It was a week ago last Friday. Just haven’t got around to writing about it yet. When I was a young and brand newly qualified teacher, in the summer of 1987 I attended my first interview for a teaching position. I got the job in a comprehensive school in Neath, South Wales. I clung tenaciously to that same school for 29 years until it was closed for good (or not so good, if I’m honest) A week ago we had the first real reunion for staff from the school. I saw some colleagues I haven’t seen since before Mastermind happened, and of course, I was asked the inevitable question – what was your specialist subject? I have a wee speech prepared for this, which I duly trotted out. However then one of them asked me – well, how do people go about selecting their specialist subject?
The honest answer is, of course, I have no idea how other
people do it, I can only tell you how I did it. I thought very carefully about
which subjects I would do before putting them on the application form. Then
when I got to the audition I was told I couldn’t do any of them, and had to
think of three more off the cuff. I picked the Olympic Summer Games because it
is my favourite sporting event, and Henry Ford and the Prince Regent because
they’re very interesting and I have great biographies of both. I got knocked
out in the first round, so never used Ford and Regent, which is why I used them
again in my application the next year. I picked the History of London Bridge
for the final because I had read a wonderful book on the subject. Contrary to
what you might think, it wasn’t because I was hoping to get a free trip to Lake
Havasu from it – although that would have been nice!
You do sometimes hear people saying or see people writing
that they could take such and such as a Mastermind subject, such is their obsession
with and knowledge on the subject. Certainly it seems to be common sense to
pick what you’re interested in and know something about. If you prepare
thoroughly as you should then you will be living with the subject for weeks. I
think it helps to pick something with clearly defined parameters too, and it’s
worth asking the production team exactly what these are. I wanted to just do
the first stone London Bridge – to be fair it had over 600 years of history – and
it was only by asking the production team that I found out no, I was doing the
history of every bridge to have borne the name. Picking subjects that are
learnable in a relatively short space of time helps too. The modern Summer
Olympics as a subject was too wide, although I didn’t actually do that badly on
it.
There is one other consideration that comes to mind as
well. Picking a very different specialist subject can make you a more attractive
proposition to a production team, whereas if you put down, let’s say Harry
Potter, Father Ted and Fawlty Towers on your application form, don’t expet to
get a call any time soon.
1 comment:
When I applied (2017-18 series) I put ER, Les Miserables (book, stage and screen) and The life of Saint Martin.
When I spoke to the producer I was told that
1) Les Miserables wasn't suitable as it was just 1 book (albeit witg 1300 or so pages), I was annoyed when a couple of years later someone did The stage musical of Les Miserables)
2) there were v few reference books on Saint Martin (maybe because he was born in 316)and
3) maybe 16 series of ER was a bit ambitious, and also could that be my semi-final subject aa there were quite a few tv based specialist subjects already that year.
I then selected Leonardo da Vinci as my first round, ER (series 1-8) and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals for the final (which I didn't reach).
Were I to do it a second time, I would choose a specific person, a specific place (Westminster Abbey) and a specific moment in time (eg the Battle of Waterloo)
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