Returning to a Screen Near You

 What with Mastermind ending last Monday, and if my suspect adding up is correct only another four UC's to go this year the time is rapidly coming when we're going to have to take our quiz fix wherever we can find it. I've just read that the second series of Gary Lineker's Sitting on a Fortune is due to air starting in a few weeks' time. 

There you go.

From Page To Screen

Let’s not finish April with my rant in my last post still ringing in our collective ears, shall we. I’ve mentioned in the past that I do attend one other quiz than the rugby club. This is the Movie quiz in the Gwyn Hall in Neath. It only takes place once a month, and it is well attended. To give you an example, April’s quiz which took place on Wednesday was themed ‘From Page To Screen’. Traditionally this is not one of the most popular films, in the way that, for the sake of argument, Disney movies is. Yet there were still 23 teams playing on Wednesday evening.

It's a funny theme, From Page to Screen. Basically, any fim adaptation of a book is fair game, which does at least mean that you can have a wide and varied range of questions.

Yeah, alright, we won. One new thing this year is that there’s a winning team each month, but the results all contribute to a League throughout the year. With a third of the year now done, we’ve won three and been second once. That was the musicals quiz which was, I think in February. Now I’m usually of a pessimistic cast of mind when contemplating our chances before the final scores are announced. I’m not sure why – as I always say, if it’s hard for us, then it’s hard for everyone else as well. Maybe it’s because in a General Knowledge quiz at the very least I’m usually at least a pretty good contributor to the team, whereas in a film quiz I’m at best an auxiliary, chipping in the odd one or two when I can. So I really didn’t know how well we’d done. I hoped hat we’d one by a point or two. As it turned out though we won by 8, which is a comfortable margin in this quiz.

Look, if you have a good time and enjoy the quiz, as we did, then winning is a bonus. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it doesn’t matter to me. I’m far too immature for that.

A Bunch of A***holes

I was saddened on two occasions this week to hear that two of my nearest and dearest have been given grief over quizzes that they’ve compiled.

My son Mike often plays in a quiz on a Tuesday night – I’ve accompanied him once or twice when other team members haven’t been able to make it. Like our quiz in the rugby club, this is compiled by volunteers from the teams who play in it. Mike’s team are by far the most regular winners of the quiz, and as you probably won’t be too surprised to hear this has created a lot of resentment amongst the others. I’m sure it doesn’t help that they are younger than any of the other teams by some degree. Mike’s team were compiling the quiz and Mike did the sport round. Well, such was the barracking and the complaining that the questions (which were perfectly fair in my opinion) were too hard, that Mike ended up cutting the round short by two questions. Then a friend, who was guesting for the evening was told by a couple of people by another team that Mike’s team were ‘the team who always cheat’. Finally, the last turd in the waterpipe, the organiser asked at the end for volunteers for the rota because he was going on holiday. Mike’s team volunteered, only to be told – I’ll have to get back to you , lads. I don’t think they’re going to go back there.

Does this kind of behaviour come as much of a surprise? No, not really. A similar thing was the reason why I stopped going out on a Sunday. But my heart goes out to the lads in the team.

Then, on Thursday night it was Dan’s turn as Question Master in the club. Dan produced another very good quiz, the highlight of which was another superb music round. This one was solo piano versions of popular hits from the decades. Great round. I mean, you’d have to go a very long way to beat his first string quartets round, but it was still a great and enjoyable round. And I have to say it, some of those songs sounded terrific with just the piano. Now, I always used to say that nobody ever complains that the questions are too easy. Well, that shows just what I know. The questions were not too easy. But after the break we had a couple of high scoring rounds one after another. That was when the carping started. It’s one particular team who were guilty, the same team who were so bloody rude the first tme Jess did it last year. You know the sort of thing ‘Oh, you’re taking pity on us, are you?’. It would not, in all honesty, make it any better if they ever provided a question master themselves, but they don’t. One should always try to be calm and reasonable when commenting on other people’s behaviour, so bearing this in mind I would like to call them a bunch of arseholes.

A few thoughts provoked by the Mastermind Grand Final

This may sound silly, and if you wish to think that I’m being arrogant or up myself by saying it, then fair enough, you may be right. Still, the fact is that watching the Mastermind Grand Final is always a little bit of an emotional experience for me. I can’t help putting myself in the place of the winner and recalling my own emotions on a day which, while it was 16 years ago stands out as clearly in my memory as if it was yesterday. But I also spare a thought for those who didn’t win, and I’m often amazed at their great sportsmanship in their warm and genuine congratulations to the winner. I hope that I would have found it within myself to react in the same way had things worked out differently in 2007. But I don’t know if I could have.

Stuart Field, Mastermind Champion 2003, said a couple of things I found really interesting. The first was that he’s been preparing for 20 years for this. Yes, it made me turn in upon my own experiences. If you stretched it widely, I could say that I was preparing for over 30 years, from the moment when I was about 10, watching the show, picking off an answer here and there and my Nan said that one day I would go on the show and win. Of course, I wasn’t actually preparing specifically for Mastermind as such for all that time, but the seed had been planted. And what were all those years of shouting answers at Mastermind, University Challenge and other lesser televisual offerings if there wasn’t at least some element of preparation? I played in my first ever pub quiz and my first ever quiz league in 1988, 19 years before Mastermind. That’s another level of preparation. Then I compiled my first quiz for the rugby club in 1995, 12 years before Mastermind. That’s another level of preparation. And so on. Always in the back of my mind was that eventual Mastermind appearance.

Another thing that I couldn’t help thinking about was this – at what point do you decide that you’re going to stop, and not apply again? I was lucky. I appeared in two consecutive series. After losing in the first round in 2006 I basically told myself – well, that’s it then. You’re not as good as you think you are. At least you got to take part in the show, be satisfied with that. Then I got the phone call inviting me to be a stand in for the semis, and while I was there I reappraised what had happened, and decided that all that had prevented me reaching the semis was a little bit of luck – well, that and the fact that another of the contenders was better than I was on the day. So I reapplied, and there you go. Walking to the chair in the final for the GK round, with another two contenders to go after me, and a two point deficit after the first round I distinctly remember telling myself – if I lost then I would not be reapplying for a long, long time. Even if I did, there was no guarantee I would ever get to the final again. So I was to enjoy the GK round, because I wasn’t planning on coming back this way. Now, thankfully, we’ll never know if I would have stuck to this resolution or not. I kind of have the feeling that four or five years down the line the urge to have another go would have become to strong to resist.

This was something that I also reflected on as Stuart paid tribute to his partner, Elaine. I can run that up the flagpole and salute it. Preparing for an appearance on Mastermind, be it in the heat, semi or final is, I believe, an experience tailor made for obsessives. In fact if I’m honest I think one of the reasons why I applied so quickly to have another go at Mastermind was because I’d enjoyed the preparation so much. It appealed to the obsessive side of my nature. I loved learning each of my subjects. But it was very time consuming. From time to time Mary still talks of long evenings mumbling away to myself in the dining room. Testing myself on my flash cards actually, but yes, I can see how it must have looked. So here’s to all the husbands, wives, families and friends who put up with loved ones preparing for Mastermind. Thanks to you all.

University Challenge: Qualification Match: Durham v. UCL

The Teams

Durham

Harry Scully

Chloe Margaux

Alex Radcliff (Capt.)

Bea Bennett

UCL

Rachel Collier

Michael Fleetwood -Walker

James Salmon (capt.)

Louis Collier

You know, it all seemed a lot clearer and easier a few weeks ago, before the quarter finals started. I was pretty clear that Bristol, UCL and Durham would make up three of the semi-finalists, and then either Southampton or Jesus,Oxford as the other. Well, maybe Jesus had flattered to deceive in their first and second round matches, but they lost both and they’ve gone. In the two qualification matches so far, Bristol comfortably defeated UCL to go through, then in what I thought was an upset, Durham, still leading relatively comfortably at the 20 minute mark, lost out to a fine performance from Royal Holloway, whose chances I had dissed in my preview. Sorry again. So Royal Holloway took the first place in the semi-finals. Which put Durham on a collision course with UCL. Two of my chosen semi-finalists, yet only one of the teams would be going through. Not only that, but next week’s last quarter final pits Southampton against another team whose chances I dismissed in my preview, Newnham. Well, if Roma Ellis dominates the buzzer the way she did in their last match, Newnham have an excellent chance too. Whatever happens, three of this year’s semi finalists will have lost at least once during the competition.

Coming back to last night, then. The first starter asked us about a species of squirrel and Louis Collier was the first to realise we were talking about a groundhog. The first starter asked us about a species of squirrel and Louis Collier was the first to realise we were talking about a groundhog. (see what I did there? No? Well, please yourselves.) Unusual buildings in Wales yielded just the one bonus but at least UCL seemed to have found their buzzer range early doors. Durham found theirs almost immediately too, with Harry Scully very quickly recognising a Turner Prize winner. Historical conflicts in board games sounded intriguing. They weren’t that generous mind you, yielding only one correct answer. With the next starter the cluse seemed to be pointing towards flamingo especially when Alice in Wonderland was brought into the equation, at which point Louis Collier took his second starter. Bonuses on the wors of the Bronte sisters saw UCL pick up the two, including a harder one on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, yet miss out on the easier Wuthering Heights. This brought up the picture starter, with an area of what looked like Indonesia highlighted o a map. The area represented an area where a main language with no official status was spoken. Michael Fleetwood-Walker correctly identified it as an area where Javanese was the main language. Three more similar maps brought 2 correct answers, and that was two more than I managed. Look, I knew nothing about stoichiometry before the next starter, and I still know nothing about it but Harry Scully said it was the answer to the next starter and that was good enough for me. For JP too as it happened. Mammalian cell culture sounds like an 90s Indie band, but apparently it was some biology thing, which yielded one correct answer. This meant that at just past the 10-minute mark UCL led by 30 – 55.

James Salmon knew about capsids and viruses for the next starter. This gave UCL a full house on Physics. Both teams rather sat on their buzzers before James Salmon recognised a reference to Lemuel Gulliver. Bell Hooks, whose work I cannot claim any great familiarity with, however I did know Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’. So to the music starter, and the work of an Italian composer. Where the hell I dredged up Donizetti from I don’t know, but it was right. Neither team managed it. I don’t understand the question – what is the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to 100, but Alex Radcliffe worked out it was 5050 extremely quickly. The music bonuses were three operas that were based on literary works whose authors we had to identify. The only one we both managed was Dumas. The Durham skipper took his second starter in a row knowing that various Spanish words all started with the letters m-a-. Endurance races brought just one bonus again. Ubiquitin is a beautiful word to say – never bloody heard of it myself but that means nothing. James Salmon, so much back to form after his uncharacteristic misfiring against Bristol, took another starter with it. Flannery O’Conner yielded nowt, I’m afraid. Louis Collier knew that the Egyptian hieroglyph for Life is the ankh. Eponymous bodily features earned me a lap of honour for my dear old friend, the Golgi Apparatus! Yay! No little bit of knowledge acquired is ever totally wasted! UCL took a full house, which meant that they were leading by 130 – 60 at the 20-minute mark.

Right, remember how Durham were ahead a 20 against Royal Holloway? They were going to have to fight for their lives now to avoid going out. The picture starter comprised of Edouard Manet’s Olympia. Bea Bennett won the buzzer race for that one. More pictures from a 2019 exhibition featuring paintings of previously unnamed black models gave us just one bonus with an unmistakeable Henri Rousseau. James Salmon lost five for pi mesons (mmmmm, pi mesons) giving a free shot, allowing Harry Scully to score with kaons. (who I’m sure made their first appearance in Season 3 of Star Trek The Next Generation) UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran brought 1 bonus. Still, the gap was being eroded. A good buzz from Michael Fleetwod-Walker identified God as the other artist a Picasso quote concerned. Bonuses on the artist Leonora Carrington contributed nothing to the UCL fund. A wonderful UC special on literature and chemistry saw Bea Bennett identify Lolita as Sodium. Na – first letters of the author’s name, is the symbol for Sodium. OK only one bonus on currencies followed, but the gap had been halved in quick time. If Durham took the next starter then it was going to get very interesting. Harry Scully recognised that the valediction in various titles referenced was going to be Goodbye. Jacinta Arden didn’t help, but nonetheless a full house would put Durham into the lead. Poor Michael Fleetwood Walker ended up yielding five points when he zigged with towns that were on either sides of the USA Mexico border. Given the full question , told the answer was a river, Alex Radcliffe took the free throw and scored with Rio Grande. On such small margins did further participation in the series hang. A full house on marine creatures added to UCL’s woes. 10 points between the teams, neither need panic yet. Harry Scully knew Milliamps hour for the next starter. If they took one bonus, UCL would need a full house to tie. If they took two bonuses then one visit to the table wouldn’t be enough. They took the two they needed. Surely there wasn’t enough time left for UCL? James Salmon took the next starter with Budapest. There was only time for two bonuses on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Northern Ireland. So, in a grandstand finish, Durham claimed the semi final place by a score of 160 – 145.

Many congratulations to Durham. A brilliant fightback. Commiserations to UCL. You’ve been a fine team during the series, and at another time, on another day, who knows? This time it was not to be.

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

Pericles is also the name of a board game.

Mastermind 2023 Grand Final

Another Mastermind Grand Final. Another healthy portion of egg all over my face. I’ll come to that in the fullness of time.

So, kicking off our final was Ben Spicer. In my preview I had Ben as an outside chance of a podium place but more likely amongst the minor placings. In tonight’s final Ben was answering on British and Irish Lions Tours of the 21^st century. After the drought of the last few semi finals I rather fancied myself to do quite well on several of the specialists tonight and this was one of them. Well, I did okay with 3. Ben did much better, putting on 10 points. A competitive score, but not I fancied the highest that we were going to see in this round.

I predicted that James Beeby would just miss out on the podium, and cited the fact that his heat and semi final specialist rounds had been good, but not outstanding. Well, that goes to show how much I know, for the round that James put in tonight really was outstanding. I managed  correct answers on his round on Princess Margaret – well, I have watched every episode of the Crown after all – but James managed an excellent 14. That was a round that was going to take some beating.

I predicted that Michael McPartland would become the champion. This prediction was built on the solid foundation hat he had top scored in all of the first round heats by four points, and then he had done the same in all of the semi finals. Michael was answering on the Rocky Films. He didn’t do badly. . . but crucially he didn’t do as well as he could. It must have been crushing to him to have just his one under par round in the whole series during the final. Michael scored 9, putting him five points behind with 3 contenders yet to play. I scored four on this round.

Stephen Finn I suggested might well be one of those contenders who gets better and better as the series goes on. He certainly improved between first round and semi. Tonight he was answering on Bletchey Park during World War II, and he did well, scoring 12. At only two points behind he was still in with a chance, especially if nobody beat James’ score of fourteen. This looked as if it might be my dodgiest subject for the final and that’s exactly what it proved to be as I scored just the one.

I suggested that James Davidson had already won his final by getting this far, and that he would probably not have the firepower to make a successful challenge at this point in his quiz career. Tonight he was answering on the Emperor Augustus – this was my banker subject and indeed it yielded me 6. James did well, but not well enough, ending with 9 like Michael before him.

Bringing the round to a close was Stuart Field. Now, despite the fact that he needed a tie break to win his heat, and a pass countback to win his semi final I fancied Stuart’s chances enough in my review to predict he would be runner up. Well, he certainly didn’t go through his specialist round as if he was settling for second place. He faced fifteen questions, and answered every one of them correctly. It was a brilliant performance on the BBC sitcom Extras, and it was one of those rounds where you felt that Clive could have carried on asking him questions for another two minutes and he would still have had all of them right. 1 point on Extras gave me an aggregate of 19 – not bad but then that was based on 6 rather than four rounds.

First back to the chair then was Michael. I never expected him to be first to go in the GK round tonight – and I can only apologise to him for cursing him with the Clark tip. To my mind he was the best and most consistent GK performer in this final line up. Could he score enough to win? Well, all he could do was give it his absolute best and hope to hang on. He did very well too. Once again he got into the mid-teens, scoring 15. I had the sinking feeling that although this might well push him up onto the podium, I couldn’t see it being quite enough.

So, I said in my preview that I didn’t think that James Davidson would have the firepower to really challenge. Well, he might have only scored 9 in the Specialist but he made up for that with what I thought was his best GK round. No, he didn’t quite match Michael’s round, but he kept plugging on to accrue a highly praiseworthy 13 points for a total of 22, 2 points behind Michael.

Ben had put in a good specialist round, and yet still found himself five points behind at half time. Not only that, but he was faced with the daunting fact that the only way he could go into the lead was by scoring 16, since he had accrued a pass already. Well, he gave it a lash, and acquitted himself well, scoring 12. On countback he was just behind James D because of that 1 pass. So Michael was up to no worse than fourth.

Stephen Finn, well, how should I put it? He had one of ‘those’ rounds in his GK. Not a bad round, not a bad round at all, but that’s just not enough when you need a great round. Stephen just couldn’t build up any momentum and put together a string of correct answers. In the end he battled to add 9 and take his total to 20. So at least Michael was once again on the podium.

James Beeby had a massive five point lead over Michael at half time. So he needed 10 points to go into the joint lead and 11 to go into outright lead. What followed from him was a great example of calm under fire. He did get a few wrong, but importantly he never let it bother him – or he certainly seemed calm – and kept going. Having equalled Michael’s score he had just one question left .  . . and he got it right! He was in the lead, with just one other contender to go. Well, I know how that feels.

As had all the contenders in the final, Stuart had taken his preparation extremely seriously and now here he was, on the brink of achieving his goal. He was on fifteen. The target was 26 for an outright win. 12 points. Definitely within his capabilities, if the questions didn’t conspire against him and if he kept his head. Well, he certainly did that. A picture of concentration, Stuart passed the target with questions to spare and forged onward putting daylight between himself and James B. In the end he won clearly having added 13 to his total to win with 28.

Thank you all, gentlemen, for your efforts all series, and for an exciting final. Thank you Clive Myrie. It’s only his second series, and yet it’s difficult to envisage anyone else in the question master’s chair now. But above all else, thank you, Stuart Field and congratulations on becoming the Mastermind of the United Kingdom, 2023!

The Details

Ben Spicer	British and Irish Lions Tours of the 21st Century	10	1	12	0	22	1
James Beeby	Princess Margaret	14	0	11	0	25	0
Michael McPartland	The Rocky Films	9	0	15	0	24	0
Stephen Finn	Bletchley Park during the Second World War	12	0	8	3	20	3
James Davidson	Augustus Caesar	9	0	13	0	22	0
Stuart Field	The BBC Sitcom Extras	15	0	13	0	28	0

Toughening up UC - really?

If you’re a member of the Contestant Hub group on Facebook you maybe saw the post about yesterday’s Manchester Evening News post about the next series of University Challenge. One of the big claims in the report is that questions will be harder for the next series. The artclae claims that this may well be in response to criticisms of questions on such subjects as the TV series ‘Love Island’ during the current series.

Personally I can’t help wondering whether this is just a wee bit of hyperbole, understandable considering that the change of presenter is quite probably the biggest shake up to the show since its 1994 revival. I certainly hope that’s all it is. Be honest, how many times do you watch University Challenge and think – blimey, the show is really dumbing down. I wish they’d make these questions a bit harder. – I certainly don’t. I think that the level of the questions is just about right, and this is show after show, year after year. There are times when I’m surprised about what student teams don’t know, but that’s not because there’s something drastically wrong with the questions. You know, there’s things a regular pub quizzer of several years’ standing would just know, but if you’re not one, then it’s less likely that you would.

I wish Amol Rajan every success – he has two tough acts to follow. But the fewer changes to a show like University Challenge – the better.