Hardcore in Rochester

Sorry to disappoint, but when I say hardcore, I mean hardcore quizzing. Saying this now, however, won't stop spambots from following me on twitter, and won't - oh so unfortunately - retrospectively take away any hits this blog gets.

So I have to say clearly right now that if you've come to this blog looking for details of how to find hardcore in Rochester, you've come to the wrong place. Maybe you should just go to Rochester. I'm fairly sure you can buy all the hardcore you need there, should be be wishing to undertake some building work: a hardstanding, for example.

I went to Rochester on Saturday to take part in a quiz organised by the British Quiz Association. This is the first time I've done this. The BQA does what it says on its tin: it organises quizzes and keeps score of who's best. Rather grandly, it calls its monthly quizzes "Grands Prix". Each one is held in a different part of the country and people travel enormous distances to get to them, pay a £25 entry fee, and often stay overnight before or after. It can be quite an expensive day out.

But Rochester's not that far, so it seemed like a good one to try. The quiz was held in a United Reform Church building and when I arrived to sign in at 11 there were already plenty of people there. The final total of participants was 69.

Some of the faces were slightly familiar: a lot of these people have been on television. There were three Eggheads, for a start: Kevin, Pat and Barry; and several others have been on Mastermind or Only Connect. It was no surprise that contestants were overwhelmingly white middle-aged men, but it was striking how many were, to put it bluntly, fat. I'm not thin, but I began to feel as if I was.

For your £25 (£10 for debutants) you get an individual quiz in the morning, lunch (unsurprisingly including unlimited sausages), a team quiz in the afternoon, and tea (unlimited doughnuts).

The individual quiz is the serious business. Forty written questions on each of six subject categories (so that's 240 questions in all). You have 90 minutes in exam conditions ("you may turn over your paper .... now!")* to get as many as you can. Maximum possible score is 186 because 60 of the questions are "tie-breakers", which are only worth 0.1 points each, because they're much harder. (Yeah, I know. I don't understand that bit either.) Oh no, actually the max is 155 because you drop your lowest scoring category to get your total. (Don't worry. It's not important.)

It was a hot day on Saturday, and a crowded room. People who've recently done their GCSEs probably wouldn't think this was any kind of fun at all.

After the 90 minutes is up, you pass your paper to a neighbour and the answers are given. I was marking the paper of someone who seemed to have done pretty well. I later found out he's in the top ten, and has been in a Mastermind final. You get the paper back, check the score (if you can be bothered) and put a summary of your scores into a basket, so that the organisers can add the scores up while you have your sausage-based lunch. My score was 82.2. I'd no idea how that compared with others, but the paper I'd marked had a score just over a hundred.

In the afternoon you're allocated a place in a team of four. The teams are chosen to balance good and bad players. So it's a welcome insult when you find you're in the same team as Kevin Ashman. For me, then, the afternoon largely consisted of watching him fill in the answer sheets. I was certainly beginning to feel stupid now. We won the first half of the team quiz, but post-doughnut we didn't. There's another bizarre marking system applied, but I'm sure it worked out properly.

The day closes with the announcement of the winners. They get a round of applause and a book. There was an opportunity of going on to a pub for the evening. Tempting - there's real ale and a curry - but there's also an informal quiz. I'm quizzed out, and get the train home.

Next day, the full scores are published. Turns out my 82.2 puts me 37th out of 69, which I'm happy with. It gives me 296 ranking points. I've no idea how these are calculated. But if I go to more "grands prix" I can accumulate points and - I think - if I get enough I can attain the rank of Sage, rather than Novice (and beyond that one can aspire to be a Candidate Master, Master or ultimately a Grand Master).

Will I go again? Probably. I liked the indiviudal quiz and I'm obviously at a reasonable standard. The team quiz got a bit boring, and I'd rather be in a team without a dominating player, even if it means we lose. But the next grand prix is on the first day of the football season, when Charlton are at home, so that's out of the question.

But, disregarding all the flimflammery of points and rankings, it largely was fun, so next time it's somewhere I can get to easily - why not?



* This is a Johann Hari-style quote, and may bear little relation to what was actually said.

Challenge failed

There were 16 questions. I got 5, the contestant 10. So I didn't beat him. Largely it was because of details of content of the poems. Still, it's not bad, I think, and I beat the contestant on general knowledge (11 to 9), and I ended with a score of 16, which is respectable, though it would still be a last place.

My Baudelaire challenge

Flicking through the Guardian guide, I notice that one of the specialist rounds on Mastermind on Friday is Baudelaire. Now, I know a bit about Baudelaire, but can I learn enough in 6 days to do better than the Mastermind contestant? That's my challenge for the week.

Here are the questions I could answer now.

What is Baudelaire's first name? (I don't suppose they'll ask that.)
What is the name of his major collection of poems? (Les Fleurs du Mal)
Which American short-story writer did Baudelaire translate into French? (Poe)
Which set of children's books has a number of characters called Baudelaire? (Lemony Snicket)

Erm, that's about it. Not much to go on, so the sooner I start, the better. I'll update here after the programme.

Brain of Britain

I've just seen that the new series of BoB starts on R4 this afternoon, and it's being chaired by Russell Davies. That's bad news because it must mean Robert Robinson is even more indisposed than he was last year, when he seemed immobile and frail, like an elderly Davros.

It's just over a year since my first, and probably only appearance on BoB. Robinson was in position before we went into the theatre, and we were told he would go straight home in a taxi after the audience had left. He was just like he's always been, prone to erudite rambling. In the heat before mine a blind contestant mumbled his answer, and Robinson cupped his hand to his ear to encourage him to speak up.

I decided BoB was not for me after a string of questions I neither knew nor cared about. Who's Westminster Abbey dedicated to? Name one interesting fact about golf. And the killer was to give the name of the tidal current in Japan, which literally means 'black tide'. I thought those cunning Japanese might have given it a French name - marée noire - to fox their enemies. The fact that it's the only translation of black tide I can think of also played a part.

I'm glad Robert Robinson did host it, though. His style is part of a disappearing world. And I hope that, however unwell he may be, he's still in fine pedantic form.

Married to Tmob

I posted earlier about a phantom order of a Blackberry Curve and you'd have assumed it was all sorted. But it wasn't. Soon after that, the charge for the new line appeared on my bill. So I wrote to tmob pointing this out and asking them to remove it. Got the reply saying we'lll answer in five days, but they didn't and the line was on the next bill too, so I emailed again and got the same acknowledgement. But no reply. Until Wednesday, when I noticed tmob had tried to call me while I was training the good folk of Ashford in complaint handling. And then yesterday, I got the substantive reply. Although the Curve was apparently despatched, and the Post Office have a signature for it - but not mine, I muttered - they have cancelled everything and will refund the payments. Good. It's almost an exemplary response to a complaint, including an apology and recognition of me as a "valued customer", which may be autotext, but is true. The only problem is the delay, so in my reply, accepting the resolution, I couldn't help advising them to change the wording of the "five days" acknowledgment. I didn't even charge them a consultancy fee for doing this.

I've now got my share of the quiz booty. The prizes were two £50 theatre vouchers, four free Picturehouse cinema entries, and five books on film published (and presumably donated) by the BFI. I've taken the books, leaving the other four to share the vouchers among themselves. The books are:
In the Realm of the Senses a film guide by Joan Mellen
The Films of Nicholas Ray by Geoff Andrew
Hollywood Abroad: Audiences and Cultural Exchange
Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity
Luchino Visconti by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith

A good evening's work!

Age and guile

Age and guile, said P J O'Rourke, stealing and perverting an Indian proverb, beat youth, innocence, and a bad haircut. How true, especially on Tuesday night, when the star-studded Ombudsman team triumphed in the Suzy Lamplugh Trust summer quiz. The quiz was held in the students' bar of Chelsea College of Art and Design, and the majority of the teams seemed to be of student age. So we felt really old and probably looked, to the kids around us, even older. It was a bit of a trouncing tbh. First up, we won the spot prize for listing the 20 best-selling singles artists in Britain up to 2004. We got 14, which was more than anyone else, and so won a bottle of House of Commons whisky (which will presumably turn up on some MP's expense claim). Then James got second prize in the raffle - a load of West Wing DVDs. And then we won the quiz itself, and the prizes were astonishing, I think. But Keith took them away for safe-keeping and I haven't seen him or them since. A very well organised quiz, and it was good to be in a student bar, where a bottle of decent white wine was just £7.50. Celebrated in the White Swan afterwards, so home just after midnight.

Then an early start today, to get to Ashford for training. Went by train, for all the usual reasons, but as it's in Kent, it's a two-hour journey (I could easily do it in one hour by car, but couldn't use the laptop.) The course wasn't great, but nowhere near the horror of the Luton experience. A really difficult start when, in the "tell us about your complaint making experience" a delegate gave such a moving and inspiring personal story, that no-one dared follow it with a whinge about a mobile phone company. But as usual the case study got everyone going after lunch. But so hot! By the end of the day I had almost forgotten how to talk, and the fact that no-one fell asleep was a major achievement.

I must have travelled on the Catford-Sevenoaks line many times. It offers a fantastic view of the Darenth Valley, one of the most underrated bits of England. But today for the first time, I noticed an obelisk on the railway cutting just this side of Swanley. Turns out it's a coal tax post, a relic of the City of London's system of taxing coal imported into the city. It had the same function as the more mundane looking road posts (a near example being in Leaves Green, near Biggin Hill). Actually the real explanation is quite a disappointment, but one could speculate as to why the railway coal tax posts were given this mysterious and evocative form. Second speculation of the day: why are there five railway tracks through Headcorn station? But that's not really very interesting.

Anyway it's now Wednesday evening. The air is cooling but still sticky. I am tired, as usual after a day trying to get people to feel enthusiastic about complaints. And I have the day off tomorrow!

Jerry Springer moment: Please support the Suzy Lamplugh Trust in any way you can: it's still doing important work. And if you ever work on your own, make sure you follow basic safety rules. And always remember that your life is more important than your job.

Counterpoint semi-final spoiler alert

I'll be going to the final tomorrow night, but I won't be in it. Which is a pity but I feel OK because the semi-final was unbelievably close and a slightly different set of questions could have changed the outcome. Also, the winner of the other semi-final looked unbeatable.

The other good feeling was caused by the fact I had a specialist round that was proppa classical music: classical songs und Lieder. Half the answers were in German, um Gottes Willen! (Die schöne Müllerin, Beim Schlafengehen, Am Abendrot, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau) So that felt like I'd earned my right to be there after the "British pop music before the Beatles" in the last round. Australian classical musicians came up again, and was easier than expected: Joan Sutherland of course was the first answer; others included Nellie Melba, Percy Grainger and Charles Mackerras.

Other answers I was proud of: Freddie Hubbard, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch. (I only got one point for the last five! Outrage!)

I thought I had escaped the curse of G&S. Alan, to my right, had a question about Sir Arthur Sullivan (the answer being Box & Cox), but then my question was a musical extract: some prats singing about a sausage roll in G&S's last opera; what's the name of the opera? The question bizarrely both confirmed my dislike of G&S and showed that I should have done my homework. Even without having to listen to the crap crap crap music, I could have known what G&S's last opera was. Actually, I've forgotten the answer already.

Honestly, though, surely the rest of the world (apart from America) totally ignores the music of G&S. It's what led Germans to regard England as a country without music. Is there any equivalent elsewhere - a music that is only honoured (but massively honoured) in its homeland? Zarzuela, perhaps, or the French chanteuse Barbara.

What's next?

Counterpoint

Went to Broadcasting House this evening to record my heat of Counterpoint. I'm probably not supposed to give away the result. You'll have to wait until 13 April to hear how I got on. Which I see is Easter Monday. Don't know if that means more or fewer people will listen.

I can remember very little of the evening to be honest. No, not pissed, just very keyed up. The rehearsal was a dummy go at the buzzer round, which I won! I was a little bit tactical, not buzzing on every answer I knew. I'm not sure that's a good tactic though. Probably would have been better to go for everything I thought I knew. But I don't deal in intimidation and my two opponents (a consultant haematologist and a retired university lecturer - posh, much?) were nice guys.

My heat was the second one on, so I watched the first one from the stalls. Two very quizzer-looking men and a frail-looking woman, who did better than I expected. One of their special subjects was "Australian classical musicians", which no-one chose. Unsurprisingly. I'd have been reduced to saying "Joan Sutherland" until it was the right answer. There was an awful lot of silence in the first heat. It'll be interesting to see how they cut it for broadcast.

In my heat, the specialist subjects were musical knights, conductors, British pop music before the Beatles, and Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. If I mention that two of my answers were Tommy Steele and Helen Shapiro, you'll guess which subject I went for. If you're old enough. Anyone could guess which subject no-one chose.

I was really happy that my sister and her husband came along to the recording. But even with a lot of friendly faces in the audience, I was tense beyond belief. It's now 11:30 and I'm still coming down. So tense that I completely forgot the name of the club in Liverpool where the Beatles first performed.

Paul Gambaccini (above) was a great host - relaxed, funny, engaging.

Inevitably, Gilbert & Sullivan raised their unmusical unfunny undramatic uninteresting heads again. Once again, annoyingly, I knew the answer, but didn't get the chance to give it. The cons. haem. and I agreed we both can't stand 'em.

Roundup

What's happened to Nancy Banks-Smith? Since I linked to her as a funny woman, she seems to have stopped writing for the Guardian at all. The default tv reviewer these days seems to be Sam Wollaston, who's often quite boring. I only read his column if I've seen the programme he's talking about, whereas I'd read NBS's review of the testcard. I've already deleted Vicky, now will I have to remove her? I'm going to give it a while yet.

Meanwhile, another of the funny women, Ariane Sherine, has achieved quite some fame with the Atheist Bus Campaign, appearing frequently on telly. But unbelievably, she can't find a man, and has told the world, which has inevitably brought her loads of (possibly) unwelcome attention. She has handled it with amazing charm, though, and she certainly stays on the list. In case she reads this, here's another suggestion. Be like Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, who was prepared to travel to find a solid relationship and take the roughcast with the smooth:

Like every married couple, we have our ups and downs. We even made it through the terrible disaster of November 9, 1989, when my husband was subjected to frenzied attacks by a mob.

I may be going back on the telly. There's going to be a new series of Only Connect. Because it's recording in March, they may not have time to find new teams, so will invite some of the teams from the first series back again. Maybe it's time to reinstate Vicky after all.

We seem no closer to a decision on redundancies. It's strange to be wishing for redundancy while the rest of the country is terrified of it. If it's going to happen, I need to start making plans. The best idea I have at the moment is to go back to college, doing a full-time MA in something literary, but I'm not allowing myself to spend any time gathering details until I know. Meanwhile our management seems completely unaware of the effects of the uncertainty on everybody whose job may be going, telling us nothing, nothing, nothing. Join my Facebook group: Let's find a million people who think this is getting ridiculous now!

Counterpoint recording

I'm going to be in heat 6, which is being recorded on 2 March at Broadcasting House. So plenty of time to read The Rest is Noise (thanks, Marion). Tickets are available from the BBC ticket unit but the FAQ I've received says "We can reserve any number of places in the audience, so just let us know names and numbers". So if you want to come along, my lovely claque, please let me know. It looks as if my show will be the last of three recorded that evening. Presumably Paul Gambaccini is expected to be a bit faster than Robert Robinson.

As far as I can see, it'll be broadcast on 13 April - the same times as Brain of Britain: 1:30 on Monday, repeated at 11pm the following Saturday.

So go on, ask me some questions ....

Counterpoint

Got the email yesterday confirming that I'm in for next year's programme, to be recorded in February in 'central London' - presumably that'll be Broadcasting House again. I now need to start cramming on certain things:

nicknames of symphonies (eg Winter Daydreams)
musicians' curious deaths (eg Lully who lost his life in a conducting accident)
something about recent music (eg names of albums by wimpy rockers such as Elbow)
gilbert & sullivan, I suppose, oh no

Counterpoint and stereotype

I had a telephone audition today for Counterpoint, the Radio 4 music quiz. Apparently I did very well and other things being equal should be recording in February. The audition was conducted by Paul Bajoria, the producer of this and Brain of Britain and we chatted before it about the experience of Only Connect and about why and when I got interested in Bartok. And then the answer to one of the questions was Bartok.

Meanwhile, I got home tonight to see the end of Eggheads. My, CJ looks different. Turns out it's the winner of Are You an Egghead making his first appearance. I didn't even think about applying for this, thinking that the last thing they'll want is another balding middle-aged white man. Oh look, that's exactly what they've got. His name's Barry.

A great score at Scrabble but

Olav Bjortomt is a massive figure in the world of quiz. Only 30, he's already got a wikipedia entry for his achievements. But the last two times I've seen him he's come second. Recently he had a disastrous first round in Mastermind (on West Indian cricket) and a brilliant second round wasn't enough to make good the deficit. And today, thanks to my early homecoming I caught the end of Are You an Egghead, which he was on. And he lost again. He would surely have been one of the favourites to go all the way. So even the mighty are affected by luck, and even the unlucky may be lucky one day. (This has been entry number one in the world of quiz thread in this blog.)

About redundancy

I haven't discussed this much - the strand of this blog that covers my possible early retirement. The background is that evil govt has slashed my employer's budget for the year beginning in April 2009, so there have to be redundancies. When this was first mentioned, I got the figures for what I could expect. As I'm over 50 if I took VR I'd be entitled to collect my pension. It's not a huge amount but it's probably surviveable. At least it would provide a nice background income, enabling me to work from time to time. I'd also of course get a fairly large lump sum of redundancy money and pension. In those days, I imagined this would earn me some interest, but that seems less significant now. I can't believe they're seriously talking about 0% - is the whole world forsaking usura?

Anyway, I formally applied and today we were due to hear the outcome. It seems that so many people have applied for VR that whatever happens there will be no need for compulsory redundancies. This probably means that some of those who've applied for VR won't get it. There's a complicated points scheme to select them. We won't know anything more until probably January, when the final budget figure is given to us by evil govt. So there's a chance I will have to keep working after all.

In other news, my Brain of Britain was broadcast today. It still seemed to me that the other people got easier questions! But I was amazed that I got one question (what's the name of the biggest satellite of some planet?) right - where did that answer (Ganymede) come from? I can't even remember the name of the planet now. And I am glad that three of my correct answers were the following: Fidelio, Leporello, Elgar's 1st Symphony. Come on, Counterpoint, I'm ready for yuh.