New Experiences

I don’t kid myself that I have yet experienced more than a tiny fraction of all that life has to offer. This was brought home to me in work today when my friend and colleague Lisa asked me if I’d like a cup of Bovril this morning. And it struck me – in 61 years I had never knowingly consumed a cup of Bovril before. Now, I want to make this clear, I don’t believe that I’ve ever been offered a cup before and turned it down. It’s just never arisen as an opportunity before. To me, Bovril has always conjured up images of lads and dads sharing a flask at half time on cold, wet football grounds in late November. The thing is, the late George Clark was never a ‘taking his boys to watch football’ kind of guy. (Don’t worry, this is not another post slagging off my father, fun though it is to write such things.)

Since retiring from teaching as part of the general improvement in my mental health I’ve become more open to new experiences. So “Yes, Lisa,” I replied, “I WOULD like to try a cup of Bovril for the first time.” And d’you know what? It was alright. A bit like drinking a full packet of steak flavoured McCoys. I can see a cup going down a treat at half time in an Aberavon RFC home game in the winter.

Well, me being me I couldn’t help doing a little bit of research about that name, Bovril. The Bov part of the name, well, that seemed obvious, a reference to Bovril describing itself as beef extract as in bovine. But ril? Now it occurs to me that this is the sort of thing that I may well have heard of before – so if you have, then forgive me. But as I delved I found that the Vril (rather than Ril) comes from a novel that was published in the early 1870s just a few years before the name Bovril was coined. “Vril: The Power of the Coming Race” was an early science fiction novel that told the story of a subterranean race called the Vril-Ya. They are able to access the Vril, an ‘all permeating psychic essence or fluid’ that gives them superhuman abilities. So the Vril part of Bovril is there to suggest that this is a substance that will enhance your already considerable abilities. Which is kind of similar to what the brand name Ambrosia (rice pudding masquerading as the food of the gods) tries to suggest as well.

May I ask, would you like to guess who wrote “Vril: The Power of the Coming Race”? It was none other than our old pal, Edward ‘Unreadable’ Bulwer-Lytton. Remember him? If not, then you might like to read my post ‘The Pen’ from 6/7/25. The Pen

I’ve never read this novel and both my previous attempts to read others of his novels have ended in failure. Hmm – reading a Bulwer-Lytton novel from cover to cover. Now, there’s a new experience that I wouldn’t be open to.

When is a Rocket not a Rocket?

I have a post I made on the Only Connect alumni Facebook page to prove that I did spot this at the time. On Monday, in the very first set of the series we were shown firstly snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan, then Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy. Being as Mr. O’Sullivan has the nickname Rocket both I and the team in the studio had this relatively gentle set from these two clues. Victoria went on to ask what they felt the next clue would have been then said it was Stephenson’s Rocket. The photograph that appeared was certainly a Stephenson locomotive. But not the Rocket – it was in fact Stephenson’s Locomotion number 1, an earlier and more primitive locomotive.

From the lofty vantage of their high horse that champion of Truth and Justice, the Daily Express has today thundered about viewers’ outrage about the error. Well, what can you expect from the Daily Express after all? To be honest, what the incident does do is to highlight how very rare it is for any kind of error to happen in OC. Because, you know, errors can come into any quiz. I remember Sinatragate in Alan Heath’s Mastermind Grand Final a few years ago, for example, where a question to one of the other finalists wrongly said that the singer died 10 years before he actually did.

Mistakes happen. Human error happens.

As it happens, the fact that the team got the connection after two clues meant that the mistake did not affect the outcome of the show. But what interests me is to think about what would have happened if it had? Let’s play out the potential scenarios:-

The team take the third clue. One of them recognises the Locomotion, which confuses them. They have to take a fourth clue. They get rocket from 1,2 and 4 and then point out the error. The production team maybe stops the show – investigates – films another set instead and the error is never aired.

The team see the error but in the heat of battle do not mention it. They get 1 point instead of the 2 they would have had. However his does not affect the outcome of the show.

The team see the error but in the heat of battle do not mention it. They get 1 point instead of the 2 they would have had. They go on to lose by a single point. They then raise it after the show has been filmed. Outcome?

The team don’t see the error. They watch their heat on TV and in the days that follow many people point it out to them. As it did not affect the outcome they shrug it off.

The team don’t see the error. They watch their heat on TV and in the days that follow many people point it out to them. Let’s say it did affect the outcome, but the series has already been filmed. What then?

And so on.

Look, I know that if I was playing in a quiz and such an error had happened to me, I would have been really annoyed about it. I’m not perfect, far from it. But at the end of the day, at times like this I think it helps to remember the Great Magnus Magnusson’s observation about Mastermind – It’s Only A Bloody Game. The same can be said of any quiz, I think. From my own personal experience nobody takes more care over their questions than the team behind Only Connect. Thankfully Monday night’s did not affect the outcome of the show. Mistakes happen. Get over it.

University Challenge 2026 - Round 1 - UCL v. SOAS

The Teams

University College, London

Zak Lakota-Baldwin

Alice Lee

Michael Doherty (Captain)

Manny Campion-Dye

School of Oriental and African Studies (London)

Patar Moyazen

V Davis-Aladren

Andrew Graham (Captain)

Matthew O’Regan

Our first question began with ‘In Japan, what common food item – “ and I don’t really blame V Davis-Aladren for jumping in with rice. Had it been right it would have looked like an inspired buzz. Sadly it wasn’t, though. This lost five and given a wee bit more of the question both Manny Campion-Dye and I gave the correct answer of soy sauce. The use of mud in architecture saw my opening spurt end with just two consecutive answers. UCL didn’t get the mosque of Djenne (with the light brown hair?) either. Now, in the next question the Treaty of Tordesillas and Portugal suggested Brazil, but neither team had it. The American economist Henry ‘Who’ George allowed Matthew O’Regan to open the SOAS account. The history of the Motion Picture and Television Fund yielded them two bonuses. Manny Campion-Dyer knew about the synthesis of urea for the next starter which brought up a set on the American War of Independence. A timely full house brought us to the picture starter. A beautiful UC special placed partial maps of the USA and the West of England, with the location of two sports teams bearing the same name partially. Chicago suggested Bears, which Bristol confirmed. Andrew Graham, the SOAS skipper had it right and more pairs of NFL gridiron and EPL rugby teams brought SOAS their own full house. The irrepressible Manny Campion-Dyer was in most quickly to identify Derek Jarman for the next starter. Highly specific plant pollinators brought 2 correct answers. This meant that just after the ten minute mark UCL were leading 65-40, but both teams were looking pretty useful.

Andrew Graham recognised a Joyce Carroll Oates (known to her mates as ‘Scotts Porridge”) quote about boxing. St. Stephen delivered up a full house and SOAS were level with UCL. Zak Lakota-Baldwin opened his personal account recognising components of an Indonesian orchestra. Languages of Pakistan provided another full house. Chatham House Rules (I prefer Cider House Rules) brought Alice Lee her first starter. Icelandic composer Johann Johansson brought them two bonuses and they were starting to pull away from SOAS. A little bit of punk pioneers The Damned brought SOAS closer and 3 bonuses on more punk/post punk singles from bands formed in ’76 yielded a good full house. Zak Lakota-Baldwin took the clues in the question about orogeny and correctly worked out it must be referring to mountains. Does that mean mountains are orogenous zones, then? (The Brecon Beacons were in 1985 once but that’s a story for another time.) Literary characters sharing a given name brought UCL a full house again. I think that Andrew Gaham recognised a description of Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners at the same time I did to take the next starter. The physics of golf balls proved an unusually boring set, but it did give me my one correct answer on a science set needed for a lap of honour. Yes indeed – ask me for a Swiss mathematician and I’ll say Bernoulli until the cows come home. SOAS had that one too. The next was one of those starters where you wait . . .and . . .wait . . . andthenitsuddenlybecomesobvious. Alice Lee took another starter with Mull. Only one bonus on pine forests was taken but it meant that UCL led by 150 to 105 as we closed in on the 20 minute mark.

I thought that Group f/64 was a private security firm, however when the name Ansel Adams was mentioned it turned out they had something to do with photography. Andrew Graham knew that too. Academic works whose original non-English titles are puns – sounds like a barrel of laughs to me – brought a full house to SOAS and reduced the gap significantly. I am a little surprised that neither team recognised a painting depicting the Massacre of the Innocents for the second picture starter. I’ll be honest I have not heard the term bladder diplomacy before, but Michael Doherty took the starter and every member of the UCL team had answered at least one starter now. This earned the picture bonuses of three more paintings depicting aspects of the same part of the gospels bought a UCL full house. Atlas and Iapetus were both Titans, and Michael Doherty knew that the moons named after Titans orbit Saturn. So now each member of the UCL team had answered at least 2 starters. The constitution of former Yugoslavia brought only 1 bonus, but with three minutes left SOAS would need at least 3 visits to the table. Andrew Graham correctly read the clues to the word fugue for the next starter. Two bonuses on jazz fusion reduced the gap to 35. If a question mentions the Ziggurat of Ur (does that have an interior called Ur Indoors?) the answer’s Iraq and Mattthew O’Regan was first in with it. Two bonuses on terms to do with the orbit of the Earth reduced the gap to fifteen, and I couldn’t help thinking that the next starter could well decide the match. It proved to be a controversial moment as Alice Lee buzzed in to give the answer of the play Nye starring Port Talbot’s finest (one of them) Michael Sheen. At the same time Manny Campion-Dyer blurted out the same answer. “Manny!” expostulated Alice Lee, but Amol, ever the gentleman, accepted the answer because she had said it at the same time. Names of characters in the Super Mario games surely ought to have given us Sir Henry Koopa but didn’t. UCL still took the full set. Nobody knew the provinces of the Basque Country for the next starter. The next starter also went begging. Manny Campion-Dwyer took the last starter as he had taken the first completing a trio of Renaissance turtles artists with Leonardo. The gong meant that the contest ended here with UCL winning by 210 to 170.

Another fine, high quality contest. UCL ended with a BCR of 77, while SOAS achieved 79, only losing out on the buzzer. Seriously, that is top notch. You know I felt last week that Sheffield’s 170 guaranteed them a repechage slot. If this goes on, maybe I will be proved wrong.

Amol Watch

You know, one of the things I appreciate about Amol is that when he does accept an answer that isn’t quite what’s on the card, he does tend to give a good reason for it. Dravidic he deemed acceptable because it is sometimes used as an alternative for Dravidian. Running that one up the flagpole, Amol.

For the first time I can remember we just saw the angry side of Amol when he thundered “YOU CAN NOT CONFER!” when it seemed as if SOAS were talking in class to each other on the Group f/64 starter. Mind you, with Jeremy Paxman you always kind of expected him to add – or I’ll smash yer face in! - when he said it, so I suppose it’s all relative.

Interesting Fact that I didn’t already Know of the Week

Excluding English and Welsh, speakers of Punjabi form the third largest linguistic group in the UK.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

It seemed to me that there were no questions ridiculously prolonged past the point of consciousness in last night’s show. As we say in Wales da iawn! Ardderchog!

Mastermind 2026 - Heat 2

It’s early, early days in this year’s series of Mastermind, but as the last credits rolled away last night I couldn’t help thinking – there’ll be tears before bedtime over that. Why? I will explain later.

First out of the blocks  last night was Dennis Wang. Dennis has serious TV quiz form from Only Connect, University Challenge (2016 Worcester College) and Jeopardy!, First cause of controversy – there’s always a certain vocal minority who are opposed to people they see appearing across a range of quiz shows. To which my reasoned and thoughtful response is stuff the begrudgers. Due to his pedigree Dennis looked to me like the man to beat, an impression that was only confirmed by his barnstorming round on the Euros 2000- 2024. I managed to sneak one point on this round – the only point I gained on specialist all night. Dennis delivered near perfection, his speed allowing him to take a 13^th point by the end of the round. Impressive.

Naomi Killen was answering on Truman Capote. Now, I may well be proved wrong on this, but based on last week and last night I think it’s possible that contenders may be having ever so slightly shorter questions on average. If so, it’s not before time. Even allowing for that, though, 8 is a respectable SS score, so even though there were gaps in Naomi Killen’s knowledge she can be pleased with her round. However it left her five points off the lead and to all intents and purposes out of contention for the win.

Natalie Abbott was answering on the TV series Gilmore Girls. Perfunctory research tells me that the show ran for 7 seasons and 153 episodes and that, my friends, is a hell of a lot of stuff you could be asked about even without going into production details. Long running popular TV series – they really should come with a government health warning on the side. To be fair to Natalie she did know a lot about the show and powered her way to a good nine points. However, this meant that she in her turn was four points off the lead.

So to final contender David Ford. David was answering on painter L.S. Lowry. Lowry’s most characteristic work has the quality that makes you look at it and think – I can do that. Until you try it then you realise – no I can’t. I like Lowry’s work, but couldn’t copy it. As regards answering questions on the man and his work, well, I couldn’t do that either. David Ford could. He wasn’t going to equal or better Dennis’ score, but he brought himself to within two points with 11. It’s a curious thing, but I’d say a four point gap is more than twice as hard to bridge as a two point gap. I mean mathematically speaking maybe not, but it’s not just about Maths.

So realistically speaking we were left with a two-horse race. First though Naomi and Natalie duked it out for the minor placings. Naomi scored 9, and Natalie 8 to leave both with a respectable 17. Look, the majority of Mastermind contenders don’t end up getting close to a win either, and sometimes it is not all about that. Both of them undertook the challenge and acquitted themselves well. If you can achieve that, then good luck to you and thank you for taking the time and trouble to enter.

But as I said, there were only two contenders left, one of whom looked a strong favourite for the win. I mean no disrespect when I say that it was David who looked like the outsider. At the start of the round that is. By he end of a round which he knocked seven bells out of the situation was very different. David blazed his way to an outstanding round of 16. Nothing seemed to slow him down at all, even the few questions he didn’t know the answers to. 27 in this day and age is a hell of a good score.

Not that you would have bet against Dennis yet as he returned to the chair. He needed 14 and no passes for a tie and 15 for the outright win. Doable but by no means easy. And for the early part of the round he was on course. But errors crept in, and crucially you could see that they were playing on Dennis’ mind as he seemed annoyed with himself over a couple of answers. With only a couple of questions to go the tape was just a little too far away. Dennis added 12 to his total to finish with 25.

Which is the second reason for tears before bedtime. Like many people I do think it’s a shame that two such capable contenders being in the same heat means we inevitably lose one of them. People with lower scores than Dennis’ will win heats and go through to the semis. I can’t help wishing for some kind of repechage system. But I would never want to see a system whereby semi-final places are determined solely by heat scores. That’s not Mastermind. Purely my opinion and as always feel free to disagree.

So congratulations David! Superb performance. If that GK was not a flash in the pan, then you, sir, could do well this year. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Dennis Wang	The Euros 2000 - 2024	13	0	12	0	25	0
Naomi Killen	Truman Capote	8	2	9	4	17	6
Natalie Abbott	Gilmore Girls	9	2	8	6	17	8
David Ford	L.S. Lowry	11	0	16	0	27	0

Mastermind 2026 Heat 2 Subjects

Here’s a sneak preview of tonight’s specialist subjects. We have – the Men’s Euros 2000 – 2024, Truman Capote,  The Gilmore Girls, L.S.Lowry. I’ll be honest, purely on selfish personal terms this really does not hold out much promise for me. We can probably forget the Gilmore Girls since I have never knowingly watched an episode. Peter Gilmore in the Onedin Line (more steam, Mr. Baines), him I do remember. Although I am an admirer of his work I can’t expect much from L.S.Lowry. I’ve never read anything written by Truman Capote – I saw the Truman Show and I don’t remember him writing anything in that – so there won’t be much coming from that quarter. Which just leaves the Euros which just might allow me to scrape one or two. See how you get on.

University Challenge 2026. First Round heat 1 - Sheffield v. Warwick

The Teams

Sheffield

Rhys Lewis

Abdelrahman Elsisi

Jacob Price (Capt)

Isobel Dobbie

Warwick

Josh Howarth

Antoni Kluzowski

Chris Levesley (Capt)

Lucy Dennett

Welcome back UC! How nice to see Quizzy Mondays return in July rather than halfway through August. So let’s get cracking, then.

The first starter took a moment or two to get to the point but as soon as it mentioned the Russian Empire suppressing literature in a specific language I took a flyer with Ukrainian. Josh Howarth came in too early, allowing Sheffield the full question. Jacob Price gave the correct answer. I didn’t think I knew that much about David Lynch but I took a full house on his acting roles, while Sheffield missed out on Harry Dean Stanton. Both Jacob Price and I guessed that the term from Jamaican cuisine being called for to answer the next starter was jerk. When Amol said that the bonuses concerned some of the world’s longest continually occupied cities I guessed Damascus (kills all known germs) would be one. In fact we both took a full house. 8 correct answers on the bounce became 9 when Amol mentioned ‘artist’ and Nuremburg which was enough to give both me and Jacob Price Albrecht Durer. That was as far as my run went, as I didn’t know Polish novelist Tokarczuk. A bit of bad luck deprived Sheffield of a full house, but that’s the way it goes. In life, things aren’t clear cut – there’s probably a lot more grey than black or white. But this isn’t life, this is quizzing, and an answer is either right or wrong. (Discuss).  For the first picture starter we were shown the distribution of seats in a recent general election. The name of the majority party was missing. For me, seeing Inkhata told me it must be South Africa so we were missing the ANC. Josh Howarth was the first to work it out. Good shout. For the bonuses I knew the New Popular Front in France and the BJP in India, but didn’t get Morena which Warwick did for a timely full house. The next one was one of those starters that seem unfathomable – I like butterflies and moths but I have never heard of the Bogong Moth – which suddenly becomes crystal when one key thing is mentioned. In this case it was Mount Kosciusko. Both Jacob Price and I knew it had to be Australia where it’s found.  The mathematical groups bonuses that followed proved as impenetrable to me as you would expect. Sheffield took a couple and as we approached the 10 minute mark they were very comfortably in the driving seat, leading 85-20.

I’ll be honest, I always thought that Narbacular Drop was a move which resulted one wrestler inflicting damage to the genitalia of his opponent, but apparently according to Josh Howarth it was also the precursor to the video game Portal. Climate change and the Caribbean region provided us both with 2 bonuses. For the next starter ‘ballet’ and ‘ritualistic’ suggested Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (which we all know was really about dinosaurs) which was also Jacob Price’s answer. This earned Sheffield a set of bonuses on stadia with a capacity over 100,000. We both answered just the one correctly. ‘Novel’ and 1870s often makes me think of Middlemarch, and when Amol mentioned the heroine Dorothea, Isobel Dobbie came in with just that answer. Sheffield took a full house on people named after ants – sort of. So to the music starter. With classical music starters I occasionally recognise the composer but hardly ever the specific piece of music. -Allo- thought I – this sounds like Mozart’s Requiem-. Bloomin was, too. Rhys Lewis also recognised it. Bonuses on other pieces written late in their respective composers’ lives brought one bonus. I like flags so I knew that the one Amol mentioned in the next starter belonged to the Marshall Islands. Neither team knew it but Sheffield lost five. Abdelrahman Elsisi knew Unicode to take back those five and more besides for the next starter. Le Corbusier – so often name checked in UC – brought 2 bonuses. Antoni Kluzowski recognised various authors of works containing the word Meditations to get Warwick moving again. Bonuses on the Clark (no relation) Medal for Natural Sciences brought us both a single bonus. At least Warwick were moving again. For the Shakespeare starter that followed Abdelrahman Elsisi provided the right play – Othello – but the question required the name of the heroine – Desdemona. I’m sure Lucy Dennett knew it anyway, but she was gratefully in to snap that one up. Looking back this was a pivotal moment in the contest, since Warwick took a full house on beds in Mythology. So instead of increasing their lead, Sheffield actually saw it reduced by 30. At the 20 minute mark the score stood at 150 – 80.

Warwick were still long odds underdogs, though those odds shortened a little when Antoni Kluzowski recogised the work of Degas for the second picture starter. Bonuses on other paintings recently exhibited as the centrepiece of exhibitions in the National Gallery brought one bonus. Lucy Dennett realised that a teacher brought to England by Catherine of Aragon was surely intended for the future Mary I. Warwick’s odds contracted again. Characters from the Lord of the Rings with names beginning with G again yielded a single bonus. However, even though Warwick were only taking bite sized chunks out of the lead, it was now down to forty. Jacob Price extended the lead again, knowing the Kepler space telescope. 2 bonuses were taken on probability. Chris Levesley knew Mickey Mouse’s predecessor – Oswald the lucky rabbit for the next starter. Castles and the kings in whose reigns they were built brought just one bonus. Lucy Dennett knew works with ‘and its discontents’ in their titles. This time they took two bouses and the gap was down to one full set. Chris Levesley came in first to identify plasma in blood. Gap down to fifteen points. Words that can also mean to move effortlessly brought two bonuses, and at this point it was anybody’s game – although all of the momentum was with Warwick. Valley of the Shadow of Death, thinking of Tennyson, had to be the Crimea War. Antoni Kluzowski thought so and it gave Warwick the lead for the first time in the contest. Bicycle brakes brought 2 bonuses. Sheffield desperately needed the next starter, but it was Lucy Dennett who took it with sprites. Don’t ask. A full house on Japanese islands meant that Sheffield needed snookers. But it was too late anyway. With the finest comeback since Lazarus, Warwick had won by 210 to 170.

Many commiserations to Sheffield. A BCR of 66 is not to be sniffed at, but once Warwick built some momentum they just couldn’t win the buzzer races. Warwick themselves had a BCR of 63, but it was their buzzing in the last third which won the game. I think Amol is probably right saying that there’s a good chance we’ll see Sheffield again in the repechage. All in all a fine show to begin the new series.

Amol Watch

Amol’s a seasoned veteran now with a couple of good seasons under his belt. Last season I applauded his not accepting answers which others might have felt were close enough and this continued with The Book of Jacob being given as wrong when the answer required was the Books of Jacob. It seems harsh, but it is the only fair way, in my opinion.

It’s aways interesting to note if and when Amol will offer his plenty of time encouragement to one of the teams. He issued it his time on almost exactly fifteen minutes, when Warwick were 100 points behind and in danger of being overwhelmed. Good shout.

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

The largest capacity stadium in the USA belongs to the University of Michigan

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Your bonuses are three questions on the mathematics of groups. A mathematical group must contain what sort of element which does not produce a change when used in the group’s operation? A square matrix with this name features number ones on the main diagonal and zeroes elsewhere. Umm – would that be dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Quizzy Mondays Return! Mastermind 2026 - Heat 1

I shall come clean. This time yesterday I had no idea that Quizzy Mondays were back. In fact, the first I knew of it was when I was checking out the guide at about quarter to seven. You can imagine that joy was unconfined in LAM Towers at this discovery. No Only Connect last night, but don’t worry, it’s back to full strength Quizzy Mondays from next week.

So the honour of kicking off the series fell to Lorna Frankel. She was answering on The Women’s Institute. I will be honest, I do not know a great deal about the Women’s Institute, other than the things which quizzers know. So I was pretty happy to get my single point on this round. My absurdist streak did half hope Clive would ask – what is the full name of the town where the first Women’s Institute in the UK was formed – so we could watch the round being eaten up while the answer was being given (Llanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychwyrndrobylllantysiliogogogoch – apologies, I’m sure I have parts of that wrong.) We were spared that and Lorna powered on to provide a fine lesson in preparation and handling a round with composure. She scored 12 to put herself into serious contention.

Randall Alleyne offered us a subject more to my liking, the Olympic great, Frederick Carlton Lewis. The ‘Golden Boy’ of the Los Angeles Olympics – in his time he probably frustrated as many people as he thrilled, but without doubt one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. I know enough about the subject to recognise that this was a testing round and only picked up four. Randall did well to pick up 8, but for all of that it left him four points behind with two contenders yet to come in the first round.

Brian Williams was answering on the military career of Ulysses S. Grant. Now, as it happens I have only recently read Bruce Catton’s two volume military biography of Grant, and remarkably this furnished me with five more points. This was only the first show of the series and I’d already scored my first double figure aggregate on specialist. I don’t know if Brian Williams had read Mr. Catton’s works, but wherever he’d got his information from it was a good source as he powered through to a double figure score of his own, with 10.

The moment I saw that Kate Dapré was answering on the films of the Muppets I thought of my friend and teammate Adam. He loves the Muppets and he loves films, so I reckon he would have done very well on this. Better than me. I guessed one and that was my lot. Kate managed 9 which is a highly respectable return on a specialist round these days, but meant that she was three behind at the turn around.

So the task for Randall Alleyne was, as it always is for the first contender in the GK round, to go like billy-o and get as far in the lead as possible then hope to cling on as others take their turn in the chair. And credit to Randall he gave it a good old lash. Sometimes he had to think for half a moment before giving the answer but it paid off because it gave him a double figure round of 11 to leave him with 19. Probably not a winning score, I thought, but enough to put others into the corridor of doubt.

Kate Dapré never looked totally comfortable in her own GK round. Don’t misunderstand me, she achieved a perfectly respectable 8 points but this was only enough to leave her with 17, some 2 points off the lead. Well, if you can’t win your heat, the next target is to make sure that you have done as well as you could and I’m sure Kate can take pride from this.

Being realistic it had looked as if Brian Williams was the best placed contender to really challenge Lorna for the win. He, like Kate, produced a decent round of 8, and like Kate fell just sort of the target. At times it seemed as if this round was a bit of a struggle – there were some long pauses that probably cost him another question.

So finally Lorna. Lorna required 7 and no passes for the outright win. Sitting at home I appreciate that this looks like a relatively modest target. Well, until you’re sitting in the chair and trying it, you don’t really know. Some contenders seem to come apart in the GK round. Lorna didn’t. She perfomed really well to score 12 and earned my approval by remembering Harry Beck, creator of the London Underground tube map for the last question. If we make a comparison with last series, twenty four and no passes would have put her comfortably into the top five on my unofficial table – equaling the performance of the champ, John Robinson. But let’s not tempt fate.

Lorna, congratulations on a fine performance. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Lorna Frankel	The Women’s Institute	12	0	12	0	24	0
Randall Alleyne	Carl Lewis	8	1	11	0	19	1
Brian Williams	The Military Career of Ulysses S. Grant	10	0	8	1	18	1
Kate Dapré	The films of The Muppets	9	0	8	0	17	0

Officer Dibble? Don't be disgusting!

I’m sure that we’ve remarked upon the capriciousness of the English Language before. Considering its rather complex development it’s probably not all that surprising. Mind you, the particular linguistic feature I was thinking about earlier this week is not, I have learned, just confined to English. I refer to the contranym.

Contranyms are those strange words that can be used with two opposite meanings. Back in the mists of time I had a teacher who wished to explain the concept to my class – not trying to be disrespectful but he’d have been a lot better off sticking with noun, verbs and adjectives and giving up the rest as a bad job with a sizeable minority of the class.  Instead he decided to muddy the waters by using the word ‘cleave’ as an example. I mean, not many of us had ever used the word in the sense of to cut, let alone the archaic, well, frankly, even biblical meaning of cleaving unto someone else. The funny thing is that there are such better examples he could have used – dust – fast – left being just three that everyone would at least have heard of before.

You know, despite that, I can’t help being glad to have attended school back in the days when you were sometimes taught useless knowledge like this. I mean, it’s difficult to think of a context in which not knowing that such words have this property could have a seriously adverse effect on your life. Although I can imagine a situation where asking someone to cleave to you could have potentially disastrous consequences.

I’ll be honest, I do quite like using an archaic word like cleave from time to time. Let’s take the word placket, shall we? If you’re a fan of TV shows like the Great British Sewing Bee you’ll probably know that it is, today, a perfectly innocuous term meaning a type of deliberate slit in a garment. However, when Shakespeare, for example, used the word in his plays, he was not trying to give dressmaking tips. No, he was using a term for an intimate part of one’s anatomy. No names, no pack drill – you can look it up if you’re that interested. I will state now that I never called a child that I taught a placket, but it’s a word I would use when I had the odd occasion to do so. The first time I heard it in that context was in a sketch by Dick Emery. You hardly ever hear his name mentioned now, but he was a hugely popular TV comedian in the 1970s, and had a TV sketch show in which he played a range of characters. He was a product of his time, and derived humour from material that you just wouldn’t see today – if you know much about Britain in the 70s it won’t surprise you that he regularly used racist and homophobic material, as did the majority of ‘family’ entertainers of that time.

In the sketch in question Dick Emery was playing one of his stock characters, an aging vicar with prominent buck teeth. In the sketch his daughter had brought her new boyfriend home to meet Daddy. The point of the sketch was that the vicar had a huge aversion to any word or phrase that could have a slightly risque meaning. OK, quite funny. But he twist in the sketch was that the words the reverend had taught his daughter to use in their place were all archaic terms that were far, far ruder than the modern words they avoided.  Hence, instead of offering the boyfriend a mince tart, he offered him a mince placket. The vicar becomes more and more annoyed with the boyfriend. It doesn’t help that he is a bit of an English expert who knows what these terms mean. To placate the vicar he apologises for making these errors – but he calls them boobs. “STRUNTS!” – thunders the Vicar, not knowing that he is fact using an archaic term for penis.

Two other words in the sketch are pizzle and dibble, both of which also mean strunt. I knew pizzle because I had heard it used in the context of a bull’s organ. Yes, the things we learned in Oaklands Junior School could make your hair curl. But Dibble? Prior to this, my only understanding of the word was as a surname, as in Top Cat’s Officer Dibble. Did, I wonder, the writers at Hanna Barbera have any idea of the original meaning of the slang term dibble? I’m guessing not, but I will admit that the thought of the writers’ room at Hanna Barbera giggling away at the name that they’d sneaked past the censors is a pleasing one.

The Pen

So, let’s start with a bit of housekeeping. It’s five weeks since I broke my shoulder. Last Monday I had a second appointment at fracture clinic. In a nutshell the news was good. Bone is growing nicely, the shoulder is securely in place and won’t come out of place again for anything short of another accident like the one that caused it in the first place. If I’m honest I think the doctor really didn’t want me to think about work for another fortnight, but he said I could discuss an earlier return with them. So I did and I’m starting back part time tomorrow.

What a difference a couple of years makes! Over my last 8 years as a teacher I had a number of extended absences with depression. And when you get right down to it, the prospect of coming to the end of those absences and going back to work did not make me happy, as the thought of tomorrow now does. If I’m honest it always filled me with dread. Well, that was then and this is now. So, fingers crossed it goes well.

This blog post is the first thing that I have typed two handed since the accident. I’m getting more movement in my upper arm, but I’m not there yet. Well, I’m no spring chicken any more.

Being the kind of person that I am I couldn’t help wondering about the derivation of the phrase, spring chicken. Yeah, I know it sounds obvious, but actually, like many idioms, it does come down to superstition and ignorance. Apparently in the 18^th century farmers believed that a chicken born in the spring would have more tender meat than one born in the Autumn or Winter, which would have been toughened up by having to survive a British winter when tiny. Cobblers, but there you go.

One upshot of the injury was that for the first two or three weeks I found it really difficult to handwrite. I’m righthanded, yes, but not being able to hold down an answer sheet with my left hand made me come to the decision that Jess was going to have to write down our answers. And to be honest, she did it too well for my liking. Joking. But let’s be honest, one really shouldn’t underestimate the power of the penwielder in a pub quiz. The pen really is mightier than the sword, although I shouldn’t take that phrase too literally if you ever do have the misfortune to find yourself in a swordfight.

Incidentally, did you know who came up with that little pearl of wisdom? Edward Bulwer-Lyttton. Yes, that’s right, Edward Bulwer–Whothehell? Well, Bulwer-Lytton was actually one of Britain’s most popular novelists and dramatists in the immediate pre-Dickens period. He had a prodigious output, although sadly in my opinion not much of it is actually much good. I’ve tried reading several of his novels, including The Last Days of Pompeii, but I’ve never managed to finish them. Don’t take my word for it. One of the most famous phrases coined by him was “It was a dark and stormy night “, the first sentence of the dreary “Paul Clifford”. This was the reason why the annual contest for the worst opening sentence to a novel was named the Bulwer-Lytton prize.

Not that you should feel too sorry for poor old Edward. He was a pretty successful politician and was made a baron in 1866. While better remembered novelists like Dickens and Thackeray privately had no great love for Bulwer-Lytton’s writing, they found him a good friend. Supposedly it was Bulwer-Lytton who persuaded Dickens to rewrite the ending of Great Expectations to say that Pip and Estella would get together in the future. Which is actually quite a comforting thought. We can’t all expect to produce great works of Art and Literature, but at least we can try to be a good friend. Even if it was a dark and stormy night.

Two weeks in . . .

Look, there really isn’t that much that I can tell you. It’s just over a fortnight since I broke my shoulder, but my appointment at the fracture clinic isn’t until tomorrow. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t want to start talking to work about going back until after I’ve had the appointment but I am really anxious to get back and start working again. What a difference a couple of years makes.

So, June 15^th, then. My birthday, as it happens. Both Courtney Cox and Michael Laudrup were also born on 15/6/64, although as far as I know neither Mrs. Cox nor Fru Laudrup were in the same ward of Chiswick Maternity Hospital as Mrs. Clark. It is also the anniversaries of both the signing of Magna Carta and the 2007 Mastermind Grand Final. And Father’s Day. Father’s Day. Hmm. I will be honest, I did not know such a thing existed when I was little, until my friend Bill told me his dad was also born on the 15^th June, and so when his birthday fell on a Sunday Bill, being of a pragmatic and practical nature, would only need to get one card and one present. Back then in the early 70s it never seemed like as much of a deal as the big production umber that was Mother’s Day.

I’ll be honest, I did do a cursory search into the origins of this celebration, and I found very little. What there is seems to concur that the celebration was unknown prior to World War Two, and took quite a long time to gain traction afterwards. Nothing actually said that it was an invention of the greetings card companies but it certainly has nothing like the venerable lineage of Mother’s Day. Both my Nan and Mum insisted on calling Mother’s Day Mothering Sunday, despite neither of them being religious or churchgoers – the two are not always the same thing. Mothering Sunday was the religious festival whose mantle was assumed by the secular Mother’s Day in the early 20^th century. Mothering Sunday always took place on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was an official day of respite from the Lenten fast. Certainly sounds like a good idea. The purpose of the celebration was to honour one’s mother church, that is, the church in which one was baptised. Over the years this extended to honouring the Virgin Mary and then all mothers.

Well, as I said it is my birthday as well. 61. You know, I spent so many years wishing I was 60 so I could take the money and run from teaching that when I got there this time last year I just wanted to stay 60. Well, that was never going to happen. But I am still living in the moment and enjoying pretty much every second of it, shoulder notwithstanding.

Do I feel stupid. . .

     Right. If I don't post much in the next few weeks, it's because, rather stupidly, I've gone and broken my shoulder. Typing is a bit of an effort at the moment. Which is a shame because I planned a great post on Loomis Day which was yesterday. Shame.

Harry Clarke's Legacy

Do you know of the great contribution that Father Harry Clarke made to British culture? In case you don’t, he is credited with introducing the car book sale to the UK in the 1970s. The catholic priest had spent time working in Canada where he saw car boot sales in action, and he recognised a good opportunity for a charity fund raising occasion.

Over the decades Mrs. Londinius, I and our family have often made a visit to a car boot a regular Sunday outing. This has not always been with unforeseen consequences. For example, the las one we visited was in a farm near Cowbridge a week ago last Sunday. The field was bumpy and uneven and quite unpleasant to walk upon, even going at the pace I like to think of as the ‘car boot amble’. As a result, I’ve been suffering with sciatica ever since.

More than three decades ago I attended my oldest daughter’ Parents Evening where the teacher observed that she had a ‘butterfly mind’. By tis he meant that she was never occupied by one topic for more than a short time and was always wanting to move onto something new. Judging by he way she turned out, the fact that she earned a good university degree and has held down an important management job for a long time since it suggests that the teacher was either exaggerating, or that it certainly hasn’t done her any harm. But I have to admit, I do recognise that tendency in myself. I am prone to new enthusiasms, and just as prone to losing that enthusiasm almost as quickly as it developed.

It's probably true that of all the things I’ve ‘got into’ over the years, the only ones I’ve kept going with over a long period of time are quizzing and art. Now, this tendency can be managed so that it is relatively harmless, but it does make car boot sales particularly dangerous places. Mrs. Londinius could testify to this. I still have a too many vintage transistor radios hanging around the house, for example, none of which I ever really possessed the skills to repair.

Funnily enough I have never bought much in the way of art supplies from boot sales – generally they’re not worth using however cheap they are. I haven’t bought much quiz stuff either, although did pick up some vintage quiz books once, including an original copy of the 1940s Puffin Puzzle book – what on earth that was doing at a car boot sale, I have no idea.

Mike Yarwood, a bed of lettuce and a pub in Builth Wells.

Whatever you might have thought of her yourself, I don’t think you could realistically disagree that Margaret Thatcher was a divisive figure. Her election as UK Prime Minister seemed to kill off Mike Yarwood’s career. If you’re under fifty his name might not mean anything to you, but he was one of the UK’s most successful and popular entertainers of the 1970s. He was the UK’s top impressionist, and his 1978 BBC Christmas show was one of the most watched TV shows of the whole decade. A large part of Mike Yarwood’s act was his impressions of politicians of the day. It was often said that being impersonated by Mike Yarwood was a mark that you’d arrived, and politicians actually wanted him to ‘do’ them. It’s hardly surprising. If we take the example of Labour Chancellor of he Exchequer Dennis Healey, in real life, although a very cultured and well educated man, he was a rough and tough political bruiser. Mike Yarwood made him into a cuddly, avuncular figure. But with the best will in the world, he just couldn’t do Margaret Thatcher. And after she was elected, everything changed. Cuddly was out.

If you want to understand some of the difference between the 70s and the 80s you should compare the difference between the political satire of the 70s in the Mike Yarwood show with the political satire of the 80s in Spitting Image. I felt that the writing in the first series was a little weak, but it got stronger and more savage as the decade progressed.

One politician who got the full works from Spitting Image was Kenneth Baker. Kenneth Baker, now Baron Baker of Dorking, was a senior Conservative politician who held a number of important posts within the Thatcher and Major governments. But do I think of any of this when I hear his name? No. I think of him being as a slug munching on a bed of lettuce, which is how Spitting Image came to portray him.

What brought him to mind yesterday was the fact that my grandson Ollie, who lives with us, had an INSET day yesterday. INSET days first came into being in the same year that I began my first teaching post. Which brings to mind Kenneth Baker, because he was the Education Secretary who brought them into being in the first place. Indeed, for quite some time afterwards they were informally called Baker days by the profession. And I have to be honest, the thought of INSET days made me want to get down on my knees and thank God that I’m not a teacher any more.

Now, the idea of INSET days, on the surface, is a pretty good one. Five days a year guaranteed for staff development and training – bloody great. But in reality, I would say that I took part in almost 1000 hours of INSET during my career. I’d guess that at least 600 of those hours were a waste of my time. Why? Well, in no particular order:-

So much time was wasted on bolting down educational rabbit holes, whatever the latest fad was – VAK – the Highly Reliable Schools Project – AFL – DFL – Key Skills. So much time was and probably still is wasted on ideas which actually had no factual basis to them, or which had been concocted by academics who had no experience of a classroom situation. All of them were quietly forgotten about when the next fad came along.

So much time was wasted on things which were irrelevant to my situation. For example, the last INSET day in which I participated was about the new Curriculum – sorry, the latest new Curriculum. Together with our partner Primary schools  we were addressed by a former headteacher of a primary school. After three hours in which he had ignored the Secondary contingent completely I got up and walked out. I felt slightly better about doing so because my own Headteacher was doing so too. Too much of my INSET time was wasted on things which could have no impact on my own teaching and therefore no impact on my pupils.

Terrible presentation. For heavens sake, we were supposed to be good at teaching and training, yet INSET was almost always delivered so badly! The last 10 years saw a lot more in house INSET in my schools. Not surprising since it’s a lot more cost effective. But basically, you’re asking people with a highly demanding full time job to find time somehow to plan INSET and deliver it to colleagues who they know aren’t really interested, for no extra payment. But even external facilitators who have been paid to deliver are guilty of really poor delivery. Even before I developed sciatica I found it difficult to sit still for 2 hours nonstop. When my hearing got worse I would despair of facilitators who would refuse to use a microphone, then stand and 'broadcast' to the other side of the hall.

The lack of personal development in personal development. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to sit a whole staff down in a hall and talk at to them for two and a half hours than to provide each one with a meaningful personal development activity. Sure, it was always nice to be given half a day to get on with marking and preparation while the grown ups were talking  (Heads of Department and Senior Management meetings) but that is blatantly not a developmental activity.

If I am honest, there are only two INSET days I look back on as having been a particularly good experience. About fifteen years ago we used a company to provide training for us. The presenters varied from the mildly interesting to the deranged – I think of the time that one came in to try to get us all to teach our pupils to revise by singing their revision notes to the tune of ‘You Are My Sunshine.” That was always going to end in tears. However we also had one come in who spent a half day on the subject of making quizzes a valuable part of your teaching. To me, this was about as much of a revelation as the facts that kids are unpredictable and if you go out in the rain without a coat or an umbrella you might get wet. But for partt of it he used a quiz game which involved triangles which had answers to questions on two side and a question on he other, or vice versa. He trick was to match up questions with answers. “You can have three quarters of an hour,” he said, “ but probably won’ finish it.” 10 minutes later it was fun watching the Head explaining to him why my department had fiished it so quickly. Yes, little things please little minds.

The other one was when we took an INSET day to visit an educational trade show called Education 93, held in the Royal Welsh Show ground in Builth Wells. We walked straight out of the show into Builth, had brunch, then spent a most enjoyable few hous in the pub before home time. Which, let me tell you, had a far more beneficial effect on staff morale than any other INSET day I ever took part in.

There are Russians in the Harrow Road!

Arthur Nounce, of Old Holborn was not, as it happens, a character from Dickens’ lesser known novel, “The tragic Misfortunes of Josiah Buttockfondle”. Many years ago, in an episode of “Only Fools and Horses” the Trotters’ father appears on the scene, and Del is far from ready to welcome him back into the bosom of the family. At one point he makes the observation “He sold his soul for half an ounce of Old Holborn.” The moment I heard this line I thought immediately of my father.

I wouldn’t want you to think that I had a grim childhood, far from it. But the happiness and normality were due to the efforts of my mother and my nan. When it came to fatherhood the late George Clark was a bit pants. Well, he was a lot pants. In fact, let’s call a spade a spade. He was the whole underwear drawer.

I don’t want to make this out to be a tale of woe and misery, because it really wasn’t. But I don’t think I was that old by the time I realised that there was precious little that he wouldn’t do to get his fix of the aforementioned tobacco product and Taunton Autumn Gold Cider. At a pinch he could do without the tobacco, but not the cider. Which doubtless contributed to the pickling of his pancreas that resulted in its removal in the mid 70s. By the end of the decade he’d left the cider far behind and graduated to some awful concoction called Clan Dew, which blended whisky with wine if I remember correctly. After his penultimate drinking binge in 1981, our long-suffering GP, Doctor Cowan, came to the house (which shows you just how long ago this was) and told him, “Mr. Clark, if you drink again, then you will die. Not could die. Not might die. You will die.” This shocked my father sober for a year, but being who he was he had to test whether Doctor Cowan was exaggerating or not. So a year later he went on one last binge, and it practically did kill him. He survived, but was only kept alive by a combination of drugs for the last 9 years of his life.

In one way I think it’s pretty amazing the way that he went cold sober without joining any support group like Alcoholics Anonymous. But, being the person he was, by the mid 80s he found another way of getting off his face without taking to the demon drink. He discovered that if he took a week’s dose of his medicines in one go, not only did it save time, but it also got him completely out of his tree. And this is where the title of this post comes in. In the summer just before I moved to Wales, I came in to the house to find him sitting stark naked in his swivel chair. “Why are you sitting naked?! I asked him, or words to that effect. He mumbled what to him seemed like a perfectly logical answer, “Because there are Russians in the Harrow Road.” I promised him I would deal with them if he put his clothes back on – a promise, incidentally, that I have never kept. My younger brother happened to walk in during this exchange, and ever since that time this phrase has been part of our shared vocabulary. Even now, if we’re together and someone says a particularly baffling non-sequitur one of us is bound to say “There are Russians in the Harrow Road!” setting the both of us off in fits of conspiratorial giggles.

If you have been sharing these ramblings with me for some time now you’ll know that I have an enquiring mind. I have often wondered just how the old man’s mind latched onto the idea of Russians in the Harrow Road. I mean, back at the time the Soviet Union was consistently portrayed as the Evil Empire, but why on earth the Harrow Road? As far as I know he had no connection with the Harrow Road at all. Well, even if I’d asked him about it on one of his more compos mentis days I somehow doubt he would have been able to shed any light on it, or why the thought of it necessitated him stripping or action.

Now, in my current occupation I talk to many people on the phone every day. Some of the people I speak to seem to have no familiarity with the word or concept of ‘oversharing’. One of the people who rang with a query proceeded to tell me about how the pain from his teeth had led to him overdosing on his prescription drugs and boom – the phrase “there are Russians in the Harrow Road” flashed into my mind.

So, today, on a whim, I googled that same phrase, fully expecting nothing even remotely connected to Russians or the Harrow Road to come up in the results. Yet what did come up was a news story from earlier this very month. A group of Bulgarian people, living in Harrow, were convicted of spying for Russia and sentenced to a combined total of about fifty years in prison. Apparently  the neighbours’ suspicions were first raised a couple of years ago when they put up a large satellite dish, conspicuously pointing in the opposite direction to all of the other dishes in the street, and tried to put up an aerial about half the size of the Eiffel Tower. Alright, slight exaggeration there, I admit. Now okay, I don’t know if the part of Harrow where they were based was anywhere near the Harrow Road, and they were Bulgarian, and just spying for Russia. But come on! You have to admit that it’s interesting, don’t you? Well, please yourselves.