University Challenge Round 1 - Open University v. Hertford, Cambridge

The Teams

Open University

Ellie Romans

Mike Holt

Anne Gavaghan (Capt)

James Davidson

Hertford, Cambridge

Ollie Sourbut

Omer Keskin

Daniel Whittle (Capt)

Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju

Here we go, then, eyes down for another UC first round match. The words lambda calculus brought on the first blast of the Baby Elephant Walk from my internal orchestra. Not for the last time in this contest Omer Keskin beat the rest to the buzzer and gave the correct answer – this being Alonzo Church. Recent winners of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction brought Hertford a full house. That’s how to make a statement of intent. Omer Keskin was in very early again with the next starter, the answer to which was male gaze. Universities named after prominent thinkers did not, strangely include Rab C. Nesbitt University, but they brought a second consecutive full house. We’d hardly warmed up and Hertford were already fifty points to the good. The next starter soon seemed as if it could only be Benedictine or Chartreuse. Mike Holt zigged with Benedictine and lost five. Given the useful information that the answer could also refer to a shade of green Hertford didn’t get that it was Chartreuse. Omer Keskin took his third starter out of four knowing references to John Singer Sargent, although the question didn’t mention about him inventing the sewing machine or taking over the role of Darren in Bewitched. The zoology bonuses saw a welcome name check for Przewalski’s Horse. It’s a name I’ve always wanted to use more in casual conversation. Hertford took two of them. For the picture starter nobody recognised the ceremonial county of Middlesex. Ollie Sourbut was the first to identify the chickenpox virus for the next starter, earning the map bonuses. These highlighted places sharing their names with novels. None of which were identified correctly.

Cometh the hour cometh the man. It was at this point that the Force began to crackle in the air, and Amol issued the challenge “Plenty of time,Open’ . Omer Keskin buzzed early with Cyberpunk, allowing  Open to get off the mark with Steampunk. Scores by Hildur Gudnadottir (er. . . gesundheit?) brought a full house, and meant that the score was 75 – 25 to Hertford at the ten-minute mark.

For the second consecutive starter Omer Keskin buzzed in too early and lost five. However Open didn’t know Karachi and therefore could not capitalise. Indefatigable Omer Keskin buzzed early again for the next starter and this time was right with speciesism. A nice UC set the answers to which all shared names with members of the 2022 England European championship winning football team brought a very quick full house. Neither team knew Coleridge’s Christabel. Expressions beginning with au – pair, fait etc. fell to an early buzz from Ollie Sourbut. Bonuses on words or phrases beginning with – pil – brought two correct answers. Ollie Sourbut took the next starter as week, knowing a groyne when he kicked one. Vera Mukhina, who sounds like a character in a Cold War era political thriller but was actually a sculptor brought two correct answers. It seemed as if Amol’s Jedi exhortation had worn off early in this show. But Anne Gavaghan put the lie to this, buzzing in to identify the work of Joan Jett for the music starter. More female artists from the same era brought a full house. For once Omer Keskin lost a buzzer race as Anne Gavaghan identified Starman as the work of the great David Bowie. Open only took one bonus on astronomical catalogues, but they were at least putting a spurt on. For the next starter, if it’s about Tsars and not Russia, then it’s Bulgaria. Omer Keskin had that. Bonuses on North Macedonia followed. Omer Keskin won the next buzzer race, but unfortunately provided the wrong son of Priam. There’s no Hector in Romeo and Juliet. There is, as James Davidson knew, a Paris. A very gentle set on Tutankhamen provided a full house. When the next starter got as far as “nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy analysis” the internal orchestra struck up with the Baby Elephant Walk again. Whatever it meant Omer Keskin had it right. The theatre and plays within a play brought a full house. This meant that Hertford led by 185  - 80 at the 20.

Game over then. But not show over. There was still the question of a potential repechage slot for Open. It didn’t help them when Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju correctly identified Mount Ararat for the second picture starter. Two bonuses were taken on other sacred mountains. Ellie Romans  knew that .fk addresses are in the Falkland Islands. The video game series God of War (not Mario or Sonic) offered me but little, yet knowledge of Greek Mythology netted me two. Open also took two, although not both the same ones as me which pushed them into triple figures, and a opened the opportunity to get on the repechage board for now. They came even closer when skipper Anne Gavaghan knew that John Jacob Astor was one of the real life people portrayed in the film “Titanic”. Guy Debord brought us both just the one bonus. Ellie Romans recognised a description of 3x3 basketball, new  to the Olympics in 2021 and Open took a full house on the three film bonuses that followed. The gap was down to fifty five. Surely the Open, even with the lingering effect of Amol’s jedi boost could not pull this off. I couldn’t repeat the maths/physics starter that followed because the Baby Elephant thing was playing too loudly in my head again, but Omer Keskin said it was power and that was good enough for me. For Amol as well. Bonuses on the cell cycle in biology passed by without me troubling the scorer, and Hertford took just the one. Omer Keskin came in too early for the next starter, allowing Open to try but none of us knew Citium. Even the Waterloo and Citium. After being given ‘wabi, sabi and –‘ Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju correctly informed us that these were cultural values of Japan. I’d like to think that the complete list would have been wabi, sabi and Jimmy Tarby, but I’ve no great hope that it was. Matrilineal societies provided a brace of bonuses. Anne Gavaghan took the starter which put Open onto the repechage board, knowing that the only one of Switzerland’s four official languages unique to Switzerland is Romansch. Which was just as well because we were gonged before Open could add further to their score.

So, congratulations to Hertford. A fine score of 230 to the 155 of Hertford. A bonus conversion rate of 69 percent marks them out as very much a team to watch. As for Open, they managed a 73 percent rate. Extremely good, although they were too often second best on the buzzer. The repechage board currently looks like this –

Oxford Brookes – 205

Trinity, Cambridge – 175

Open University – 155

Southampton – 155

With King’s Cambridge having been pushed off the bottom. 

How is Amol Doing?

Amol flexed his metaphorical jedi muscles early last night. After 8 and three quarter minutes he said ‘these aren’t the droids your’e looking for Plenty of Time, Open. See if you can get going with this one.’. Disaster! Omer Keskin buzzed in with an answer. Ah, but the Force is strong in Amol, and Mr. Keskin’s answer was wrong. Mastermind 2023 grand finalist James Davidson swooped in for the points.

At the end, Amol paid tribute to Omer Keskin’s buzzing skills. Fair enough, but don’t underestimate the contribution of the others, Amol. You win or lose as a team.

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

Lake Ohrid is the deepest lake in the Balkans.

Mastermind 2024: Round 1: Heat 2

In my defence I think that I should point out that yesterday was our first day with the pupils back in school – mine was built in 2016 so no issue with RAC (or the R.A.C., for that matter) I’m glad to say. I was just very tired.

Still let’s make up for lost time now. Last night Karl Marx kicked us off with questions about Pete Rosser. Sorry, I’ll write that again. Pete Rosser kicked us off with questions about Karl Marx. He did pretty well too. As we’ve often observed, anything in double figures is good going in the current era of the show. I did think that I might get a couple. Well, to be honest it took a lucky guess just to get the one point.

My banker subject, “The Royle Family” followed. Katy Chambers, whose subject it was, really knows these shows inside out. I say that because I thought that I knew these shows pretty well, but I still only managed 4, a total that put my hopes of a double figure aggregate for the specialists into severe jeopardy. Incidentally, after UC I watched the first episode of the Royle Family, which was being shown on one of the cable channels, and three of the questions in this round were actually about this first episode! As I said, Katy did herself proud with a terrific score of 12.

Sadie de Souza was answering questions on Flags of British Counties. Now, this was a bit of an unknown quantity. I know more about the flags of countries than counties, but then I do know little bits about counties, and this was enough to bring me a further four points. Sadie’s knowledge of county flags is really impressive. She scored 13, and was worth every point, for my money.

So it fell to Eoin O’Connell to finish off the specialist round with Django Reinhardt. Sadly I used the unchained pun in my preview so can’t repeat it here. I know very little about the jazz musician, but all I needed was one point to take a double figure aggregate. Another lucky guess brought me this. Eoin obviously knows his stuff about Django, but there were a couple of questions where the answer refused to jump off the ti of his tongue and bearing in mind that everyone else had double figure scores, his 7 left him some way behind as the orange segments were passed around.

Eoin returned to the chair to kick off the GK round. His GK was a battling performance. It’s a funny old thing, is a Mastermind GK round. IF you get into a rhythm with it and build a momentum it can carry you all the way through, and you find answers just coming to you from the question void. If you just miss a couple of answers at crucial points though it can make the whole round an uphill slog, so credit to Eoin for taking a battling 8.

With all due respect to Eoin, the real contest was between the other three contenders and it began in earnest as Pete returned to the chair. Pete’s tactic was to answer each question as quickly as he possibly could. It’s a good tactic. If you can trust yourself that the answer which pops first into your head is your best chance at getting it right, you can really build up a head of steam. That’s what Pete did, and he was aided and abetted by Clive in this, as Clive got faster to match Pete’s speed of answering. His 13 was a fine total, and certainly opened the corridor of doubt to Katy and Sadie.

Katy gave it a lash, no doubt about that. Having a 2 point lead over Pete at half time, she could afford to go a little bit more slowly than Pete had. As the round went on though the finishing line was approaching rapidly, too rapidly as it turned out. Again, Katy reached double figures, but 10 was not quite enough, leaving her on 22.

Only Sadie remained, then. Her round was comparable to Katy’s in a way. Slower than Pete’s, certainly. However, Sadie had a three point lead at half time. Working on that principle, it was always a possibility that we could be in for a tie break. A possibility that looked more and more likely especially since Sadie was not passing. In the end, her 10 for 23 and no passes put her exactly level with Pete,

So we had the equivalent of a penalty shoot out. Both Pete and Katy were asked the same 5 questions. Neither deserved to lose, but Pete answered 2 correctly and Sadie answered 3 and that’s the bottom line. Well done, both, and well done all 4 contenders for an enjoyable match.

The Details

Pete Rosser	Karl Marx	10	0	13	0	23+2	0
Katy Chambers	The Royle Family	12	0	10	0	22	0
Sadie de Souza	Flags of British Counties	13	0	10	0	23+3	0
Eoin O’Connell	Django Reinhardt	7	1	8	2	15	3

 

Mastermind Wiki Preview

Okay, so, as you know I got an aggregate of five points on specialist on Monday’s first show of Mastermind 2024. There’s two ways of looking at that. You could be mean and say it isn’t a very good score. It isn’t. On the other hand, you could say it’s not bad at all considering I knew very little about one subject and nothing about the other 3. I’ll leave you to work out for yourself which view I subscribe to myself.

Next Monday’s show offers more Eastern promise to me. Sorry about that. I get it from my old man. Following a long running series of adverts for Frys Turkish Delight, if something looked good he would often say it was full of Eastern Promise, and if it looked bad he would say it was full of Eastern Nothing. Well, be fair – he came from a line of parsimonious Scots who looked upon wit, (and silent letters on the end of a surname) as a sinful extravagance. Coming back to Mastermind, the specialist subjects on Monday are:-

Karl Marx

The Royle Family

Flags of British Counties

Django Reinhardt.

The only one about whom I know absolutely nothing is Django Reinhardt, although I was pleased to hear he’d been unchained a few years ago. The Royle Family is my banker subject, especially considering that TV and film rounds in the last few years do tend to focus very much on events on screen. I know a bit about Karl Marx – although not quite as much as I know about his brother Groucho. I think that the one that will most reward a bit of wiki-ing is the county flags. I already know a bit about some of them, being a closet vexillologist on the QT. So I’d like to get close to double figures. But I’ll be honest, after last Monday anything higher than five will be a bonus.

University Challenge 2024 Round 1 - University of East Anglia v. Strathclyde

The Teams

University of East Anglia

Melissa Shiress

Bryony Yates

Owen Tobin (Capt)

Matthew Jennings

Strathclyde

Nina Reid

Gregor MacDowall

Steven Gault (Capt)

Prys Hughes

For the first starter I didn’t know that the river Congo is named after a historical kingdom along its length, (apparently they drink Um Bongo there.). Melissa Shiress zigged with Niger, which allowed Gregor MacDowall to zag with Congo. Guggenheim Art Galleries brought 1 bonus – with a little rub of the green UAE might have had two. Bryony Yates won the buzzer race to answer that a former player for the Boston Red Sox was a character in the TV sitcom Cheers. The bonuses that followed were on video games. When it comes to video games, then if the answer isn’t Mario or Sonic, then I ain’t getting it. 2 bonuses for UAE levelled the score. Let’s be honest with each other here, for the next starter, about Major League Baseball and statistical analysis I didn’t understand the question, but Steven Gault knew that the answer was Moneyball. My heart sank when the bonus category of names of amino acids was announced. It turned out that none of them were Mario or Sonic either. So to the picture starter. We saw a badly drawn cartoon of a man blowing a kiss, which turned out to be a diagram of the functional unit of a kidney, a nephron. UAE skipper Owen Tobin opened his account with that one. Labelled parts of said diagram brought UAE just the one correct answer. For the next starter Amol accepted the phrase in res media for in media res. I think that’s just about fair enough. The second is the usual rendering, but if you change those two words round it doesn’t change the meaning. A bonus on ancient navigation meant that as we approached ten minutes, Strathclyde led by 45 – 35.

‘I need the name of a molecule here.’ announced Amol at the start of the next starter. ‘Mario or Sonic!’ I yelled to no one in particular. Bryony Yates put me straight with lactose. I haven’t had such a bad start to a UC match since I was at uni myself, but at least Paul Revere gave me a full house. Grant Wood’s American Gothic is better known, but his Midnight Ride of Paul Revere is a really stunning piece of work and well worth checking out. Melissa Shiress knew that the next starter referred to Dada to earn bonuses on commanders of the International Space Station. UAE were slightly fortunate to get 1 bonus, considering that Amol accepted Chris Hutfield for Chris Hadfield. Not sure about the validity of accepting that. After all, this is University Challenge, not Tipping Point. Owen Tobin came in far too early for the next starter on “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, losing five and allowing Steven Gault to provide the correct answer with ‘Blue’. A lovely set on shipping forecast areas brought me a much-needed full house and a single bonus to Strathcylde. So to the music starter. The unmistakable strains of Trevor Horn singing about an abandoned studio led both me and Owen Tobin to the conclusion that this was The Buggles. 3 tracks that the great Mr. Horn produced brought a full house to put UAE one more correct answer away from triple figures. I remember David Attenborough doing a series on children’s TV when I was a kid all about mythological creatures and what might have inspired them which is how I knew that the skulls of mammoths with their huge nasal cavities may have been the inspiration for the cyclops. Bryony Yates had that starter. UK general elections brought UAE 2 bonuses. Now, let me ask you. How do you react when you hear these words at the start of a question? ‘The trigonomic identity sine squared theta plus cos squared theta – ‘? I know that one of the great glories of UC is that it can and does ask questions like this. Sadly, though, when I hear a question start like that Henry Mancini’s ;Baby Elephant Walk’ starts playing on a loop in my head. Dum de dumdum, dumdum dum dum dumdum. I fought manfully to get my attention back to the question, which is just as well since it was easy, when it started mentioning the relationship between lengths of sides of a triangle. ‘Pythagoras!’ I screamed, setting off on the lap of honour even before Bryony Yates – having a fine night on the buzzer - confirmed I was right. Fonts and typefaces brought UAE two bonuses. With 17.06 minutes on the clock they led by a significant 80 points. Obi Wan Rajan then issued encouragement to Strathclyde. ‘Plenty of time to get going. See if you can answer this one.’ This particular phrase seems to be Amol’s version of ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’ And just as effective, for Gregor MacDowall buzzed in with the answer of Samarkand as the capital of the Timurid Empire. Novels set partly or wholly in hospitals  brought a correct answer on Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward. Gregor MacDowall took a second consecutive starter with roti. Animals in Japanese poetry brought a couple of bonuses. This meant that by the 20 minute mark, since Amol’s magic words Strathclyde had cut the deficit by almost half, although UAE still led, by 130 – 85.

The deficit continued to shrink as Gregor MacDowall completed a hat trick of starters knowing that a question about the 1832 reform act had to be heading in the direction of rotten boroughs. (Londoners, supply your own puns, but please don’t include Ealing. Or Lewisham, for that matter.). Jazz and Bob Thiele took them into triple figures. At this point I think the Jedi mind trick wore off, as Melissa Shiress was quickly in to identify a still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for the second picture starter. More stills from films previously thought lost, or incomplete, brought us both a full house. Not willing to concede, though, Steven Gault was first in to identify “Things Fall Apart” as the line from Yeats’ The Second Coming’ used as a title by Chinua Achebe. They really needed a full house, and they got one in the shape of honorary captains of the German National Football Team. (Whose philosophers were beaten in the final of the World Cup by Ancient Greece with a single goal scored by Socrates. Franz Beckenbauer, name checked In one of the bonuses, was on the bench.) However it was the UAE skipper who took the next starter, knowing that the Little Curie was a mobile x ray machine developed by Madame C for use in WW1. Autumn celebrations around the world brought another full house. UAE’s Matthew Jennings took his first starter completing a quotation from Simone de Beauvoir. Portuguese royal history did nowt for UAE. Matthew Jennings took a second consecutive starter with the Franks (Butcher, Skinner and Spencer?) ‘Your bonuses,’ announced Amol, ‘are on interpretations of quantum mechanics.’ Cue the Baby Elephant Walk again. Once my internal orchestra stopped playing, UAE had got a full house. UAE were not going to be caught, but could Strathclyde force their way onto the repechage board? Little time remained. ‘Cephalopod – Dystopian – Netflix’ launched a buzzer race, but sadly for Strathclyde it was the UAE captain who got to answer ‘Squid’ as in game. The Marilyns – which incidentally were an interesting fact of the week that I didn’t already know some time back –saw UAE provide decent, but incorrect answers to the set. Bryony Yates took her fifth starter recognising the first political use of the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’. The contest was gonged just before Amol could announce the subject of the bonuses. The final score was UAE – 235 – Strathclyde- 125.

I don’t think that Strathclyde actually did badly. They had a conversion rate of just over fifty percent. However UAE were just better. They were better on the buzzer and they had a better bonus conversion rate with 54 percent. Not necessarily worthy of Amol calling it a ‘phenomenal performance’, but good nonetheless. Strathclyde don’t make it onto the repechage board – the banker only pays scores above 145 at this point.

How is Amol Doing?

Maybe this is just me but I’m starting to think that some of the times Amol is being matey to the teams he says things that may come across as a tiny bit patronising. With the kidney picture he saluted UEA’s one correct answer with “– you got there in the end.” Then with the Paul Revere set when UAE could only answer the last question right on the Beastie Boys he replied ‘I’m glad you got that one at least.’ UAE copped it again when he explained ‘Cult isn’t actually an adjective’. They knew that Amol, trust me, they knew. I find his remarks at the end sometimes just a little hit and miss as well. I am sure he genuinely wanted to console Strathclyde at the end but saying that maybe if the German football questions had come earlier, or if there had been double the amount of engineering questions things might have been different just felt rather more of an application of salt to the wound rather than healing balm.

I considered changing the title of this section to – Is Amol a Jedi? – following last week. I still rather think he is. Last week his words of encouragement were enough to make Kings put on a spurt of answers and it did exactly the same to Strathclyde last night. Having said that, when he tried to refresh the trick after it had worn off, saying ‘Still got time for this, Strathclyde.’ in the last few minutes, it spurred Gregor MacDowall into buzzing, but sadly with a wrong answer. I guess this is one of those tricks to which you become immune after exposure.

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

Michael Foale is the only British Astronaut to serve on both Mir and the ISS.

Mastermind 2024 Round 1: Heat 1

This is one of the things that makes the end of the school holidays slightly more palatable, the return of Mastermind. Thankfully they didn’t keep us waiting until the dog end of September his year.

First up in this show, and this series, was Christine McBurney. Christine offered us The Poirot Novels of Agatha Christie. This was my banker subject for this show because while I know very little about Poirot, I know nothing about the other subjects. I was happy to take the ‘give up and go home if you get it wrong’ first question about ze leetle grey cells, and I also guessed another to give me 2. Christine didn’t get them all, but she settled well to her task, and scored 9.

Chas Bedford was answering on the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes. Again, guessing brought me a point – I don’t think that I knew that Calvin was 6, but that was my guess. Chas didn’t have to guess at all. In fact bearing in mind the way that he answered all of the other questions in the round I was most surprised when he passed on one. Even allowing for the pass, Chas equalled then passed Christine’s total, finishing the round with 12,

Sanjay Nath’s specialist subject was Drake. Neither Francis, nor Charlie, but apparently a popular musician. That’s Drake, not Sanjay Nath, who is a junior doctor. I applaud him for finding the time to apply for Mastermind – it was difficult enough doing this as a teacher all those years ago. Sadly, Sanjay was the first of this season’s contenders to have ‘one of those’ rounds. I’ve no doubt that he knows his stuff, but sadly he only managed to answer four questions correctly. I guessed one, which gave me an aggregate specialist score of five. Five more than I might have had, I might add.

So it fell to Ruth Hart to take us up to half time with Red Clydeside. No, that does not mean Sauchihall Street on a particularly raucous Friday night at chucking out time. I have half a mind that it was a specialist subject in the 2007 SOBM, but I may be mistaken. Ruth wasn’t though. She was more than up to the task of answering about this particular period of Glasgow History, and like Chas she ran up a fine score of 12. I ran up a not so impressive score of zilch on this round.

With all due respect to Sanjay this left us with three contenders in with a shout of a place in the semis. However, it was Sanjay who returned to the chair first. I’m glad that he got the 6 he needed to get to double figures. We’ve discussed this in the past, haven’t we, but the fact is that people who probably should do better can be very quick to make assumptions based on a modest score in Mastermind. Which is nonsense, when you consider that Sanjay is a doctor. Most accurate thing to say? He had one of those nights.

So, sitting behind the two front runners at the halfway stage we had Christine McBurney. With three to make up she needed to go some to set a challenging total, and I’d say she just about managed it. I didn’t think that Christine was answering as quickly as I like to see, but she was getting her fair share of them right. In the end she scored ten, which is good, but if she’d scored one more she would have set the psychologically more dauting total of twenty.

Chances were, then, that at least one of our remaining two contenders would score the 8 that they needed to overtake Christine. I’ve been watching the World Athletics Championships so I can’t resist saying that our next contender, Chas, faced the bell neck and neck with Ruth. Would he have the finishing kick? Well, again, his round wasn’t bad. The first minute and a half or so it was looking very good. However a few questions after this seemed to rob him of half a yard of pace. 11 for 23 set a challenging target, but it was not guaranteed this would be ood enough.

Ruth knew that if she crossed the line in the same time as Chas, then she would get the nod by virtue of not having passed. However, this would prove to be irrelevant to the result, since Ruth went on to provide clearly the best GK round of the show. She put on an extremely good 14, impressive in the breadth of subjects she knew about, and the calm composure she maintained throughout it. Very well done to you. Ruth spoke movingly about her late father, with whom she used to watch the show, and how proud he would have been. Well, on this performance, Ruth, it’s quite possible you may give him even more to be proud of. Best of luck to you.

Christine McBurney	The Poirot Novels of Agatha Christie	9	0	10	0	19	0
Chas Bedford	Calvin and Hobbes	12	1	11	3	23	4
Sanjay Nath	Drake	4	1	6	2	10	3
Ruth Hart	Red Clydeside	12	0	14	0	26	0

What Have You Learned? Summarise in no more than 350 words

I mentioned to a friend in passing a couple of days ago that having done my first stint as QM in the summer holiday of 1995, this month has seen the 28^th anniversary of the first quiz I compiled. Somehow it seems fitting that I was QM on Thursday last. In fact it was a pretty close run thing. There was traffic on the M4 – well, that’s the usual state of affairs, I meant there was non-moving traffic on the M4 – come to think of it that’s quite a usual state of affairs as well. Pip and Ollie and I stopped a few times on the way from Worthing to Port Talbot to ride a couple of trains as it happened, and we didn’t cross the bridge until gone 6. That’s by the by.

Still, when I mentioned this auspicious anniversary I was asked this question – well, what would you say you’ve learned through compiling all those quizzes over the years? Blimey, what a question. I fobbed the questioner off with ‘I’ll have to have a think about that and get back to you. “ Well, I’ve thunk about it and this is what I’ve come up with:-

·       Most obviously, I’ve learned a lot of answers to quiz questions I would otherwise never have known. It’s made me better at weak areas and areas of knowledge I was never interested in for their own sake.

·       I’ve also learned about quizzes and how they work, and gained something of an insight into the question setter’s intentions. This too has helped make me a better quizzer. I have no doubt that, as decent a quizzer as I was by 1995, I would never have reached the podium in finals of 3 of the greatest and toughest broadcast quizzes and twice become Brain of Mensa if I hadn’t been a question master.

·       It’s taught me something about the sheer joy that can be shared in a good question – something I’ve also used in the day job as a teacher when possible.

·       It’s taught me how little I actually know which is a salutary lesson for anyone.

·       It’s made me even more of a pedant than I already was – which is probably not quite so salutary.

What it hasn’t necessarily taught me is to be more tolerant of other question masters, and that’s something I would really like to work on.

Coming soon - Mastermind 2023/4

 Yes, the long wait is almost over. On Monday the 2023/4 series of Mastermind begins. And yes, let’s get it out of the way – unless a teacher wins this year, then I will finish my teaching career still being the last schoolteacher to win. Coming back to Monday’s show, I saw on All Things Quiz that the Specialist subjects will be The Poirot Novels of Agatha Christie, The Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, Drake and Red Clydeside. I don’t recall Drake being a subject before – unless it was Francis, Nick or possibly Charlie, but all of the others certainly have. Based on my knowledge of all four of the subjects there is a distinct possibility that I could be kicking off the series with a specialist aggregate of zero.

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Also returning – although not for some time, I think – will be Riddiculous, presented by Ranvir Singh with Henry Lewis in the PROF seat. (See what I did there? No? well have a look at the post about The Finish Line) There’s a call out for applications currently for the next series.