That Promised Brain of London Report Full of Pain and Self-Deprecation and Such and Such
It was a dark and stormy night. Thoughts flooded my mind on approaching the Rosslyn Park RFC clubhouse: one of which was that the absolutely terrifying about Brain of London is that the calibre of contestants gets higher and higher every year. Blame it on the writing qualification test, which has been an eminently sensible addition to the competition considering the train delays that have had too much of a bearing on who actually gets to be one of the 32.
The odd thing is that when the quartet of names is drawn out for every match, there is a hush and a woo and the same comments about it being the game of death. Only this happens every time each round one match is drawn. The old new cliche about international football is applicable here. There are no easy games anymore. Not by a long shot.
So when I hear my three drawn opponents - Bayley, Andrew Frazer and Bob Jones - my heart sinks a smidgen. Players with similar strengths to mine, on the history for instance, and better in some respects. But for four rounds it goes okay. I have ten going into the final round. Bayley is clearly ahead and has it in the bag. I am one ahead of Andrew and slightly behind Bob. If I answer all of my own questions I will get to the tie-break.
Then, whoopsy-daisy. I score a big fat duck, creating a huge singularity into which all my chances disappear. By this time I had become stoical to the point of my not breathing. In contrast, last year had seen my sullen self gutted by late 50s/early 60s pop, rugby league and athletics, the old Bevan and Bevin confusion, British murderers and my inability to identify Peasant Revolter John Ball.
Those mistakes added up and similar errors add up now.
I can pinpoint the boo-boos on my own questions so:
1. The Battle of Nations or Leipzig happened in which year?
I've seen this a hundred times, but all the Napoleonic battles give me the heeby jeebies. I say 1807. Wrong. 1813.
2. In a Formula 1 race what flag indicates no overtaking?
I say blue, but it is yellow. I slap my head in a sort of idiot reflex.
3. Who created the Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco?
Italian-sounding detective, I think. The mind switches into reflex mode. I say: "Dibdin". It is Lindsay Davies, and suddenly all of tjose MQL friendlies come flooding back. When the creator of Aurelio Zen makes the rounds, I wait for someone else to say Dibdin, but nobody does, and I use the same low, base tone to convey the now correct answer.
4. Who plays Pascoe in BBC's Dalziel and Pascoe?
What's the name of that fella, the blond one? The one who was in Preston Front? Aaargh. I say Warren Clarke, which I know to be incorrect. Bayley is sharp enough to get the bonus. It is Colin Bloody Buchanan.
5. Latin, moline, tau and patee are all types of what?
If the question was written rather than read out I would have made a better stab. I have since learnt what a patee looks like. I know what a tau one looked like. But damned if I was going to take a common object amd link them with the word 'cross'. It wasn't my night. Grasses, mills and knots would have been fine and dandy but not the cross. It could be the vampire thing. You know I am turning into one. Convalescence has seen me reveille at 6pm and 7.15 pm lately. Why? Because I fear for the corrosive effects that sunlight will do to me in my current state. Yes, I am Bart in that episode of The Simpsons with the pool and the broken leg and Flanders's shrill girlish squealing.
But here's the doozy...the stuff of which future nightmares are constructed
6. Name either of the nations that took part in the 1866 Seven Weeks War.
I said France. I could have said Prussia. I should have said Prussia, that was the safe answer. I have since pinpointed the reasons for this slip of the tongue.
Three conflicts: 1756-63 Seven Years War, 1866 Seven Weeks War and 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. My mind blended these together in a hellish mish-mash. My thinking is that I lost on the 2/3 odds. That's why I never play Find the Lady. I always choose the lad. My lack of exactitude results in me going for the grey are and always hoping it hits near enough to yield a correct answer amid all those similar words and numbers. Sometimes it comes off, and sometimes I feel like the guy who said that France fought in the Seven Weeks War.
So that was that. Bayley wins the match and Andrew goes through on the tie-break.
But what comes out of this? The realisation that if someone answers more questions correctly then you do, then you do not deserve to win. You could blame the balance of the question-setting, but you should always be good enough to overcome this. The truth is the very best will always out. My opponents gave more correct answers (three more in 2nd and 3rd's cases) and displayed more knowledge and care and all is far in war and quiz. What's that old song I Should Have Known Better? The theme tune for quiz losers. For we are many and we are pained.
I could have also blamed The Shed. The old prefabricated building into which the last of each round's matches is banished. The room in which my Brain of London hopes become forlorn and destitute. Perhaps it is not conducive to optimum brain function. Or it could just turn my own brain into a root vegetable. It reminds me of computer classes on BBC Acorn computers when I was seven and didn't know how to command the little object or mousey thing on the screen to turn 90 degrees or go forward. It also reminds me of filthy builders and bad cups of tea. And transience. And police interrogation rooms. Honestly, how can I think in a place like that?
Inevitably the first round sees a cull of the great and good: Stainer, Kathryn, Sean, John Grant, William De Ath, Mark Bytheway, John McDonnell and more. All of them are truly capable of reaching a TV or radio show final and have done so in a few cases.
The next round I linger by Jesse's match and an awful feeling comes over me. The second round matches have lesser known film cameos (Robert Patrick in T2, Mickey Rourke in Body Heat and Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise), modern art (Jasper Johns and Paul Klee) and nineties pop albums (Gary Barlow, Boyzone) that would have played into my hands and given me many score-enhancing bonuses. However, it was not meant to be. Even if it is a sickener. They thought it was tough, tougher than the second round, while I thought exactly the reverse. If Brain of London gives you two subjects, which play to your particular expertise (in that case, pop culture) then you will be blessed with five or six vital bonus points.
The rest of the evening is spent watching the progress of our two sole BH survivors: Bayley and Jesse. Reasons for their success are easy to see. Bayley has made sure he has covered everything and anything that might be asked of him, as well as relying on the old, hard academic material that makes up the substratums of his general knowledge. Therefore he can now answer questions on the Sugababes with ease. Meanwhile Jesse has the almighty power of his geographical knowledge and the related names and places and various bric-a-brac he can hang on them. They serve him well. He will go so very far. And when he tells me how he has been writing 200 questions a day, he says: "I'm just going to learn everything I don't know". Such a statement can only cast the shadow of fear in everyone else's hearts.
Mark says that in "two or three years' time Jesse will be the most dangerous player". For now he says that I am. He adds the wonderful compliment, for it is a compliment, that I'm "psychotic". I stand there and nod sagely. As long as such an adjective can be applied to my devotion to the pursuit of general knowledge, I am perfectly content with such a description, and not a penchant for battering defenceless grannies with a baseball bat whilst setting fire to my local community centre filled with nursery children and fluffy bunnies, then it is okay. There's nothing wrong with being a bit GK doolally. Friends have noted my obsessive side manifesting itself in writing hundreds of thousands of questions and buying books, CDs and DVDs in such awesome quantities that if I keep up such rates of expenditure and acquisition that I will soon be paying for the Sister Ray record shop staff to go on an indie-rock Caribbean cruise.
Then I recall Mark trying to hug me, euh patchy beard man, reminding me of Mr Twit's facial eco-system (I jest so very much when I write this so apologies), in a kind of consolatory gesture whilst sunken in a sink marked abject defeat, I shout: "Get off me, you bummer!" But you see, gay name calling is acceptable if it is a reference to the TV show Spaced. I swear: it's the law. Reminds me of that awful King Adora single I bought. I wonder if Noel Fielding was actually in that band ... you see ... I'm really not psychotic ... but autistic, yes, introverted certainly, thinks too much for his own good, hell yeah.
Seeing Bayley and Jesse in the final does swell my heart with fraternal pride. Their brains were on form and their mouths in sync. In my case, I blame a cranky nervous system that has started to malfunction on pints of full-fat Coke and regular nicotine inhalation. Must drink Adam's Ale. Must find something better to do with my fidgetty hands, like juggling or knife-throwing, sorry thinking about that My Name is Earl episode. The one with the mother and daughter who have "the Gift".
But I think Brain of London is a brilliant event. The Mimir format is a very good way of cutting down 32 to four finalists, and it does so brutally, because it just has to. Stainer calls it a "chancy format" and it is. Fifteen questions is what you get and you have to do the best you can with them in a very short period of time in which half-a-dozen or more expectant faces are staring at you. Only the most accomplished, seen-it-all Brain of Britain champions are guaranteed progress as evidenced by the Billson-Ashman procession to the final. They have talent enough to surmount the wavering finger of question-setting fate. Yet the event gets you on tenterhooks in an incomparably thrilling way. Not written (dagnabbit), but reactive. I'm thinking it should be a 64-person event all day on a Saturday with round robin matches. Or maybe that would be another individual tournament we can all look forward to.
Mark says: "I prefer a written test". Most of us prefer a written test. Those of us, that is, who do written tests every month or as often as they can. At Brain of London, you also hear the odd, reassuring comment along the lines of "I think I'm getting senile". Having done four Brain of Londons now, I can safely say that at my current rate of progression I will make like a Cape Canaveral countdown (I have Sean Connery's immaculate turn of phrase from the documentary Gole describing in which he gleefully narrates the plummeting scoring abilities of the England team at the 1982 World Cup) and will surely fail to qualify from the written stage next year. After that: obscurity no doubt.
Perhaps I have a subsconscious self destruction tic, encouraged by the Rosslyn Park clubhouse (the Obolensky bar! Shoulda mentioned that in my NQSL starter), or more pertinently by the semi-finals in 2004 when a whopping six-point lead was chucked away in a welter of pointless guesses and awful geographical knowledge (you see, that's where Jesse has the rock-solid edge; as for me I'm not even sure which county the Tolpuddle Martyrs come from anymore).
Stainer thinks it is my QLL destiny never to get to the Brain of London final or score a full house in a league match. I swear, as God is my witness, that's he's probably darn tooting right. I'm doomed to be incomplete in the QLL arena. Time to gaze upon global and European horizons, at least that's my failsafe excuse.
The odd thing is that when the quartet of names is drawn out for every match, there is a hush and a woo and the same comments about it being the game of death. Only this happens every time each round one match is drawn. The old new cliche about international football is applicable here. There are no easy games anymore. Not by a long shot.
So when I hear my three drawn opponents - Bayley, Andrew Frazer and Bob Jones - my heart sinks a smidgen. Players with similar strengths to mine, on the history for instance, and better in some respects. But for four rounds it goes okay. I have ten going into the final round. Bayley is clearly ahead and has it in the bag. I am one ahead of Andrew and slightly behind Bob. If I answer all of my own questions I will get to the tie-break.
Then, whoopsy-daisy. I score a big fat duck, creating a huge singularity into which all my chances disappear. By this time I had become stoical to the point of my not breathing. In contrast, last year had seen my sullen self gutted by late 50s/early 60s pop, rugby league and athletics, the old Bevan and Bevin confusion, British murderers and my inability to identify Peasant Revolter John Ball.
Those mistakes added up and similar errors add up now.
I can pinpoint the boo-boos on my own questions so:
1. The Battle of Nations or Leipzig happened in which year?
I've seen this a hundred times, but all the Napoleonic battles give me the heeby jeebies. I say 1807. Wrong. 1813.
2. In a Formula 1 race what flag indicates no overtaking?
I say blue, but it is yellow. I slap my head in a sort of idiot reflex.
3. Who created the Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco?
Italian-sounding detective, I think. The mind switches into reflex mode. I say: "Dibdin". It is Lindsay Davies, and suddenly all of tjose MQL friendlies come flooding back. When the creator of Aurelio Zen makes the rounds, I wait for someone else to say Dibdin, but nobody does, and I use the same low, base tone to convey the now correct answer.
4. Who plays Pascoe in BBC's Dalziel and Pascoe?
What's the name of that fella, the blond one? The one who was in Preston Front? Aaargh. I say Warren Clarke, which I know to be incorrect. Bayley is sharp enough to get the bonus. It is Colin Bloody Buchanan.
5. Latin, moline, tau and patee are all types of what?
If the question was written rather than read out I would have made a better stab. I have since learnt what a patee looks like. I know what a tau one looked like. But damned if I was going to take a common object amd link them with the word 'cross'. It wasn't my night. Grasses, mills and knots would have been fine and dandy but not the cross. It could be the vampire thing. You know I am turning into one. Convalescence has seen me reveille at 6pm and 7.15 pm lately. Why? Because I fear for the corrosive effects that sunlight will do to me in my current state. Yes, I am Bart in that episode of The Simpsons with the pool and the broken leg and Flanders's shrill girlish squealing.
But here's the doozy...the stuff of which future nightmares are constructed
6. Name either of the nations that took part in the 1866 Seven Weeks War.
I said France. I could have said Prussia. I should have said Prussia, that was the safe answer. I have since pinpointed the reasons for this slip of the tongue.
Three conflicts: 1756-63 Seven Years War, 1866 Seven Weeks War and 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. My mind blended these together in a hellish mish-mash. My thinking is that I lost on the 2/3 odds. That's why I never play Find the Lady. I always choose the lad. My lack of exactitude results in me going for the grey are and always hoping it hits near enough to yield a correct answer amid all those similar words and numbers. Sometimes it comes off, and sometimes I feel like the guy who said that France fought in the Seven Weeks War.
So that was that. Bayley wins the match and Andrew goes through on the tie-break.
But what comes out of this? The realisation that if someone answers more questions correctly then you do, then you do not deserve to win. You could blame the balance of the question-setting, but you should always be good enough to overcome this. The truth is the very best will always out. My opponents gave more correct answers (three more in 2nd and 3rd's cases) and displayed more knowledge and care and all is far in war and quiz. What's that old song I Should Have Known Better? The theme tune for quiz losers. For we are many and we are pained.
I could have also blamed The Shed. The old prefabricated building into which the last of each round's matches is banished. The room in which my Brain of London hopes become forlorn and destitute. Perhaps it is not conducive to optimum brain function. Or it could just turn my own brain into a root vegetable. It reminds me of computer classes on BBC Acorn computers when I was seven and didn't know how to command the little object or mousey thing on the screen to turn 90 degrees or go forward. It also reminds me of filthy builders and bad cups of tea. And transience. And police interrogation rooms. Honestly, how can I think in a place like that?
Inevitably the first round sees a cull of the great and good: Stainer, Kathryn, Sean, John Grant, William De Ath, Mark Bytheway, John McDonnell and more. All of them are truly capable of reaching a TV or radio show final and have done so in a few cases.
The next round I linger by Jesse's match and an awful feeling comes over me. The second round matches have lesser known film cameos (Robert Patrick in T2, Mickey Rourke in Body Heat and Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise), modern art (Jasper Johns and Paul Klee) and nineties pop albums (Gary Barlow, Boyzone) that would have played into my hands and given me many score-enhancing bonuses. However, it was not meant to be. Even if it is a sickener. They thought it was tough, tougher than the second round, while I thought exactly the reverse. If Brain of London gives you two subjects, which play to your particular expertise (in that case, pop culture) then you will be blessed with five or six vital bonus points.
The rest of the evening is spent watching the progress of our two sole BH survivors: Bayley and Jesse. Reasons for their success are easy to see. Bayley has made sure he has covered everything and anything that might be asked of him, as well as relying on the old, hard academic material that makes up the substratums of his general knowledge. Therefore he can now answer questions on the Sugababes with ease. Meanwhile Jesse has the almighty power of his geographical knowledge and the related names and places and various bric-a-brac he can hang on them. They serve him well. He will go so very far. And when he tells me how he has been writing 200 questions a day, he says: "I'm just going to learn everything I don't know". Such a statement can only cast the shadow of fear in everyone else's hearts.
Mark says that in "two or three years' time Jesse will be the most dangerous player". For now he says that I am. He adds the wonderful compliment, for it is a compliment, that I'm "psychotic". I stand there and nod sagely. As long as such an adjective can be applied to my devotion to the pursuit of general knowledge, I am perfectly content with such a description, and not a penchant for battering defenceless grannies with a baseball bat whilst setting fire to my local community centre filled with nursery children and fluffy bunnies, then it is okay. There's nothing wrong with being a bit GK doolally. Friends have noted my obsessive side manifesting itself in writing hundreds of thousands of questions and buying books, CDs and DVDs in such awesome quantities that if I keep up such rates of expenditure and acquisition that I will soon be paying for the Sister Ray record shop staff to go on an indie-rock Caribbean cruise.
Then I recall Mark trying to hug me, euh patchy beard man, reminding me of Mr Twit's facial eco-system (I jest so very much when I write this so apologies), in a kind of consolatory gesture whilst sunken in a sink marked abject defeat, I shout: "Get off me, you bummer!" But you see, gay name calling is acceptable if it is a reference to the TV show Spaced. I swear: it's the law. Reminds me of that awful King Adora single I bought. I wonder if Noel Fielding was actually in that band ... you see ... I'm really not psychotic ... but autistic, yes, introverted certainly, thinks too much for his own good, hell yeah.
Seeing Bayley and Jesse in the final does swell my heart with fraternal pride. Their brains were on form and their mouths in sync. In my case, I blame a cranky nervous system that has started to malfunction on pints of full-fat Coke and regular nicotine inhalation. Must drink Adam's Ale. Must find something better to do with my fidgetty hands, like juggling or knife-throwing, sorry thinking about that My Name is Earl episode. The one with the mother and daughter who have "the Gift".
But I think Brain of London is a brilliant event. The Mimir format is a very good way of cutting down 32 to four finalists, and it does so brutally, because it just has to. Stainer calls it a "chancy format" and it is. Fifteen questions is what you get and you have to do the best you can with them in a very short period of time in which half-a-dozen or more expectant faces are staring at you. Only the most accomplished, seen-it-all Brain of Britain champions are guaranteed progress as evidenced by the Billson-Ashman procession to the final. They have talent enough to surmount the wavering finger of question-setting fate. Yet the event gets you on tenterhooks in an incomparably thrilling way. Not written (dagnabbit), but reactive. I'm thinking it should be a 64-person event all day on a Saturday with round robin matches. Or maybe that would be another individual tournament we can all look forward to.
Mark says: "I prefer a written test". Most of us prefer a written test. Those of us, that is, who do written tests every month or as often as they can. At Brain of London, you also hear the odd, reassuring comment along the lines of "I think I'm getting senile". Having done four Brain of Londons now, I can safely say that at my current rate of progression I will make like a Cape Canaveral countdown (I have Sean Connery's immaculate turn of phrase from the documentary Gole describing in which he gleefully narrates the plummeting scoring abilities of the England team at the 1982 World Cup) and will surely fail to qualify from the written stage next year. After that: obscurity no doubt.
Perhaps I have a subsconscious self destruction tic, encouraged by the Rosslyn Park clubhouse (the Obolensky bar! Shoulda mentioned that in my NQSL starter), or more pertinently by the semi-finals in 2004 when a whopping six-point lead was chucked away in a welter of pointless guesses and awful geographical knowledge (you see, that's where Jesse has the rock-solid edge; as for me I'm not even sure which county the Tolpuddle Martyrs come from anymore).
Stainer thinks it is my QLL destiny never to get to the Brain of London final or score a full house in a league match. I swear, as God is my witness, that's he's probably darn tooting right. I'm doomed to be incomplete in the QLL arena. Time to gaze upon global and European horizons, at least that's my failsafe excuse.
posted by That Quiz Guy at 2:57 PM
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