Tag Archives: Mastermind

Quiz Night and I Do Quite Well

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Horse ploughing at Flintham

Second day under new rules and I’ve already deviated. This is the first writing of the day because I’m waiting for a gardener to arrive and I can’t concentrate when I know that I’m going to be disturbed. If I was going to be disturbed all day I would work round it, but just waiting for one knock on the door, for some reason, seems more disruptive. It’s the same with unexpected interruptions – I just deal with them and get on.  It’s the annual tidy.  I’m not able to cope with the steps and the slope and Julia has plenty to do without adding garden maintenance to the list. She deals with roses, fruit and vegetables and that’s enough. Hopefully a new garden on one level will reinvigorate our interest in gardening. It will be good exercise, and it’s about time I started moving more.

Horse ploughing at Flintham

There’s not much else to report. It was quiz night last night on TV. I did moderately well compared to the contestants in the general knowledge round of Mastermind (though it’s a lot easier sitting at home compared to the studio). In recent years I have started to drop back in comparison to them – I feel I may have peaked intellectually.

Only Connect set a new record for 1st  and 2nd round aggregate scores. They weren’t particularly good teams, they just had easy questions. I also set a record, answering four out of 12, two of them before the teams did. I then had a really good “missing vowels” round, which is unusual because that and anagrams are usually very bad for me. As I say, easy questions.

Horse ploughing at Flintham

Then on to University Challenge, where I also answered a few questions, including a couple the teams didn’t know.  Frustratingly I always forget the details so you’ll just have to take my word for it. However, in general I was, as usual, bogged down in questions I didn’t understand (maths, medicine and chemistry are all bad for me) being answered by people who are 45 years younger than me and know much more than I have accumulated in all my years.

Little Grey Fergie – men in Sheds

However, despite tonight’s success I realise I would be a lot less successful if I were in a studio and under stress. That keeps my ambition within bounds.  What I did notice, again, was that some questions seem to have come up a number of times in the last week. This has happened before and it always makes me wonder if the same people write the questions for all the quizzes on TV. I really should start to look at the credits. What I suspect is happening is that I watch so many quizzes that subjects simply come together by coincidence. Even if the same people were responsible for all the questions, and were guilty of recycling them, all the programmes work to different schedules so the questions would be scattered. makes you think though, the idea of one super-brained question setter sitting in the middle of a web with various strands marked “FA Cup Winners”, “Periodic Table” and “Pop Music 1980s” as they construct a massive web of questions.

And another tractor shot

Photos are more from past Septembers. It’s Flintham Show again . . .

Flower competition – Flintham Show

 

Mastermind

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My dull day picked up a little this evening. Years ago I beat a contestant on mastermind at his specialist subject (which was one I was interested in at the time). Tonight I did it again, which cheered me up a bit. I admit it was on Celebrity Mastermind so the bar was not at its highest, but nevertheless I beat a man on a subject of his own choosing, and after he had (I suppose) been reading up on it. The subject was Aircraft of the RAF 1939-45. Until tonight I didn’t even realise I had more than a passing knowledge of it. I’m sure the full strength questions on ordinary mastermind would have been harder, and that I’d have been less relaxed in a studio, so I won’t go on about it too much. In fact, apart from a quiet cheer and a short Victory Dance, I did little to mark my triumph.

Modesty in all things, as they say.

Before anyone mentions it, I did just look up the Mastermind Application Form, and applications are currently closed. I’m currently, after looking at the list of things I can apply for, wondering if I should attempt to forge a new career as a reality TV star. I can’t be worse than some of the people who currently fill this niche.

The problem is that I will need two specialist subjects. I may go for Books of the Great library Series by Laurie Graves. I was thinking of the Chronicles of Narnia, but there are seven of them. Laurie has only written three so far, so there will be a lot less to read.

I think this would be a good photo to send in with the application. I look trustworthy and moderately intellectual . Julia says I look mildly surprised, verging on shifty.  It also makes my head look longer and thinner than it really is.