Mark Labbett

[QuizMaster]

No, Terry was the best one I ever crossed swords with.

[Istenem]

The coming rival to their crown is the reigning Mastermind champion Jesse Honey, and Olav Bjortomt is a specialist at international events (he won last year's European Quiz Championships).

i happened upon the mastermind final this evening, don't think it was a repeat as it was primetime on a friday BBC2. the fella who won seemed absolutely thrilled which was a joy to watch.

something i've wondered about:

how would you think a meeja polymath such as stephen fry (or obliquely robert winston) get on at top-level quizzing? on QI his wit and knowledge appear to come easily but i acknowledge that editing and earmics play a role in entertainment quizzing.

i'm aware that SF wouldn't be good enough to crack the top xxx but would he be able to hold his own?

[cool]

Stephen Fry is bloody annoying. I have been tv free since the new year for a variety of reasons but one of the reasons is that tv is generally low brow where anything even minutely informative has to be accompanied by 'humour'.Case in point Question Of Sport twenty years ago excellent nowadays total shite with a bunch of sportspeople masquerading as comedians.Similarly virtually every mainstream film appears to be just special effects and no plot so not to challenge the millions of halfwits that inhabit the land.

And the rare person who is actually funny and raises issues through his writing and humour such as Frankie Boyle gets a pasting from the politically correct brigade.

[tonkarentino]

The coming rival to their crown is the reigning Mastermind champion Jesse Honey, and Olav Bjortomt is a specialist at international events (he won last year's European Quiz Championships).

i happened upon the mastermind final this evening, don't think it was a repeat as it was primetime on a friday BBC2. the fella who won seemed absolutely thrilled which was a joy to watch.

something i've wondered about:

how would you think a meeja polymath such as stephen fry (or obliquely robert winston) get on at top-level quizzing? on QI his wit and knowledge appear to come easily but i acknowledge that editing and earmics play a role in entertainment quizzing.

i'm aware that SF wouldn't be good enough to crack the top xxx but would he be able to hold his own?

Stephen Fry played in the same University Challenge team as a mate of mine from my schooldays. They were beaten in the final in about 1979/80.
On that basis I think he'd more than hold his own.

[QuizMaster]

Who was your friend? Was it Monk d'Wally de Honk?

[Scott]

Can you give me any more?

[grecian]

how would you think a meeja polymath such as stephen fry (or obliquely robert winston) get on at top-level quizzing? on QI his wit and knowledge appear to come easily but i acknowledge that editing and earmics play a role in entertainment quizzing.

I think it's very difficult to say. As Tonka says, Fry excelled on UC in the late 1970s, and clearly has a quizzer's kind of mind. That said, I suspect his knowledge sphere is overwhelmingly based around the highbrow - art, literature, history, classical music etc. - so he might struggle with some of the more lowbrow and/or scientific aspects of things that get tested on the subject. My suspicion is that he'd probably do respectably but not brilliantly, at least initially. However I suspect if it caught his attention and he put some work in, he'd be able to do very well.

With other personalities, I think there is a big difference between being broadly knowledgeable and able to present on television on a wide range of subjects, and having the particular and precise factual recall that makes a good quiz player. I suspect some personalities would do well, some much less so - much as one sees on e.g. Celebrity Mastermind. I think there is some crossover between the skill sets needed for comedy and quizzing: comedians typically do very well on Celebrity Mastermind, and one of the UK's top 20 quizzers, Paul Sinha, is a stand-up comedian for a living.

I've heard before from one of the UK's very top quizzers that Cabinet Minister Michael Gove is an absolutely brilliant quizzer, which I've no reason to doubt (he was a top student quizzer at Oxford in the 1980s). One guy who impressed me massively is John Sessions, who seemed encyclopaedic in some areas when I saw him on QI. And some journalists are obviously massively generally knowledgeable (e.g. Philip Hensher, who does reviews in the Spectator).

[sir ratholer]

I'm pretty interested in the chase, and I've got my name down to try and enter if there is a new series. More for a laugh than anything.

I feel this show is stacked against the competitors. The chaser does not have to buzz whereas the team do. Furthermore they cannot answer when a team mate buzzes. This must cost even the most efficient team 20 seconds in the endgame. A viable strategy may be to get the people who you feel are the least intelligent/slowest to gamble big and if they lose their round it's no big loss.

Does anyone know how the chasers get paid? I have a feeling it's a cut of what they defend, because Shaun seems to do what he can to lose the multiple choice rounds and then starts trying in the endgame...

[Mattb]

It's hard to say, there must be some incentive to what they answer correctly though. Maybe they just get a lump figure if they can prevent the chasers from winning? Otherwise you'd see a lot more head to head rounds being lost!