Mastermind - First Round Heat 17/24

Mastermind – First Round Heat 17 /24

Ah, tonight’s show brought back happy memories. Well, every Mastermind show does that. But I must come clean. One of the great things about taking part in a broadcast quiz show is that you have every chance in making new friends. One of tonight’ contenders is just such a friend. Tonight’s first contender, Neil Phillips, is a previous contender. His first appearance on Mastermind was in show 24 of the 2006 series. Which, as it happened, was also my first appearance. On that day we were both beaten by the excellent Katharine Drury who went on to top score in the semi finals, in which she became the first woman to make the final in the Humphrys era. So if I seem rather partisan in my support of Neil, well, its purely intentional.

Neil , as he did in our show in 2006, began the specialist round. Back then he scored a magnificent, and highly daunting 17 on REM. He is nothing if not versatile, and tonight he offered us “The Novels of Stan Barstow”. This was a daunting enough subject in itself, since Stan Barstow has written 11 novels, of which the most famous is probably his first book – “A Kind of Loving”. A small point here. Neil’s subject was the novels of Stan Barstow, yet at least one of the questions was clearly about a short story. Alright, Neil answered it correctly, but am I the only one who think this was just a little bit naughty ? Maybe Neil didn’t quite manage 17 this time round, but you have to say that 14 looked a damn good score from the Clark sofa on these questions.

Second to go was Stephanie McCann. Stephanie offered us a fine subject in the shape of The History of Portmeirion. I’m afraid that whenever you mention Portmeirion, a beautiful Italianate village in North Wales, you can’t help sooner or later mentioning cult 60’s TV series The Prisoner. To be fair I think that only one question of the set did actually mention the TV series. Stephanie’s round was nothing to be ashamed of, but she was foxed by quite a few of these questions, and ended up with 8.

Our third round, offered to us by Jim Crompton, was British motorcycles of the 1950s. I have a good friend, by the name of Neville, who used to make his perfect replicas of Manx Norton motorcycles in his front room. If he was watching I bet he loved this round. Why do I bother mentioning it ? Well, it was Neville who took me to my first ever pub quiz ! I will admit that apart from the Triumph Bonneville, I couldn’t answer any of these questions. Jim Crompton made a very good showing, also scoring 14.

So Chris Sowton had his work cut out for him if he was to establish a half time lead , with his round on Lord’s cricket ground. Of all the rounds tonight I thought that this one offered the most to the average guy playing along at home. Cricket is most definitely not my specialist subject, but I had a few of these – Old Father Time and Graham Gooch come to mind. Still, Chris Sowton had more than a few. He answered impressively quickly, and for the most part correctly. 16 is a very impressive score, to finish off an absorbing set of specialist rounds.

Stephanie McCann was first to return to the chair. She added 7 to her score to take her total to 15, but I have to say that actually her round looked a bit better than this . She started off with a good spate of correct answers, and was actually answering across a wide range of subjects. The correct answers did dry up a little towards the end of the round. Mind you it didn't help her that John Humphrys asked in one question for an AFRICAN country, and then told her the answer was Guyana - which is in south America.Its really unusual to see such a clear error make its way into the final broadcast show.

Neil came next. Once again, the round had a very positive start. Neil maintained his composure, although you could see that there were just a couple of questions where he knew that the answer was on the tip of his tongue, but they wouldn’t quite come. I thought at the 1 minute mark that he was a dead cert for double figures on the round, and he nearly did it too, falling just short with 9. 23 put him close to a bid for a spot on the runner up board, but just short. Still, nothing was over yet.

Jim Crompton never convinced with his round. With more passes than Neil he had to outscore him in order to take the lead, and it became clearer as the round went on that he wasn’t going to do that. Still, the 7 that he did manage to answer correctly did see him through the 20 point barrier, so nothing to be ashamed of there.

Finally Chris Sowton. He needed 7 and no passes to force a tie break, and 8 to win outright. You’d have fancied him to do it as well, but anything can happen in the black chair. People with greater leads than his have come unstuck in the past. To be fair, though, this never looked likely as he got stuck into his round. He answered as quickly as he did in his specialist round, and passed on none. In fact he looked like an old hand. At one stage the thirty point barrier was not totally beyond his grasp, although in the end he fell a couple of answers short. Still, with form like this you’d be a fool to write off his chances of making the finals.

Well played all, and a special well played to my friend Neil. You were beaten by a man who was on very good form, but with a little bit of luck you’d have made the runners up board. I hope that you still enjoyed the experience.

The Details

Neil Phillips	The Novels of Stan Barstow	14 - 0	9 – 0	23 – 0
Stephanie McCann	The History of Portmeirion	8-5	7-4	15 – 9
Jim Crompton	British Motorcycles of the 1950s	14 – 2	7 – 2	21 – 4
Chris Sowton	The History of Lords Cricket Ground	16 – 0	12 – 0	28 – 0

Current Highest Scoring Runners Up

John Cooper	29 – 3
Ian Scott Massie	26 – 2
Les Morrell	26 - 3
Colin Wilson	25 - 0
Peter Cowans	25 - 2
William de'Ath	25 - 4

Never Let The Facts . . .

Like the vast majority of people in this country, I have never been a journalist. So I can accept the point that anyone could say to me that its very easy for me to sit here in the comfort of my desk and criticise while I’m not doing it from a position of knowledge. By all means view what I say in this light. But I’m still going to say it.

The particular article which leads me to post appeared this week, on Thursday, after the superb University Challenge quarter finals match between St. John’s Oxford and Manchester University. The local newspaper, the South Manchester Reporter, ran a feature , which focused on Rachael Neiman, otherwise known as LAM regular Rach Cherryade, entitled,
“Blind Rachael’s New Challenge”
If you live in the area, maybe you read the report. Even if you didn’t, I kind of have more than half a suspicion that you can guess the tone of the article from the headline. You may well ask – what’s the problem with that ? Allow me to explain.

As Rachael has herself explained it, this article arose from an interview which was given to the journalist by the whole team. They were told that the article was to be about the whole team’s experiences in the series so far, which I’m sure is of much interest to the good people of Manchester, not least because University Challenge is made in Manchester, but also because the University are the reigning champions. Instead, we have an article almost exclusively about Rachael, an article which concentrates on the fact that she is blind to the exclusion of almost anything else. But that was never the subject of the interview itself, and frankly, Rachael tried to steer away any attempts to direct the interview down that path. Don’t take my word for it. Ask her yourself. Read the comments she wrote after the last UC review.

In the article as it appeared in the paper, the other members of the team received a brief name check, and that’s all. Instead, anything that Rachael said that refers even in passing to being blind has been taken, and strung together, to make something altogether different from a report on a local team doing well on University Challenge

Let’s look at the headline again , “Blind Rachael’s new Challenge “. Is it just me who finds that headline rather distasteful ? Yes, Rachael is blind. Get over it. She is also witty, highly intelligent, and a good quizzer who also manages her own record label. But that can’t be that important, can it ? Certainly you won’t find these things made explicit in the article. Lets not leave it there. “ . . . new Challenge” Yes , that would be University Challenge, wouldn’t it ? But why new ? Obviously the implication is that because she is blind it must be that she faces challenges every day which a sighted person doesn’t, poor dab. Oh and just in case you didn’t get the point from the headline, despite the fact that it was the very first two words, just in case you missed it the second paragraph of the article begins
“Blind Rachael, 25, who lives in Didsbury . . . “
Do you know, I had always thought that Rachael was her christian name, rather than her surname.

Sorry, I am getting sarcastic. But when someone upsets one of my friends, then I tend to react this way. You see, although on the surface you might say -
well, isn’t the article praising Rachael ? Doesn’t it say that she’s a ‘role model’ ? – there’s something rather nasty about this .Maybe I’m wrong, but to me, there is a rather unpleasant subtext to the whole article. Take this, for instance,
“The English and American Studies PhD student . . . said she does not let being blind get in the way of leading a normal life. “
Well, what is she supposed to do, for heaven’s sake ? It continues with a quote,
“When University Challenge came up I just thought, well I fancy that, I’ll go for it. “
Just the same as the rest of the team, doubtless, and just the same as every member of every team in the competition.
I don’t know, but it just seems to me that what the editor has tried to do is to turn a nice article about a very good team who played in a fantastic match last week, into an X-Factor style sob story about 'a plucky contestant who has overcome adversity '. Does Rachael want this ? No. Does she sanction it ? No. Does this matter ? Actually, yes it does.

As Rachael has explained it, she would never have agreed to take part in the interview if she had known an article like this would be the result. Yes, she is a special person, but she is a special person in the way that everyone who has the guts to take part in UC is a special person. Rachael does not set herself above the other members of her team, although you’d be forgiven for thinking that she does from the tone of the article.

Yeah, OK, I’m not so naïve as to believe that journalists are always, or even usually 100% straight with people they interview. Journalists more than any of us know how to get a good story. But even if the writers of the article thought they were being ‘nice’ about Rachael, giving the article a slant which they must have realised was
a) totally different from the way it had been represented to the Manchester team,
and
b) totally against the way that Rachael wanted to be presented,
was just plain wrong. Rachael , of course, is more than capable of putting her own point of view, and I can do nothing better than leave you with her own words about the article : -
“I can only say that had I known that this was the article they had in mind ( rather than a piece on the whole team as it was pitched to us) I would have refused to take part. The content, quality of writing and general feel of the piece are all awful, and I think reflects badly on the journalist who wrote the piece and the editor who allowed it to be published in this format. “

Forgive me if I rant a bit_

I couldn’t help noticing a review of the grand Final of Brain of Britain in The Independent today. Provocatively entitled “Why Can’t the Brain of Britain be a woman ? “, Jane Thynne’s article made my hackles rise a bit this morning.

I’m not annoyed that it asked the question. Actually, it’s a fair question to ask, since the last woman to be Brain of Britain was the great Daphne Fowler, back in 1997. One suspects that we are overdue a woman champion, in the same way that we were overdue a woman Mastermind champion until Nancy won last year’s series. Its not a question of if we will have another woman champion, merely a question of when.

No, as I say, it wasn’t the question being asked that brought a frown to the Clark brow as I read the article. What I didn’t like was the swingeing criticism of the show, for its lack of ‘cool’ before the writer said that she actually loved the show. Probably for exactly the same things she was criticising. I have to say, if she really does think it is a ‘glorious quiz’ as she claims, why on earth does she feel the need to slag it off to the extent that she did before this bombshell.

The article ended with frankly a rather strange comment about the champion Ian Bayley. To quote,
“Dr Bayley, it turns out, is a champion quizzer, who plays for Britain and has been on the final of Mastermind. I know this is great and we must honour national excellence wherever we find it, but somehow, in some small way, I couldn't help feeling weirdly cheated.”
'Weirdly' is an understatement. Who the hell does she think she is ? How on earth can you be cheated by the best performer in the whole series putting on a virtuoso display to win the final by a street ? Did she honestly expect that the winner of the Grand Final would turn out to be someone who has no background in quizzing whatsoever ? If Jane Thynne really is such a fan of BoB, then how does she not know that in the last few years the finals have been won by - Geoff Thomas ( Mastermind champion 2006) – Mark Bytheway ( world champion ) – Pat Gibson ( Mastermind champion 2005 etc. ) – Chris Hughes ( mastermind champion 1983, Eggheads etc. ) and so on. Why on earth did she feel that this series was any more likely to be won by a plucky underdog ? One of the great strengths of BoB is the quality of the competitors. If you’re really a fan, then you’d know this.

Once you reach a certain level of achievement in quizzing, then you have to accept that your chances of getting on to a quiz show where there are serious cash prizes, for example, are going to be extremely slim. But to have a supposedly serious journalist posting rubbish like this, where the subtext is that its somehow cheating the public by allowing serious quizzers to take part in a serious show like BoB is beyond the pale.

Michael has gone for a Burton

I see that yesterday and today the national papers have caught up with what happened on Mastermind on Friday. If you haven’t read any of the articles, well, just think of the sort of things that were written a couple of months ago when Michael Burton equalled the previous lowest score. To be fair a couple of the articles at least showed a modicum of sympathy to Kajen Thuraaisingham . I send a large raspberry to the Daily Mail for describing his score as ‘a paltry five points’.

I may well be alone in thinking this, but while I feel huge sympathy towards Mr. Thuraaisingham, I can’t help feeling just a little gladdened that Michael Burton has been wiped out of the record books with this performance. In case you’ve forgotten, Michael Burton was the chap from Peckham who scored 2 points on his specialist round on Angels earlier this series. He finished with a record equalling total of 7, and then went on to claim that it had all been a practical joke.

By all means feel free to disagree with me on this. But I have to say that I find Mr. Thuraaisingham’s statement , “ I tried my best but it wasn’t my night” somehow a lot more dignified and honest. As it happens I have read comments from the first and second placed contenders in this heat, David Buckle and Andy Crane, and both of them have stated that beforehand Mr. Thuraaisingham came across as relaxed and knowledgeable. They were there, and they are convinced it was nerves from sitting in the chair. Nothing more or less, and I’m afraid that if it happens to you there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Kajen, if you ever read this, you earn a vote of thanks from me for removing Michael Burton from the record books, as unwanted as this record may be. As for yourself, well, nobody loves Mastermind more than I do, but it honestly is only a game. You gave it a lash, and that takes a hell of a lot more guts than many people have got. Don’t let it get you down.

TV Watch - Only Connect

Only Connect – Round One Match 5 – Neuroscientists v. Rugby Fans

After being put through the emotional wringer with tonight’s University Challenge I feel in need of a brisk walk around the block and then a rub down with a copy of the Sporting Life, but there’s no time for rest. The Balanescu ( or is the Brodsky ? One is UC amd one is OC . I can never remember which ) Quartet are already bowing away.

Comment of the week comes from Victoria at the very start. “The Radio Times describes this as a game of patience and lateral thinking . . . but then they describe Trisha as a “debate” – so lets see who'll be clawing at each other and sobbing in this episode. “
I bet her dad, the late , great Alan Coren would have been proud of that one himself.
Tonight we had a generations match. Youth entered stage right in the form of the Neuroscientists – Joseph Raimundo, a south African Rhodes scholar, Blake Richard, a Canadian, and captain Jonathan Webb from Australia. Guess what – they are all following postgraduate studies in neuroscience. Experience entered stage left in the shape of the Rugby Fans. I thought this team name was tempting fate a little , since the last series was actually won by my friends The Rugby Boys. Still, at least the name meant that Victoria paid them a compliment, saying they were all far too unscarred to be serious players. They were, Nigel Austin, Seen Nicholson and captain Jim Nugent.

Well, before tonight there have been 4 matches. One of the 4 was contested by 2 more experienced teams, and one, last week's, by two younger teams. In the 2 Youth v. Experience matches so far the score is actually 2 – 0 to the whippersnappers. Was tonight going to stop the rot ?

Round One – What’s the connection ?

It was a case of so near but so far as the Neuroscientists – whose name is far too long, so I shall call them the Neuros – almost linked cream, quotation marks, tennis matches and yellow lines, but only came up with doubles. The Rugby Fans missed it as well. They can all be single or double. The ‘Fans couldn’t link Mr. Micawber, Peter Whimsey, The Penguin and Patrick Moore. Neither could the Neuros, and neither could I. They actually all wear a monocle. Easy when you know it. TheNeuros may be young, but they know a thing or two. Extremely quickly they picked up on the fact that estimated and there exists can be represented by versions of the letter e, although they took a third clue to be sure. First blood to the Neuros. The Fans failed on the dreaded music round. They correctly identified the 3rd clue as REMs Man on the Moon, but tried to work with REM rather than Moon. The Neuros got it. Neither team got the picture question. An Ak47 Kalashnikov was difficult enough. When it was followed by Angkor Wat I had it. But the Fans failed, ever when given the outline of Cyprus and a Maple Leaf. Sorry , boys, but you should have guessed from the leaf that they all feature on National Flags.Good connection. The Fans made up for it though with unlucky numbers – good connection, and good answer. So the Neuros led by 3 to 1.

Round Two – what comes Fourth ?

The Neuros began well by predicting that Park was the first in a sequence of gears on an automatic car, and getting Drive from 2 clue. That’s good playing, and another fine connection. The Fans had a really hard connection. They did actually figure out what the connection was – Dewey Decimal classifications, but failed to predict that Social Sciences would be 4th. The Neuros were definitely on the right lines with the picture question – a radio and a microwave oven saw them correctly identify types of wave radiation, but neither team correctly predicted that visible light would be 4th.Hard lines. Now, my claim to fame from tonight’s show. I correctly predicted that if 1 was Johanssen, then 4th would be Clay – consecutive world heavyweight champions. The Fans took a little longer, but they had it from 2. Given Coral , Arabian and south China, the Neuros thought that they were seas progressively getting larger. They were actually decreasing in size – but since they said the Med they had the right answer anyway. If you can’t be good, then lucky will do. But the Neuros are pretty good as well as lucky. On a fiendish geometry question neither side scored and so the round ended with the Neuros leading by 8 points to 3.

The Connections Wall

Both teams floundered badly last week. I’m afraid that the Fans didn’t get any set tonight. They knew that there was a set of implements used in ball sports, but never quite got the right combination. Egyptian deities escaped them, although they could see a set of words linked by crack, a set of jumper necks, and the afore mentioned sporting implements. Then the Neuros found a set of things that come in links, but that was it for them. Hardly surprising that they didn’t find characters from Punch and Judy. Nor did they see a set of jugs – no innuendoes please – or terms for grand pianos. So for once it was the Fans that won the round, just. So the Neuros led by 10 to 6.

The Missing Vowels Round

In the battle between youth and experience in this particular series, whenever there’s been a head to head between the two in this round, the youthful ones have always won. We began with Biblical films. Neuros won by 3 to 1. Next came shipwrecked characters. They continue the good work, winning the next category, shipwrecked characters by 2 to 0. The next category, a distinctly tricky one, was headings on a profit and loss account. Again, the Neuros won by 2 to 0.

So overall the Neuros won by 17 to 7. Then an interesting announcement by Victoria. Apparently a welsh obscenity appeared during the vowels round. Blast ! I wish I knew more welsh ! Another young team take a rightful place in the next round. At the moment, Logan’s Run has nothing on Only Connect !

TV Watch - University Challenge

University Challenge Quarter Final Stage – qualification match 1 – st. John’s Oxford v. Manchester

If you’ve been a reader of LAM for any length of time, I hope that you’ll have come to view me as someone who , while I have my favourites like anyone, always tries to be impartial when reviewing a match. Well, stuff that for a game of soldiers today. With all due respect to a great St. John’s team, I was as partial as they come in my vocal support for Manchester. On paper there’s little or nothing to separate these two fine teams. In fact under the old system they would both have qualified with their emphatic victories last time out, and not have met until at least the semis. Well, the fact is that we do have a new system, so we have to all get on with it.

The first starter was highly impressive as Miss Parry of St. John’s identified the titles “The Fish of Maui” and another one which escapes me, as names being considered for Norht and South Island of New Zealand. Damn good interruption. They got two out of 3 bonuses on the number 17. Then our own Rach Cherryade – Neiman for the uninitiated – leapt in with a great interruption to identify the phrase ‘avant garde’as having the original meaning of the foremost division of an army. This time two bonuses out of three fell for Manchester. Nick Daunt then buzzed in for Manchester to identify www as the three letter abbreviation with the most syllables when read aloud. Again, very quick buzzing, great work. Manchester struggled a bit with a set of bonuses on the five good emperors of Rome, but the fact was that they were starting to nose ahead.
Regular LAM reader Jakob Whitfield took his first starter of the night. It wouldn’t be his last. He identified Shockley et. al as the inventor of the transistor. After a useful set of bonuses , St. Johns managed to identify the ingredients of a black velvet cocktail to get their next points on the board. Neither team could identify a heroic couple, so it was down to Jakob to identify the derivation of the word ‘chaplain’. Again, another terrific answer. Unusually Manchester failed to convey any of their set of bonuses, on supporting characters from Shakespeare plays.

Just coming up to the ten minute mark Mr. Townsend of St. John’s, he of the magnificent whiskers, buzzed in with a terrific answer, identifying aureads as the nymphs of mountains in ancient greek mythology. At the ten minute mark Manchester had a lead of 10 points, but St. John’s were on the way back.
Still, it was Jakob who buzzed in to correctly answer that sulphur is added to rubber in the process of vulcanisation. But if Jakob was playing a captain’s innings for Manchester, then so was Andrew Woodhuysen for St. John’s. The moment the word “Fettes” passed JP’s lips he struck like a coiled cobra to identify a list of school’s attended by British Prime Ministers. Then on another starter Rachel was unlucky to buzz in and answer “signature” when the correct term required was ‘attribute’. If it makes you feel any better , Rach, at this point I was bellowing “signature” at the telly myself.

On fifteen minutes, when another starter would have put Manchester through the psychologically important 100 point barrier, Miss Parry buzzed in to answer that alphabetically, zirconium is the last element of the periodic table. Every time Miss Parry buzzed in correctly tonight it happened at what seemed to me a crucial time in the game.
This was a tight game. Manchester, in the last third of the competition buzzed in with failed interruptions a couple of times. In such a tight match, this could be crucial. On 18 minutes all was square at 90 points apiece. St. John’s took back the lead for the first time in over half the game when captain Woodhuysen buzzed in to correctly answer that in the UK and USA K and G can stand for 1000. So despite all of their good work, Manchester had to watch St. John’s become the first of the two teams to pass the 100 barrier. Then, on 20 minutes, came what I fear will be remembered and debated for some time. Miss Parry rang to answer a bonus on a sum expressed in binary. She hesitated. Jeremy said “I’m sorry you lo-“ and then she answered correctly “14. “ Jeremy made a similar call in the first round match where Jenny Harris of Emmanuel made an equally late call, and it was allowed to stand. So at least he was being consistent with decisions made earlier in the series. You pays your money and takes your choice on this one. At the end of the day JP allowed it to stand, and his decision is the only one that matters. The bonuses were not taken.

Two starters went begging. Time was rapidly running into the bottom of the glass for Manchester. Cometh the hour, cometh the quizzer. Rach Cherryade, take a bow ! Her starter on the first letter of the letter h – a – took Manchester back into the game. Alas, no bonuses. Jakob Whitfield kept his nerve to buzz in with a correct identification of the Sermon on the Mount. No bonuses taken. Andrew Woodhuysen was keeping his nerve as well, as he buzzed in to identify the French writer Chretien de Troyes. Tom Whyman buzzed in. This put Manchester 20 points behind. Could they still do it ? Yes they could ! Jakob identified the Queen as the Lord of Man. All square. No time for another starter – any one bonus could do it ! It was just sheer bad luck that the set in question were what seemed to me to be obscure quotes from Francis Bacon. No bonuses. Cue the gong. All square at 140 apiece.

Neither team deserved this. Both had supplied some brilliant answers during the contest. Yet it all came down to this one question. Not exactly sudden death, since the team which don’t go through straight away still live to fight another battle. JP asks, the Viking settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows is situated on which Canadian island ? “Newfoundland !” I scream, hoping against hope that my efforts can somehow effect a match which was probably recorded weeks and weeks ago . It is to no avail. Oliver Chen, who has had a quiet match starter-wise buzzes in, and the game is over.

Congratulations St. Johns. You are a fine team, and you thoroughly deserve your place in the semis. But Manchester, you too are a fine team, and you deserve a place in the semis too. I still think that there’s room for a Cherryade in the semis.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

JP introduced Manchester tonight by saying that their ability to text the word ‘pint’ was surely reassuring to taxpayers everywhere.
When giving a set of bonuses on famous Belgians, after Maurice Maeterlinck he sniffed “Hmm, not very famous these Belgians after all. “
When captain woodhuysen asked Oliver Chen one of the binary bonuses
“Oliver, come on, I need an answer” , JP, with admittedly a smile on his face, interjected with “You need an answer ! We all need an answer !” in atone of voice not a million miles removed from that of rabbi turned stand up comedian Jackie Mason.

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

Mark Twain was born in Missouri . Why on earth did I think he was born in Mississippi ?

Brain of Britain - The Grand Final

This time last year I wrote about Geoff Thomas' victory in the last grand final, a victory which put him into the ranks of the great ones who managed to achieve the Mastermind/Brain of Britain double. I was already intending to apply for the latest series even then, but I little thought that I would be one of the contestants in the next grand final. If you listened then you'll know that I fell considerably short of emulating Geoff's achievement, but then that was always likely to happen, given the calibre of the other finalists. As has become traditional, with your indulgence I will share my thoughts about the final, which I wrote the evening after the final was recorded : -

The Final

After the two semi finals were recorded Paul Bajoria, the producer, announced the line up for the final. The four semi-final winners were: -


Ian Bayley
David Clark – me
Rob Hannah
Anne Hegerty

This was quite some food for thought. The only thing I had with which to make a comparison was my Mastermind Final. Then, though, I didn’t know who else was in the final until the actual day of the final itself. Then when I did meet them, I didn’t actually already know any of them before.

This time, I already knew of my three fellow finalists, and more than that, I had met all of them before, and started to get to know each of them to a greater or lesser extent. More than that, I knew about each of them by reputation as well. And believe me, each of them needed to be taken seriously, and not just because they had reached this final, either.

Rob I knew because we posted on the same internet forum, and we had met at the Cardiff Grand Prix. He tended to sell himself short , because he’s younger, and has less experience than the rest of us. Still, he is , in my opinion, one of the top young quizzers in the country, and he sets some wonderful quizzes himself. Rob had won two terrific if close victories in his first round and his semi final, In the heat he had won on a tie break, buzzing in like lightning to take the win by a point. Then in the semi he had been behind the opposition throughout the whole contest, although never trailing by more than one or two points, but a super last round gave him the win by a short head.

Ian I knew by reputation before I ever met him in the flesh. A top 5 ranked quizzer nationally, he had appeared in the first series of “Are You An Egghead ?” and been a key member of the Crossworders, the first ever winners of BBC’s fiendish quiz “Only Connect”. He had been a previous finalist on Brain of Britain, and in 2009 was the runner up in the Grand Final of Mastermind. His Brain of Britain first round heat had been recorded before mine, and he had scored an incredible 33 points. His semi final had been closer. For reasons best known to themselves the production team had put the next two highest scorers in the first round into Ian’s semi final, and although he led for pretty much all of the way, he only won by a point.

Anne I first met when she beat me in the quarter final of “Are You An Egghead ? “ She had been on the circuit for a while, having reached the semi finals of BoB before, and also having appeared in Mastermind, but this year had very much been a breakthrough season for her, which had seen her achieve great results in Grand Prix meetings, and reach the semi final of “Are You An Egghead ? “ Anne had a comfortable win in her first round match, and then in her semi final she had scored the highest in the semis, beating the much fancied David Edwards, the man who had beaten her in the semi final of “Are You An Egghead ? “ Small world.

As for me, I’m probably more of a pub quizzer, and much less of a Grand Prix regular than the other three. I often play in up to 3 pub quizzes a week, and at the time of writing I’ve only ever taken part in 2 Grands Prix. My greatest quiz achievement was winning Mastermind in 2007/8. I won my first heat by a couple of points, and my semi final a bit more comfortably, with the second highest score of the semis.

We had 5 or 6 weeks between semi and final, and I would like to say that I worked hard to prepare for the final. I did do some quiz book work, but I’m afraid I didn’t obsess over it as I had with Mastermind. I tried to do some work on my weakest areas, but there are too many of these to cover in a few weeks in anything but the most cursory fashion.

I’m very good at taking an ostrich like , head in the sand approach to a big event like the final of Brain of Britain. I manage to put it into a corner of my mind that is dusty and neglected, and almost forget about it until the time comes. Well, the time came on the night before the final, as I drove to London. Not that I didn’t have some other things on my mind as well. The snow had started to fall the week after my semi was recorded, and now, several weeks later, it was still falling, and although the road was clear for this out journey, there was no guarantee that I was going to be able to make it home again the night after. Still, much as worrying about this proved a useful sidetrack, my thoughts kept coming back to what I expected, and what I wanted of myself.

Winning would be amazing. But the way I looked on it was that my Mastermind win had been so miraculous, well, it was to me anyway, that to expect anything like it to ever happen again was just being downright greedy. Probably a little unrealistic as well. As I drove down I was well aware that up to that time only 5 people had won both Mastermind and Brain of Britain, although many had tried, and some had come close. So while I would love to win, I’d settle for fourth, and that was probably a lot more likely than winning. In my heart of hearts, though, I did have a target. I have two good quizzing friends who both made it to the final of Brain of Britain in the past, and both of them ended up as runner up. So if I could at least equal their achievement, then at least I could derive some satisfaction from that achievement even if I couldn’t win the whole thing.
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In each of the three rounds we were all asked to present ourselves at Broadcasting House for 6:15. As usual, we were a bit early, Mum, Tony and me, and as usual I wasn’t the first competitor there. Rob Hannah had already arrived, complete with winter cold, and so we chatted for a while. In fairly short order Ann and Ian arrived too, and so we waited in the foyer. And waited. For some reason we were kept waiting a bit longer than usual, but eventually we were met, and guided in to the radio theatre.

I really like the radio theatre. Its big enough to get a good sized audience in it, yet it still feels like a cosy and rather intimate venue. As we were being walked down, we warned that Paul, the producer, would probably ask us if we’d mind doing the warm up in front of the audience, instead of before they came in, so that they could get a bit more value for their money. I know what he meant, but then again, I thought the tickets were free anyway ! so as soon as we entered the auditorium I asked Paul,
“I’ve got a suggestion – would you like us to do the warm up in front of the audience ? “ Well, it raised a small laugh, all gratefully received on the build up to a big event like this.

Before the audience were shown in I did take a close look at the prize. The winner of Brain of Britain each year gets a handsome silver salver , engraved with the words Brain of Britain champion – and the year. Very nice it was too. Deep in my hearts of hearts I had a kind of certainty that I wouldn’t be getting a chance to have that close a look at it later, since while one of the others might have an off day, the chances of all three having a very bad day, and me having a very good day were frankly laughable. In the Mastermind Final we were never given a glimpse of the trophy until the contest was over.

Paul went over the rules again, then invited us to take our places on stage as the audience came in. What an audience it was too. There weren’t many empty seats in the heats or semis, but for the final every seat in the house was taken, and this included the balcony, which had never been needed for any of the other shows in the series. Introductions were made, and the warm up began.



You will have to forgive me for this, but the whole show went by so quickly that my impressions are incomplete, and some of the way I remember it even now, just a couple of days later, may be inaccurate. So, having said that, this is what I can recall. Firstly, that Ian was fearsome in the warm up , on his own questions, and on the buzzer too. I think I may actually have had two or three in a row on my own. Alas, I didn’t manage this at any other time during the show. Rob seemed a bit under the weather, and Anne looked to be on good form too.

In the first couple of rounds Ian blazed off to a lead, with Anne in hot pursuit Rob and I trailing. Round after round I could answer my first question easily enough, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by the second. Even when I knew the answer to other people’s questions it wasn’t much more than a couple of times that I managed to beat Ian to the buzzer.

By the interval for the listener’s questions Rob was trailing, I only had a point more, Anne was ahead of the pair of us, and Ian already had one hand on the trophy. The listener’s questions were set by reigning champion Geoff Thomas.

In the second half Rob and I started clawing our way back towards Anne, with Ian sailing blithely on, taking at least two full sets of 5 and bonuses. Ian was unstoppable , and was never going to be beaten in this show. Its one of the features of Brain of Britain that there can be nights when you’re out with the washing on your own questions, but you know you would have done better with the set that’s just gone. So it was in the final. I wouldn’t have won with Ian’s questions, but at least my score would have been quite a bit higher. But that’s the nature of the game. Luck tends to balance itself out throughout a series. Questions fell for me in the semis, and they didn’t in the final.

Because of the speed with which we whipped through the rounds, it was actually decided to put an extra round in. It made no difference to the destination of the title, since Ian couldn’t be caught. However, Anne was only a point ahead of me, and two or three points in front of Rob. Had the contest ended there she would have been outright runner up. This actually made me perk up a bit for the first time in the contest. I pulled myself up level with her, and then Rob, on a last buzzer question, pulled himself level with the pair of us ! So the final scores, in the Final of Brain of Britain 2010, was Ian Bayley 32, and myself, Rob and Anne all tied on 9.

Many, many congratulations to Ian. If you think of his incredible performance in the first round, and the fact that he won the toughest of the semi finals, then you have to concede that he is a most worthy champion, and was the player of the series. You cannot argue with class like that.

- Well, its a couple of weeks since the final was recorded. I wish I could have put up a bit of a better performance, but it didn't happen.I don't think abyone can argue that while other contestants put in some excellent individual performances during the series, Anne's semi final comes to mind - Ian was the outstanding competitor during this series. I don't think it would have made the slightest bit of difference whichever questions he had been given, he was simply unbeatable. which is a good thing for me, since it means that I'm not sitting here thinking - if only-. There's no if only - coming joint runner-up was absolutely the best that I could do, and sharing that distinction with my friends Rob and Anne makes the pleasure even greater.

I began this post with a nod to the MM/BoB double. Ian, you will recall, was runner-up in last year's Mastermind. Without wishing to bring down the curse of the Clark sofa upon him, I think we can look forward to his reappearence on MM some time in the near future, and it would be a very brave person who would bet against him completing the double when he does. Congratulations again , Ian. You're a great quizzer, and it ws an honour to play a bit-part in such a fantastic performance.