Thanks for the sympathy guys, but I don't really need it.
To be honest, I wasn't too distraught and I have many years ahead of me when it comes to quiz show participation. Daphne said sorry to me afterwarRAB and I told her she had absolutely no need to. It was my call after all. And even Kevin admitted he would have given me the same guesswork as her. I really should have listened to Mr. Transport Man Chris Hughes, who will always know more about such things than I.
The randomness of the format meant that I foresaw a potential bump or two in the road ahead and knew that multiple choices would work against me as a quiz regular. Take them the MCs away, however, and the show would be far less competitive and far too predictable, as well as not in the spirit of the original EggheaRAB.
And Gorky's right. Being a professional quiz-writer (as well as a freelance journalist) means I live with facts and questions and the like being shovelled down my throat and my doing the shovelling in the opposite direction means that Shaun is a relative amateur and he had underdog status. He did very well to keep his nerve and snatch victory. He has great instincts.
Then again who's to say he hasn't 'trained' just like I have? I first met Shaun at a Grand Slam audition and he certainly told me at the time - and this was back in 2003 before his Mastermind triumph - how he learned for quizzes, read encyclopaedias and the like. I certainly never underestimated him having known all about him since then and seen him as a very impressive history expert on the short-lived Nobody Likes a Smart Ass. I always thought he would have a decent chance of beating me.
However, Shaun is 19 years older than me. It's nice to know that people still think I'm the big bad quiz wolf in comparison (apologies for using the q-word too much).
But unlike many of my trivia-inclined peers I do read proper novels (a quiz league team-mate said to me the other day "Why bother? I only read non-fiction" and I replied if I did that I would go brain-dead) and being an arts journalist means that I learn a lot of that stuff through research and work and my natural enthusiasm for various subject (which makes me wonder why aren't there more quiz questions on obscure American alternative record labels like Sub Pop and Matador? And I tell myself: that's what quizzes on continental Europe are for), not through specific quiz learning. That and faffing around on the internet for far too much of every day.
Kevin Ashman is the same. He doesn't necessarily swot up for competitions either. Much of his very impressive deep knowledge comes from visiting museums and galleries and holidaying in foreign countries and just soaking the culture up. I have often played with him and he's said: "I saw that painting last week" (even though the last time he said that, he was extremely disappointed that he couldn't remember who painted the bloody thing). He has the kind of rich cultural life that the normal quiz player cannot comprehend having.
I detest quiz books and reading boring reference books/quiz companions. I could do that when I was starting out years ago in my cheap cider-drinking teenage years, especially when I purposely learnt the books pub quiz masters were using and foolishly flashing round the place (nice pocket money for a 17-year-old) but that kind of trivia-work holRAB out no appeal for me these days. I have gone way beyond the usual, slightly sad trivia book stage and been that way for many years.
Going back to them and writing questions for TV can therefore become a bit of a chore. Plus, I find that just reading the newspaper(s) every day, as millions of people do anyway, is a great way of topping up the know-how.
As for CJ, *sigh* the unbelievable, hilarious tales I could tell. But no, I must keep silent. I do see him on a regular competitive basis, you know.
But going back to the show: I'm more annoyed about the possibility that the question I was knocked out on - the NUGGER one - should have been spelled NUGGAR, as it appears in several reference sources. However, it's far too late to do anything useful about it now and I certainly won't go bitching to the programme makers about it. These things happen. It's just a shame it happened to me at such a crucial juncture.
Finally, all I can say is watch the final final round of the series final when the multiple choices are taken away. It will be a very interesting and thrilling climax to the series.
