30 Years a Question Master

I’ve compiled a quiz for the rugby club which we’ll use this Thursday evening. I made my first for the club in July 1995 so this is the first one I’ve made since I reached my 30^th Anniversary mark. I’ll be honest, 30 years ago a) it was a whole lot more work to make a quiz for the club – and – b) somehow it was more fun.

It was more work because this was five years before I had the internet. I had amassed a small but very comprehensive quiz reference library, but checking your answers could still be quite a labour-intensive process. . Even writing out the questions was a bit of a drawn out affair. First you’d gather the different categories of questions and write them by hand ( 8 sport, 8 history/current affairs, 8 Geography etc. etc.) Then you’d write them in rounds by hand. Then, after roadtesting them in school and making final changes and corrections, you’d type out the rounds (on my Sharp electric typewriter). And one thing you did achieve through this process was by the time you made the final quiz, the questions were as clearly written as you could write them.

The picture quizzes were a whole different level of work. You’d collect newspapers, colour supplements etc. in the weeks between quizzes, and be continually selecting pictures for the next quiz. Then it was a matter of literally cutting and pasting, with real scissors and real paste. Then there was the photocopying in the local library.

It all certainly built your anticipation, I can tell you that. And sometimes it didn’t go down well which was very disappointing, but sometimes it went well, and that was just the best feeling you could have. I do think that it was all of the time and effort that I put into compiling quizzes for the club in the first ten years that made me a good enough quizzer to at least have a chance of winning Mastermind. You couldn’t help learning more about your weakest subjects if you were doing it properly.

I’ve looked back to a post I wrote in the first couple of years of this blog, in about 2009, where I pontificated on my advice on setting a quiz. This is quoted directly from it :-

“* As a rule of thumb, people never complain that the quiz is too easy. If you're in any doubt about whether a question is too hard, then simplify it, or ditch it.

* Don't go making a quiz to appeal to your own interests. Your quiz will go best when there's something for everyone in it.

* I don't think that everyone realises just how important it is to phrase a question clearly, so that it is absolutely clear what you are actually asking. Even if you do take care, you'll still get asked for clarification sometimes. But if you don't take care it can be a very frustrating experience all round.

* You will make mistakes anyway. Some questions you've included in good faith from quiz books, for example, will be wrong. That can't be helped. Making up your own questions and not checking that your answer is correct CAN be helped, and its something you really should avoid.

* Aim to write a quiz for the middle ability teams rather than the most or least knowledgable. I know that if the majority of teams are scoring about 60 out of 80, then I've pitched it just about right.

* Listen to constructive criticism. Unadulterated praise is nice, but not exactly helpful. Neither are comments along the lines of "Your quiz was crap ". If people tell you that they liked something or disliked something, then think about it. if it’s not fair comment - OK, but if it is fair, then use this to help you make your next quiz.”-

Well, to be fair to myself I was a lot more serious about quizzing in those days. Having said that, I still don’t think it’s bad advice, and if I was being particularly bitchy I’d say it was advice that would make quite a few of the quizzes in the club a lot better if some of our semi regulars followed it. Not referring to my own team here, I hasten to add. I do try to be patient. Now. Time was when a qm would ask “What is the fastest bird?” and leave it at that. Chances are, you’re sitting there thinking – fastest where? Underwater? On land? In flight? (straight line or diving?) Well, time was I would have expected a question master to have considered this when they wrote the question. So when I asked “Do you mean etc. etc.?” it used to really pee me off when the qm would say ‘I don’t know. It’s the one I have here.” Because the QM really ought to know what they’re asking. But as I said, you mellow as you get older, so when this happened a few weeks ago I just said ‘Fair enough’ and wrote down peregrine falcon. It’s usually the answer.

For over 10 years I was as keen as mustard to compile the quiz and would have done it every week if I had been allowed. Now though. . . well, by Covid it had become a chore, and even since I won’t volunteer but will aways try to do it when asked. But I’ll be honest, I only really enjoy making sets of connections questions. I was the first to introduce connections to the rugby club quiz, and many have adopted the gimmick since. Why not? I stole it myself from Geoff Evans of the Neath quiz league.

Well, considering my ‘butterfly mind’, the fact that I’m still interested enough to be doing it after 30 years is something of an achievement in itself. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

Mastermind Heat Five specialist subject preview

Well, presuming that this week the BBC will actually let us watch it, in the next heat of Mastermind the specialist subjects will be –

The History of Sheep

The Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante

The Music of Katty Perry

Gerald Winstanley and the 17^th century protest movement, The Diggers

Right, you know how I only managed to answer 1 specialist question last week? Well, this looks potentially worse to me. I haven’t wikied before Mastermind for several years but I really don’t want to get zero if I can possibly avoid it. There is not one of these subjects where I think there is even a chance I might scape a guess.I will let you know tomorrow after the show.

Destination X Five and Six - (Spoilers)

If you’ve read my previous posts on Destination X you’ll know that I thought that I had a handle on the show and its mechanics – as I said this time last week ‘unless there’s some new rule or rule change that we haven’t foreseen in a upcoming show, nobody forces you to make the specific location choices that decide whether you stay or go. Let’s be clear on that. Thus far your fate has been in your own hands, and no amount of ‘treachery’ can change that.’ Well, it just shows how much I know, for in this week’s episodes five and six, that swerve is exactly what we got.

In episode five there was overwhelming evidence that the destination was Italy. But was it Milan or Venice? – we saw clues for both. In one challenge, which to be honest was more Jeux Sans Frontieres than Race Across the World- the contestants were required to hold trays with wine glasses. Drop them and you’re out. Each was asked questions. Get them right and you can give glasses to an opponent of your choice. Get them wrong and they go on your tray. Somehow it seemed natural that good old Economics Ashvin dropped his before even being given any more glasses. He’s come across as a really nice chap, but frankly never looked likely to find his name engraved on the winner’s trophy. Winner of the challenge, Pilot Josh earned, amongst other things, the power to move someone else’s X 250 km away from the destination.

For the first time we didn’t learn the identity of the ejected contestant at the end of the episode. But we saw that Pilot Josh saw Marathon Nick as his biggest competition and moved his X. So it came as a bit of a surprise when, at the start of episode 6 it was Economics Ash who was ejected. Had he placed his X on the Shetlands, or something? Well, the point of the episode was to allow the contestants to snipe and plot, so they were all allowed out in Venice to see some scenery and play a few games. To be honest it was a bit of a nothingy episode – or would have been had we not got to meet the hitherto unseen star of the show, Jackie P. It means she doesn’t get to join Mrs. Mainwaring/Mrs. Wolowitz/ Charlie Brown’s teacher as one of the great unseens of the world of telly, but there we are. Battle lines were drawn, but nobody went anywhere and nobody got ejected, so all in all there was an unmistakable feeling that this was all padding that might have been forced on the show by one of the original 10 travellers deciding to leave the bus long before the end of episode 1.

I’ll be honest, I’m not totally sure that I like the swerves that happened this week. When you get right down to it I don’t want the winner to just win because they were the winners of a couple of silly games along the way. But I’m still watching and I’ll doubtless have more to say about the show this time next week.

University Challenge 2026 First Round - Manchester v. New College, Oxford

The Teams

Manchester

Ray Power

Kirsty Dickson

Kai Madgwick (Capt)

Rob Faulkner

New College, Oxford

Benji Stimpson

Paige Crawley

Jonah Poulard (Capt)

Daan Timmers

All ready then? Eyes down for a full house. Kai Madgwick came in very early for the first starter, things named after the city of Nice. Never even got onto those horrible coconut biscuits – yeah, just my opinion and feel free to disagree. Abi Morgan stubbornly refused to yield any bonus points. Benji Stimpson opened New College’s account with my long time favourite Nina Simone. What seemed to be a relatively gentle set on Monmouth’s rebellion did not bring them any bonus points. Clues to descriptions of the rainbow saw Benji Stimpson beat Kai Madgwick to the buzzer, but an incorrect answer allowed the Manchester skipper to give the correct one. Artists and designers who collaborated with Merce Cunningham (from Happy Days?) brought two correct answers. Which brought us to the first picture starter. An alternative national flag saw a buzzer race between the two captains won by Kai Madgwick who identified it as belonging to New Zealand. More flags with native flora or fauna brought Manchester the first full house of the whole competition. Nobody seemed to have heard of a depot injection for the next starter. A question which namechecked the Aztec fondness for crunchy frog tamales saw New College lose another five for an incorrect interruption and Manchester took advantage and earned two bonuses on theoretical physics while I earned a lap of honour for knowing that the theoretical particles named after the Greek for swift are tachyons. Manchester led comfortably by 70 – 5.

1837 History of the French Revolution? Gotta be Carlyle, but both teams sat back a moment or two before Paige Crawley buzzed in with the right answer. The 1954 FIFA World Cup brought two bonuses, but an inability to conjure up the name of Bobby Charlton’s brother Jack robbed them of a full house. Kai Madgwick knew various film directors called Jacques (Becker, Demy and Hattie?) Languages of India brought two bonuses and took us to the music starter. The more I heard of this piece from the 18^th century the more I thought it was Bach. Neither team did though. Jonah Poulard earned Amol’s approval knowing that the British Colonial Federation of Rhodesia and Nyassaland being dissolved in 1963 led to the independent countries of Zambia and Malawi. For the music bonuses pieces featuring more than two timpani brought precisely nowt. Daan Timmers knew about pair production for the next starter and the New College revival continued. Floods in Science Fiction brought a single bonus. Kai Madgwick was in very quickly to identify Morgan Le Fay as the legendary figure after whom the Italian mirage (the Fata Morgana) was named. To be fair to myself, protein shapes are of less interest to me than pasta shapes so I wasn’t surprised that I failed to add to my score. Manchester took two. The museum in the next starter in Barcelona wasn’t dedicated to Dali or Picasso, I reckoned so that brought Miro into the equation. Kai Madgwick thought so and it earned his team bonuses on Chinese history. Thank you very much, said Manchester and took a full house on Chinese Imperial dynasties. Kirsty Dickson buzzed in quickly to identify sarco as the Greek prefix meaning flesh. Lodis brought a full house, and despite New College’s mid round revival, Manchester led by 160 – 50.

For the second picture starter Kai Madgwick leapt a bit theatrically for his buzzer but Benji Stimpson beat him to identify a still from 12 Angry Men. (For some reason I have never yet seen this film. I really should.) 3 more Sidney Lumet film stills followed. New College only managed 1 but at least they were going again. Kai Madgwick leapt to the buzzer again, but just too early with the next starter allowing Paige Crawley in with the latin centum. Two bonuses on alphabets were taken, and captain Jonah Poulard was visibly becoming more animated with each correct answer. Paige Crawley, doing so much good buzzer work now, took her third starter knowing that the Phoenicians who founded Carthage came originally from Tyre. Nanoparticles? Nanothankyou I replied. I still knew Buckminsterfullerene. So did New College and more besides. The gap would still require more than one visit tot the table, but things were beginning to look interesting. Even more so when Benji Stimpson correctly linked Katherine Graham with the Washington Post. The petting of dogs in literature was a lovely UC special set which brought 1 bonus. Nobody quite knew the Medieval Warm Period and Kai Madgwick lost five for an unlucky early buzz. Again, Kai Madgwick buzzed early on Jebel Toubkal and lost five. He knew it was the Atlas Mountains, but that wasn’t the question. Jonah Poulard knew the country required was Morocco. Italian architectural terms brought two bonuses and narrowed the gap to five points. Paige Crawley took the next starter knowing the Ars Poetica of Horace. New College had wiped out a huge deficit and had the lead and all of the momentum. People sharing their names with European Capitals did not, annoyingly, ask for Karol Ljubljana, inventor of the hole in the lavatory seat. New College took the harder second but missed the easier first and third. Still Kai Madgwick hammered the buzzer on the next starter and this time he really hit the target knowing that we were talking about a Neutron star. Well, I wasn’t but you know what I mean. Just one bonus on rivers emptying into the Channel gave Manchester a five point lead. There was time for one more starter. The whole contest boiled down to this one question. Given several places in different countries Joah Poulard knew they each housed amphitheatres. He won the buzzer race, but . . . argghhh! He called them colosseums. Kai Madgwick gratefully came in with amphitheatres and the game was over. Very, very bad luck, but ultimately a correct call in my opinion. Manchester won by 170 to 150.

Well, at 20 minutes it looked like a fairly comfortable stroll in the park for Manchester, but a really splendid fightback gave New College at least the chance of a repechage spot and made for a very exciting contest. For the record New College had a BCR of 40 while Manchester’s was 67. So it’s a tribute to the New College buzzing that they managed to come as close as they did.

Amol Watch

It was a little bit much to say that every football fan in the country was cursing New College for not knowing Jack Charlton. Not everyone is obsessed with the boys of 66, Amol. Not any more, anyway.

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

The California Grizzly Bear as featured on the state flag is actually extinct.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In medicine what five letter term is informally applied to a injection that delivers a slow release form of a medication – for example, contraceptives (incorrect buzz at this point ) for example contraceptives or anti-psychotics. They are so named because they create a reserve of the medication in the injected muscle. The word in question being used in other contexts to mean place where goods are stored. Hmmmm – dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2026 First round Heat Four

Maybe unfairly, I often feel that when Mastermind returns after arbitrarily being taken off for a week or more the BBC owe us a top class edition. As we saw after the prolonged Christmas break last season, we don’t always get it. So would last night’s show go with a bang or turn out to be a damp squib?

Well, it certainly started brightly enough. Basab Majumdar was answering on the playing career of the great Sunil Gavaskar. Now, when I tell you that of all four of last night’s subjects this was supposedly my banker, then all that tells you is just how little I know about all four subjects. To be precise, I got none of these, even by randomly shouting out cricketing test playing countries whenever given the opportunity. Basab was very well prepared, and from where I was sitting a double figure score seemed the least that he deserved.

Alright, I have seen the first Hunger Games movie. That’s not where I got my singular specialist point from though. No, in a unit of work I taught for the last few years we used a passage from the original book which is how I knew Katniss’ little sister’s name. Thus concluded the specialist round for me. Not so for Hannah Mimiec. Like Basab before her she seemed very well prepared and a double figure round of 10 seemed only fair. I don’ know, there was something in the specialist rounds last night, which meant that each of them ended up with a point less than I would have said they were worth.

On with Miles Searle. Miles was answering on Leonard Bernstein. Again, this was another very well prepared contender. I don’t know much about Mr. Bernstein – as demonstrated by my zero points on the round – but this was a wide ranging, testing round. I thought that Miles was unlucky to miss out on double figures. Still, being realistic it did mean that he was only one point off the lead, with only one other contender to go.

That final contender was Devon Krohn. Devon is a teacher trainer. I’m not sure if that means she trains people to be teachers, or she delivers INSET to train people who are already teachers. Well, even if the latter is the case we won’t hold that against her. Ah, INSET, or as I like to think of it, the best part of 1000 hours of my life that I will never get back. However, I digress. Devon was answering on Edvard Munch, brilliantly, as it happened. She scored a perfect round answering every question correctly, yet only scored 11. It wasn’t as if she was going particularly slowly either. As I said, something in the air in last night’s show?

Normally you wouldn’t be first back to the chair for GK if you had scored 9 in the Specialist round. However that’s exactly what happened to Miles. How did he respond? By going like billy-o, showing an impressive breadth of knowledge and answering 13 questions correctly. All of which shows just how important momentum is. When you go first in the GK round all you can do is post the best score that you can and hope to do enough to at least put the others within the corridor of doubt. In Miles’ case this was a job well done.

It's relatively rare to see a round come completely off the rails. Poor Basab Majumdar had the horrible experience of needing to score 12 to just draw level, then seeing his first four answers miss the mark. I give him full credit for taking stock on the fifth, dredging up the right answer and building a score from there, but in all honesty it looked a struggle. He finished with a total score of fifteen. Sometimes it’s just not your night, I’m afraid.

To get 13 in a Mastermind specialist round you either need a very good general knowledge – you might almost say a quizzer’s general knowledge – or a lot of luck. Only having Hannah Mimiec’s round to judge by, I would say that luck didn’t seem to have much to do with it. She scored 9, a good total in this day and age, but not a great one. Not a quizzer’s one and not a heat winner’s one. She finished on a very respectable 19.

Only Devon remained. If you’re an experienced quizzer the answers contenders give to one or two specific questions will give you an idea whether the contender is going to finish with a big score or not. Devon gave a couple of these early doors in her round which made me think she was going to fall short of the target. Like Hannah before her she scored 9. That’s a good score and in the current era anything in the 20s is a good total. But even so it meant that she finished outside the winner’s enclosure.

So very well done to Miles. He hinted that he is a very young Masterminder indeed by saying that he is on a gap year before starting university, which means he may be 18 or 19. If he went on to win the series he would in that case be the youngest ever. Such talk is premature, so when he did explain that his Dad is a taxi driver and he thought he could maybe chalk up another one for the cabbies by going all the way, namechecking the great Fred Housego, I did worry a little. I just think that this sort of thing unnecessarily tempts Fate. Nonetheless, I give you my congratulations, Miles. Well done and best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Basab Majumdar	The playing career of Sunil Gavaskar	10	0	5	1	15	1
Hannah Mimiec	The Hunger Games	10	0	9	0	19	0
Miles Searle	Leonard Bernstein	9	0	13	0	22	0
Devon Krohn	Edvard Munch	11	0	9	0	20	0

Admitting you're a Mensan

I hope that I haven’t given the impression that I’m doubting the intelligence of any of the players in Destination X, because I’m not. Geographical knowledge, well, that’s maybe a different matter, but knowledge and intelligence are by no means the same thing. Now, episode 4’s ejected player, Chloe-Ann, revealed that she was a member of Mensa. During the show many of the other players singled Chloe out for her intelligence, which the editors gleefully used to heighten the shock when she was out.

Incidentally, I stopped paying the fees and let my Mensa membership lapse. This is not the reason for that, but personally, I never found that anyone who learned that I was in Mensa was very impressed to find it out. In fact, it was while this was passing through my mind watching the show on Thursday that it brought to mind probably the most ignorant comment ever made about Mensa to me. This was about five years ago An acquaintance I’d only met a few times got onto the subject of quizzing. “Well,” he asked at one point, “never mind pub quizzes and leagues, what have you won?” Well, I have done well in lots of things but haven’t won a lot of biggies, so I replied, “Mastermind and Brain of Mensa”. His brow furrowed. “Mensa?”  Then it darkened. “Jimmy Savile was in Mensa.”

In all honesty I couldn’t think of anything to say. Had I possessed any wit at all I might have said, “Yes he was. And you know, Adolf Hitler was in the Mothers Union and Jack the Ripper was in the Salvation Army as well?” But then, they weren’t, to the best of my knowledge while Savile was definitely in Mensa.

On reflection, I think that my actual reply which came after a few moments of silence was ‘Yes, I believe he was. I never met him.’ And I don’t know that anything other than that reply, and walking away after saying it would frankly have had the slightest effect.

Destination X - 3 and 4 - Spoilers

Well, being as I don’t have a Mastermind preview to post today – last week’s still stands – I thought I’d give you an update on Destination X. Yeah, I’m still with it, although not necessarily for the reasons the producers might hope.

Well, in this week’s two episodes we did get to see, I suppose, some of the treachery we’d been promised. Although I will have something to say about that. In episode 3 the first stop was a railway station, presumably in the middle of nowhere. The players were split into two teams and then given three challenges. Now, every member of both teams got to see several clues, one of which was a ticket to the Oktoberfest. There were others, but that was the most glaringly obvious clue seen by everyone. The team that completed the challenge got the other glaringly obvious clue – a magazine with an article about Harry Kane.

Now the three players who won this final clue, Nuclear Judith, Marketing Saskia and pilot Josh (my nicknames, no offense intended) decided to use a bit of disinformation and told the others they had seen people dressed in Borussia Dortmund kit. Before the map room there was a distraction when the three original dumped players returned, to face a challenge with the others or a place on the bus. Judith, Josh and Saskia as challenge winners were all exempt, and could pick one other player to go through. Liverpool James, who had an alliance with marketing Saskia, confidently stood in anticipation he’d be the one thus pardoned but Pilot Josh was having none of it and burst out with Taxi Daren’s name. (I was tempted to call him Jackie P’s husband, but I do find his constant references to her as Jackie P rather endearing). Saskia protested but to no avail.

Now, the challenge saw the three newbies each teamed with one of the old hands. The challenge actually required knowledge of places, or sheer luck. Liverpool James gulped apprehensively, and rightly so. Two by two the others claimed their places on the bus until only he and Economics Ashvin remained. In the short time he’s been with us Ash has seemed pretty much on a par with James as regards Euro cluelessness, but he won the challenge anyway.

So on to the destination and the map room. The three newbies were safe for now, while the others had to digest the fact that all the clues everyone has seen that they have been able to decipher point directly to Munich. Only Josh and Saskia now claim to have seen anything relating to Dortmund. Marathon Nick goes correctly with the body of evidence. Surf School Ben in his own words ‘ignores his gut feeling’ and goes for Dortmund. Ben is forced to leave the bus but at least gets to join in with some Bavarian dancing, and the majority of the audience at home are left to ask – how the hell did he not know it was Munich? Well, I have an idea about that which I will come to.

So to episode four. Now, it’s not clear whether Taxi Daren had also gone for Dortmund – but it looks likely. Still, he pushes the idea that the old hands must stay together and work against the three newbies. Challenges make it crystal clear that the destination is connected heavily with the film The Sound of Music. History Chloe-Ann doesn’t know where it was filmed. Taxi Daren strongly suggests they’re going to Vienna. No, says Sergeant Claire, it was filmed in Salzburg. Once in the map room, it looks as if Economics Ash is plumping for Vienna. However History Chloe-Ann definitely does, and she is the furthest away. Like Ben before her she laments not going with her gut.

Okay, observations. On the Traitors, when a majority of the remaining players decide to get you out there is nothing you can do. On Destination X, unless there’s some new rule or rule change that we haven’t foreseen in a upcoming show, nobody forces you to make the specific location choices that decide whether you stay or go. Let’s be clear on that. Thus far your fate has been in your own hands, and no amount of ‘treachery’ can change that.

So far, the destinations have been pretty clear if you ignore all of the white noise and concentrate only on the clues you yourself have seen or heard. Alright, we don’t all have the same amount of Geographical knowledge, to be fair. But if we take Ben’s case, he said he should have gone with his gut. I take a little issue with it. You see, all the knowledge he had, all of the primary evidence he’d seen told him it was Munich. I’d argue that it was his ‘gut’ that told him to go for Dortmund. Likewise, all the clues in episode four didn’t just point to The Sound of Music, they screamed it out in capital letters. Sergeant Claire even told Chloe-Ann it was filmed in Salzburg. Alright, maybe Chloe-Ann has never seen the film. Well, neither have I. But come on – the hills are alive with the sound of Music. Well, there ain’t many hills that are alive with the sound of music in Vienna. But Chloe-Ann still went for Vienna. She claimed she should have gone with her gut. Again, I think she did go with her gut – her gut feeling that Daren, with whom she had shared the prize for winning the first challenge, was telling her the truth, the gut feeling that made her ignore the facts as they were. I suppose you could claim that this is a form of confirmation bias.

So I shall watch the show again this coming week. Not for Rob Bryden, although he does his job perfectly well. Not for the challenges, although these are proving to be quite fun. Not for the minuscule amount of scenery we get shown. Not for the players being sneaky to each other. No, I am primarily interested, I will admit, in just how obvious the destinations will continue to be and just how players continue to convince themselves to plump for the wrong one. Which I suppose is schadenfreude. Well, I don’t have to like myself for watching it.