Mastermind - tomorrow's specialist subjects

Heads up about tomorrow’s Mastermind, dearly beloved. The programme website says that the specialist subjects will be Orchids of the British Isles, Schitt’s Creek, Tom Lehrer and Operation Mincemeat. Well, frankly they don’t offer me any great hope. If it wasn’t for the fact that I rarely fail to score on all four specialists I’d say that I could end up with zero. I could end up with zero, and I’d certainly be surprised if I managed more than 2 or 3 in aggregate.

University Challenge 2025 Round 1 Queen's University, Belfast v. Liverpool

The Teams

Queen’s University, Belfast

Sarah Carlisle

Jason McKillen

Daniel Rankin (Capt.)

Sam Thompson

Liverpool

Joyce Sajit

Isabel Day

Neil Williams (Capt.)

Harry Ashcroft

Ah, University Challenge! Yes, this may be the time of year when gathering swallows that twitter in the skies above remind us that the end of summer looms ahead of us like a giant looming thing, but the return of University Challenge is one of life’s consolations.

Several clues to the word sample brought Sam Thompson the first starter for Queen’s. Musicians who were awarded posthumous Pulitzer Prizes made an interesting set. Apparently the recipients deliver their acceptance speeches through the services of a medium. Sorry, that was in very bad taste. Queen’s took a full house. For the second starter Queen’s captain Daniel Rankin knew that the largest city of North Rhine Westphalia is Cologne. A relatively straightforward set on Korea in the second half of the 20^th century brought another complete set. The next starter had me screaming “ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA!” at the telly as both teams sat on their buzzers. (Which brings to mind my favourite ever small ad once seen in the back of the Ealing Gazette – For Sale – complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. No longer needed as wife knows everything) Finally Sarah Carlisle of Queen’s came in after Edinburgh in 1771 sealed the deal. The Academie Francaise and its continual blasting of the trumpet against the monstrous horde of Anglicisms trying to creep into French provided an interesting set. Queen’s took the first bonus, taking their total of correct answers at the start of the show to the first 7, but were baulked by cosy, the 8^th. They took rookie to make 70 points unanswered. Isabel Day buzzed early and correctly to identify cartilage as the answer to the fourth starter, opening Liverpool’s account. An interminable set of questions on symmetric molecules provided them with a full house of their own. I like picture starters on flags, and this was a relatively gentle one with the flag of Greenland. Sam Thompson took that one. More two tone flags followed, but in black and white. This meant that Amol had to clarify that with the second it could be two countries but he wanted the east African one rather than the Asian one. It didn’t phase Queen’s, who’d now taken three full houses out of the first five sets of the show. For the next starter it was the list of actors who sang the songs that told me that the first live action film to receive three nominations for the Oscar for Best Original Song was Dreamgirls. Maybe it told Neil Williams too for it was the Liverpool skipper who buzzed in with the answer. Directors who have won the Palme d’Or twice brought two correct answers and meant that the score stood at 95-45 in favour of Queen’s at ten minutes.

Nobody knew The House of the Dead for the next starter, and Liverpool lost five of their hardearned for the first incorrect interruption of the night. Amazingly what sounded like a difficult science question was rendered gettable by the words ‘happy hormone’. “Serotonin!” I shouted and set off on my lap of honour around the Clark sofa before Jason McKillen could give the same correct answer. Types of sandwich associated with the USA was a good UC special set of bonuses. The Joey special wasn’t one of them, nor was the NY Cheese Steak which I became acquainted with last week, so I scored nowt. Two correct answers and Queen’s were already in triple figures. Joyce Sajit identified Barcelona as the home of The Block of Discord and earned Liverpool bonuses on Some Living American Women Artists, a parody of The Last Supper. Liverpool picked up two, while I picked up one by the expedient of answering Georgia O’Keefe to all of them.  So to the music starter. Daniel Rankin buzzed in super quickly to answer that Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady was released in 2000. More songs that were NME Track of the Year and years of their releases were asked and amazingly they were never even one year out, taking all three. The onslaught continued. Sam Thompson knew that the term Rangaku in Japanese refers to knowledge gained through contact with the Dutch. (Someone in the room who should hang her head in shame suggested that rangaku might consist of the cultivation of tulips and the process for making edam cheese.) Use of plants of the rubiaceae family provided two correct answers but I’m surprised that they didn’t know quinine – which just goes to show that every single one of us has gaps in our knowledge. Nothing daunted, Neil Williams buzzed in early to identify “The Tempest” as The Shakin’ Shakespeare play beginning with the word boatswain. Church and State only provided one bonus, which was the first time that either team failed to get at least two bonuses from a set. Amazingly I got a maths starter right – mind you it was only on the last part of several definitions which obviously pointed to the word degree. Joyce Sajit took that one. Three questions on author and translator Claire Pollard brought a full house and pushed Liverpool ono three figures themselves. A rush of blood to the head saw Harry Ashcroft buzz in far too early on the next starter, allowing Sam Thompson in to identify pepper as the commodity in question. Bonuses on urban design brought, well, yes, another full house for Queen’s, who now led by 185 to 95 at the 20 minute mark.

That old warhorse logical positivism galloped onto the battlefield for the next starter and just as quickly galloped off again when nobody recognised it. Clues to various Grays saw Joyce Sajit get really annoyed with herself when she buzzed early and incorrectly, and it was Sam Thompson who snapped up the answer. Scientists whose names contain a month brought me another potential lap of honour answer – if it’s Kekule it must be benzene, right? Then I got another one guessing Chaos Theory. And a full house for corona viruses! And Queen’s only got 2 of them. The picture starter was a self portrait of one of my favourite artists – Aubrey Beardsley (Oscar Wilde dubbed him Awfully Weirdly. Well, be fair, they were mates.) Isabel Day took that one. Beardsley portraits brought me a second consecutive full house, but Liverpool only the one. Joyce Sajit buzzed far too early for the next starer, and her eyes darted from side to side as if she didn’t quite believe she had buzzed. And, flippin’ heck, it was a chemistry starter and I knew the answer, being as it was about the periodic table. I knew that of the four elements named after Ytterby, the only one that isn’t a lanthanide is Yttrium. The excellent Sam Thompson, having a very productive evening, snapped up another unconsidered trifle. Bonuses on the Laffer Curve promised me nowt, but I got one for guessing Gerald Ford and another for trickle down economics. Queen’s had all three. Daniel Rankin made Queen’s first incorrect interruption of the evening on Zydeco, allowing Neil Williams in with Louisiana. Historical taxes saw Liverpool take just the one, missing out on old chestnuts scutage and Peter the Great’s beard tax. My heart went out to Neil Williams for his interruption to suggest that it was Port Talbot that received city status in 2022. Sadly no, Neil – to the best of my knowledge that is not a status that my adopted home town aspires to yet. No football fans in Queen’s it seemed, since they might have known that the Racecourse Ground is in Wrexham. Skipper Williams admirably made up for this by buzzing early to identify Germany as the first country to win both Men’s and Women’s FIFA world cups. Three books with the word Winter in their titles brought nowt to Liverpool, and the only answer I knew was Kate Mosse. Sam Thompson knew that two chemical symbols give you an emu. One bonus on Edmund Halley was taken and that was it. The contest was gonged with Queen’s winning by 240 – 125.

I can’t help feeling a little sorry for Liverpool. They’re a good team – they scored a BCR of over 51 percent. They were just unfortunate to meet a potentially very good team indeed. For Queen’s scored an exceptional BCR of 81 percent. Every one of them answered at least 1 starter correctly so there’s buzzing throughout the team. I don’t think it will come as any surprise if I say that they are very much a team to watch.

Amol Watch

‘Good job you’ve got a chemist on your team.” pronounced Amol after the symmetric molecule questions. True, but not exactly original, Amol. I doubt you’d say ‘Good job you’ve got a complete nerd on your team’ after a set on manga for the sake of argument. Fair play, he was understandably amused when Queen’s facetiously suggested that an America sandwich might possibly have been named after Les Miserables.

At the twenty minute mark Amol told Liverpool “Plenty of time left”. This is a habit Amol has that I picked up on last series. A) There wasn’t actually plenty of time left. B) Liverpool were buzzing quite well anyway – they weren’t doing badly, just Queen’s were doing exceptionally.

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

The first live action film to receive three Oscar nominations for best original song was Dreamgirls. None of the songs won.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

(Quick reminder. When I hear an unfathomable – and let’s be honest, it’s usually Science – question the Baby Elephant Walk sometimes plays on my mind’s internal soundrack. This is where I nominate the question each week most likely to induce this.)

What two word term describes the shape of a symmetric molecule where a central atom is covalently bonded to three peripheral atoms? An example of this type of atom is boron trifluoride and the bond angle is 120 degrees since all three peripheral atoms are in the same plane. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 Heat 1

Now, come on, be fair, I did tell you that I was going to be in New York City when our first Quizzy Monday of the season hit the screens on Monday 12^th, didn’t I. But I’m back now and yes, I had a fantastic time, thanks.

Did all four of our contenders on Monday night’s Mastermind also have a fantastic time? I hope so but you’d have to ask them. I think that Claire Reynolds did. Claire had the honour of being the first contender of this new series, and she was answering on Dad’s Army. In terms of my aggregate specialist total I felt that this was my banker subject. However I didn’t feel that it was going to be a case of fill yer boots, son, and I was right. I took the first four in a row, but from then onwards the questions required the in-depth knowledge of specific details from individual episodes that I just didn’t possess. Claire, on the other hand was well prepared. She scored ten and no passes and was worth every single one of those points. She seemed to be enjoying herself tremendously and that’s something I can run up the flagpole and salute.

To be fair Aaron Casanova also seemed to enjoy his round on Liverpool FC under Jurgen Klopp. Now, sporting subjects with what appears to be a narrow focus will always be controversial. Jurgen Klopp’s reign only began in 2015. I look on it like this – a narrow focus is fine as long as the questions require the same breadth of knowledge as other rounds. I don’t have anything like the in-depth knowledge of this subject to be a good judge, but to my layman’s eye it certainly did look as if Aaron was being asked testing questions. In which case his score of 11 looked pretty good, and it certainly put him into the lead.

Right then, don’t pretend you didn’t know this was coming. I begin every series asking myself whether this will be the one where it is finally won by another schoolteacher. The first teacher of the series is Nancy Braithwaite, although I don’t believe that she is a schoolteacher, but rather in the field of Higher Education in Oxford University. Nancy was answering on the life and works of Jane Austen. I enjoyed this round and felt that there was a good balance between the life and the work. If you’d only known the life, then you wouldn’t have had a great round, and vice versa with the works. Nancy, who I have to say looked very nervous throughout the round, joined Aaron in the lead with 11 and no passes.

Finally we had Danny Lardner who was answering on Shania Twain. I have to be honest, I don’t tend to pay much attention to the Glastonbury Festival at the best of times, but last year I happened to catch Cat Stevens/ Yusuf who I enjoyed, and this year Shania Twain’s set did impress me much. Not that I knew enough about her or her music to add much to my total. The five from Dad’s Army was supplemented by braces on Jurgen Klopp and Jane Austen – and what a midfield pairing that would have made in fantasy football. This meant I finished with 9 – decent season opener but better to come, I hoped. Well, Danny himself did well, scoring 10 and no passes to sit on the shoulder of the leaders as the bell rang for the final lap.

I have to say, that first round was what I like to see – four contenders who had all prepared properly for their subjects and who all kept the presence of mind not to pass. Quality.

Claire came first and she continued from where she’d left off in her specialist round. You can only go so far with an average general knowledge and Claire’s was some way better than this. I’d go so far to say that I wouldn’t be surprised if Claire has some kind of quiz experience. Even just playing in your local pub quiz once a week every week can make a difference. Claire scored an excellent 13. Game on.

By about halfway through his round Danny Lardner began to show just a little frustration. Whether this was with himself or the questions I couldn’t begin to tell you. I certainly felt some sympathy. There was a little run of three or four questions in the middle of his round that I found more difficult than any such run in Claire’s round and they proved to be a momentum killer for Danny. It’s all in the eye of the beholder – they’re all easy if you know the answers and they’re all hard if you don’t. Still, by the time he was asked his last question, about cuneiform, he knew he wasn’t going to do it. He finished with 19.

Aaron never seemed to be flustered or frustrated during his round, even though things did not go as well as I am sure that he would have hoped. We mentioned momentum in Danny’s round and sadly Aaron never really managed to work up a full head of steam. One thing to note was that he picked up the only pass of the whole contest, on his way to a total of 17.

Which left only Nancy. If she’d looked nervous during her specialist round, to me she looked positively petrified as she walked back to the chair. Yet she clearly had no need to be. What we’ve learned is that in recent years in the first round any GK score in the teens is a really good performance. Nancy needed 13 to win outright and she actually went on to score fourteen. What’s more, this didn’t look like a lucky performance at all. There was a wide range of general knowledge shown. By the end of the heats I reckon she’ll be pretty high on my unofficial table.

Well done to all four contenders. A thoroughly enjoyable season opener. As for Nancy, well there were a couple of things of particular interest in her closing piece to camera. She explained that she loved quizzes, but not whether this was just watching quizzes or extended into playing them. She also said that she’d applied when a work colleague told her they had just done so. Did they also get onto the show, I wonder? It would be interesting to know.

The Details

Claire Reynolds	Dad’s Army	10	0	13	0	23	0
Aaron Casanova	Liverpool FC Under Jurgen Klopp	11	0	6	1	17	1
Nancy Braithwaite	The Life and Works of Jane Austen	11	0	14	0	25	0
Danny Lardner	Shania Twain	10	0	9	0	19	0

Never on Sunday take two

Jess and Dan popped round about 6pm yesterday.  They said they were going to a local quiz we’ve never been to before at 8 and would I like to join them. Now, had it been tonight instead I would probably have declined, since I’m off on this summer’s sketching trip in the early hours of tomorrow morning. It’s a mega trip too – 2 nights in Dublin, then five nights in New York City, then one more night in Dublin. Combined 60^th birthday and retirement present, and the reason why I won’t be posting on Quizzy Monday 12^th August for quite a few days. However, I digress and back to last night.

Now, I haven’t mentioned where it was and to be honest I don’t think I’m going to. Yes, I am going to be churlish and negative about it. You see, it somehow managed to be much less than the sum of its parts and for anyone wanting to make their own quiz and host their own quiz it was an interesting demonstration of the pitfalls that you can fall into if you’re not careful.

Timing

We players last night got a lot for our money – which was £1 per player as it happened. See what you think. We were given – a handout with 20 dingbats representing superheroes. Another handout with 20 dingbats representing book titles. Another handout with 12 questions in two groups, both of which were linked by connections. Then four rounds of 20 general knowledge questions each. As a rule of thumb I like more questions rather than fewer questions so this was fine by me. Okay. The thing is though, it does make it necessary to run a pretty tight ship in order to get through it all in a reasonable time. Last night’s QM didn’t start handing anything out until gone 20 past eight, and then he allowed what must have been a good half hour to allow teams time to do all the handouts. Then there was a long break after two rounds. Then another long break between round four and swapping the papers. I would say you could have trimmed anything up to an hour off the quiz and it would have been better for it.

Bad Questions

In which year – yes, there are only so many times you should ever ask an ‘in which year’ question in one evening. One seems optimum to me. There were too many in his one.

What name did so and so and such and such give their baby?

How many eggs does an average hen lay in a given year?

Funnily enough the answer to all of those questions is who bloody cares? Test my knowledge by all means but don’t ask me to play guessing games.

Wording of Questions

If you’ve played in a range of quizzes with different question masters then you’ll know that some are better at this than others are. Last night’s was certainly not the worst. But he really wasn’t great. Case in point – what is the correct full name of the character played by David Jason in Only Fools and Horses. The answer he gave – Del Boy Trotter. Now the thing is he asked for the CORRECT Full name. Hey look, I’ve been around a bit so I put Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter, but there was a bit of a furore and I have to say I was on the protestors’ side. He made it worse when he tried to say that he had made it clear that he wanted the Del Boy name – he didn’t. Not quite as bad as Dai Norwich insisting that Genesis had recorded “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” because , and I quote “I was listening to it earlier today.” Not far off though.

See what you think of this one. Which University was attended by Stephen Hawking? Right here’s the facts – he did his bachelor’s degree at University College Oxford, and his PhD at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. So the correct answer is both. Which is what I put. What’s more I even specified he did his first degree at Oxford and his PhD at Cambridge, What answer did the QM give? Cambridge. In a way I could have understood it if he’d said Oxford, being his first.

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Now, before I make my last point, I’d better explain that we did actually win. Our original score was given as 94. – Are you sure? – I asked the team that marked it. They sheepishly realised that they had not added on a handout score, which gave us 114. Bearing in mind the difficulty of the dingbats and connections – and we only dropped two points on them all – I felt we’d probably win comfortably. No, the second placed team had 111. There are a number of explanations – I don’t know he quiz well enough to suggest how they might have done so well.

a)There isn’t a very thriving competitive quiz scene in Port Talbot and surroundings but it’s possible that he other team are just a very good team who only play in his quiz.

b)Its quite possible that the same questions get recycled a lot in this quiz, so what might be difficult to newbie teams might be very well known to the regulars.

c)Maybe there was what we could euphemistically call some sympathetic marking between teams.

Who knows? Not me. Cheating? Not impossible, certainly, especially bearing in mind there was a cash prize, but if anyone was cheating they didn’t do THAT good a job of it.

However, despite winning the money I think that all four of us were rather disappointed. I’ve made some suggestions why in the comments above. Personally I think it was more the timing and the funereal pace than anything. I much prefer it when a QM is well versed in the fine art of getting the hell on with it.

Quizzy Monday Return set for August 12th

 Yes, dearly beloved, our summer quiz drought is set to end a week on Monday. I hope to post before the 19th, but I'm in Dublin and New York from 6th to 16th August so I may be a while catching up. 

Never on Sunday? Well, not quite.

Hi, It’s me again. No, sorry, I don’t come bearing news of when our favourite quiz shows will be starting again. Surely it won’t be that long – I know that the Olympics affects the BBC schedules but I wouldn’t be surprised if Quizzy Mondays aren’t that far away.

Well, things sure have changed on Walton’s Mountain in 2024, folks. Since my last post I bit the bullet and wrote my letter to my headteacher with my intention to retire. I’ve claimed my full teacher’s pension which is due to start soon. Which doesn’t have very much to do with this post but a little scene setting adds a bit of texture to a post, don’t you think? No? Oh well, soldier on.

Back in June was my 60^th birthday. My family threw a party at the rugby club, at the heart of which was a quiz, compiled by Jess and Dan. Lots of people who are very dear to me came, including two of my old Heads of Department from the late, lamented Cwrt Sart School. In particular my mate Curig, who I have seen on maybe two or three occasions since he retired from school in 2012. We’ve exchanged Facebook messages a couple of times and then last week he invited me to play with him in a quiz in a pub in Pontardawe yesterday.

I haven’t played in a Sunday quiz since before lockdown, and yes, this was a conscious decision. My friend John and I throughout the 2010s had fought a losing battle to find a Sunday quiz to play in where the locals wouldn’t mind it too much if we won more often than, well, let’s call a spade a spade, more often than anyone else. It so often happened that we’d find a quiz, and go along one Sunday and try it out. On these occasions we’d win more often than not. Generally the locals would be great about this. Then when we went back the next week and did the same they would be only slightly less great. After a month or two they would not be great about it at all. They would often not even pretend to be gruntled. Some would be noticeably disgruntled. It wouldn’t matter if we refused the prize. If you make a bloke feel intellectually inadequate in his own local, especially if you’re not a regular yourself, then you are on very thin ice.

So I stopped going out on a Sunday. Up until the late twenty teens I’d always had a bullish attitude to this sort of thing – I win a lot of pub quizzes and league quizzes because I’ve made myself into a good enough quizzer over the years to do so. If you want to beat me on a consistent basis, then put the work in to make yourself into a good enough quizzer to do so, and I’ll also give you respect for doing so. – But while there’s individual situations where sheer bloody-mindedness can bring you rewards, in the long run it often turns from being admirable persistence to self-defeating stubbornness. I’d got to the stage when wining a quiz brought me little or not pleasure, and losing a quiz ruined my whole week, and that’s not healthy.

I’d begun my retrenching before lockdown. Retiring from the Bridgend Quiz League was a start, and that was followed not long afterwards by stopping going out on a Sunday. I’d even tailed off going to the rugby club quiz on a Thursday. Then lockdown happened. I don’t want to say much about lockdown because Covid was an absolute tragedy where thousands and thousands of people lost their lives and families were torn apart. Anyone whose family was not touched in this way should just give thanks in whichever way they know best. If you’ve followed the blog  since 2021 then you’ll know that I did pick up quizzing again. There’s been the weekly quiz in the Rugby Club, the monthly film quiz in the Gwyn Hall and on very rare occasions a midweek quiz with one or more of my kids.

So, the Sunday Quiz last night. First of all, Curig couldn’t make it! Okay, that’s life. I didn’t find that out until after I got there. I stayed because I knew he QM from a few years back. In the early-mid noughties I was asked to play for a pub in Pontardawe in the Swansea Independent Quiz League. Steve was the landlord and also team captain. So after the guy Steve asked to give out pens and collect in entry money saw me sitting on my own he offered me to join a team. I refused, although to my credit I did not tell him the reason namely that I didn’t want to have to waste time and energy explaining why their answer was wrong and mine was right. In the end he ignored me completely and dragged this other newbie over.

Fair play to Terry, he didn’t know a great deal, but he knew that he didn’t know a great deal and so didn’t argue with me, which was fine by me. Not very nice of me, but I’d rather tell you the truth.

After round 1 we had a three point lead. Now, I don’t really like picture quizzes very much. I think that they don’t really test knowledge as much as they test recognition, and I’m sorry, but one blonde actress/singer tends to look much like another to me. But at least last night’s picture quiz did reward a little more than just recognition. For example, one of the 10 pictures showed the Pentagon building and asked – In which state is this building? To which the average player will answer Washington, confusing Washington state with Washington DC (which is not the answer anyway!) Another picture showed the Mount Rushmore Monument and asked in which state this could be found. We were also helped by a photograph of Marble Arch, asking in which city it could be found. The team whose answers we marked went for Paris with the Arc de Triomphe and I bet most others did too. We dropped just one point on the second round, so I was pretty sure we’d won.

Several teams tied for second place with 77. We won with 91. And don’t get me wrong, a win is always nice, but this is the kind of thing that sets alarm bells ringing with me. Steve told me that they normally have a different winning team every week. There’s no way that I want to upset this. And I have to conclude that based on the evidence of last night, I’d win here more often than not. So I kind of hope that Curig doesn’t invite me for next Sunday, which I could do, and leaves it until after I come back from holiday.

News from LAM Towers

Hello. Look, I'm sorry it's been weeks since my last post. I have been going to the club and playing in the quiz, but that's really been about the length of it. 

You know I go on about being the last schoolteacher to win a series of Mastermind? Well, my career as a full time school teacher now officially has only a matter of weeks left. I've sent in my retirement letter and the magic date is 31st August. Although the last day in school this year is 19th July. Although I've been off work with depression since mid-March. Still, even if I do go back, that's a maximum of 25 teaching days even if I do go straight back as soon as the current paper medical certificate expires.

You know, 20 odd years ago when I was middle aged and stupid I would often say - when I finally retire I want to be going out to quizzes at least five nights a week. Well, that ain't going to happen now. But I must say that quizzing has helped keep me going at important times during my teaching career, and while I'm giving up teaching now, I can't see me ever completely giving up quizzing.