Thursday's Celebrity Mastermind featured the following question and answer:
John Humphrys: The 2019 book entitled No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a collection of speeches made by a Swedish climate change activist. What's her name?Amanda Henderson: Sharon?John Humphrys: Greta Thunberg.
My favourite question and answer from the same edition, however, came from Paul Chuckle:
John Humphrys: A large chain of coffee shops is named after the first mate in the novel Moby Dick. What's his name?Paul Chuckle: Kenco.John Humphrys: Starbuck.
The highlight of these Celebrity Special quizzes has been the performance of the Leeds Alumni team in University Challenge. Rev Richard Coles principally with team mate Dr Henry Gee wiped the floor with all comers. My guess is that we shall see a good deal less of Rev Richard on the BBC from now on - he's too clever for the BBC, he's white English and a Christian. His sexuality, status as a former singer, and his quick wit will ultimately be insufficient to maintain his presence on HIGNFY etc.
ReplyDeleteRev Richard would be ideally placed to present a Civilisation series in the Kenneth Clark style covering history of art, belief systems and culture - From the BBC? - No chance!
DeleteFrom which country did the Pequod set sail?
ReplyDeleteWhales.
Chapter 29 of 'Moby Dick' has the title 'Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb'. There's a 'To Me, To You!' joke going begging.
DeleteKenco sounds a better answer to me than Starbuck! Mastermind penalises those that take a long time to provide or fail to provide an answer so any answer is better than none so it is unfair to try to be smart after the event.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty certain that Mastermind has its biases though, poor John was quite breathless after feeding Samira Ahmed with her general knowledge questions, compared to his gentle stroll with the other pretty evenly-matched contestants. Also compare these styles that might be used depending on the 'right' contestant:
1) Who was the author of Treasure Island?
2) The book involving a gang of pirates and a cabin boy called Jim Hawkins and set on an island was written by which well-known author?
The first form sets the contestant up to provide an author's name, the second form has the contestant thinking 'I know it!' all the way through but never sure if the final part might be, 'of what nationality?' or the like.
You're right. Under pressure, and especially if you've never read 'Moby Dick' (and I've only ever managed a third of it so far), Kenco is a good, plausible guess. Being Paul Chuckle, it made me chuckle though. He makes me chuckle.
DeleteWeirdly, I read somewhere (B-BBC?) about John Humphrys apparently gifting an edition of 'Celebrity Mastermind' to Samira Ahmed. So I did a count. It turned out that Samira, on average, actually got longer questions than her rivals yet still won.