why, as a team, we complement each other, and I have to say that we are more than the sum of our parts.
Could you, I wonder, take an ordinary member of the public with an ordinary amount of general knowledge, and in the space of a few weeks, work intensively to turn them into a self made quizzer, of a good enough standard to be competitive on, for the sake of argument, Mastermind ? I can't help thinking that this would be a highly interesting experiment, and would make a good "Faking It " style show.
Coming back to the Nature v. Nurture discussion, last night's quiz in the Aberavon Rugby Club was not an occasion where intuition was likely to prevail. Brian produced a good , old fashioned quiz, of the type he used to produce every time he made a quiz some ten years ago. I would say that there were 8 or 9 questions in each round of 10 that a good quizzer should have been confident of answering correctly. That's a hell of a lot of bread and butter. Somehow I can't help thinking that the 1 or 2 toughies in each round didn't really make that much difference to the final result. Last night was a night when certainty was needed, and any second guessing of ourselves could have led to disaster. All square going into the last round, there were 6 answers out of 10 we were certain of, and another 2 we thought were right, but at this late stage we weren't absolutely 100% certain. It required a cool head to lave the answers we first thought of, a decision which thankfully paid off as we scored 9 out of 10 to our rivals' 6. Out of interest, this was my first quiz since last Sunday. I think I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Roll on Monday.
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