Mastermindy Stuff

Just in case you were thinking of taking the wiki challenge, tomorrow night’s subjects on Mastermind will be U2, toy dog breeds, the Mitford Sisters and guest stars in Friends. I doubt very much that I will wiki. Still, if I did, the last one looks the least wikiable, but then it would probably prove to give me my best chance of success unwikied.

In the SOBM (Season of Blessed Memory) of 2007, one of the contenders in my first round heat, Stacey Mitchell, answered on the life of Jennifer Aniston – you can see the Friends connection I’m sure. Ironically, I only much later found out that Stacey is in the same Amateur Dramatic group as my best friend from University. Small world. Stacey received some very unfair online comment along the lines of being allowed to take Jennifer Aniston as a specialist subject was proof positive that the show was dumbing down. Never mind that as well as Jennifer Aniston, the other subjects on the same show were The Life and Career of Henry Ford, German Wines and Frida Kahlo. I don’t know, I just enjoy the irony.

Now, I’ll be honest, my TV and radio quiz career has been on hiatus since my 2014 tilt at Fifteen to One. I can’t see myself applying for another TV quiz, at least not while I’m still dragging out my career as a teacher to the bitter end, but I certainly wouldn’t say that I’ll never apply again. Last Monday’s Mastermind winner, Anna Milford Goldstein made her previous appearance on the show as long ago as 1976, as Anna Goldstein. Now, I can’t say whether Anna has appeared on any other quiz shows during the 47 year gap between appearances, but even if she has I find it a little bit wonderful that you can appear on a TV show, maybe not do as well as you hoped (I think Anna said that she’d come third in her first show) then, the best part of half a century later come back and have another go on the same show and win your heat. There are many things that make Mastermind special to me, and this is another of them. I’d love to hear just how things have changed on the show since 1976 (series won by the great Roger Pritchard, first person to have won both Brain of Britain and Mastermind). So Anna, while I doubt you might ever read this, if by any chance you ever did, I’d love it for you to drop me a line and let us have your views.

I’ve lent my DVD showing my appearances in the 2007 SOBM to my teammate Adam. No worries, he’ll give it back. I was interesting talking to him about it on Thursday night when he said that watching it has made him decide that he is not going to apply to go on the show. He gave the impression that he’d only ever said he would as a bit of a joke anyway, but if he had ever meant it, then my DVD has put him off. I’m not sure entirely how I feel about that. I really wouldn’t like to feel that I’m responsible for putting people off from applying for the show. After all Mastermind relies on having contenders willing to do their best to learn at least one specialist subject and to put themselves through what can be a rather stressful experience. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to think about just what you’re putting yourself up for if you do apply.

Let me state my current way of thinking about this. If you appear on Mastermind, and you have a low score on Specialist or General Knowledge it signifies one thing, and one thing alone. It signifies that you probably didn’t know many answers to that particular set of questions. Honestly, that’s all. I learned over 1000 questions for one of my specialist subjects, but you can bet your life there were at least a dozen questions I didn’t cover which could have theoretically been asked. I’d have been scuppered then. Likewise, General Knowledge, everyone on this planet has more than a dozen things they don’t know. You see where I’m coming from.

Unfortunately it’s easy to make hurtful comments and hurtful assumptions when contenders don’t score very highly. I would love to hear from any of the contenders in this series whose scores have been modest, about their experiences on the show, yes, but also about reactions after the show, although I quite understand any contenders who found themselves in this position not really wanting to discuss it again. I always hope that everyone who is brave enough to appear on the show enjoys their time and takes comfort from knowing that they’ve done something that only a few people ever get to do, whatever the scoreboard might say. But I don’t know. I can only hope.