News Questions

News 3rd March 2012

Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?

1) Scott Williams
2) Mark McCammon
3) William Lindesay
4) Anthony Gerrard
5) Ben Turner
6) Tommy Karpency
7) Chandra Bahadur Dangi
8) Octavia Spencer
9) Michael Hazanavicus
10) Terry and Orlagh George
11) Wang Shu Wan
12) Sue Akers
13) Paul Conroy
14) Baroness Tonge
15) Len McCluskey
16) Geordie Greig
17) Diary of a Wimpy Kid
18) Raisa
19) Jonathan Spelman
20) John Kafunda and Reece Donovan

In Other News

1) What will be the closing time for pubs during the Golden Jubilee Weekend ?
2) Which former Home Secretary last week criticized the Labour leadership ?
3) The creator of which children’s cartoon series was accused of racism and detained in an airport ?
4) Who said that she preferred high heels to sex because they last longer ?
5) How many Oscars did “The Artist “ win ?
6) Whose last home was demolished last week ?
7) Who was allowed to go home last week after a laparoscopy ?
8) Which team came back to beat Spurs 5 – 2 last week
9) Who played his 900th first team game last week ?
10) Who won his first Oscar at the age of 82 last week ?
11) Who received a record breaking 9 Golden Raspberry “Razzie” nominations last week ?
12) According to a consumer survey which is Britain’s number 1 superbrand ?
13) Who confessed to making dead wrong investments ?
14) Name the sister ship of the Costa Concordia which caught fire last week ?
15) Whom did Julia Gillard defeat in last week’s Australian Labour party leadership election ?
16) St. Paul’s protestors were finally evicted after which period of time ?
17) A fire broke out at a biofuel power station where last week ?
18) What reappeared on London Streets last week ?
19) Wales’ international rugby ranking last week climbed above England’s to which position ?
20) The world’s oldest operational nuclear power station closed last week . Where ?
21) Which opera was booed in the Royal Opera House last week, and why ?
22) A new short story in French by which author is to be published ?
23) Wales lost a football friendly last week to which country ?
24) In which two states did Mitt Romney win narrow victories last week ?
25) Who pulled out of an interview on “Loose Women” after the start of the show ?
26) How old was Davy Jones when he passed away last week ?
27) Whose childhood homes were given grade 2 listing last week ?
28) Which town’s spa water has been graded unfit for human consumption ?
29) Who is leaving BBC Breakfast over a refusal to move to Salford ?
30) What was the final score in the England v. Holland friendly ?
31) Which world governing body handed Derek Chisora an indefinite suspension ?
32) In a survey who was rated the most influential Brit on Twitter ?
33) 12,000 post offices were affected by what last week ?
34) Who will sing Royaume Uni’s Eurovision entry this year ?
35) The UK evacuated all its diplomats from where ?
36) Where did the world’s tallest communication tower open last week ?
37) Which singer said that he believed that the Falklands really belong to Argentina ?
38) Ryan Giggs faced a bill of how much after unsuccessfully suing the Sun for invasion of privacy ?
39) Which was revealed to be the richest university in the UK ?
40) Which two league clubs have been banned from the transfer market ?
41) Where did Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic ?

Answers to News Questions

Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?

1. Abdulaziz A-Hiiji
2. Jean Claude Baumgartner
3. Christian Wulff
4. Johan-Friso of the Netherlands
5. Mervyn Westfield
6. The Death of Leon Klinghoffer
7. Hoy Hill
8. Schmallenberg Virus
9. Stephen Farrow
10. Heidi Thomas
11. Petr Skyllberg
12. LOCOG
13. Skye Gyngell
14. Zach Avery
15. Peter Rippington
16. Derek Thompson
17. June Hautot
18. Ed Sheeran
19. Madamoiselle
20. Edinburgh Woollen Mills
21. Marie Colvin
22. Nikki Sinclare
23. Eric Joyce
24. Emma Harrison
25. Christopher Tappin


In Other News

1. Which MP asked the official portrait painter to paint him looking a little taller ?
2. Heston Blumenthal will be making hot cross buns for Waitrose using which flavor ?
3. Which European politician admitted that David Cameron was right to veto the Euro Treaty ?
4. In which two team events did GB win gold medals in the Olympic Velodrome test event ?
5. Administrators were called in to which film studios last week ?
6. Which team knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup ?
7. Who is the new manager of Leeds Utd ?
8. Which former cabinet minister in the Heath Government passed away last week ?
9. Which two events at the Olympic test event were won by Sir Chris Hoy ?
10. Which lowly team drew in the FA Cup with Spurs last week ?
11. Who won the Welsh Open Snooker title ?
12. The first test tube what was created last week ?
13. What did a survey reveal to be the healthiest city in the UK last week ?
14. Team which scored 3 own goals v. Liverpool in FA Cup last week ?
15. What went wrong with the Brighton half Marathon ?
16. Who called the BBC a “Declining Empire “ ?
17. Which filesharing website has been declared illegal in the UK ?
18. Which country announced it will be officially free of polio by next year ?
19. Which boxer is facing an enquiry over his admission that he has gone easy on opponents in fights in order to help his family win bets ?
20. Which BBC set will be used as temporary housing ?
21. Who won the Brits for Best Female and Best Album ?
22. Who announced profits of £2.4 billion ?
23. Which comedian passed away aged 85 ?
24. To whom did Adele gesture with her middle finger when her acceptance speech at the Brits was cut short ?
25. ITV news apologized last week for using which word during a report ?
26. Man City beat which team 4 – 0 in the Europa League ?
27. Which popular TV presenter was hurt when she fell from a horse last week ?
28. The US Supreme Court rejected whose appeal against his murder conviction last week ?
29. An inquest into whose death finally opened in Australia last week ?
30. JK Rowling announced that she has signed a deal to write what ?
31. Who plays the Queen in a new TV drama based on the Michael Fagan intrusion incident in the 80s ?
32. Where did the new Blue Peter garden open last week ?
33. Who opened it officially ?
34. Man Utd were beaten 2 – 1 by which team in the Europa League ?
35. Which university’s Conservative association has been stripped of its recognition over an unpaid bill ?
36. Which airline asked a kidney patient to pay for a seat for his dialysis machine ?

Answers

Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?

1. London based oil sheikh accused of links with 9/11 terrorists
2. Convicted of pocketing £230,000 of money from investors including Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones
3. President of Germany who resigned over corruption scandal
4. Prince of the Netherlands critically injured in an avalanche while skiing
5. Former Essex bowler convicted of deliberately bowling badly for financial gain
6. Controversial English national Opera production based on hijacking of the Achille Lauro
7. Nickname of public screen to be erected outside Olympic Stadium
8. So called ‘deformed lamb ‘ virus
9. Arrested in connection with the John Suddarts murder
10. Writer of popular “Call the Midwife” TV series
11. Swedish man who survived two months being trapped in his snow bound car.
12. Olympics organizing committee selling off more tickets
13. Chef who erased her own Michelin star – claiming that it raised customers’ expectations too high.
14. 5 year old boy in the papers for being convinced that he is a girl
15. Teacher who was tragically killed in the bus crash
16. Driver accused of falling asleep at the wheel, causing the crash
17. 75 year old woman who harangues Andrew Lansley
18. Winner of Best Male Artist and Best Breakthrough Act at the Brits
19. Term which has now been banned in France
20. Company that bought Peacocks out of Administration
21. Sunday Times journalist tragically killed in shelling of Homs in Syria
22. MEP arrested over expenses fraud allegations
23. Labour MP arrested for alleged assault in House of Commons bar
24. Government ‘families champion’ quit over fraud allegations.
25. British retired businessman extradited to USA over arms to Iran allegations

In Other News

1. Speaker John Bercow
2. Earl Grey
3. Sarkozy
4. Women’s Team Sprint – Women’s Team Pursuit
5. Twickenham
6. Sunderland
7. Neil Warnock
8. Robert Carr
9. Men’s Sprint – Men’s Keirin
10. Stevenage
11. Ding Junhui
12. Hamburger
13. Bristol
14. Brighton and Hove Albion
15. It had been wrongly measured out and turned out to be about 300 metres too long
16. Jeremy Paxman
17. Pirate Bay
18. Polio
19. Carl, Froch
20. Waterloo Road
21. Adele
22. Centica
23. Frank Carson
24. James Corden
25. Coloured
26. Porto
27. Lorraine Kelly
28. Phil Spector
29. Azaria Chamberlain – the ‘dingo baby’
30. A novel for adults
31. Emma Thompson
32. Media City Salford
33. The Princess Royal
34. Ajax
35. Oxford University
36. Easyjet

Mastermind - Round One - Heat 20

I may be wrong, but I believe heat 20 saw the end of the double headers. Shame really, I’ve enjoyed these hour long questionfests. I picked up some points on each of the specialist rounds in heat 20, although the first of these – the Coast to Coast Walk, provided me with my lowest score of just one. – Coast to Coast Walk – St. Bee’s Head to Robin Hood Bay - I thought to myself. Thankfully that was enough to bring an answer to the first question. Contender Ruth Green obviously knows this subject extremely well – she wasn’t far off a perfect round , and her 15 and 1 pass certainly laid down the gauntlet. Game on.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Phil Short for answering on Pop Music of the 1980s. Now, my detailed knowledge of pop music pretty much ended around 1987, but the 10 years or so up to then, that I know a little about. Thankfully the vast majority of these questions were about 80 – 87, and I whacked in my highest SS score of the evening with 12. Ah, Strawberry Switchblade – we won’t see their like again. Phil also scored 12 – although not exactly the same 12 that I managed. A perfectly good SS score, but a deficit of 3 points to make up was certainly food for thought.

Danielle Thom answered questions on the satirical works of William Hogarth. Now, as it happened my great great great great grandfather Philip Dawe was a cartoonist, artist, publisher and engraver who was taught by William Hogarth. Not that you need to know that. What you do need to know is that Danielle managed a good 13 . As for me, I managed 4 – mind you one of these points was scored by answering “Gin Lane” to every question until it proved to be the right answer.

I didn’t expect to score many points on the Life and Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Thankfully there were 4 which were easy enough to give me points , on The Lark Ascending and Scott of the Antarctic to name a couple of them. As for contender David Love, well I venture to say he had done considerably more than just checked out Vaughan Williams’ Wikipedia page ( excellent though that may well be ). David scored a perfect 16 from 16, the finest SS round of the whole evening.

Phil Short returned to the chair. He gave it a lash, but he did struggle a little. It didn’t matter, since he made it through the 20 point barrier into respectability and a total that’s nothing to be ashamed off. In fact his 22 is only 2 points lower than the winning total of the previous heat. Phil was still in the lead by the end of Danielle’s GK round, although this was only on pass countback. Danielle herself didn’t quite manage to reach double figures, but she too managed to finish with 22. Ruth Green started her GK round very well and confidently, as so many contenders do, but became becalmed , and struggled to get any momentum back in her round. Nonetheless she was three points ahead of Phil after the SS rounds, and two points of this lead were still intact after her round. If I’m honest, I felt that we were unlikely to see two shows in a row won with a score of 24, and within a minute of David Love’s round it looked fairly obvious that he was going to beat the score. In fact, I thought that his GK round was easily the best of the night. He scored a good 14, and had some very good answers along the way. I’ve seen faster rounds, but this was good – he never lost his focus throughout the round. This brought the just reward in the form of a fine total of 30. For the record my scores on the GK rounds were , in the order they were asked – 19, 18, 17 and 18.

The Details

Ruth Green	The Coast to Coast Walk	15 - 1	9 - 4	24 – 4
Phil Short	Pop Music of the 1980s	12 - 0	10 - 2	22 – 2
Danielle Thom	Satirical Works of William Hogarth	13 - 1	9 - 4	22 – 5
David Lowe	Life and Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams	16 - 0	14 - 4	30 - 4

Mastermind - First Round - Heat 19

Heat 19 saw what I believe was a first for Mastermind. More about that shortly. I guess that I’d better state for the record that I couldn’t find time to take the Wiki challenge again this week, and so once again my SS scores were purely raw scores without prep. OK, with the bit of housekeeping taken care of, then let’s look at the show.

Andy Bowman kicked off with the TV series Porridge. I’ve loved a huge amount of the work of Clement and LaFrenais, and can watch these shows again and again. In fact I have done just that, and so I won’t lie, I fancied my chances. Not that this was an easy, easy set, but Andy did very well with 14 correct answers. As for me, I was extremely pleased with my own 11 points.

As Mary Bucknall, the second contender tonight, made her way to the chair, John H. explained that she is profoundly deaf, and will therefore be shown each question to read it off the monitor as the same time as he read the question out. I may be wrong, but I believe that this may be the first time that this has happened on Mastermind. Mary’s subject again promised a decent haul of points for me. Allow me to explain. Back in 2010, I was the stand in for the final of Champion of Champions, and my specialist subject actually was The Daughters of Queen Victoria. The course of my preparation naturally enough involved picking up a fair amount of information about the sons. Mary's subject was The Family of Queen Victoria, and the questions were exclusively about her sons and daughters. If you’d researched this subject, then the questions were very fair. Mary Bucknall certainly felt so – she scored a perfect 13 from 13. A fine performance. As for me – I so nearly had a perfect round myself. I took 12, but couldn’t remember in which country an attempted assassination of Prince Alfred took place.

If you thought that you’ve seen third contender before, well, you’re right. David Buckle last appeared in the 2010 series, and contested the final which was won by Jesse Honey. Clearly the favourite to win this heat. David answered on the first of this heat’s two specialist subjects on which I failed to score a single point. Not so David. He whacked in a seemingly effortless 14, to join Andy at the top of the leaderboard. Not only that, but David had managed to do so without passing. Job done.

Last contender of this heat was Rebecca Ridolfo. Her subject was the Life and Times of Eliza Lynch , or Eliza Who , as she was hailed from the Clark sofa. Purely my own ignorance – Eliza Lynch was obviously a very interesting character, the partner of the first president of Paraguay. So I didn’t get any points there anyway. Rebecca, though scored 12, a good return on two minutes’ investment, and she could be forgiven for being a little disappointed with the fact that a decent score like this was only good enough for 4th place at the halfway stage. Mind you, only 2 points separated all 4 contenders, so it really was anybody’s game.

I had a bit of mixed fortunes myself on tonight’s sets of GK. There wasn’t a huge amount in it, but my average score for the next heat on GK was slightly higher than my average for this first one. That doesn’t mean anything. I do believe that to an extent your score at home in a GK round is dictated by how quickly the contender can actually answer themselves. Rebecca’s round was the one in this show in which I gained my highest score of 19. Rebecca didn’t manage this, but she did manage double figures, with 10. She picked off what she knew throughout the round, and by no means disgraced herself. 22 isn’t a massive score, but it’s a perfectly respectable one.

In pretty much the same way that Rebecca had gone about her business, so did Mary. Nice and steady , not really rushing, and making sure that she answered the ones she knew correctly. I did slightly less well with Mary’s round than with Rebecca’s, scoring 17. Still, she earned a useful 11 for 23. At this stage I have to say that I felt it was unlikely that this lead would see her through to the end of the show.

Andy Bowman started like an express train. He picked off the first four or five, and looked set to reach the total with a lot of time to spare. Then he got one wrong, and the wind went completely out of his sails. If you start off very quickly, and can maintain your momentum, then you can post an amazing score. The trouble is that if you lose that momentum , maybe by starting to dwell on a question you answered wrongly, then you can find yourself being sucked beyond the event horizon of a pass spiral. Andy leveled out at 7 points, which took his total to 21. I took 16 myself.

Only David remained, then. 10 and no passes would see him safely there. By way of comparison, in David’s first round heat in 2010 he scored 12 points off a 2 minute GK round. He started really well. However his misfortune was to draw what I felt was a more difficult round than the others of the show- although I’m not saying that the round was massively more difficult than the others, only that the question combination suited me less than the others. David was getting closer to the total needed, but the end of the round was approaching. In the end he needed the last question to bring it to a pass countback, and sadly didn’t get it. Very hard lines. But well done to Mary Bucknall. Certainly an exciting show.

The Details

Andy Barrow	Porridge	14 - 1	7 - 5	21 – 6
Mary Bucknall	Queen Victoria’s Family	13 - 0	11 - 3	24 – 4
David Buckle	The Golfing Stories of P.G.Wodehouse	14 - 0	9 - 1	23 – 1
Rebecca Ridolfo	The Life and Times of Eliza Lynch	12 - 2	10 - 5	22 – 7

Another website to waste time happily with . . .

Cleverdicks has spawned it's own addictive online game, on the show's website. You might want to check it out here : -

Cleverdicks Online Game

Brain of Britain - Semi Final 4

The final semi final of Brain of Britain saw the return of my friend Rob Merrill. I can vouch that he’s a great quizzer, but would even that be enough to overcome the curse of the Clark sofa ? In about half an hour, we’d all know. The full line up was –
Ian Banks – Ian had been runner up in his heat with a score of 12.
Roman Dubowski – Roman had one of the highest scores in the whole of the first round, when he won the BoB equivalent of this year’s Group of Death. On paper something of a favourite.
Robert Merrill – Rob sounded good winning his heat with 19.
Andrew Newton – Andrew was one of the youngest BoB semi finalists. he had won his own heat with 12.

Ian was tripped up by a question about pound cake. Its name comes from the traditional recipe which called for equal amounts – pounds of several ingredients. Roman kicked off with an good answer, but then fell down on solar wind. Rob knew that the answer was blowing in the same , and kicked off with a bonus. 2 of his own followed, but he didn’t know that Joseph Paxton had earned his spurs designing greenhouses for Chatsworth . Roman had that. Roman also had a bonus on Andrew’s second question , when he knew that Van Gogh had briefly been a teacher in England in the 1870s.

Round 2 is very early for a key moment in the quiz, but that’s exactly what we had. Ian didn’t know that Queen Margaret University is in Edinburgh – Roman did. Nobody knew about a term referring to freckles for Roman’s first. It’s funny, but I thought that freckles were lentignes. Rob took a great set of five. I would have had his first four, but I didn’t know that York Minster has its own protective police force. That 6 point boost put Rob into the driving seat, and gave the others something to think about. Nobody knew Andrew’s first, that molecule literally translates as small mass. So after the quiet opening of round one, Rob now had a serious lead with 9 points to Roman’s 5.

Ian didn’t know that it was rubber that Brits cultivated in India and Malaysia. Rob took a bonus. Roman took his first, but guessed that Vassari was talking about Michaelangelo when he was in fact talking about one of the other Ninja Turtles – Leonardo. Andrew took a bonus there. Robert couldn’t capitalise, not knowing that it was the Toltecs who introduced the worship of Quetzalcoatl to Mexico. The Mayans’ feathered serpent god was Kulkulcan, or something like that, I thought. Nobody knew Andrew’s question, about a term relating to pregnancy. Rather surprisingly nobody chanced their arm with the answer nirvana to the question about which Buddhist and Hindu term comes from the Sanskrit for blown out or extinguished. Roman handed Rob a bonus when he failed to answer that it was The Overlanders who had a UK number 1 with Michelle. Rob didn’t know the term kursaal – neither did I, but Ian took a good bonus there. Andrew failed on a gettable question about the R101, and Rob was in for another bonus. At the Beat the Brains interval Rob had 12, and looked halfway home.

Two Beat the Brains questions about the US Civil War followed. The brains knew the first, that the Pinkerton agency supplied information to the Federal government, but they didn’t know that the Springfield armaments factory created the assembly line.

Back to the serious business of the show, and Roman took a bonus from Ian’s first, knowing that Kenneth Macmillan choreographed a number of ballets including Romeo and Juliet. He then took two of his own to make life interesting for Rob, before he failed on diaphoresis. Nobody knew that this refers to sweating. Rob didn’t know that the condition myxoedema refers to a failure of the thyroid gland- another Bonus for Roman. In fact Roman took a clean sweep of bonuses. Andrew took his first two , but it was Roman who recognised a snatch of Das Rheingold which accompanied the Gods’ entry to Valhalla.

The gap down to three points, neither of the leaders managed a bonus on Ian’s first question – which letter is used to refer to Planck’s Constant. Andrew knew it was h. Roman took his first two, but failed on popular culture. I bet it was a real race for the buzzer when he failed to name Homer Simpson’s tipple of choice, and the race was won by Rob. Who went on to take his own first two, but didn’t know one about W.H. Auden. So Roman took it. I was so excited I lost track of what happened on Andrew’s go, but like Planck, Rob’s lead was holding constant.

In round 7 nobody knew Ian’s first , that the organ stop called clarabella produces the sound of a flute. Roman dropped the gettable oktar for his first – Rob knew that it refers to cloud cover. He took his own first, but nobody knew his second – that Andrew Timothy was the announcer for later series of the Goon Show. If you say so. Andrew was tripped up by the Salisbury Doctrine – nobody quite knew that it is the convention that Lords will not hold up the progress of legislation that has been promised in a government manifesto. With Rob up to 18, Roman needed a full set and a bit of luck. Ian had none of this commodity himself, being asked which firm have a royal warrant to supply corsets to the Queen. Nobody knew Rigby and Peller – although more than a titter was raised by Andrew’s suggestion of Ann Summers. Roman took two, but nobody knew that when a doctor writes PRN on a prescription it means take when required. Rob now just required to see out the match.He took his first, but failed on the Emperor Frederick III, father of Kaiser Bill. He had the last word though, when Andrew failed to answer that a Barbary ape is a macaque.

Well done Rob ! South Wales – and the Aberavon Rugby Club Thursday night gang are very proud of you . A fine performance, in which you had looked like a winner throughout, shattering the curse on the way.

Final Scores

Ian Banks 4
Roman Dubowski 16
Robert Merrill 20
Andrew Newton 7

Semi Final scores

Ray Ward – 13
Ian Clark – 13 ( tie break )
Rob Milnes – 20
Robert Merrill - 20

Cleverdicks

I’m greatly indebted to William Barrett. My current cable TV package doesn’t include Sky Atlantic, but William provided me with the Youtube link so that I could watch the whole of the first episode of Cleverdicks in its entirety.

It’s fair to say that I expected quite a lot from this show, judging by some of the pre publicity, and knowing some of the excellent people involved with it. Was I disappointed, or did it live up to expectations ?

The format of the show is deceptively simple. We began with 4 contestants in round one. Now, remember that this show, unlike many, actively encouraged really good quizzers to take part. They certainly had some in this show. I can’t vouch for Steve or Susan personally, but Steve was certainly no slouch. It was difficult to judge with Susan because she wasn’t really around long enough for me to tell, losing in the first round. David and Rob, though, I can definitely vouch for. David Stainer is captain of the all conquering Crossworders, champions of champions of champions on Only Connect. He is also one of the most highly ranked quizzers in the whole of the UK. As for Rob Hannah, well, Rob is a fellow Brain of Britain runner up, quiz setter, and all round good egg – as is David of course. In the first round, players took it in turns to give answers based on a series of up to five clues. The fewer clues needed, the more points scored. If they could get the answer from the first clue, then as well as the points they would also be awarded the dubious prize of being hailed by Ann Widdecombe with the words “Cleverdick. “ The player with the lowest score at the end of the round was out. For the record, David managed a mind boggling 44 on this round, and was awarded more ‘cleverdicks’ than you could shake a stick at.

So to the second round. This was a buzzer round. A clue appeared, and the first person to buzz in with the correct answer was awarded points, and a try at 3 supplementary questions. Any they missed could go for a bonus. If they got all three right, then yes, they were awarded with yet another of Ann W’s cleverdicks. The player with the least points at the end of the round was eliminated. Here David’s vast knowledge wasn’t enough to get him through, since he was beaten by the superior buzzing of and particularly of Rob. Hard lines, that.

The third round was a head to head. Both players took turns to answer single clue questions.Each question dropped in a box on the screen between the two players. If you got it right, then the wee box holding the question dropped off the screen. If not, then another one dropped down on top, and they began to pile up on top of each other. Once your pile of unanswered questions reached a certain line, then you were out . Sound complicated ? Not really. Rob clearly had the better of this exchange, and progressed to the final round.

Winning the show, Rob had earned the right to appear in the next show, and also to try to earn some money – a rolling jackpot starting off, I believe, on £2000. This was a variation on the previous game, with the exception that Rob was allowed to drop two question boxes he couldn’t answer. In order to get the money, he had to last a certain amount of time before his pile reached the line. Not easy by the sound of it, and not at all easy as it turned out. Still, he did live to fight on another day.

So what’s the verdict ? I found this a genuinely interesting show. It’s a remarkable hybrid. Really and truly it’s a gameshow. Let me qualify that remark. All quiz shows are gameshows, but some are more gamey than others. What I tend to think of as the more ‘pure’ quizzes – MM – UC – 15 to 1 – BoB to name 4 really don’t use any huge variety of particularly gimmicky rounds at all. “Cleverdicks” does – 4 of them. If they used a set of usual bog standard TV quiz questions instead, then this show would look completely at home in the Saturday evening lottery quiz spot, occupied at times by In It To Win It et al. Where you’ll never see a really good quizzer in a month of Sundays. Yet “Cleverdicks” doesn’t use bog standard gameshow questions. Cleverdicks uses interesting and difficult questions, that make you think, and I thought they had good play along potential for the serious quizzer. Whether they will prove to be of enough interest to the average viewer, that I wouldn’t presume to say. The only other show I can think of which combines different round formats in this way with genuinely interesting and testing questions is “Only Connect”. Not that I’m saying “Cleverdicks” is on a par with OC. I did like it, though. For one thing it’s refreshing to see a show where great quizzers are really tested like this.

Which is not to say that it’s by any means perfect – as we always say, no quiz show is, although 15 to 1 came close. For one thing there’s quite a lot of fat which can be trimmed off this joint. I fast forwarded, for want of a better word, through a lot of stuff, and I think you could easily bring this 45 minute show in at around half an hour, and it might be all the better for it. I know it’s a game show, and a ‘let’s meet the contestants’ section seems to be obligatory, but it wasn’t really necessary at all. “What makes you a cleverdick ? “ Ann W. was forced to ask, amongst other things. Oh please. This sort of thing makes me cringe. It does nothing for me or the majority of viewers, I would imagine, and I’m sure it does nothing for the contestants either, who, if they are anything like me, would far rather just get on with the show. I’m not saying that the whole show needs be stuffily formal and po faced, but come on – by the very nature of the questions asked on the show you are probably aiming for a slightly more mature audience who should be able to handle doing without this sort of guff. Even if you’re not aiming for that audience, I’ll lay odds you’ll get it. Is it really necessary to have Ann W. trill “CleeeverDICK!” every time someone answers a question on the first clue ? It may be a gimmick, but to be honest it’s not necessary, and it’s irritating after a while.

It’s a shame about this flaw too, since I was surprised at just what a competent job Ann Widdecombe did. I did worry when I heard that she would be fronting the show that we would be treated to some producer’s idea of her ‘personality’ – an uber Anne Robinson, spreading scorn and derision in all angles. Yes, I know that Ann W. is a highly intelligent person, more than capable of standing up for herself, and unlikely to be forced into doing anything she didn’t want to, but then so is Anne Robinson. Instead we got what one suspects is something close to how Miss Widdecombe really is in person, slightly formal, not to be taken lightly, but rather more warm and pleasant than you might have expected. Let’s not forget, whatever any of us might think, presenting a TV show is not a doddle, and Ann Widdecombe is very much a novice. I thought that she did a good job.

It’s a rare quiz show that couldn’t be improved by having a few tweaks after its first series. As it is I think that “Cleverdicks” has bags of potential. In a way, I’m rather sorry that it’s on Sky Atlantic. Surprised too. This could be a BBC2 hit, I think. Whether Sky will have the patience to wait around until it gains whatever word of mouth audience it can get – well, time will tell.