University Challenge: Repechage 2 - Bristol v. Oriel College, Oxford

The Teams

Bristol

Sam Kehler

Jacob McLaughlin

Tess Richardson (Capt.)

Alejandro Ortega

Oriel, Oxford

Thomas Ford

Jerric Chong

Tanmayee Deshprabhu (Capt.)

Katy Marchant

Okay, dearly beloved. The tale of the tape informs us that Bristol were the highest scoring runners up of the first round with 185 while Oriel scored a more modest 135 in their heat. Advantage Bristol? Not necessarily. Different questions, different opposition could possibly mean different result. Just out of interest, Thomas Ford said when introducing himself “I live in Norway, but I’m from the United States.” Norway? Hell of a commute to Oxford there, Tom.

Okay, so off we go. Jacob McLaughlin heard the words “time’s arrow” in the first starter and grasped the wrong end of the stick. He answered Kingsley Amis – which was written by son Martin Amis anyway. This allowed Oriel to hear the whole question and allowed me to earn a ridiculously early lap of honour by answering ‘entropy’. So did Jerric Chong, thus earning Oriel a set of bonuses on fallacies and biases. A bit like the judges’ scores in the last couple of series of Strictly Come Dancing. These brought a couple of correct answers. A lovely UC set on a composer gave a series of locations of compositions working backwards chronologically. Jacob McLaughlin fell into the trap of possibly going by the first – Egypt, and answering Verdi. I went by the last, Crete (Idomeneo), and answered Mozart. Nobody had that. Alejandro Ortega wiped out his team’s minus score, recognising a list of things denoted by the Greek letter rho. 2 bonuses on botany meant that their score looked a lot more healthy. Now Jacob McLaughlin found his range with the buzzer, correctly identifying the term Theatre of the Absurd for the next starter. It would not be his last of the night. Ways of walking brought Bristol two bonuses, although they might have been expected to get meander, what with the helpful mention of a river in the question. This was enough to put Bristol into the lead as we arrived at the first picture starter. Nobody could identify the world heritage site of Delphi just from its position on a map. Me nether. Jerric Chong earned the picture bonuses when he identified the type of soil that lent itself to the name of a fictional county in some of the novels of George Eliot as loam. Other places which, like Delphi, have been described as the navel of the world, brought 1 bonus. Now, with the next starter, which asked for the African empire of Mali, we had the unusual spectacle of one team member buzzing, Thomas Ford, and another team member, Jerric Chong, jumping in with the answer. If JP had not pointed it out I would not have noticed, since the camera was zooming in and cut out Mr. Chong. No points for that. Jacob McLaughlin knew that any question mentioning Impressionism and America will give you a good chance of success if you answer Mary Cassatt. The paintings of Ustad Mansur brought 10 points which were enough to see Bristol lead by 40 – 35 at just past the 10 minute mark.

I didn’t understand the next question about kinetic energy but Alejandro Ortega got the correct answer of four. This gave them the chance to take a full house on short novels. The next starter gave us several people all nicknamed The Tiger and Thomas Ford won the buzzer race to give the answer. The answers to the bonuses all began with diff – and Oriel took a full house. A fine buzz from Sam Kehler saw him identify isolate languages for the next starter. Session musicians brought a bonus, and a bit of embarrassment for Tess Richardson who misheard Motown and answered Motel instead. It can happen in the heat of the moment. The music starter followed, and Katy Marchant and I both answered ‘The Clash. The Ice age is coming – how appropriate that feels at the moment. Three more bands for which Don Letts made videos or documentaries reduced the deficit between the teams to just five points again. Now, for the next starter I did actually know that bromine is a halogen that is a red volatile liquid yuttah yuttah. Probably should have taken a lap of honour again, but what the hell. Jerric Chong took that one to give Oriel back the lead. One of a set of bonuses on the Lake District extended the lead a little. If it’s the 1920s and its about a German philosopher you’ll be right more often than wrong with Wittgenstein (whom I ‘m told was a beery swine). Thomas Ford took that one. They didn’t do much with bonuses on Eastern European architecture, but Oriel were pulling ahead. Now, for the next starter the subtitles mentioned the River Mono. No such place – it’s the Monnow. Katy Marchant zigged with Severn allowing Jacob McLaughlin to zag with Wye. The Bafta award for documentary brought one bonus. This meant that Oriel led by 110 to 100 at just after the 20-minute mark.

Jacob McLaughlin knew that Alex Haley wrote the ‘autobiography’ of Malcolm X. A swift full house on Greek letters put Bristol back in the lead. For the second picture starter Thomas Ford recognised a photo of Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes. More pairs of tennis players brought them nothing, and this was sadly rather the tale of Oriel’s evening – failing to answer bonuses correctly when they needed them. Jacob McLaughlin knew that Lingala is spoken in both Kinshasa and Brazzaville for the next starter. His powerful buzzing was proving the difference between the two teams at this vital stage. Mind you, Bristol struggled with African fauna, taking just the one bonus. Still Oriel came back. Thomas Ford knew the title A Theory of Justice. Oriel managed just the one bonus on a pretty gettable set on Thomas Hardy. Jacob McLaughlin buzzed in again with the answer of the Han dynasty for the next starter and took the spoils. Which in this case were bonuses on Caribbean islands and their flags. This brought a full house which crucially meant that Oriel could not pull level with just one visit to the table. Again, the McLaughlin buzz beat Oriel to win the buzzer race, identifying Gods of Fire in various flavours. A couple of bonuses on eponymous scientific principles really put the outcome of the match beyond question. This didn’t stop Thomas Ford coming back with vena cava for the next starter. There was time for one correct answer on bonuses on Pennsylvania, but then the contest was gonged. Bristol won by 185 – 150.

It wasn’t just about Jacob McLaughlin’s buzzing, although with 7 this was impressive. Bristol converted two thirds of their bonuses – Oriel slightly less than half. Nonetheless, as JP said it was a close, exciting contest, and a pleasure to watch. Hard lines Oriel, congratulations to Bristol.

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

A language unrelated to any other language, thus the only member of its language family, is a language isolate.

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 13

Yay, it’s quizzy Monday again, dearly beloved. Another Mastermind first round heat. Not, I have to say, one that was quite as out of the ordinary as last week’s, but although not necessarily a heat for the connoisseur it certainly had enough for the student of the game to enjoy

I must admit that I seem to have no familiarity at all with the work of jazz musician Bill Evans. Bill Evans was the milkman who delivered to us when I was a kid, I thought. I didn’t get any points anyway in the first specialist round on the man himself. Paddy Pammet did better, which is only fair considering that he opted to take the subject. However he still struggled after the first couple of questions, and in the end he had managed to answer 5 . Which is actually 1 more than last week’s winner managed in his own specialist round, so nothing was certain. Still looked like it would be a struggle, though.

Suzette Aagaard answered on Georges Remi and Tintin. Now, I have to be honest, while I enjoyed some of the Tintin books, I was always far more of an Asterix the Gaul man when I was younger. So I only managed a couple – the old quiz chestnut on Snowy originally being called Milou, and then I knew that the great Belgian cryptozoologist mentioned could only be Bernard Huevelmans. Suzette missed out on a few, but nonetheless her 9 looked a pretty good return which meant she had a shout of being in the shakeup in the GK round.

Katie Lane was burdened by the support from the Clark sofa tonight, being an English tutor. Katie was answering on William Morris – the arts and crafts man and not the car manufacturer. Like so many of the rounds in this and the previous show this was a round that promised more at the start than it delivered in the end. Katie had obviously prepared her subject, but too many of the questions went begging and in the end she scored 6. By no means a disaster, but 3 points off the lead with one more contender yet to play.

That contender was Blake Robinson. Blake was answering on the Doctor Who spin off series Torchwood. Now, considering that I once wrote a book reviewing every episode in the series I did think that I might get a couple of these. Well, I did – 3 to be precise – but it’s years since I wrote the book and frankly my memory just wasn’t up to the in-depth knowledge required by most of these questions. Blake’s was, though. He scored a praiseworthy 11, and with a lead of 2 at half time he looked the best bet for the win.

First, though, we were back among the supporting acts with Paddy. Paddy gave it his best, that was clear, but the finishing tape came almost immediately after he managed to take the lead, by adding 7 to his score to finish with 12. He was followed by Katie. Her first target was to score the 7 she needed to go into the outright lead. This she achieved. She managed to add another 2 points to take her to a total of 15. 9 Is a perfectly respectable score in a GK round, but unfortunately respectability was never going to be enough to give her a realistic chance of a win.

Starting 3 points to the good in her own GK round, Suzette Aargaard needed 7 to take the lead. To be fair, this is exactly what she achieved, in a round which, to be perfectly honest, looked at times to be a bit of a struggle. She did it though, which meant that each of our contenders held the lead at one point of the contest or another.

Putting the task facing Blake Robinson into context, he only needed to score 6 in his GK round to win. Was this going to be like last week where the final contender, faced with a seemingly modest target, had a ‘mare of a round and didn’t get there?

No.

Having produced comfortably the best specialist round of the night, Blake went on to produce the best GK round of the night as well. The symmetry was pleasing in the way that he also scored 11 for GK, that being his score in specialist. He was clearly the best of the contenders tonight, and thoroughly deserved his win. Congratulations to you sir, and good luck in the semi-finals.

The Details

Paddy Pammet	The Jazz musician Bill Evans	5	1	7	1	12	2
Suzette Aagaard	Georges Remi ad Tintin	9	0	7	0	16	0
Katie Lane	William Morris	6	0	9	1	15	1
Blake Robinson	Torchwood	11	0	11	0	22	0

Stick it up me bum and set fire to it.

The lad’s growing up. Bound to happen when you think about it – in fact it would be weird if he didn’t. This is my excuse for sometimes forgetting myself and saying things in front of him that I shouldn’t. The lad in question is my oldest grandson Ollie, and what brought this home to me was when, as we were watching Pointless together, Alexander asked ‘What are you going to do with the money if you win?” and Ollie, putting himself in the place of the contestants replied, “Stick it up me bum and set fire to it.” Which is entirely my fault because it’s what I often say whenever this banal question is asked on this or a number of shows.

I’ve come clean about my misanthropic tendencies before now, and this is just another example because small talk on a quiz show is just something I don’t enjoy. In particular, ‘What are you going to spend the money on?’ is a question that really irritates me. It’s probably because I often feel like I’m being manipulated. Contestants, so it seems to me, are obliged to sing for their supper. It’s not enough that you have the chance of winning some wedge, you have to justify why you should have it. Hence the cliched trotting out of anniversaries, family holidays etc. etc. Worthy things like treating a deserving member of the family or achieving a long held dream. You just know that none of them is ever going to say “I’m going to spend it on three things – Alcohol, prostitutes and carpet cleaner (in that order).’ Quite right too – one should never mention carpet cleaner before the watershed. But the misanthropic schoolboy in me, who is never that far from the surface, still harbours a wish that a contestant would say, in response to the question, “Stick it up me bum and set fire to it.” Or something equally facetious. Incidentally, in my Mastermind semi final I made a fairly decent crack in the inter-round chat. Remember them? Now that’s one thing I don’t want to see being brought back to Mastermind. My semi final subject was the Prince Regent, later King George IV, and in response to one of John Humphrys’ questions I said “Yes, it’s true, George did spend a huge amount on wine, women and song, but then he did waste an enormous amount as well.” Huge laugh from the studio audience. Cut out in the edit. Honestly.

Coming back to misanthropy, this coming week in the club there is the last quiz before Christmas. Which means a themed quiz. Okay, now I am not a great lover of themed quizzes. Not only that, the setters don’t do more than a very few quizzes in a year, and . . . oh look, you know what a miserable sod I am so I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. . .  they’re really not very good at it. They make very avoidable mistakes and wouldn’t know an interesting question if it bit them on the behind. And while I’m getting a little better at holding my tongue at some of the obvious howlers that get perpetrated in the quiz from time to time, it’s still very frustrating. I can give you an example. This week was Dai Norwich’s turn. . . (so called because a) his name is David and – oh, I’ve told you that before have I? Fair enough) He asked “How many players are there in a lacrosse team?” I think you might guess what’s coming next. “Men’s or women’s?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. ”You see there’s different numbers in both.” I added helpfully.

“I dunno.” He replied. “It’s the one I’ve got written down here.”

You know how it goes, I’m sure. Now, yes, there’s no reason why Dai should know that there’s a different number – well, other than the fact I’ve asked a version of the question myself which mentions the different numbers several times in my quizzes over the last 20 years or so. But come on. If you’re asking a  question where you know nothing about the subject yourself, verify the answer that you have, especially if you’ve got the question out of ‘My First Quizbook’ or the equivalent.

I hope I’m wrong. But I dunno, I can just see us being confronted by things like “What does Bethlehem actually mean?” Because without a little bit more to the question, that’s actually unanswerable. I’m guessing that if they did ask this, then the answer would be ‘House of Bread’ – the Hebrew meaning. However in Arabic it also means ‘House of Meat’. If they ask, then there would be absolutely no point in asking for clarification. . . they wouldn’t know.

It's not just the quiz itself, though. I have a problem with the forced jollity of their Christmas quizzes. Last year they gave each of us some chocolate coins, and in one round we could gain an extra point by ‘bribing the judges with chocolate coins.’ They also left elf hats on each table and you could get a point by sending them a selfie with an elf hat on. In one way it’s really sweet that they go to all of that effort. . . only . . . well, that’s not quizzing. Not to a grumpy old sod like me, anyway. Christmas quizzes? Pah, humbug!

And the thing is, the last time they did a quiz was when the quiz was moved to a Tuesday evening. Honestly, I couldn’t do a Tuesday evening at the moment even if I wanted to. So we gave that one a miss. The thing is though that having missed that one, if I gave this one a miss it would be obvious. And I wouldn’t want to give them the metaphorical slap in the face that deliberately avoiding their quiz would represent. Now that really would be misanthropic. So, Rudolf noses, Santa hats and forced grins all round, and try to keep the sarky comments to a minimum, David.

Congratulations to Richard and Ingrid

 Just seen that (the great) Richard Osman and Ingrid Oliver were married at the weekend. Everyone at LAM would just like to wish them every future happiness. 

University Challenge 2023: Repechage 1

The Teams

Sheffield

Rachel Haw

Andrew Fisher

Lewis Jones (capt.)

Danny Lardner

Newnham, Cambridge

Bethan Holloway-Strong

Hannah Bowen

Roma Ellis (Capt)

Chen Zhou

Hello, and welcome. Although they were both beaten in their first round matches, both of last night’s teams scored very well in their first round matches. Sheffield were beaten 170 -180 by UCL while Newnham lost by 160 – 170. Next to nothing in it.

So this first of two repechages kicked off by asking us about the so called Infinity Bridge in Stockton on Tees. Funnily enough I think they’ve got one in Dubai as well. Newnham skipper Roma Ellis opened her team’s account with that one. Bonuses on social history sounded lacking in promise, but I was happy for a full house on them while Newnham managed just the one. The Newnham skipper was equally familiar with Arthur C. Clarke’s Odyssey 2 for the next starter. Bonuses on rainbows were a mixed bag, but not for Newnham since they didn’t get any of them. Now, should you ever be asked about a river which rises in the Himalayan foothills, the Ganges is always a good percentage answer. It certainly gave Roma Ellis her hattrick of consecutive starters. Bonuses on words containing the letters – erm – within their first syllables saw Newnham take 2 bonuses, which to be fair was one more than I managed. The picture starter showed us the seal of a US state. I’d never seen it before, but I know that the word Eureka links with California. It goes back to the old 70s TV series CHIPS about the California Highway Patrol. The opening sequence has a shot of their badge and I never understood why this particular ancient Greek exclamation should be on it. Apologies for that unnecessary digression. I can’t say whether Lewis Jones has ever watched CHIPS, but he knew the answer anyway. This gave Sheffield three more of the same and Sheffield were equal to the clues on each one and took a full house. Now, I’ll be honest, when asked for a quantum property for the next starter  I was tempted to suggest Old Kent Road, but instead took a punt with spin. Andrew Fisher chanced his arm with colour and looked most put out when it was wrong. Roma Ellis too had a go with spin, but it was strangeness instead. Andrew Fisher had another early buzz for the next starter, but his knowledge of Finnish composers wasn’t up to the mark. Nor was mine or Newnham’s for that matter. It was Kaija ‘Who?’ Saariaho. Shirley Jakson and Dodie Smith both wrote novels with the word Castle in the title, which gave Danny Lardner a good early buzz for the next starter. Historical paintings in London’s National Gallery brought a pair of bonuses to Sheffield. The bonuses were keeping Sheffield in the hunt at the moment, but even so they trailed 25 – 45 at the 10 minute mark.

Andrew Fisher’s difficult night with the buzzer continued. Had he been on Ken Bruce’s Pop Masters he’d have earned himself a One Year Out T Shirt giving 2012 instead of 2011 for the next starter. Roma Ellis accepted that unconsidered trifle. Bonuses on the mythical land of Shambala brought a timely full house. Danny Lardner knew the sequel to Things Fall Apart. Sheffield went on to score their own full house on Graham Greene I met him once. Miserable old sod.(That's Graham Greene, not Danny Lardner, whom I'm sure is delightful.) This kept them within striking distance. Generally Newnham were still outbuzzing Sheffield and this continued with the next starter which saw Hannah Bowen win the race to identify Sufis.  Only one bonus on Indonesia followed. With the music starter Lewis Jones was first in to identify the work of the Supremes. For the bonuses three other tracks featuring the work of James Jamerson brought two correct answers, but I’m sorry they didn’t manage Bernadette by the Four Tops. Loved the Four Tops. Hannah Bowen looked extremely dubious when she offered Dijon as the particular species of mustard called for by the next starter, but she was correct. Bonuses on knaves went begging, and still Sheffield were in shouting distance despite being second best on the buzzer. Hannah Bowen struck again for the next starter with the film “My Beautiful Laundrette”. A US pharmacologist looked like barren ground for the bonuses but they managed 1. I took 2, and knowing uric acid in gout I thought I’d better take my lap of honour while the going was good. Roma Ellis knew various characters linked by the name of Balthasar. A lovely UC set on rhyming pairs of words from the timeless ‘Barbie Girl’ by Aqua saw Bethan Holloway-Strong show an admirable knowledge of the words, yet still Newnham only managed one bonus. Which didn’t seem to matter so much now since they were overwhelming Sheffield with the sheer weight of their buzzing. Newnham led by 125 – 70 at 20.

So to the picture starter and Hannah Bowen very quickly identified the work of Fragonard, soon appearing on a chocolate box near you. 3 similar rococo paintings provided both of us with nowt. The next starter asked for the most famous person who ever worked in the Drayton Court Hotel in Ealing, Ho Chi Minh. This saw Andrew Fisher firing one on target. Informal font types brought a quick full house, but this still left Sheffield 40 points behind. Poor Andrew Fisher. He was doing exactly what I think you should do, that is buzz when you think you might know the answer, but it just wasn’t coming off for him. Asked for an epic poem he gambled with Beowulf allowing Bethan Holloway-Strong to give the correct answer of the Odyssey for the next starter. Bonuses on the Hoffman who wrote the Tales of Hoffman only brought a single correct answer. Didn’t matter. It looked pretty obvious that on this occasion Sheffield just didn’t have the buzzing to trouble Newnham. This time it was Danny Lardner who came in too early allowing Chen Zhou to tell us that China’s 3^rd longest river is the Amur. Animals that appear in the Ramayana  were the subject of the bonus set. Yes, that’s right. They took one bonus. Danny Lardner won the buzzer race to identify Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal work The Second Sex. This time it was Sheffield that only took one bonus, and I’m very sorry, but I so impressed myself with erythrocytes that I did another lap around the sofa. I do not pretend to understand the Maths starter that followed, but Roma Ellis buzzed early, apologised for doing so, thne threw in the correct answer as if it was a pure guess. Eleanor of Castile provided the subject of the bonuses that followed, but none were taken. Lewis Jones knew that the only arthropod in the zodiac is scorpio the scorpion. That was it. At the gong Newnham had won comfortably by 175 – 110.

All of which goes to show it’s bonuses for show, but starters for dough. Which is just as well for Newnham since their stats of 11 correct answers from 36 bonuses is one of the lowest I've seen from a winning team and will be of some concern to them. They'll need to improve if they’re going to have a real run at this series. But. . . they still won. Sheffield played well with their own bonuses, but were a long way off on the buzzer. Hard lines, but thanks to both teams for an interesting contest.

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

The Islamic term sufi comes from the Arabic for coarse wool.

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 12

We’ve seen several remarkable and unusual shows in the first round of the current series, dearly beloved, and this show was another of them. Not, I have to say for the same reasons as the others. Allow me to elucidate.

Tonight’s first contender was Colin Rogers-Marsh. Colin was answering on the films of Judy Garland. On a selfish level this wasn’t the best choice for me, but somehow, I managed to blag a couple. Colin did do better than that. He started quite brightly, but the first question he missed seemed to make him stumble in his tracks, and I’m afraid at that point the malign influence of the chair seemed to take over and rob him of any momentum. In the end, he scored four, and yes, in betting parlance you could probably have named your own odds on him winning.

Christopher McBride approached the chair with a smile on his face, and like Colin, he began his round quite brightly. Christopher was answering on The Cure. I was fortunate enough once to see Rob Newman doing his Robert Smith impression, singing the Sun Has Got His Hat On many years ago in the Grand Theatre, Swansea. Coming back to the round, Christopher did get a little further into his round before the brakes started to be applied, in the end levelling out at a respectable 7 points.

Leigh Hagger was answering on the TV series Hi de Hi. Incredibly popular in its day, this was the one of the 3 most popular Perry and Croft sitcoms which just didn’t quite do it for me. I managed 3 points, more by luck than judgement. Amazingly, Leigh too had a few wobbly moments while she accrued her score of 8. What this heat was really crying out for was someone to grab their specialist round by the scruff of the neck and give it a damn good thrashing.

Which is pretty much what teacher Fiona Templeton did with her round on the French Wars of Religion. One of my great grandparents was descended from a family of Huguenot silk weavers who first set up in Spitalfields before becoming movers and shakers in the silk weaving industry in Coventry. You don’t need to know that. What you do need to know is that Fiona defied the odds and the evil influence of support from the Clark sofa and racked up an impressive 12. She led by four at half time. Game over. Surely?

Well, no, actually. Colin returned to the chair, and he did what you must do with a disappointing score from the first round. He set his nose to the grindstone, and proceeded to answer all of the questions. Not all of his answers were right, but a fair proportion of them were, and in the end he scored a very good 13 to take his total to 17. I will be honest, I didn’t think he’d win but at least he’d given the others something to think about.

Christopher started 3 points ahead of Colin. He did perfectly well, too. However, his highly respectable 10 was 3 fewer points than Colin. Which meant that they had both scored 17 and 1 pass. Surely we weren’t going to have a tie break?

Well, I have to say that it looked a lot more likely when Leigh could only manage 6 to take her own score to 14. Judging from her reaction to a number of the questions, I’d say she zigged a few times when she should have zagged, but them’s the breaks. That black chair can be cruel sometimes.

I won’t lie, I feared for Fiona. Yes, she only needed 6 points for an outright win, and yes, in the normal run of things you’d expect Mastermind contenders to be able to polish this off. But there was something in the air in this show, on top of which the Curse of the Clark support has brought many teachers low in the past. Which seemed to be the case with Fiona. She just couldn’t get started, and in the end she could only post 4 for a total of 16.

So yes, we did have a tiebreak. Christopher was escorted gently from the studio, which Colin tackled the 5 questions they had to answer. Colin returned to his seat and Christopher faced the same. Sadly he didn’t add to his score, and Colin had added one to his. So, amazingly, Colin had given us the best comeback since Lazarus. I have seen people come from 4^th at half time to win the show, but don’t recall seeing any overturn an 8 point deficit to do so. Very well done, sir.

The Details

Colin Rogers-Marsh	Films of Judy Garland	4	1	13	0	17	1	1	18
Christopher McBride	The Cure	7	1	10	0	17	0	0	17
Leigh Hagger	Hi de Hi	8	0	6	0	14	0
Fiona Templeton	The French Wars of Religion	12	1	4	4	16	5

Single letters matter

Hello, hello, and hello. How has your weekend been? I’ll confess, I wasn’t very well last week. Not covid, but ever since I had covid last year when I’ve had a cold or a bad chest I’ve found it’s been worse, and then when I’ve started to recover it’s taken a lot longer to shake it off. Mind you, I’m getting older too, so I suppose that it’s hardly that surprising. So, a lot of this weekend I’ve been doing sod all not a lot. However, as I’m sure you’re eager to know, I have reached the target of making 40 hand drawn Christmas cards.

So, I had a little time on my hands on Tuesday and Wednesday when I was too ill to go into work – stop that, it was genuine. I couldn’t breathe. I mean, I could breathe, but it was with difficulty and the simple effort of walking downstairs in the morning left me gasping for ages. Thankfully the latest edition of PASS landed in my inbox. In case you’re not yet a member of the Mastermind Club (and you have to have been a contender on the show to apply for membership) PASS is the Mastermind Club magazine. And very good it is too. Any member can contribute articles about anything they like. I’ve done so in the past, although it’s some time since the last time I got round to doing so. There was a fifty-year anniversary feel to some of the content this time, and former youngest Mastermind champion and all-round good egg Gavin Fuller contributed a feature in which he explained how the BBC had asked him for the fifty most difficult general knowledge questions to have been asked on the show. He was honest enough o admit that there can never be a definitive list and shared the fifty that he had culled from the Mastermind quiz books that have been issued over the years, and from editions of the shows.

I mean, it’s a hell of an undertaking when you think of it. Difficulty in terms of general knowledge questions can never be a completely objective concept. The best you can hope for is a list on which the majority agree to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, I did think that many of the fifty that Gavin shared with us were pretty difficult, but then as many people have said over the years, they’re all difficult if you don’t know the answer, and all easy if you do.

Of course, sometimes relatively easy questions are made harder because of circumstances beyond your control. For example, last Thursday the very first question of the quiz asked words to the effect of – which British pop singer died on 18^th December 2000 in a car crash in Mexico? – Well, the year and Mexico suggested Kirsty MacColl to me, Yet I also knew that she never died in a car crash, but in a tragic accident involving a powerboat, saving her son’s life in the process as I recall. Not having another plausible answer and bearing in mind that question masters do make mistakes sometimes, we put Kirsty MacColl down as the answer. Which turned out to be the answer that the question master wanted.

I am very proud that I didn’t shout at the question master to put him right. There were another couple of occasions in the same quiz where I could have done as well but didn’t. I can only put this down to the good example set by my daughter Jess, my son-in-law Dan and our friend Adam, keeping me on the straight and narrow. I know that Jessie particularly doesn’t like it.

Still, when I got home, I did think that I’d better google it for my own satisfaction. I was right, but all that did was make me wonder how it was that the question master came to make such a mistake. I think I’ve worked it out. Kirsty MacColl and her family were diving at the time. So my guess is that the question master misread his source when putting the questions together and read it as a dRiving accident. Maybe.

Going back to the 90s and the early noughties there was a wrong’un which did the rounds for a few years. It went something like this – in which opera were the tragic lovers burned alive? – This goes back to the dear old Pears Quiz Companion, my first ever quiz ‘bible’ – which said that the lovers in Aida were burned alive. Of course, they weren’t – they were buried alive. I know all about this one because I asked it myself. Only the once, mind you, and then the mistake was pointed out to me. So, whenever I heard that again, I knew where the error had come from.