A Bit of a Downer

Wednesday was a wee bit of a downer to be honest. I believe that there was a football match involving England somewhere that didn’t quite turn out as we might have wished. More importantly thought, we lost the film quiz in the Gwyn Hall.

Well, alright, maybe not quite so much of a downer. The subject was Epic Movies. It turns out that this is a genre I rather like, for I had a better night on a personal level than I usually do in the film quiz. Maybe it is just my imagination but it seemed to me there were more questions about older movies than is usual. Mind you, I'd question by which definition some of the movies referenced were epics. Casablanca, for example, is a rather intimate movie, and surely the very opposite of what would be defined as epic.

But we still lost by a point. Now in some ways this is actually better than tying for the win and losing on a numerical tie break. What put the slight downer on it is that I was kicking myself for not knowing the answer to the last question. Of course the film starring Christian Bale and Miranda Richardson was Empire of the Sun! Oh well.

I’m glad that we had the Wednesday quiz this week though, because in all honesty I could not bring myself to go to the rugby club on Thursday. If you read my post from April - Life After Mastermind: Principles be damned

Well, question master who set that quiz was doing it again last Thursday and I could not face it. I wrote the post when I was in a bit of a mood, but even having had time to reflect I honestly think giving it a miss was the kindest thing for both of us. I find that I cringe with embarrassment for him when he is trying and failing to read out his own questions. I would not put it past myself to make some unkind comment if he resuses the same questions in two rounds because he just can’t be arsed to check it. I don’t like myself very much for doing it, but at least if it didn’t work out on Thursday I won’t have ended up making it worse.

None of which helps me to decide what I am going to say if he asks me why I wasn’t there. . .

R.I.P. Dermot Murnaghan

I would just like to pay a brief tribute to Dermot Murnaghan who passed away last week. I was lucky enough to share a studio with Dermot 4 times, once in Eggheads, and three times in series two of “Are You An Egghead?” The nature of the beast when you’re a contestant in a quiz show is that there’s never a huge amount of time for you to talk to the host off camera, but on each occasion when I did get to chat a bit with him he struck me as a very nice, thoroughly decent gentleman, who did not take himself or the games too seriously.  

Rest in peace, sir.

New Show - The Chase Around The World

Last Thursday saw the first episode of latest extension of the “The Chase” franchise, a show that looked to be something of an excursion across ground we’ve trodden before in “Race Across the World” and “Destination X”. Well, you might recall that I do like both of those shows, so this at least merited me giving the show a fair viewing.

“The Chase Around The World” pits six two person teams head to head. Each week they face a series of challenges in one of the world’s great cities. Well, I say the world. Actually it’s Europe – in fact it’s just Western Europe. Thursday’s first episode was in Rome. Next week it’s Barcelona. I think that the itinerary after that is Athens, Lisbon, Zurich then the finish line in Paris. Well, I’ve never been to Zurich, but I’ve visited the other 5, and they’re all certainly valid destinations.

If the format for last Thursday’s show is repeated then the teams will race against each other through a series of challenges to various checkpoints throughout the city, until finding Bradders at the finish line. But what makes this The Chase? Well, the last couple to get to the finish line each week have to take on and beat two of the Chasers in order to stay in the game. Lose and they’re out. I’m guessing that when we get to Paris, the team who find Bradley first will win the overall series prize.

So, how well does it work? If you’ve seen any online reviews of the show you might have seen quite a bit of negative comment on various clickbait sites. A lot of these comments are based on a comparison with BBC’s “Race Across the World”. Well, the similarity between the titles of the two shows does kind of invite that. On the other hand, it’s a pretty good signpost to attract the kind of viewers who might enjoy it. Swings and Roundabouts. Both shows have some fantastic scenery, and much rushing about within it. Essentially, though, they’re different games. In “Race Across The World” for example the way that the teams manage their budget and their transport options is a vital component of the game mechanics. That’s not a concern at all in the ITV show.

So what were the mechanics of the first show? We started with the six couples being quizzed by Bradley. Each team had a buzzer. The first team to buzz in with a correct answer could pick up their backpack and get moving. Then the second, then the third – you get it. In their backpack was a tablet, on which they were asked a question to help determine their first checkpoint. They were asked – Which building did Michelangelo say had been built by angels, not men? Was it the Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon or St. Peters? Whichever answer they locked in was the answer they had to walk to. Get it right and further instructions would appear. Get it wrong and they would have to go to whichever they thought was correct of the other two, losing precious time in the process. 43 years ago I did trek from one of the wrong answers – St. Peter’s – to the right answer – The Pantheon- and in the heat of a Roman summer it was a bit of a slog.

The second challenge involved choosing the correct logo from a sequence – basically the logo belonging to an Italian company/organisation in a range of categories. Get it wrong and the satnav in the car you were loaned would take you off on a wild goose chase. You’d then have to pick again, meaning more precious time was lost.

The third challenge involved the teams having to name three famous Italians. Should they not know the answer or get it wrong, the Italian in question was one of the 200 plus famous Italians whose busts were situated in the park they had been taken to, so what they had to do was find it. Right, pedantry corner. Now, I’m pretty much certain that the instruction was that you must enter either the first name and last name of the answer, or just the last name. NOT just the first name. So I got all pedantic about the tablet accepting the poet of the Divine Comedy as just Dante. NO. It should have been either Dante Alighieri or Alighieri. Unless I misunderstood the rules, which is possible.

From there to either a pizzeria or a teddy bear stand or both. The pizzeria offered you clues to a choice of toppings. If you got the right ones, then you got the question – what links them? Chorizo and Manchego were obviously Spanish – so the final destination became clear. As for the teddy bears, well they each had the same first name as a member of Steps.

Last across the line, then, were father and daughter Ashwin and Nikita. To stay in the game, they had to beat the Chasers. This involved playing a shortened version of the final chase from the parent show. They had to answer ten questions as quickly as possible. Only they were given a two question head start so only had to answer 8. By the 3^rd question daughter Nikita had clicked into game mode and they went very quickly through their set. Now, in the parent show the Chasers have the advantage that they don’t have to buzz in to answer and can thus build up a head of steam. In this version, the two chasers – in this first show the power team of Anne and Mark – did not have that advantage. Bradley asked the question, then said the name of the Chaser who had to answer. In such a sprint round this makes a huge difference. Ashwin and Nikita survived and we’re all off to Barcelona next week.

What did I think? Well, you have to think that quizzing and travel are two of my favourite things. I like this particular genre of show and I think that "The Chase Around The World" certainly has potential. In some ways it was similar to the final episode of Destination X last year, even down to the finish line on the Spanish Steps. If you’re mostly in it for the quiz/puzzle content then there probably isn’t enough of it here for you. I felt that the Chasers were a little underused as well, considering that this is billed as The Chase around the world. But look, as a show it kept me going for an hour, and I’ll definitely watch next week’s show.

Shows of this kind live or die on the contestants they present us. He might not have won Destination X, but would the show have been quite as watchable without taxi driver Daren and his often name checked wife, Jackie P? I think that how well we’re allowed to get to know the teams and whether we emotionally invest in their competition with each other will go a long way to determining how successful the show will be.

Good stuff.

University Chalenge 2027 First Round Heat 1 Bristol v. Imperial

The Teams

Bristol

Jake Wingfield

Francesca O’Connor

Freddie Burns (capt)

Artem Borisov

Imperial

Dennis Reppen

Lola Linnane-Barron

Charlie Lowman (capt)

Edward Isrankura Na Ayudhya

Ding dang dong, dingy dingy dang dong, dingy dang dingy dong. Like John Keats’ gathering swallows twittering in the sky, the return of University Challenge is a sure harbinger of our progress towards Autumn and then Winter. By the time we know our series champions, Spring will be on us again. Thus has it ever been.

So to the first starter. Now, given London in 1885 and American born artist – well, let’s be honest, you’d go for Whistler every time, wouldn’t you? Given a little more of the question Charlie Lowman, the Imperial skipper, took first blood for his side. Birds in Arabic sounded interesting. I correctly predicted that Alcatraz would come up – pelican and indeed, the Al- connection helped us both come up with a full house. In the maths question that followed Artem Borisov was unlucky to give us enthropy rather than entropy and lose 5. Imperial couldn’t capitalize. The next starter, although mentioning teams in the National Hurling League of Ireland basically asked you to work out which traditional counties Solihull and Greater Manchester had belonged to and Jake Wingfield dispatched this gentle lob to the boundary to take Bristol’s first points. Bristol took their own full house on the primatologist, the late Jane Goodall. Imperial lost 5 on an incorrect interruption for the next starter allowing Bristol skipper Freddie Burns to identify places named after Kaiser Wilhelm II, a prime contender for the title of bearer of History’s silliest moustache. (That’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, not Freddie Burns.) The films of Luchino Visconti brought one bonus. When it comes to the picture starter flags are a good old UC staple and I recognized that of Belize just before Charlie Lowman buzzed in with the same answer. Flags I know. National coats of arms I do not, so failed to add to my score on the bonuses which showed three national coats of arms. Imperial took one to level the scores. Charlie Lowman took his third starter, recognizing several works of literature whose titles each contained the word darkness. One correct answer on the following OPEC bonuses brought the score to 35 – 50 in Imperial’s favour at just past the 10 minute mark. A lively start to what had always promised to be a quality match up.

Look, I won’t pretend that I have the slightest clue what tautomers are when they’re at home but Edward Isrankura Na Ayudhya did to take the next starter. Events of 1625 proved to be a relatively gentle set which gave us both another full house. If you’re asked for a female figure from the Odyssey, you can zig with Circe like Imperial did, or you can zag with Penelope, which Francesca O’Connor did to win the points on the next starter. Bristol managed two bonuses on an interminable set on mathematician Kurt “Playtex 24-hour” Godel. Right, with the next starter, it asked which film, based on a Pierre Bulle novel, did Rod Serling write a screen play for. Now there’s only the two Boulle books I know that made famous films. I couldn’t see the Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling having scripted Bridge on the River Kwai, so it had to be Planet of the Apes. Dennis Reppen took that one. One of my highlights of my much enjoyed visit to Liverpool last September was seeing Another Place up close, and so it was a pleasure to see Anthony Gormley referenced in the bonuses. Charlie Lowman seemed disgusted with himself to not get Gormley but he did take the following two bonuses. Nobody recognized Jefferson Airplane for the music starter – not surprised. Both teams waited with the next starter concerning a battle between the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until the death of James IV was mentioned and Charlie Lowman pounced to win the buzzer race. Other songs used in famous karaoke scenes in films brought a further ten points and Imperial were stretching their lead. Did you know of the Etruscan and Christmas Island shrews? Me neither. Mind you I still guessed the next starter. Dennis Reppen took that one. Authors who won the Booker prize with their debut novels reminded me of DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, which I’d successfully wiped from my memory. Imperial took 2 .Jake Wingfield stopped the rot for Bristol with the musical term mordant. Slavic inspiration in classical music. Bristol had 2 correct answers which was 2 more than I did. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the Galapagos syndrome in Economics, but Galapagos seemed a good guess. Freddie Burns had that one. Two bonuses on flows meant that Imperial led by 130 – 95 on 20 minutes. All still to play for.

For the second picture starter Francesca O’Connor identified Millais as the painter of a painting. I thought it might be DG Rossetti. More paintings illustrating poems by John Keats brought a single bonus, but the gap was now down to 20 points, a gap that might be bridged in a single visit to the table.Fair play to Dennis Reppen who knew that the state of Vermont once declared itself an independent republic in 1777. Wonder how that worked out for them. Bonuses on Egypt in the Bible brought a full house and the gap stretched again. Amazingly I did know the piezoelectric effect even before Freddie Burns buzzed in early with the same answer. I have no idea how I knew it. 2 bonuses on cultural references to croquet – none of them Alice in Wonderland sadly - narrowed the gap to 25. Again Dennis Reppen took the next starter, recognizing Koranic and Biblical references to stars. Computing terms spelled with just the top letters of a qwerty keyboard highly amused Charlie Lowman but Imperial only managed one of the bonuses about them. The Imperial skipper showed imperious form in buzzing early to identify Rizal Day as a holiday in the Phillippines. The First World War in Africa saw Imperial fail to score, and the pedant in me has to applaud Amol for not allowing Jan Smut instead of Jan Smuts. With the game essentially over as a contest it was still important for Bristol to build their score towards a repechage slot. Jake Wingfield obliged, recognizing a reference to Provencal. Corn, the main constituent of much that I write, brought two bonuses. Poor Freddie Burns fell foul of a question that took a swerve, giving parsec when the full question was asking for gigaparsec. Dennis Reppen kicked that one into the open goal. One chemistry bonus was taken. Lola Linnane-Barron took the following starter on fireflies meaning that all 8 players had correctly answered at least 1 starter. Words from other languages ending in – ondo – Artem Borisov took the next starter on Belgrade. A bonus on commemorative £2 coins took them to 160. Neither team would add to their score, and Imperial won by 220 – 160.

For the record Bristol achieved a BCR of 59% while Imperial’s was slightly better at 61%. Pretty good, but a clear indication that Imperial’s buzzing was better. Will Bristol qualify for the repechage? Hope so, though I’d say that the coin is in the air.

Amol Watch

It is always gratifying to see Amol applying the – what’s written on the card is the answer and you get nowt for a close wrong ‘un rule. I’m not convinced it was a very nice thing to do to suggest that the whole of Imperial knew Penelope, but Dennis Reppen having buzzed early with Circe he had to take it, Amol. Bit like rubbing salt into the wound, that.

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

London, Warwickshire and Lancashire are represented by teams in the National Hurling League of Ireland.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Godel’s completeness theorem builds on a set of results proved in the 1920s by which Norwegian mathematician who, along with Leopold Lowenheim, gave his name to a theorem on the cardinality of models often split into separate upward and downward results. And the slithy toves did gyre and gimbel in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves and the mome raths etc etc.

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.