Mastermind 2027 - Heat 1

It’s lovely to be able to welcome Mastermind back during the first half of July. Often we’ve seen the first heat of a new series turn out to be quite a high scoring one. Would it be the case this time around?

First up was Sarah Klein. Of all the subjects in this first heat, Sarah was giving us the closest thing I had to a banker specialist subject. I always think I have a chance with Kings and Queens of England. And I did okay, with 4 which was probably about as good as I could hope for. Sarah produced a very satisfactory round with 8, but while that total won’t put you out of contention at half time it’s unlikely to leave you in the lead either.

As if to prove the truth of that, Ravi Meah went on to beat the total with his round on Depeche Mode. Now, their glory days being before 1986, I probably should have fancied my chances a bit more with this round. Well, I never really liked their music that much if truth be told, but nonetheless I knew enough about them to get another four. Ravi didn’t quite manage a perfect round, but he did really well to get 11. And yes, I fancied that this might well be enough to see him still in the lead at the half time interval.

Holly Simmons was answering on the films of Yorgos Lanthimos. I will be honest, when the round started I thought I had probably never seen any of this esteemed filmmaker’s work. Butit turned out that The Favourite was one of his and Lucky for me that it was. On the very last question , the ‘badger’ question about the Favourite I took my only point of the round. Holly looked on course for a double point round, but a couple of mistakes on the second half of the round just stopped her a wee bit short with a still in contention 9.

So to David Rhodes. His subject – the footballer Roy Keane – was the type of subject I would never make my banker, but which promised one or two. As it was I got three, which gave me a double figure aggregate with 12 and I was quite happy with that. David looked as calm and solid on the ball as the man himself and took a double figure score of 10.So overall we’d seen a good set of specialists, with all four contenders showing that they had prepared and none of them having anything to be ashamed at.

Well. . . you do tend to have more control over your fate in Mastermind on the Specialists than you do on the GK. What we do see is the majority of contenders in the first round heats give much honest endeavour but just lack the knowledge to really impress. Sarah returned to the chair and she certainly gave us the effort. She never passed which really needs presence of mind especially when the round is not going your way. In the end she scored 7 but there were too many questions she missed that I would have expected a serious contender for the win to get right.I did think at first that she was maybe a little fortunate to be allowed lumbar for lumbago, but looking again at the wording of the question I now think it was a correct adjudication.

Holly’s round was actually quite different from Sarah’s, which is maybe a little surprising considering that she too scored 7. I thought that she started very well, but about a minute in the wheels seemed to fall off the bandwagon a bit. 7 for 16 is respectable, but it’s not likely to bring you a win.

22, on the other hand, really is likely to do that and 22 is the total achieved by David Rhodes. 12 on the GK round is a very good return. It was the kind of score I would expect a regular quizzer, or at the very least somebody with a very good general knowledge to achieve. Frankly I thought he’d have to be very unlucky to see it beaten.

I experienced a certain sense of déjà vu watching Ravi’s GK round. It was fairly clear from early doors that he was unlikely to get the double figure score that he needed, and I couldn’t help wondering if we were going to see another 7 point round. Well, it turned out that we were and in the end there was a relatively large amount of daylight between him and David out in front.

Well, it’s nice to have you back, Mastermind. As for David – well done, sir. With good general knowledge you’ll always be in with a chance in the semi-finals.

The Details

Sarah Klein	King Edward IV	8	0	7	0	15	0
Ravi Meah	Depeche Mode	11	1	7	5	18	5
Holly Simmons	The films of Yorgos Lanthimos	9	0	7	1	16	1
David Rhodes	Roy Keane	10	0	12	1	22	1

Return of Quizzy Monday

Well, it’s always good news to see that our Quizzy Monday favourites are back. Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge all return for new series beginning on Monday 13^th July. That’s great news. Of course, I don’t yet know exactly when the BBC schedulers are going to start messing them around and taking them off for a week or a fortnight without asking my permission, but you can bet your bottom dollar it’s going to happen at some time.

I just hope that they’re not going to kill the first round of Mastermind like they have for the last 2 years with such a stupidly long break for Celebrity Mastermind, or as I like to facetiously think of it , I Can’t Believe It’s Not Mastermind – or to be more precise – I Have Absolutely No Difficulty Whatsoever Believing It’s Not Mastermind. God bless, the celebrities involved are doing their best and giving their fees to charity, but the show has become a bit of an embarrassment both for the lack of quality and the lack of actual celebrity on display.

As for the real Mastermind series, well, I hope that everyone involved in the shows that are already in the can really enjoyed their participation and produced a performance with which they can be satisfied. (Anything more than that is a bonus). I don’t know if the production team will have taken any drastic action about what, for me, are the two most pressing concerns that it is in their power to do anything about. By which I mean the fact that the talent in the last few series has been too thinly spread in the first round. This is exacerbated by the way that in each of the last few series we have seen there has been what we might call a ‘heat of death’, whereby two top contenders have faced each other with one being knocked out of the series. Yes, they become nominal first reserve for the semis, but this doesn’t automatically translate into a place. It certainly didn’t last year. I’m sure that the production team are aware of these issues. Whether there is either the scope or the will to do something about them, well, that I don’t know.

Friendship? No - Destiny.

It is a funny old thing, when you get right down to it. What is? Memory. Facts wise I like to think that I have a better than average memory. Of course, the other side of the coin is that I never (alright, I’m exaggerating, let’s say hardly ever) remember where I’ve put something, even if it was only a couple of minutes ago that I put it down. In fact, I have to make a special effort to take notice while I’m in the act of placing something down and even then there’s no guarantee I will remember it.

But as I say, I don’t think I’m being unnecessarily boastful when I say that I do have a good memory for facts. This extends to quiz questions. When I hear a quiz question, I’ll usually have one of a number of reactions, including –

heard that before a large number of times and the answer is . . .

heard that once or twice before and the answer is . . .

heard that once before and the answer is . . . 

heard that before but I can’t remember the answer. . .

never heard that before but the answer is . . .

never heard that before and I don’t know the answer.

When it’s a question I’ve only once heard before I can often remember which quiz I heard it in and who the question master was. Now, it’s not rare to hear questions the answer to which I do not know (more’s the pity) and it’s not rare to be asked questions I’ve never been asked before. However it is quite a bit rarer to be asked questions which – a) I haven’t been asked before – b) I do not know the answers to – and – c) are really interesting questions that make me think , why haven’t I been asked this before?

Last night in the club the QM was Ann. She’s a very nice lady, but not in my list of favourite question masters. Fair play, though, she came up with this question – the three core principles of the Commonwealth Games are Humanity - Equality – and which other? Now, okay, she did actually say that this was the motto of the Commonwealth games rather than the three core principles, which was wrong because the motto is ‘more in common’. Let that go. I thought to myself , well that sounds like exactly the sort of thing I should have heard before. . . but I honestly don’t think I have. I was clutching at straws a bit, so I thought, well, the Commonwealth Games are known as the Friendly Games, so I put down friendship. The actual answer was Destiny. I don’t mind getting it wrong so much because I think it’s a fair question and because I won’t forget it in a hurry and it’s something to know.

Mind you I got frustrated with her over another question. She asked, “Which is the coldest planet in the Solar System?” Now, I know that it’s Uranus, because a couple of years ago my grandson Ollie asked me the same question. I said Neptune, and he proved to me that it was Uranus. I googled it again when I got home yesterday to be sure. You’d think it should be Neptune, being further from the Sun, but no it’s Uranus. Now, being as Ann had picked the question to ask, I took it for granted she would have the correct answer. What answer did she give? Bloody Neptune. We took the hit for it and still won. But unfortunately this is what we get a lot of the time in the quiz. There are certain question masters who - and I admit I am being mean here - don’t possess the craft, skill or attitude necessary to make a mostly satisfying and enjoyable quiz. I tend to call any quiz they host ‘amateur nights’. They’re marked out by having the odd really great question which you’re really glad to have been asked, and some really quite simple howlers that the QM could have got right if they’d checked the bleeding answer properly.

Not that I’m bitter, you understand.

We're Havin a Heatwave - a bloody nuisance heatwave

This didn’t happen in my day. Whether that’s a good thing or not, well, that is another question. I am referring to the news that most schools in my area of South Wales ( and all the others for all I know) are closed today and tomorrow due to the extreme temperatures.

I was 12 in 1976 and distinctly remember being told to some into school every day but being allowed to wear civilian clothing. Then in my 37 years as a teacher the two schools I worked in never closed for extreme heat, even in 2022 which was a similar situation. Trust me, school managements and their governing boards appreciate just how serious the disruption caused by school closures is. It really is – and should be - a last resort. So how have we come to the situation that this time, the schools are closing.

Well, I don’t know, but I do have my theories about this. Logically, when you remove all else and get right down to the essentials, the children should not be at more risk by coming into school. In fact, there is an argument that with parents at work, some of the children will be at more risk from the conditions with the schools closed. We can’t ignore the huge disruption for parents. But. . . I know that this might be a controversial thing to say, but the situation may well have been brought on by the actions of a growing number of parents themselves with their own actions and attitudes. There is no doubt in my mind that through the noughties and 2010s parents gained more and more power. In some ways that’s a good thing. However power can be abused.

Personally, I can’t help wondering if the school closures are, at least in part, prompted by fears over parent reactions and, yes, potential litigation if children become ill through the heat while they are in school. And before you say – oh, surely they couldn’t do that – you need to know that in many cases, yes, they could and yes, they would. Of course, I haven’t spoken to any headteacher or chairman of Governors who has had to make this decision so I don’t know if this has entered into their thinking. But I’ll be honest, yes, maybe it is hotter than previous heatwaves, but why this makes schools less safe than pupils’ own homes, I really don’t know.

My thoughts go out to all my brethren and sistren who have been at the chalkface this week in this weather – not easy at all. Summer holidays are on the way.

We’re in work at the NHS today, not that this is relevant to the issue.

Internet Challenges - Obsessives, approach with caution

Sorry, it’s been over a week since my last post. Excuses? How many would you like? This week has been allocations week in work and the upshot is that the phone line is red hot all week and I have been too exhausted to be thinking about what to post. It can be difficult to find any thing I| think is even remotely interesting enough to write about during the off season when we’re waiting for Quizzy Mondays to return. Also, it’s June. During June I usually participate in the internet 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge and that acts as a bit of a spare time hoover. Basically, if you take part you need to try to paint 30 direct watercolour paintings during the month of June. Direct is the key here. Direct watercolour means you start directly with the paint, no sketching or drawing the design on the paper first.

What do you get for completing the challenge? Nothing material, certainly. I first took part in 2018, when I completed the challenge. Since 2018 I’ve completed the challenge 5 times. I didn’t do it in 2020. Not sure why? Lockdown, perhaps? Then I started in 2024, produced 8 terrible pictures and got so despondent and frustrated with it that I gave it up as a bad job. This year I’ve so far made 24 paintings in 21 days, so I’m looking good for a completion. But that doesn’t answer the question, what do you get out of it, does it? Because once you’ve done it the first time, then you know that you can do it. Which is where competitiveness comes into it. I want to do better each year than I managed to do the previous year. I want to produce better individual paintings and I want to produce a better set overall.

All, or at least most, of the above does actually sound quite positive. But while I do find challenges a great motivating force to actually do things the great drawback is that it does tend to play on the obsessive side of my nature. Being honest with you, if I have a day when I don’t paint during June, then I get really quite anxious about it. Case in point. I had completed 17 paintings by last Sunday, June 14^th. Monday, the 15^th was my birthday, and I knew that kids and grandkids would be coming round after I got in from work, so I wasn’t going to be doing any painting. Well, come Tuesday 16^th – still one day ahead of schedule – I was in a bit of a state, convincing myself that I was going to have a hell of a job trying to finish by the 30^th. I did calm down. I’ve made 24 and with six paintings still to make and 9 days to do them even I’d have hard work convincing myself that I’m not going to do it.

Well, as regards the personal challenge, yes, I do think that some of the paintings I’ve made this year have been better than anything I’ve done in the challenge before, and yes, I do think that this set are on target to being the best set I’ve done yet. But then, I do always think that.

So - Who really was Clint Eastwood's old Dad?

You know, I caught the old Carry On film, Carry On Screaming a couple of days ago. Yes, I know, the Carry On films, especially the later ones in the 70s, were not at all PC. Funnily enough, as the 70s progressed I think that they became progressively less funny and more un-pc in a weird, inverse ratio. But I do think that a few of them, especially those parodying a specific genre – do stand up quite well, even today. I still find Carry On Cleo extremely funny, as an example. But I was writing specifically about Carry On Screaming. It’s not to my mind quite as funny as Cleo, but still has a few good lines – The Master is dead . . . But I’ll see if he can see you.’ For example.

A prominent role in the film is played by Fenella Fielding, and this immediately made me think of one of the more famous urban myths that found its way into quiz questions back in the day. Namely – who is the famous brother of Fenella Fielding? The answer given in more than one quiz I played in was Marty Feldman. This is, of course, a complete set of what my Auntie didn’t have (presumably) and my Uncle did (presumably). I googled this in an idle few minutes at work, and the AI feature attributed this to Feldman being Fenella Fielding’s real birth surname. This may well be the origin of the urban myth, but I reckon the quiz popularity of it was due to it featuring in the Pears Quiz Companion.

I’ve written about this volume before o I’m not going to go on about it now, but it did sterling service to me when I first started compiling quizzes for the club back in the mid-1990s.. Many was the time I’d turn to it when I was stuck for a question belonging to a specific category and it rarely let me down. There was another couple of quite well known errors in the Quiz Companion. One was  that the lovers in Aida were burned alive rather than buried alive. Another was that Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square was sculpted by one Edward Hodges Banley rather than Edward Hodges Bailey. I’m pretty sure that these were typographical errors, though.

One of my favourite urban myths quiz questions I heard second hand. Dai Jenkins, an all round good egg who was our Deputy Headteacher for a while and went on to become a Headteacher in Bridgend, once asked me “Who was Clint Eastwood’s real father?” I replied that I didn’t know, and he said that in a quiz he’d attended the night before, the question master had sworn blind it was Stan Laurel. Well, I investigated this one, but it is pure urban myth, spun out of the fact that I believe that the Laurels had a son who was either still born or died not long after being born at around about the same time that Eastwood was born. I couldn’t resist asking it in the club one night. A number of teams did actually put down Stan Laurel, but my answer was Clint Eastwood’s father was . . . Clint Eastwood (senior).  That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Dirty Harry.

Words guaranteed to make your heart sink

There are certain words that I hate. Of course, if you really want to unpick it, it’s not so much the words themselves, per se. As it is there are few if any words that I hate for themselves, although quite a few I’m very fond of. The name of the capital city of Burkina Faso, for example, Ouagadougou, is in and of itself an utter delight. So really and truly it’s what the word represents that I hate. Such a word is workshop.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. The portmanteau word workshop is of itself perfectly inoffensive. As is the proper meaning – a space in which work is carried out. When used in this way to mean a place where things (preferably material) are made or repaired  is in fact a pretty pleasing concept. My hatred for the word really began concurrently with my teaching career. I’ve written before about INSET (in service training). For the vast majority of my first 30 years as a teacher, my heart used to sink at the prospect of INSET generally, but it would then sink several floors further if the words ‘workshop session’ were mentioned.

“We will be having a workshop session.” Translation, we will be expecting you to listen to someone who probably has no experience inside any classroom and certainly has no experience of the particular situation in YOUR classroom lecture you for at least 60 minutes, then you will be instructed to perform some totally random exercises which have very little real connection with the subject of the INSET and absolutely NO practical relevance to what goes on in your classroom. Hey, I was an English specialist and I just objected to the hijacking of a perfectly innocent word. Because despite what the authorities might have thought, just calling some pile of crud a workshop did not automatically transform it into an experience where something useful was produced or made better. We genuinely had a saying in the school I taught in for my first 29 years – never trust anything that calls itself a workshop. To be fair, by the time that the school closed, even the senior management had stopped using the term.

Why do I mention this? Well, in my current position as an NHS patient coordinator with the Dental Access Portal, from time to time I get sent generic emails inviting me to take part in inappropriate and irrelevant training. The one I received today used the offending w word. Thankfully it’s totally irrelevant to me now.

It’s difficult to think of other innocent words which so arouse my hackles. On a personal level I suppose there’s ‘organise’. A perfectly innocent word, I grant you. But in her personal idiolect, Mrs. Londinius uses it as a synonym for ‘do’. So she will say ‘Will you organise the washing up?’ when all she means is ‘Get off your bum and fill the dishwasher’. She has many, many excellent qualities, I should hasten to add, but this one little linguistic idiosyncracy is a persistent niggle.