A Purely Hypothetical Question

Allow me to ask a hypothetical question. Let’s suppose that there is a quiz (a hypothetical quiz) on a Thursday night (a hypothetical Thursday night) in a rugby club in Port Talbot (a hypothetical rugby club). Since the end of lockdown, the procedure at the (hypothetical) quiz has been that (hypothetical) movement will be limited by each (hypothetical) team marking their own (hypothetical) papers. Alright, so let’s take the hypothetical thing for granted, shall we? So we have one of the teams who have been stuck in the bottom half of the table for decades before covid, suddenly becoming the second best team after covid, whose scores are miles better than all of the others apart from the top team.

Okay. Now in our quiz, the organizer institutes a new procedure whereby every team swaps with a nearby team for marking in a clockwise direction. The first week that it’s trialled, the suspect team are absent. Then the next Thursday, they turn up. Let’s say that the question master is a hypothetical (sorry) me. I give out the answer sheets and scrap paper to the team. Not a word to discourage me from doing so. I give out the picture hand out sheets to the team. Not a word to discourage me from doing so. Then I announce that we’re going to be using the new marking procedure again and say which team is going to be switching with which. I deliberately do not look at them while I am doing this, so can’t be sure how they react.

I know how they react when I ask the teams to swap at the end of round one, though. ‘We’re not playing.’ they say. And they don’t.

Now, before I ask the question, I think you should be in possession of all the facts. The team normally consists of 4 or more players and there are only two there this night.

So let’s get to the hypothetical question. Bearing in mind the suspicions that have been felt about the team, what hypothetical conclusions would YOU have drawn about their decision not to participate last night?

I know what I think.

Rather unpleasant

Actually, speaking of Mastermind, I had rather an unpleasant experience on Sunday. My mother-in-law had a TIA, or mini-stroke. Before I go any further I should add that she seems okay and recovering well and is at home. That wasn’t just unpleasant, it was shocking.

The unpleasant thing was this. Mary and I were at a quiz. She was out in the afternoon with her friend Helen, and found that the pub/hotel they were in up the Afan Valley, the Afan Lodge, was holding a quiz later. I said I’d join them there for the quiz.

You may find this hard to believe but when I go to a new quiz in a new place I haven’t been before I never go boasting about having been on Mastermind, never mind having won it. Well, when I arrived on Sunday I soon discovered that Helen had been doing just this, broadcasting to all and sundry ‘Mary’s husband’s coming to the quiz and he won Mastermind!” So in part it’s her fault.

We had just completed two handout rounds and were halfway through the first round, on lateral thinking, when Mary received a phone call about her mum. We got up and rushed out, and as we were going the 20-something question master boomed out over the mic – “Mastermind’s going! The quiz is too hard for him!”

I had no time to stop and put him straight. Helen says that she ripped him a new cakehole, but then Helen says a lot of things, which was one of the causes in the first place.

But if by any chance you are the question master from the Afan Lodge last Sunday and reading this – well, now you know. We left for reasons which had nothing to do with your quiz – which to be honest had by that stage showed no signs of being anything to write home about.

Adios, Sleb Mastermind

I’ve just seen an announcement from the BBC that it will show one more series of Celebrity Mastermind and then that will be it. If you’re a regular reader of the blog you’ll know that I greet the news with a certain amount of relief.

At the risk of going over well-trodden ground again, Mastermind was always a strange choice to beget a celebrity version and I’m afraid that in more recent years it has become a bit of a source of ridicule, in part for the low levels of GK shown by the average celebrity, but also due to the fact that for large sections of the viewing public, we don’t have a clue about who the majority of the ‘celebrities’ actually are. LAM reader Daniel Adler hit the nail on the head when he said that it’s coming to something when you recognise more of the contenders on a heat of the regular series than you do on an edition of the celebrity show.

I know that all of the contenders in the celebrity show are giving their services to raise money for charity which is an admirable thing. But that really does not mean that it’s an enjoyable show to watch. In both 2025 and in 2026 the first round of the regular series was ruined by taking it off the air to show the celebrity series. In 2026 they even showed a repeat of the first heat of the celebrity series the week after they broadcast the last one! And it had been crap the first time as it was!

Well, I can at least remember one entertaining moment from the show’s 20+ year run. The late Ian Lavender had just sat in the chair, and when John Humphrys asked “Your name?” Rick Wakeman sitting on contenders row shouted “Don’t tell ‘im, Pike!” Hey, it made me laugh.

There's a novelty -

I met Rod Burton on a tube train the late 70s once. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. I was on a tube train once and Rod Burton came into the same carriage and got off a couple of stops later. We didn’t exchange any words so I didn’t exactly meet him. Well, be fair, it was a tube train and you didn’t.

Rod, if you’re not sure, was one third of Rod, Jane and Freddy. If you’re still not sure they had a pretty long running kid’s TV series running through the 80s into the early 90s. I watched it a few times with my kids. I think the best way to describe the shows is that each was a 15 minute mini musical, concerning different issues like moving house. It was rather good for what it was, unless memory deceives me.

Of course, the trio are probably far better known for providing the music component of ITV’s iconic and long running younger children’s show, “Rainbow”. Why I mention “Rainbow” is this. I am currently moonlighting in the office today, responding to the live CDS phone line rather than the messages on the DAP phone line. Don’t worry about it. But it does mean that I’ve been surreptitiously looking at Facebook on my phone in the interludes between calls. There’s been quite a bit of clickbait about the show there because puppeteer, Ronnie Le Drew, who operated Zippy, passed away this week.

Now, if you click on clickbait then you probably deserve what you get. But one thing I learned was really rather interesting. I knew in the 70s that Rod and Jane were married. Not for all that long, it appears, though. They divorced in 1979, I think. What I didn’t know though was that in the mid 80s Jane began a relationship Freddy Marks, the Freddy of Rod, Jane and Freddy, culminating in marriage quite a few years later. So, at different times, Jane was married to both Rod and Freddy. Well, good luck to all three of them. Freddy sadly passed away a couple of years ago. Rod made it quite clear in an interview that his split with Jane had nothing to do with Freddy and that their relationship didn’t start until several years later.

I just found it interesting – there’s lots of examples of TV performers marrying their co-stars, but marrying both of your co stars at different times, now that’s a bit special.

Tip 'n Strip

True story. On Monday, my friend, colleague (and former pupil) Viv returned to the office after a week away. She gave us all presents, in my case a biro. I was in the middle of a phone call and only took a quick glance at it and saw a young woman’s head. I idly wondered if it was one of those novelty pens where, if you hold it point down to write with it the lady in the bathing suit on the barrel of the pen miraculously loses her clothes. When I had finished the call I had a closer look at the pen and realised the lady on it was the Virgin Mary. Viv had been to Lourdes with her church. Thanks goodness I had not voiced my suspicions to her. And no, before you asked, nothing happened to Our Lady’s image when I began to write with the pen.

Just out of interest the technology that made the wonders of the ‘tip n’ strip’ pen possible was, like lego, created in Denmark. Baker Peder Eskesen created the leak proof mineral oil sealing process for floating action pens in 1946. The company he created started to market the ‘tip n’ strip’ or ‘disappearing swimsuit’ pen in 1962.

Just out of interest, the first pen to use the floating oil technology was created for Esso, and featured a floating barrel of oil.

I really don’t know if the ‘tip n’ strip’ pen is commonly available any more, but if it is I’d guess it’s probably in seaside souvenir (crap) emporia. Which brings to mind one Wednesday morning seminar I took part in 43 years ago.  At that time the Warden of University of London Goldsmith’s College was Richard Hoggart, father of Simon and author of “Uses of Literacy”. He was a very interesting speaker, whose lectures under the guise of seminars were something I looked forward too. Even if he did remark once that he thought Mastermind was simply the most ridiculous programme on television. He was an incorrigible name dropper (he once told us he had to end the seminar early because he was going for a late breakfast with Graham Greene) and one of the names he once dropped was George Orwell. Rather than going into detail about any of the novels what he really wanted to do was to talk about Orwell’s 1941 essay on seaside postcards and the work of Donald McGill.

McGill was the artist most clearly associated with the genre of ‘saucy seaside postcard.’ Reading his Wikipedia biog I was surprised to see that he was actually prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1857 as late as 1954. He apparently never received more than 3 guineas per design even at the height of his fame, and no royalties. So even though his most successful postcard “Do you like Kipling?” “I don’t know, you naughty man,I’ve never kippled.” has sold more than 6 million copies, he never received one penny for it after the initial payment.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think that the kind of humour in these postcards - you can call it innocent if you wish but I reserve my right to disagree – has stood the test of time. But when I was growing up in 70s it was still pretty mainstream. The Thames Television Benny Hill shows, for example, are an oft quoted example and they are oft given as an example for a good reason. Now, Benny Hill was actually a very clever and intelligent man and a gifted comic, but he knew the market he was aiming for an he aimed for it unerringly.  To give another example, the Two Ronnies used a far wider variety of humour and was often far more clever than Benny Hill’s ITV shows. But Ronnie Barker – as clever, intelligent and witty as Benny, as good a comic as Benny and a great actor to boot, was very fond of this seaside postcard humour, and had a huge personal collection of seaside postcards. And there are times in Two Ronnies shows where you can clearly see this influence.

I’m struggling to bring this post to any kind of conclusion. So I’ll bring it back to the whole question of seaside souvenirs. 10 years ago, when my daughter Jenn started her career as a travel agent, I rediscovered my love of travel, and in 10 years I’ve been all over Europe and as far as New York City. Wherever I go I try to buy a souvenir cloth patch for my collection, these having been very much one of the tourist souvenirs of choice from when I was growing up, and taking up a lot less space than snow globes. I’ve been places where you just can’t get them. But fridge magnets! They are like stinking fish now! And I just can’t help wondering why that is, and how they have grown so popular to the detriment of other kinds of tourist tat. Answers on a postcard, please. (But preferably, not a saucy, Donald McGill one.)

University Challenge 2027 First Round University College, Oxford v. St. John's College, Cambridge

The Teams

University College, Oxford

Adam Sakabani

Deepro Choudhury

Delia Cropper (capt)

Shaon Bhattacharya

St. John’s College, Cambridge

Callum Thomas

Jonathan Watts

Liam Plimmer (capt)

Aurelia Walker

Deepro Choudhury took first blood for Univ with a deeply impressive early buzz. He needed only the first item to identify that all the items on the list have names ending in -ibo. I do wonder if Haribo would have been one? I guess we’ll never know. Words for lookalikes in different languages brought Univ a good full house. I thank a recent Weaver’s Week post for giving me Prisoner’s Dilemma as the answer to the next starter. Univ skipper Delia Cropper took that one. It would not be her last starter of the evening by a long chalk. Hyperboloid structures in architecture – announced Amol. There’s a novelty, said I, then took two to Univ’s full house. Jonathan Watts elbowed St. John’s into the contest winning the buzzer race to answer incisor for the next starter. Experiments involving drops brought a full house, and the last one was so easy, about Gallileo and the Tower of Pisa, that I didn’t even take a lap of honour for getting it right. The picture starter involved a map of England and Wales highlighting several AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Delia Cropper knew that their names all contain the word Hills. More AONBs with shared name elements brought Univ one bonus. Liam Plimmer, the St. John’s skipper recognised various uses of the name Gilead for the next starter. Short kings was an intriguing subject for a set of bonuses but these tiny monarchs yielded nothing for St. John’s. At least they managed a second consecutive starter with Callum Thomas buzzing very early to identify a reference to Norwegian. Kinship systems as described by Lewis Henry Morgan. Two bonuses meant that the scores were nicely poised, with Univ leading 65-55 at just after 10 minutes.

Delia Cropper was the first to recognise bands or songs linked by the word Bay which brought her the next starter. Dryden and Shakespeare brought two correct answers. A long and tedious starter on Mersenne (ex Arsenal midfielder Paul?) was thankfully stopped in its overly long tracks by Jonathan Watts. Terms in extraction of metals brought one bonus. I had a rare music starter right, recognising, as did Jonathan Watts, the Radetzky March (Diddle dum, diddle dum, diddle dum dum dum) 3 more marches, also conducted by Leonard Bernstein, brought two bonuses. This just edged St. John’s into the lead. Sadly they lost five for the next starter, but this allowed Delia Cropper to add to what was becoming an impressive total of starters for glyph as in heiro and petro. Univ took two bonuses on the Panama Canal but missed the explorer Balboa, who was named after a well known Sylvester Stallone character. Very quickly Delia Cropper added another starter recognising a series of terms belonging to Mario 64. People recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as patron saints of all Europe – now that’s a big gig – provided a full house of bonuses. Kublai Khan was called Emperor Shizu. I have nothing to add to that – but it gave Shaon Bhattacharya the next starter. Birdsong in classical music provided just one bonus, but the momentum was back with Univ. For the second picture starter Adam Sakabani identified the work of Georges Braque (‘Bricker’ as his mates called him). Three other paintings critiqued by Tom Wolfe in “The Painted Word” provided just one correct answer, but what did Univ care? It ran down the clock and they were leading 160-85 at just past twenty minutes.

Delia Cropper stuck the knife in a little further being first to answer that Vincent Van Gogh had lived for a period in Arles. 2 bonuses on chemistry (I think) brought them to the brink of their double century. Then an interesting thing happened. St. John’s found their buzzing fingers. First captain Liam Plimmer took a starter on Hagarism. Japanese film directrs and composers brought them 2 correct answers . I answered Kurosawa to each, and got a correct answer by doing so. They beat Univ to the buzzer for the next starter but got their Copernicus in a twist by saying Gallileo, allowing the inevitable Delia Cropper in for the correct answer of Copernicus. Meta -ethics promised little and only delivered one correct answer to Univ. But St. John’s were warming to their task as Aurelia Walker buzzed early to identify the Senegal Lions football team. Food terms from other languages delivered a full house in quick time. Callum Thomas then buzzed early with the prehistoric Sunda/Sundaland subcontinent. Another lightning fast full house was taken on the mathematical birthday problem. Delia Cropper just failed to take the next starter, giving best of instead of the best, which fell to rival skip Liam Plimmer. Another lightning full house on cricketing positions meant that, with hardly any time left, St. John’s were only 15 points behind! Neither team could take the next starter but ST. John’s lost 5. Liam Plimmer buzzed first for the next starter. He zigged with Congo, allowing Delia Cropper to zag with Niger. Tat was it. We were gonged before Amol could complete the first bonus question on American states. Univ had won by 200 – 170.

For the record Univ’s BCR was 63.3% while St. John’s was a whopping 70.3%. Good match up.

Amol Watch

Again, a thumbs up for a consistent application of – if it ain’t euite right, it’s wrong with the best question.

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

Worthless rock surrounding otherwise valuable metals or minerals is called gang.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment.

Which polymath and priest gives his name to laws relating the fundamental frequency of a vibrating string to its length , mass per unit length and tension, formulated in his 1636 to ’37 work , Harmonie Universelle? He also gave his name to the set of prime numbers of the form to the N . . . (the questions was not even over yet when we got to thi point and Jonathan Watts buzzed in. He certainly wasn’t dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum).

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 3

Heat three, then. Now, if I may I will reveal my aggregate as we go along this week. So if you’re ready then –

Without much confidence I had decided to make Han Ket Li's subject, Madness my banker subject. This looked justified as I managed to pick three pieces of low hanging fruit from the round. I was very interested to hear that Labi Sifre had a cameo in the video of It Must Be Love. I liked Madness’ cover version, but Labi’s original is one of my absolute faves. Han Ket started well, but sadly she fell a little short of a competitive score, finishing the round with 6.

Of all the subjects the one I knew least about was Lorraine Behrens’ subject, James Hutton. I’m not quite sure just how I managed to scrape a point here, but I’m glad I did. Lorraine, on the other hand, produced a perfect round of 13, effectively putting Han Ket out of the game. It must have been daunting for the two contenders waiting for their own turns.

Piers Merchant looked to be one of the youngest contenders we’ve seen for a while and he did confirm that he is a student at Cambridge. He was offering us the films of Wes Anderson. I did manage another point on this round. Good general knowledge doesn’t just help you on the GK rounds, I guess. Piers was not going to give us a perfect round but he was able to deliver a double figure round which meant that he was still in the game at the turn around, albeit at something of a deficit.

Dom Mottram answered on The History of the Paris Metro. Had I not spent time on working through the Wikipedia entry and making up that set of questions yesterday, I would have had nowt. As it was though, I got 4, making it my best subject of the night and leaving me with an aggregate of 9. Dom was pretty snookered by the second minute of his round and levelled out with 5 by the end. Sometimes, as we’ve noted more than once, it just ain’t your night.

It was a quick return to the chair for Dom. As we’ve already seen in this series, watching Dom go through his GK round left us all to reflect on what might have been. He produced a double figure round of ten. It wouldn’t bring him the win, but would leave him to consider what might have happened with a different specialist subject.

Poor Han Ket Li. As much as the specialist round didn’t go the way she wanted, the GK went even worse. Frustrated early in the round she had a couple of answers that just wouldn’t spring off the tip of her tongue. As the round progressed and the incorrect answers and passes piled up she looked close to tears at one point. She finished with a total of ten. Sometimes it is REALLY not your night.

Piers Marchant was the outsider in what had become our two horse race. All he could do was to answer as many as he could, keep answering and let the devil take the hindmost. It brought him 9 for 19 which, honestly, did not really look like a winning score. Still, at least he had not passed which left Lorraine Behrens needing 7 to win outright.

You know, I did wonder whether Lorraine would prove to be the kind of contender who really wanted to shine on a subject on which she was extremely knowledgeable, but might be on a it of a wing and a prayer with the GK. So it proved. She only needed seven, but they were not proving easy to come by. At the end of the round she had only scored 6. She had also, though, incurred a pass, which meant that Piers, our outsider, had come through to win on the line. Hard lines Lorraine, it would be harsh to say that you have to be able to do a bit better in GK than 6 points to be able to win a heat. . . but it's probably true.

Well done Piers. You have to be able to have a good go at both rounds, as we’ve so often seen. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Han Ket Li	The band Madness	6	1	4	6	10	7
Lorraine Behrens	James Hutton	13	0	6	1	19	1
Piers Marchant	The Films of Wes Anderson	10	0	9	0	19	0
Dom Mottram	The History of the Paris Metro	5	0	10	1	15	1

Mastermind Specialist - One of return of the wiki challenge

Okay, I said yesterday that I was going to take a look at the Wikipedia article on the Paris Metro. Just for fun I’ve derived some questions from the article. I can’t say whether any of them will actually feature, but I’ll be interested to see. Here they are -

How many stations – 361

How many lines – 16

Fully automated lines? – 1,4,14

Operated by? - Régie autonome des transports parisiens (RATP), 

When did it open? - 19 July 1900, during the World's Fair (Exposition Universelle)

First journey? - Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot

Originally how many stations opened on first day? 8 

Original operating company -  Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris 

Operating company was part of which group? – Empain group

Name was inspired by? – London Metropolitan Railway

First person to propose an urban railway in Paris? -  Florence de Kérizouet.

De Kerizouet’s plan would have used what? – Cable driven cars

In 1855 who made the first proposal for an underground railway in Paris -  Edouard Brame and Eugène Flachat 

Who did the city commission to plan and design its railway in the 1890s - Jean-Baptiste Berlier,

Whose eponymous project was adopted to limit the Metro and prevent it from extending into outer suburbs - Jean-Baptiste Berlier,

Original plan was for how many lines? – 9

When did construction begin?- November 1898

Who designed the original station entrances – Hector Guimard

How many original station entrances still exist? – 86

Which construction method was originally used? – Cut and Cover

In 1906 which planned line was merged with line 5? Line 2 south

A planned circular section of the metro was abandoned in 1923 after the section between Invalides and which station was completer? -Boulevard St. Germain

In 31 January 1904 which company were awarded the second underground railway concession in Paris - Société du chemin de fer électrique souterrain Nord-Sud de Paris

How many lines were built by Nord – Sud? – 3

In which year did CMP buy out the bankrupt Nord – Sud company ?- 1930

When was the last Nord-Sud train set decommissioned? – 155^th May 1972

Which new line replaced the saturated Belleville funicular Railway ? – 11

Which line, the first to leave the city proper, was extended to Boulogne Billancourt in 1934? – Line 9

With which company did CMP merge on 23^rd March 1948 to form RATP? – STCRP ( buses and tramways)

What was the designation of the prototype train testing rubber tyre wheels and automated systems? – MP31

In the sixties, what was created to combat the unprofitability of building extensions to the network? - Réseau Express Régional (regional express network; RER).

In which year were Ligne A and Ligne B of the RER inaugurated? – 1977

During construction what was the unofficial designation of what became line 14 in October 1998? (Meteor)

In 1903 what was the cause of the Couronnes Disaster? – Short Circuit

What became mandatory following the disaster – Carriages had to be made of steel

8 February 1962 incident in which 9 were killed? -  Charonne subway massacre

30 August 2000 24 passengers injured through train derailed when going too fast around what? – Notre Dame de Lorette hairpin

From the end of the 1960s an unpopular new style was rolled out in around 20 stations. It was named after the first station to be converted. Which was this? -  Mouton-Duvernet

Replicas of Metro station canopies can be found in several cities. In which city is Square-Victoria-OACI station, with the only original canopy located outside France? (Montreal)

Which symbol was adopted in the mid 70s to warn children of the danger of getting hands trapped in moving doors? – rabbit

Mastermind Preview

Monday’s Mastermind Specialists are

Madness

Scottish Geologist James Hutton

The Films of Wes Anderson

The History of the Paris Metro

My banker? Well you can rule out Wes Anderson for a start. I just checked out his filmography and I haven’t seen any of them. But at least I’ve heard of Wes Anderson. I can’t say that the name of James Hutton meant anything at all to me until I just googled it.

Now, I do actually love underground railways, metros and subways. I’ve ridden on 20 or so across Europe and in New York. But . . . I can’t say that I know a huge amount about the history of the Metro. If I get time I will read the Wikipedia entry. But it maybe safer to go for Madness, even though that’s more a banker in the sense that I have a chance of 1 or 2, than I’ll get a hatful. Fun fact about Madness. For their Camden Town record cover they were actually photographed outside Chalk Farm underground station because Camden Town station was too busy. If that one comes up, you’re welcome.

The Chase Across The World - Episode 2

Well, I did tell you that I was going to watch The Chase Across (a very small part of )The World again this week and I did. This second show, centred in Barcelona, answered a couple of questions I’d been wondering about since last week’s first episode.

The first question was this – will the couple who comes first one week get any advantage in the next week, or is it just a case of making sure that you don’t come last? Well, yes, there was an advantage. Sisters Amy and Kati who were the first to find Bradders last week not only got to start the show without having to answer a question correctly, they also got to pick the order in which the others would be asked a question. This was important. For if you answered correctly you could go and get on the cable car to start your quest. If not you had to go to the back of the queue, wait until the others had a go, then try another question. This was important because it could mean a 9 minute delay to wait for another cable car. Which is what happened to Dilan and Emily, even though they were not the last to be selected to answer.

So the first challenge was similar t last week’s first challenge. Asked which of these three artists – Pablo Picasso – Salvador ‘Hallo’ Dali and Joan Miro was born in Barcelona, they then had to go and find where that artist was represented in a piece of street art. First of all Dilan and Emily couldn’t find the one they wanted, then it was wrong anyway. Basically, they used up so much time that their goose was cooked from this point.

Which brings me to the next question – after seeing the way that the beat the Chasers finale went last week, I was wondering whether we were going to see anyone going home. Unfortunately, Dilan and Emily just did not have anything like the kind of General Knowledge to give the Chasers, Jenny and Darragh, a realistic time target, and they proved that yes, we definitely are going to see some of these couples going home. Which raises another question. – If a couple is sent home in episode 1, then another in episode 2 and so on, doesn’t it mean that you would be left just 1 couple for the final? What would happen in that eventuality? We know it can’t happen in this series now, but if it is all kosher and above board, and I have no doubt that it is, then it could have happened.

Well, I enjoyed the show again this week. It’s like Destination X without the intriguing and clique-forming which got on my nerves a bit anyway. I’m still on board.

Frabjous Day.

It has been a very long time since I enjoyed a quiz at the rugby club quite as much as I did tonight’s. Now, don’t get me wrong, the quiz itself was pretty good – although there was just one slightly contentious question – in which sea would you find Corsica? The answer given was the Mediterranean – not wrong, but it’s where the waters of the Tyrrhenian and Ligurian Seas meet and it would have been nice to see some acknowledgement of this in the answer. Well, anyway, as I said, the quiz was good, but it wasn’t just that.

No, it was that Dai, the organiser, has decided that teams will no longer mark their own papers. If you have followed the blog much since Covid you’ll know that this has long been a bone of contention for me. I did understand why it was very important to have each team mark their own in the couple of years after Covid. But you know, after Covid, one particular team suddenly went from being one of the weakest teams in the quiz, to being the second strongest – not just close to our team each week, but so much better than any of the others. To this day I cannot be certain that their scores were not kosher, but come on! Only a few months ago I caught them out giving themselves 15 points on a 14 point round, for example. Now, we all have to swap with a nearby team.

They weren’t there tonight. Well fair enough. We weren’t there last week. It happens. But I am quiz master next week, and if they are there I shall be watching them like a hawk to see if they are using any other kind of skulduggery. And if they can still post a really good performance without cheating that I can see, then bloody good luck to them.

If.

University Challenge 2027 First Round Durham v. Manchester

Durham v. Manchester

The Teams

Durham

Robert Morris

Bella Thomas

Dominic Challis (Capt.)

Andreas Ktori

Manchester 

Maciej Wojdyla

Ethan Lehane

Argyro Olympitis (Capt.)

Caroline Ball

Durham lost five on the first starter. It was one of those where you have to wait, and at the end it becomes very obvious. The word the question was looking for was ‘absolute’ Maciej Wojdyla took first blood for Manchester with this. Bonuses on the cuckoo family (I met a few of them in my 40 odd years as a teacher) brought Manchester a full house. Andreas struck back for Durham recognising references to the 20^th century history of Mongolia. Durham picked up two bonuses on dyes but missed out on woad. Thankfully Argyro Olympitis came in early to halt an unfathomable stream of applied gibberish for the next starter with the answer of alpha helix. Nope, me neither, although it sounds like it may have been defeated by Tom Baker in a Doctor Who serial from the late 70s. Bonuses on regulations for road cycling competitions brought two more bonuses for Manchester. The picture starter showed a diagram of a railway line starting at Worksop, heading south through Mansfield and ending at a mystery location. I reckoned it should be Nottingham. So did Ethan Lehane, earning the bonuses. None of us added to our score with this set. This meant that the score on 10 minutes was 55-15 to Manchester.

Maciej Wojdyla knew that the highest point of Spain, Mount Teide is in the Canaries. A nice UC special set on pairs of words where you add a g to the start of one to make the other was the reward. I particularly enjoyed Gruffalo – Ruffalo. Manchester took a full house. Andres Ktori knew that Tiresias and other mythological figures were blind for the next starter. The intriguing subject of artworks and winter holidays proved relatively benign and Durham took 2. Neither team could take advantage of the fact that the clues were there in the wording of the question to lead us to the answer of coinage metals for the next starter. “Which German philosopher . . . “ invited us to pick one out of the half dozen or so that came to mind. Bella Thomas knew it was Hegel, whose chief attribute that he was outconsumed by David Hume. Human-animal transformations in myth brought Durham another full house. For the music starter I didn’t recognise The Jam – shame on me – but Ethan Lehane did. For the bonuses I again had to applaud Amol’s adherence to the correct answer being the only thing acceptable as the correct answer. Manchester offered Diana Ross and the Supremes, which Amol would not accept because it was recorded by the Supremes after Diana Ross left. Harsh? No – if you are a serious quiz competition, which UC is, then it is imperative if you want to keep credibility. Close enough is just not close enough. Both of us managed just the one bonus with The Specials. Bella Thomas knew that it was Arsenal (language!) that signed Olivia Smith from Liverpool. Works of Gothic fiction did Manchester few favours as they only took 1. Now, link these three things – writer – state of Maine – Horror award? I did and so did Andreas Ktoni and we both came up with Stephen King. Rightly so. The philosophical other minds problem – no, me neither – brought nowt. Still, in the last few minutes Durham had staged an effective comeback and only trailed by 85-95 as we closed in on 20 minutes.

Gawd alone knows what the next starter was about, but after a paragraph of pure gobbledygook Andreas Ktori answered with phase. This put the teams at level pegging. Opposites in Science saw me claim a lap of honour for anabolic and centrifugal. We’ve moved the furniture around so for the time being the lap of honour circumnavigates the Clark coffee table, rather than the sofa. 2 bonuses meant Durham were the first team to reach triple figures. A Gillray political cartoon showing Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte carving up the world between them for the second picture starter passed by both teams. With the next starter I was pleased at guessing Maltese correctly at the same time as Ethan Lehane. This brought Manchester the picture bonuses, three more political cartoons by 19^th century British artists. It was lovely to see two by my favourite, John Tenniel, but Manchester did not add to their score. For the next starter Maciej Wojdyla knew about Ken Burns’ documentary on the North American Bison – which is great and you should watch if you haven’t, like all Ken Burns’ work. Manchester drew a blank on Welsh rivers. With the scores at 125 – 105 and only 3 and a half minutes to go it suddenly struck me that one of these teams would not be going any further in this year’s competition. Mathematical meanings of the word complete saw Ethan Lehane doing his best to make sure that it wouldn’t be Manchester. A full house on John of Gaunt’s daughter , Phillipa of Lancaster helped too. Gondoliers and Yeomen of the Guard helped Caroline Ball work out Gilbert and Sullivan for the next starter. Two bonuses on scientific terms that begin with tor took Manchester to 165, which was beyond the event horizon. Maciej Wojdyla added a little more gilding to their score, knowing a biographer of Charlemagne. A very quick full house on unconventional films about the lives of musicians followed allowing Andreas Ktori in with Crown dependency for the next starter. Mudras, the hand gestures in traditional Indian dance had just enough time for Durham to answer the first question correctly. The final score was 190 – 120 for Manchester.

Statistically Durham achieved a BCR of 58% while Manchester achieved 60%. So it was Manchester’s superior buzzing particularly in the last 5 minutes that made all the difference. Hard lines to Durham – it’s early days but they surely won’t make the repechage, I’m afraid.

Amol Watch

Again, I applaud Amol for being consistent in his refusal to accept anything other than a first answer – as it was this worked in Manchester’s favour with gens.

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

John of Gaunt was the grandfather of Henry the Navigator.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In Physics what five letter word follows “Pancharatnam-Berry” or “geometric” in the name of a property acquired by a quantum system when its Hamiiltonian is adiabatically varied around a circuit? More generally this word denotes the position of a wave relative to a reference point in its oscillation cycle.

Need I even say dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2027 First round Heat 2

I know that you’ll have been worrying about this, so I’ll put you out of your misery now. My prediction came true and I did not achieve a double figure aggregate on tonight’s specialist rounds. I got 8, or 3+3+2+0.

Just as importantly though, how did our contenders get on? First up with probably the most unusual subject of the night was Farrar Hornby answering on British and Irish Cheeses. Farrar certainly started brightly enough but pretty soon the round became hard going. Was it nerves? Was it the question setter having a wider conception of the extent of the subject than Farrar did? To me it looked like several answers were on the tip of his tongue but could not be cajoled to venture any further. He finished with 6.

Elsie Clark – no relation that I’m aware of – was answering a set of questions on the Roman general and dictator, Sulla. Despite a slight stumble mid round Elsie kept her head and kept on picking up the points throughout the round, earning herself the estimable prize of a double figure score.

I don’t remember ever watching Jonathan Creek on TV. Mind you, I never watched Sulla on TV either so I can’t really use that as an excuse. I managed two very easy ones. Emily Ryan did well to get a round of 8, I thought. There were 5 series and 32 episodes in total, Wikipedia tells me – which is an awful lot of details to try to commit to memory. Decent round.

As for Adam Royston’s subject, Johannes Brahms, I would have done better if the subject had been Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served. Adam’s round was a little reminiscent of Farrar’s. It started well, but he lost momentum. Did this mean that he missed out on answers he would have had if he had been on a roll and built up some momentum? It could well be, we’ve seen this happen in the past. Whatever the case, he scored 6.

In contrast to last week’s heat, the GK round would turn out to be a bit better than the specialist round had been. First to return was Farrar, and I dare say he might well have a bit of a quiz background, or at the very least be a regular quiz player. His 12 equalled the best GK score so far this series and took him to 18. No, that looked unlikely to be a winning total, but it showed what might have been.

Adam Royston couldn’t manage 12. However he did manage a double figure score, which turned his night’s Mastermind work into a far more respectable performance. His and Farrar’s rounds were a timely demonstration that when it comes to Mastermind, you have to have both, the specialist and the GK. Preparation, thorough preparation does not guarantee success, but it is one way of taking as much control as you can over your own destiny in the show.

Sadly, Emily Ryan’s round also demonstrated the same thing, albeit in the opposite way. The questions just refused to fall her way, leaving her stranded on a GK score of 6 for a total of 14.

So it was all down to Elsie. The interesting thing was that despite having led Farrar by a full 4 points at the half time interval, his GK heroics meant that she was going to need a GK round of 9 in order to win, and that’s a very decent GK score in Mastermind these days. Well, the key to doing that was to do what she’d done in the specialist round, keep calm, pick off what you know, give the best guess you can about what you don’t know and above all else, don’t panic. It carried Elsie to her own double figure round of 10, and the win.

Well done! Best of luck in the semi final.

The Details

Farrar Hornby	British and Irish Cheeses	6	1	12	0	18	0
Elsie Clark	The Roman General Sulla	10	0	10	0	20	0
Emily Ryan	Jonathan Creek	8	0	6	1	14	1
Adam Royston	Brahms	6	1	10	2	16	3

Tonight's Specialist Rounds

Well, the BBC have not taken the show off for a week or two yet to make way for pro-celebrity gurning or end-of-July Watch or any other pretext so let’s be thankful for small mercies. In tonight’s show the specialist subjects are:-

British and Irish Cheeses

The Roman general Sulla

Jonathan Creek

Johannes Brahms

I’ll be honest, I don’t see me getting a double figure aggregate this week, and won’t be in a position for fill my boots. It’s case of my banker subject – Sulla – being just as likely to be a nul points round for me.

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.