I crashed and burned at the final audition stage. Didn’t even make the subs bench. It seems I cruised through the early stages without too much trouble. But then things got a bit tricky … which is another word for ‘up to date’. I think the good loving woman at the time nailed it “You’ll be great … as long as they don’t ask about anything since 2000”. Phhh I said … I know who Dua Lipa is. Well sure enough she was one of the answers and somewhat controversially Katy Perry wasn’t deemed close enough. They actually ask for 5 specialist subjects so I was scratching around a bit … my number one subject before you ask was Dads Army.
Has anyone been on Mastermind?
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Your surname isn’t Dunn, perhance?
Haha
Not even very close, though I was one of a panel of 5 or so from my sixth form college who auditioned for Blockbusters. I can’t complain about not being chosen because the girl who was romped through all 5 gold runs. My sister did make it onto a show, a Granada programme for similar aged students to Blockbusters which was hosted by Tony Wilson.
Interesting I don’t remember the Wilson programme
But an excuse for posting the greatest thing on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3cYNI8s_vo4&pp=ygULdG9ueSB3aWxzb24%3D
Thanks @Clive. That is wonderful.
I just nicked it for my Roger Robinson poetry thread.
I’ve probably watched that 100 times … great guessing the people and references … and how beautiful Miranda Sawyer, Rowetta and John Robb are. The final clip of Philip Glass is him showing a text, the last contact Wilson had with anyone before he died. Rather apt.
You stupid boy!
I’ve occasionally thought about applying, but it’s having five specialist subjects that trips me up – plus the fact that my memory is getting very bad.
Still, if I got the nod I could do “The James Bond films” (or, if they say that’s been done too many times, “The James Bond theme songs”), then “The albums of Marillion”, and, in a bit of a cultural left turn, “The Battle of Stalingrad”. After that… I’ve got nothing.
I suppose I’ll let somebody else have the glory. To those who do get on the show, bravo!
Well I thought dads army would have been done to death so you never know
A long-running series. There’s a lot more of it.
Dad’s Army is a much bigger subject than James Bond Theme Songs.
So Capt, apart from a limited specialist topic range and a poor memory , you’d be a shoo-in!
I’m waiting for the Beeb to call. Any day now…
Going on Mastermind…. you think that’s wise…..?
He’s doomed. Doomed.
Don’t tell him, Clive!
Would you mind awfully if I be excused?
The idea of course is answering questions but I did think of a killer question of my own that only real fans would know. What was Frazers original occupation in the pilot episode?
Selling Walkers Crisps?
None in the sale though!
Undertaker.
Philately will get you everywhere or anywhere.
Back of the net! Yep he owned a stamp shop.
Dad made it to the final 3 of an episode of 15 – 1.
Went out on “how many doubles in a set of dominos?”
Is double blank a double or a blank?
According to William G Stewart, it’s a double.
So did I! Went out by saying “Muslim” instead of “Islam”. After the recording there was much discussion in the studio, and they invited me back to have another go later in the series. I got picked on by everyone else in that show and crashed out when 5 of us were left. This was very early in series 1, so I reckon that I was the first contestant to be on more than once!
I barely make the auditions for the pub team quiz, let alone Mastermind, due to a failure to celebrate ‘celebrities’.
I have no knowledge at all of actors and their doings, frequently wonder how their opinions are widely respected and would be hopeless on those general knowledge quizzes with this enormous gap in my learning.
My issue these days is speed of recall rather than absolute memory. Frustrating in a pub quiz – but certain doom on Mastermind, as you sit at the end of the round quietly intoning “I knew that…”!
I can have a complete mental block over something and remember it in a nanosecond the following day.
…and you are…?
Leave that with me…
About 20 years ago, I was on a Pop Quiz team in Borders bookshop, with my tall chum and two of our 30-something pals. 50 questions in 5 rounds of 10. At the end of round 4, we had 39 points and a table of undergraduates near us had 31. We were smirking and mentally spending the Borders vouchers we were about to win.
Round 5: “for one point each, name any song or artist in the UK top 40 singles this week”.
We ended up with 39 out of 50, and the students romped home with 41.
Well if they will ask such arcane and obscure questions.
I once lost out on a weekend for two in a French chateau because a team mate insisted that the answer to the question when did the Wars of the Roses end was not on the death of Richard III in 1485 but some years later. He was both technically right and catastrophically wrong, because 1485 was the wanted answer. It’s always safer to assume that the real pedants are among the competitors in such cases.
While running a quiz at my daughter’s school I had the mike snatched out of my hand by the headmaster, outraged because my answer about the 100 Years War was wrong.
I once won a bottle of whisky in a Sunday evening pub pop quiz in Cromer, Norfolk, when the question was “Which musical family had hits with I Want You Back and ABC?”
My three team mates insisted it was The Jacksons, but I knew it was The Jackson 5 and changed the answer sheet just before it was handed in. They all groaned when the answer was read out, until I mumbled something along the lines of “just wait and see”. They all forgave me after a wee dram or two.
It’s a bit harsh to be marked down on that. Particularly as The “musical family” is the Jacksons. For those songs they went by the name Jackson 5. I’d have given either.
It would have been tied, were it not for my pedantry. How do you split a whisky bottle?
Dram-atically?
Vertically, with a claymore
I used to do a weekly pop quiz in a pub in Bristol, our team regularly came second but I think the only time we won was when the girlfriend of one of us guested. She knew all the boy bands that were around at the time. It was crucial
First question.
Have you or anyone you know ever been in the Blue Aeroplanes?
That reminds me of a similar thing. The question was, ‘Who directed True Romance?’ and I could barely conceal my glee as other teams busied themselves writing ‘Quentin Tarantino’ because I knew it was a trick question: QT wrote True Romance, but it was directed by Tony Scott.
Come the end, and the quizmaster read out the answer, which he said was ‘Quentin Tarantino’. I took it up with him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘the answer’s definitely Quentin Tarantino. I’ve got the video at home.’
This was in the late 90s, and I’m still seething.
I’m seething just reading that. Heathens with no appreciation for life’s finer things.
On my behalf, have an AAARRRGGGHHHH!
You don’t have to go to a pub quiz to encounter such things.
On University Challenge a few years ago there was a set of starter for ten questions about, believe it or not, the Hallelujah break (the drum sample that is the cornerstone of British drum’n’bass).
They asked the contestants to identify extracts from three records that use the break: the third one was Little Wonder by David Bowie.
Reader, Little Wonder does not use the Hallelujah break. Nor is it used anywhere on Earthling – the “samples” were all created from scratch (haha), possibly to avoid copyright shenanigans and anyway if you’ve got a shit-hot drummer with you (Zachary Halford?) you might as well do ’em yerself, after the example of the Beasties’ Check Your Head.
From memory they didn’t get the answer, but if it had made the difference in an elimination round, heads may have rolled
Amen to that.
I see what you did there
More recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thYqrBSWK4
Has anyone else seen last night’s University Challenge – UCL v Trinity Cambridge?
If you haven’t, watch it on iPlayer. A remarkable contest.
It was terrific, wasn’t it? Two smashing teams as well.
Yes. Jaksina was not amused to be on the losing side after getting most of his team’s points 😀
Little Wonder does use the Amen Break. Whether it’s a sample or a faithful recreation, it’s still the same drum break.
Fucking hell, wrong again. I’m going to sleep now, I’m sure I’ll continue to be wrong even when I’m unconscious.
Hmm.
Mark Plati did use drum loops (to supplement the shit hot drummer). His main source was Prodigy’s Firestater, which, in turn, was based on Voice Of Paradise’s remix of the disco tune Devotion by Ten City. The net result in Little Wonder does sound a lot like the first three seconds of the six second Amen Break but I’m not certain of a direct line from one to the other.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wonder_(David_Bowie_song)
It’s the Amen Break. 100%. There’s some Firestarter in there too, but the main loop is the Amen. 👍🏼
Would recognise it anywhere. Between D&B and Digital Hardcore it was the bedrock of half the music I listened to in the 90s.
Bowie spent enough time at Drum & Bass nights in that period that the line is direct.
I’ve got some pitchforks, torches and box of Zip and I suggest we all go round to his house this evening. This has ruined my day.
My only link to Mastermind is that is that I commuted with two people who had helped set questions for specialist rounds, back in the 90’s. It only came up when one of our group said they’d been rejected as an applicant, possibly because he worked for the BBC.
The killer is the general knowledge round, as quite a few gentlemen of a certain age get unstuck when the answer is Stormzy or Ed Sheeran.
A mate of mine applied to Mastermind a few years back (he’s a Cambridge graduate who speaks fluent Russian and German), and he didn’t get through. Could you be bothered with the revision, though? Kevin from Eggheads literally reads a book about flags of the world before he goes to sleep…there are far better ways to waste your life.
My Mastermind highlight was when a fella had Frasier as his specialist subject – I got more right than he did.
Same with me once Someone chose Thin Lizzy as his specialist subject. I think he scored 8. I scored – are you ready – 11.
Visiting relatives in Muswell Hill we entered the local pub quiz, after the first round the scores were read out, the team winning were called the QI Elves (it turned out they were) needless to say they won the whole quiz.
Twice my brother in law has won the raffle ticket to answer a question to win the jackpot prize, both times he didn’t know the answers, both times I did (St Swithin and a young heron were the answers). Still rankles.
The QI elves did Only Connect. Them turning up for a pub quiz is a bit Minnesota Fats for my taste.
Well not Mastermind, but I did win 15 To 1, a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Well, the mid-Eighties and Putney, to be accurate.
I beat Brad from Billericay in the head-to-head. “Nominate Brad!”
I came back as a previous winner and got binned in the first round free-for-all.
When work found out, I had to bring in the VHS recording. Which was nicked by some toerag.
” Which was nicked by some toerag.”
Well what do you expect when you’re a sleb, Maurits? It probably fetched thousands on the black market
Bit of a Jaggeresque faux pas there, mijnheer. Forgive my impudence!
Don’t get it. But I forgive you anyway!
Sir (“paltry honour”) Michael tried to get Escher to design an album cover for the Stones, addressing him over familiarly as Maurits.
He got very short shrift.
Any footage online, young MC? Everything is on YouTube these days!
Young MC’s got the know-how.
D’you know, I’ve never looked.
Not on Mastermind butI was on Radio 2’s Popmaster in 2020 and got 36 and 3 in 10 (The Three Degrees since you ask) and was invited back for Champions League at Christmas.
The CL questions are very tough.
First question the answer was Rick Wakeman.
Yes I thought, keep ’em like this!
The second question was about a Gareth Gates number one.
I didn’t get through to the final.
One of my daughter’s best friends has been on Celebrity Mastermind twice, if that counts? No, didn’t think so.
Anyway, her name is Lauren Layfield – she was on CBBC and has done some One Show reporting and has just joined wunnerful Radio 1 from Capital. She is a really nice girl, I’m pleased to say.
The last time she was on was in January and she smashed the specialist round (The Arctic Monkeys) and finished runner up.
It is a bit odd watching someone you know quite well on the real telly….
Lauren Layfield is wonderful. And an internet meme. Fab.
A controversial one that stopped me going to a local pub quiz was another Michael Jackson one. What was Michael Jackson’s biggest selling single? The MC said that Thriller, the song, was MJ’s biggest selling single – spending X number of weeks at number one in the UK and USA and that the single had sold 70 million plus around the world.
She meant the album, of course – not the single.
She wouldn’t have it though. A couple of teams had guessed Thriller (because they had no idea) and backed her up. She mimed the zombie dance from the Thriller video, saying it’s really really well known (love). Seethe.
What’s his biggest selling single? I have to admit, I thought it was Thriller.
Billie Jean? Thriller only got to no. 10 in the UK
Billie Jean is best seller in UK, but worldwide it is Thriller. Sold 10 million in the US, but only a tenth of that in the UK.
You’ve gotta lotta noive to release the title track of an already mega platinum (in old money) album as its fourth single.
He only released it as a single to promote the movie.
Was not a big hit at the time (relatively), but people download it every Halloween it seems
From wikipedia:
“It finished as the #78 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 for 1984” (peaking at 4)
And it was the 7th single actually.
When you finish with an “actually” you need to make damn sure you’re right..
I wasn’t?
She said 70m+ sales and that it was a UK No 1 in the UK – so I was right and she was wrong.
What really par-boiled my piss was the reveal “it was…obviously…” and her kind explanation to me that it was actually a really big song at the time (love).
Seethe. Again.
Got invited for an audition once. Boss wouldn’t give me the day off. Specialist subject 1 was guitars of the Fender Electric Instrument Company 1958-72, which at that point I would’ve nailed. Backup subject was Philip Larkin, which I actually think I’d still be pretty confident on. Not sure what else I could do, these days.
You work for Bruce Springsteen?
Respect!
Hugo Boss.
Those trainers and aftershaves don’t sell themselves, you know.
Very popular with men who dress to the (far) right
@hedgepig
That surprises me , back in your Bob days I got the impression you were anti guitar. Maybe it was just guitar heroes.
Ha, no. I don’t fetishise it (it’s no more or less a tool for making things than a chisel or a drum machine). I confess I used to enjoy ribbing the rockist tendency a bit, but I’ve been a keen player most of my life. I just don’t have much interest in the kind of music many guitar guys seem to.
They fuck you up, the Mastermind question-setters,
They may not mean to, but they do.
I’ve applied twice but not heard back from them, specialist subjects 70’s Bowie & the rock group Queen, but I have won Radio 2’s Pop Master 4 times!
Impressive @Gardener. Why have you not been on here endlessly correcting us all with your encyclopaedic knowledge?
I channel my energies in too many places I guess, sorry