An Long, Long Essay on Pinewood: Bloody interesting tree info ... NOT

Saturday Night's Alright for Righting Emergent Wrongs

(Written on April 7, but since revised)

Have returned from the viewing party with friends in Bethnal Green and already experienced the hot gaze of three or four smiling, quizzical or knowing facial expressions. Or maybe, I'm just really really paranoid. They are watching me. They always are. You know who.

That was truly bloody weird. I cannot convey to you how weird it was. It began with the aural montage of several other contestants repeating my first name like some mad mantra. I can hear it now *shivers*. It seemed that I was being portrayed was the dark lord of long and infamous renown out to destroy the wonderful dreams of innocent, lovely folk racing for the prize (AND I WOULD HAVE DONE IT AGAIN I TELLS YA. AGAIN AND AGAIN ... stomped them into dusty, insignificant particles ... nothing can stop me now).

I looked away from the screen whenever I began talking in length. Who the hell was that guy? Was he actually the son of the Devil, if I correctly heard the ominous Omen-tinged theme music bestowed upon his slow motion form? That is not the guy who looks back at me in the mirror. That was some freaking weirdo who hung around in corridors waiting for cameraman to look him up and down, very slowly, who then talked in cliches so hackneyed, a greetings card writer would geyser-puke in shame upon merely recalling them from simpler and cornier corners of childhood memories.

Okay. I own up. But here come some rather convoluted excuses. They coerced me to say things, quite gently mind you, and not in an Iranian news conference way, and have told me I am always a bit "guarded" in my comments; always giving credit where credit's due.

Thing is, some of us don't want to come off like complete dicks. Despite requests that we radically up the dickage content of our responses along with appropriate levels of astounding arrogance, so we would project an image of an intensely ambition quiz competitor who would stop at nothing to win the lucre. They wanted fighting talk. They wanted to put a cat among a number of other similarly poked and prodded cats in order to whip up a frenzy of flying fur and slashing, bloodied claws. Or maybe they just wanted everyone to say something interesting. At least once in a while. The odd mildly amusing quip - "They suck so much ass, they are world ass-sucking champions". A flash of sparkling repartee that would have lifted the interviews out of the humdrum mealymouthiness that grips the vast majority of people when put in such televisual situations. It's not our fault that our national character when faced with such a barrage of attention that it would inevitably result in us being ever so polite and would you mind awfully passing me another nice cup of tea.

In the case of this contender I believe I gave them chat that tickled forcefully at best. Because every regular quizzer knows where he or she stands in the ranking scheme of things. I don't care enough to disparage others because if you care too much about quiz competitions to instill even the slightest hint of malignancy in your attitude towards your fellow competitors, then you are lost, or at least on the way to taking a wrong turn up some untoward highways and byways that will be rather difficult to retrieve yourself from.

Isn't it funny how at every Grand Prix, European and World Championship everyone more or less stays in the same place with only minor room for improvement at best? Yes, the years do reveal the slow migration of players up and down the placings, but in the short term from tournament to tournament everyone seems to sit in the same predestined region of the leaderboard at the end of the day, having fallen victim to the usual chinks and weak spots in their overall GK armour.

We know where we stand and are therefore quite content to hold our positions the status quo, and we know we have to work bloody hard and sacrifice life's essentials to change up our seemingly pre-ordained place in this strange, but ultimately quite friendly universe. But I'm not going to go all John Buchanan and ask where is all the decent, challenging competition at? I'm already bored of these inferior quiz beings breathing my air etc, just because I've found myself in the company of contestants who know nothing of the pleasure of traversing Europe to tussle with Estonians, Finns, Norwegians and the all-powerful and possibly supernatural Belgians, or of the annual Nic Paul Northants Grand Prix, which I quite like because I play on the same team as Nic and have the same-ish strengths, except for sport, and ... I could go on. Hubris lies in such stupid and thoroughly insane actions.

Therefore, always assume everyone has it in them to deliver you a smackdown. Sharpen that sense of humility. Keep it monk-style. Keeping it Adrian Monk-style, and therefore ultra-tidy, thorough and diligent would also help. It saves you looking like a real shithead when they actually do beat your sorry butt.

Because on TV anything can happen. Anything. Formats are far dicier than the old reliable written paper and li'l old me has pointed out how superior knowledge has not stopped me from choking in TV quiz show finals in spectacular fashion (but I was far younger then ... yes, I have excuses for the qualified remarks and rejoinders for the realities ... it can get very complicated.)

It is why the Eggheads do lose one in a blue moon. Because if we were working on hundreds of questions handed to our egg-cellent (I wrote that to make you wince and grown, whoever you may be, Willie Nelson, Nick Cave's new handlebar mooostache, Andre the Giant's giant ghost perhaps? - Anyway: I WIN!) quintet and the average joe challengers, so each could show what's what by writing down answers to the same questions, not only would it be the most boring thing this side of The Royal, then it would be a foregone conclusion that the Eggheads win. The more questions, the bigger the mantle of favourites rests on the shoulders of the side with the deeper and wider reservoir of knowledge.

Taking the Eggheads example further: cut down the variables such as number of questions to the bare minimum viewers can tolerate (the minimum dose as it were, before they start wincing in all sorts of pain caused by the paralysis of choice and the boredom of affluence and people's overly convenient, but never less than highly popular supermarket approach to self-mediciation) and markedly increase the chance of answering the said questions by introducing multiple choice answers - with some incredibly inappropriate options that would only be chosen by people who have no right being on a quiz show, yes, not even Supermarket Sweep - and then ensure a definite result can be achieved quickly with as few as questions the audience can bear and without recourse to having to come up with the answer themselves, rather than being given bleeding, cursed multiple choice answers, with choices that are quite frankly as well thought out as The Beatles' mid-1990s new-ish singles releases: the infamous "Free as a Turd" and "Real Bollocks."

And because the sudden death section invariably spells the demise of whichever challenger has managed to get that far and face someone far used to pumping out hundreds of fully formed answers with non-ABC questions. Yeah, to make it more fun on rare occasions stick in a question about skateboarding terminology like a poison pill into the question supply of the more mature than most Eggheads, and see them stumble wildly into a strange and alien world they have never glimpsed before. The tricks of the format trade are at first mysterious, but they have been thought through.

Chance is the equalizer. Much like Edward Woodward popping in for a cameo, I suppose. Introduce the luck of the draw, which you will see in TPQ studio shows, and the playing field is levelled further. It will take you a few fatal mistakes to rule out your participation in the entire show beyond round one (unless you have really bodged it, you'll see what I mean), just as the timing of your tactics in round two is crucial since a single error may cut short a brilliant run of answers and rule you out (sorry, about being cryptic, but you will see).

There is the old "when the questions get easier, everyone catches up" dictum, I suppose. On TNLPQ You'll see the buzzer race become a common feature due to the straightforward nature of the majority of questions. Which is also just as applicable here as a kind of playing field renovator. A simple question will have everyone thumping their personal column-stick light-sabre thing. Therefore, you will never be too sure who goes through despite proven buzzer-speed ability.

Managing the playing field is, as you can see, a crucial component of the TV series, the thing that matters most with regards to each player from each different age category, despite it being a completely abstract ideal. We're really talking about how stealth handicaps - you'll see - can conspire to put out a player who has answered the most questions in the final third round, but which happen to be the most completely useless ones, yielding a lava-red background of desolation. Something which sets the scene for potential final round fixing and therefore a wholeload of lovely excitement and thrillls.

The only objective of the studio shows is to get two players to the final: one by proving he or she has substantial talent and big and brassy enough cojones to overcome three others in round two, if they have not been lucky enough to get to the second round in pole position. The other his or her personally chosen partner-in-destiny, the condemned one that perhaps deserves the most to go to another place because they have failed to demonstrate any worth other than their supreme ability to ever so slightly vex you in ways you thought not possible without going to special classes taught by Jim Carrey in his roles as The Cable Guy and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, or has brought attention upon themselves with dumb-accented answers "What the?", "Never heard of it" which make you wonder how they came to be stood in this circular cathedral of Tyrian purple plastic, ranged against some seriously stiff competition. Then again, they too have been through a lot just to get there. Kudos to every single one of the 23 other finalists who have made it along this long and thoroughly winding and time consuming road.

But enough of the theoretical aspects of the format for now. Now let's talk about swelling, ego-swollen skulls. If my head did come off as big, well it is because it is a bit larger than normal. In fact it almost killed my mum (size-ism eh? Not all of us can have manageably small bonces) when she gave birth to me - I may have mentioned some terrible lasting injuries before. Salt baths, don't ya know.

Oh wait, you mean me talking about my achievements? Er, they asked me to state them for the camera. It wasn't like I was pulling them out of thin air and making up qualifications and imaginary trophies of great exoticism and prestige Walter Mitty-style. Neither was I expounding the belief that I had chewed up nearly every quiz-enemy in the land (except Ashman and Gibson) and was now ready for some fresh meat to mince and make some lovely beaten contestant burgers. I'm not a sodding WWE wrestler. I won't wave my hands about like I'm a member of Reef with an unfortunate case of grand mal epilepsy. Although I thought that if I did make things up they would have almost certainly believed me and said this is some "great stuff." It's TV after all. It's not real. And wait a minute, I'm not even sure that anyone is accusing me of being big-headed. I may be shouting in the dark at no one in particular. But then I told you I was paranoid. Very paranoid.

But let's get real anyway - hey, that's a smegging great segue - I was thinking that neither is mere self-belief enough. New Age bollocks is no match for cold, hard, ruthless facts. You have to know the answers to nearly every question that comes up, at least in the case of TNLPQ. You have the best chance of winning with the biggest range of knowledge and the certainty (useful for buzzer purposes, naturellement) of knowing it that comes from stupidly long periods of time spent studying or quizzing with others or seeing your time eaten by a hungry trivia yearning that can never really be satisfied. The latter always calls me back for instance. Like a siren call, mewling: "More, more, more." Resistance, as every devoted quizzer knows, is utterly futile.

The surety of knowing the answer will come because you know exactly the acceptable level the question setters have pitched their little posers at (they have viewers to think about for starters) and have thoroughly gutted such sources is tantamount to an overwhelming psychic advantage. One hundred per cent sure versus fifty per cent and so forth makes all the difference when it comes to reaction time. A supremely confident mind backed up by an arsenal of relevant facts is the ultimate weapon in any quiz show. The very best exponents of these silly arts can simply will an answer into existence by banking on previous experience and instantly ease through their mouths. Because it is quite possible that they really have seen every viable quiz question in existence.

Therefore, it is clear who has the best chance of progressing. Remember I said CHANCE not WILL PROGRESS. See? I told you: guarded. Bases are covered, levels of offence reduced to gentle ribbing levels, mad, bad and dangerous words eradicated. And I will also say that yes, every one of the finalists has a chance of winning TNLPQ. You never know in which direction such forces as momentum (the best of all), confidence (useful) and derangement (the downward spiral) will suddenly take you.

Trusting the luck factor, hit upon a rich seam of your own specialist subjects and it will help you overcome the superiority of the far better general players (see nearly every early favoured University Challenge team that has suddenly been knocked out by hitherto humdrum quartets). In this case the trick therefore is to make sure you have no weaknesses at all. To cover your ass (how substantial it may be, well that's your problem) and make contingency plans for every possible topic.

I will leave it up to others to judge whether I have any, but you know I've always detested motorways, engine parts, old British makes of car (can you tell I don't drive a car?) and aircraft, nursery rhymes, ye old steam railways and associated companies, Lake District geography, Monopoly properties, bingo numbers and the like (see the reasons for the "passes", although I have - HALLELUJAH - finally got to some sort of grips with birds and plants. But fingers crossed, eh?). I spit metaphorically on the cited topics with extreme distaste for their complete and utter bloody triviality. That being my subjective and unfair opinion, which I love brandishing with misplaced righteousness. I cannot bear to look at them, and therefore they become weaknesses, albeit minor ones that act like specks of gravel caught in the sole of your shoe. Ouchy-oochy irritants I can live with, without their destroying my chances against other players or teams. This is opposed to huge, great whopping ones like the whole of American history and classical music that act as gaping black holes from which your chances of winning anything cannot escape.

When it comes to personal choices and the outer fringes of the general knowledge universe, I have always chosen the obscure over the truly trivial - there's a music equivalent. Do you want to nod your head agreeably like some zombie to an alternative US band called Isis or do you want to boogie to an old Vengaboys track? In more classical terms, it is better in my view to go with 19th century Romanian poets or leaders of the Fulani empire no-one else I know in the quiz community has heard of. Better for the soul and brain. Better for stoking that elitist, I don't give two hoots what colour wedges are used for history in Trivial Pursuit urge (I know it's yellow - thanks, mind-numbing, soul-destroying, but ultimately helpful in keeping the brain flexed and ready to do something far more important TNLPQ question sets). Learning and exploring the obscure reaches of what we deem knowledge is in its own way equally and dreadfully pointless, but is still strangely satisfying to do. Sometimes that unique status, that feeling of you and not Jose Mourinho being the "Special One" arises because you are doing something nobody else has thought to do (because they have lives caught up in the real world) is enough to keep the enthusiasm going and hope that one day, yes, one day, your diligent, some might say zealous promotion of them will have seeped into the subconsciousness of another quiz setter, et voila the subject has become more or less acceptable tournament fodder. After all people do get bored of the same crap, but different day. The crap has to change eventually. Then it will evolve over time into a kind of super-intelligent crap that our ancestors would have described as crazily esoteric crap that bears no relation to the crap they had themselves got sick of. Do. You. Get. Me?

But if you have been doing the quiz thing, living the trivia life for years, you are far more likely to come into contact with the questions that will come up. Practice and competition make perfect, as well as honing those pressure-management skills and a competitive instinct that flings more fuel on what was already quite a rampant forest of flames. For instance, you find yourself in the middle of a chain reaction and start get given all that after hours hotel room buzzer quiz action.

Experience counts for so much. Repeats happen constantly if you happen to stick around long enough. Indeed, patience is rewarded mightily in quiz. Your bank of specially gathered knowledge will be rewarded one day. Several repeats happen in individual GP papers written within the same year to cite an obvious example. Familiarity breeds true contentment and confidence with regards to this - yes, you think, I have heard it all before. And collect all the trivia tidbits that passed you by the first time in that league match or whilst watching UC to ensure they will never slip away ever again (I say that and of course they still pass me by in the thousands, despite my desperate, grasping flailing hands trying to stop them flying beyond my reach yet again).

However, TNLPQ isn't Mastermind. It's mainstream popular entertainment, as bright and breezy and in the reckoning almost as sickly sweet as a packet of Skittles (Sours or Originals). Heightening such entertainment will probably involve the digitally superimposition of the number of the beast on my scalp to consolidate my position as the single person who instills ominous bell-tolling fear in those who have long competed against me. Funny how they portrayed the "fear" spreading to those previously ignorant of my minor claims to excellent quiz proficiency (not genius - it's such a loaded word). Very funny.

But we ain't talking about subatomic particles named after Indian Nobel Laureates. We're talking what name did glamour model Katie Price adopt? (Or is that too risque?) In the pyramid of general knowledge that which is required on a mainstream ITV or BBC1 quiz show sits reasonably close to the apex and is a far more finite resource compared to that of University Challenge's knowledge remit, which graces much of the middle and lower sections, a conclusion I have just made from some random, abstract pyramid I have fully realised in my mind in a matter of ten seconds and which filled with knowledge starting at the tip of the top with A is the first letter of the alphabet and, at the bottom, ending in a massive foundation swarming with nothing but indecipherable quadribloodymillions of numbers and letters in genome sequences and calculations so complex they would make Good Will Hunting pee his pants and John Nash poo-poo in his. Therefore, it is far easier to win. Like, duh. Well, of course. But if its set were set any lower it might ask questions about key works in foreign philosophy, foreign film directors, in fact anything that has been dipped in or ripped from a foreign language or culture located far, far away from this sceptred isle.

Then we must remember, it is a People's Quiz. The British People's Quiz. After all, foreigners talk funny and in funny words that sound like SCHNASUSS and BLEREAGGH and OING OING and eat indescribably creepy food like boudin noir, which though they cherish beyond all reasonable limits, we think should have been buried in a landfill. On Mars.

Plus, it is not about being clever or having the brightest brain. Intelligence won't help you answer questions on Avril Lavigne if you've never actually heard of her. Like, double duh. It is about having a retentive memory that collects every random factual scrap in the cosmos with consummate ease and regurgitating it in as quickest time as possible. Then you train it by subjecting the memory store to such prolonged periods of study that it becomes far easier to pick up far bigger volumes of facts and trivia. Tis cumulative. Everything is: memory, study and ruthless efficiency are our key weapons, and the comfy chair and soft cushions. Begin earlier on on this epic voyage - though, of course, some can pack far more efficiently and freely than others since some get the Louis Vuitton equivalent of the luxury carry case with inbuilt table and washing facilities, while others get ultra-reliable Nike rucksacks and others get those awful WH Smith bags which split horizontally at the bottom in a perfect straight line that facilitates the deposit of your newly bought fags, drink and chocolate bars (BASTARD PLASTIC BAG) in the footsteps you have left behind on a train station forecourt (Victoria on Thursday, curse you gods of the rail system) eagerly picked up by any lucky, feckless bastard who neither appreciates Marlboro Menthols, Cherry Coca-Cola or Kinder Bueno bars, but will try and consume anyway with predictably less pleasure and far more retching dry-heaves than any long devoted disciple of the said strains of confection and nicotine and sugar-riven drink - and LO you will be packing your cranium with solid blocks of useless facty goodness. Look at me, my head feels heavy with the weight of knowledge, or that could be a intracranial tumor that is now approaching bowling ball size and will soon endow me with the psychic and super-intelligent powers of John Travolta in hokey-dokey and primarily okay film Phenomenon.

However, let's forget about rivalries, which are so often fought with the one or two people who are more or less on an even keel with you (the margin of error is negligible), and which only rarely break out into knife-fights and arson attacks, I think (give any sport or pastime time to develop and evolve and thrive, and obsessive nutters will eventually ascend the hierarchical ladder through slight but crucial gradations due to a obsessive nuttiness that assumes the only importance in their lives).

It's like I've said before: Quizzers do not generally have enemies. If they are at each other's throats, and being wily, cantankerous and self-righteous kinds of coves forgiveness is a path closed forever, it is because personality defects have made their fundamental nature known to all and sundry and wreaked terrible consequences of the like you will see at every Babyshambles concert.

The personality clash and the subsequent petty skirmishes between friends-then acquaintances then nobodies and finally antagonistic phantoms and finally fully blown you're on my enemies list behaviour. This descends into a helter-skelter affirmation of each other's allegedly superior powers of organisation, of fidicuary (to make money, to outscore and claim the bragging rights, to control team selection) and their attempts to uphold their supremacy by outrageous behaviour aimed at permanent separation. Or at least, one has passed on and come to piss on their one-time nemesis's headstone. Though, I must admit, there are schisms. As we all know.

But generally, we do not sneer at each other from across the room like trigger happy gunslingers ready to dispense especially sharp doses of lead poisoning. It is more of a mainly fraternal-sorority where people subject each other to mild digs and jostling banter that never descends to the depths of saying: "I'm going to do you in this quiz, you bastard. Had it coming a long time. Time to take out the trash, or as it is more commonly known, your disgusting wee-stained chords and your curry and donut jam-stained crappy polyester shirt. Of course, you'll still be wearing them. Because you love them". Brutal honesty is kept safely tight-lipped if the thought ever (rarely) arises. We know each other too well and on too friendly terms to come out with it. Even if the desire to speak out is strong, which is inevitable when you invest any kind of emotion in how well you fare in a competition with rivals you have been vying for supremacy over so many years. The jousting, sometimes bad feeling always passes, because there will soon be another opportunity to do yourself justice once again.

Quizzing, in my opinion, is truly a battle with yourself, to get the most out of your own brain, potential and temperament. If you have succeeded fully in doing so then you can never have failed, and if someone else has beaten you then fair enough, they deserved it. How could you possibly argue with that?

Going back to the TV show
Oh, I know what you want to know. This theorising is really getting on my tits. Where's the televisual dirt? You thought I was going to do my tell-all TNLPQ tirade. I can imagine the increasingly annoyed look on your face. You want to know whether the TV company strung me and done up like a kipper?

Was I stitched up? Who am I to say? Who knows the minds of those who put the pizzazz-strewn entertainment factor into non-fiction reality TV programming across every channel? Maybe Armando Iannucci was horribly prophetic when he imagined a cadre of smug television commissioning editors who constantly chanted "Oh, we're good at TV! We're so good at TV!" when their ideas were either clearly insane or so moronic you wondered if they didn't adopt the David Bowie/William S Burroughs cut-up-randomising technique of just putting words together like "Terrorist Wind Farms" and popping out a show. As if by magic.

No, those are other TV people; Not the production company peeps behind TPQ, who I have to admit I have grown quite fond of. I have to confess that having seen even more studio shows that it is a damn good watch, even if I am extremely biased from being caught up in it all.

But you could work out the Big Story they were going to work up in order to give the show a noteworthy climax. I cannot blame them for doing so. They set you up to knock you down. It is the classic TV show narrative way (plucky underdog defeats mighty legend - irresistible!). Now that's a "good story" as my old newsdesk editors used to say. Therefore you run with the best material.

So you ask of any lingering or even nascent resentment bound to grow into something quite nasty? Nah. Not at all. To be honest and frankly speaking, I didn't get knocked out of the show so it matters not a jot. Look to a future that still exists for now. While, for now, you could see that they had already started foreshadowing future heartbreak. Wait until the first studio show and see what I mean, and remember a few, short key interviews from last night's Final Auditions show. Broken dreams are waiting to play on your emotions.

However, you know what is the worst thing about tonight? Do ya? The most rubbish thing in all the world? I now seem to have Checking It Out by L'il Chris stuck in my brain. Like some kind of nervous system parasite. How did it get in there? It must be rubbish music-themed week on my mental jukebox.

Scratch that. I now have "Knock the Cover Off the Ball" off the soundtrack for The Natural. A brilliant example of a dark, nuanced literary work being transformed into a feel-good mainstream entertainment because the common people want to see heart-thumping home runs sail into the stratosphere, not something to do with match fixing and conflicted but real and selfish human motives that would be like, a real downer, man. Thus ending up as a straight, seamless road to an eminently satisfying conclusion easily understood by an audience who want a bit of uplift and a bit of surprise, but not too much of the latter. Just enough to keep the punters on their toes and make sure the emotional pay-off fits in with every other film they have deemed brilliant in the past. With their goodies and baddies and clearly delineated moral compasses and notions of the dark and the light, the old stories and myths remain the most popular. And so everyone plays happy families in golden cornfields never wondering if such bliss will ever end. Even if we know it must in our own reality of the grey zone.

Look at those lights shatter and blaze in the dark. The electric fountain spray. A bright rainfall of joy. I confess: It has been a long day and I have finished off these thousands of words with an elongated metaphor concerning a 1980s baseball film to illustrate the sometimes disatisfying translation of true, human experience into something digestible for a mainstream audience. A very long and arduous day involving the barring my vision with my fingers and shouting in anguish has been had. I fear I will see better and worse days. More embarrassment will surely be heaped upon my oddly shaped head and loose, ugly jaw.

Random bit of praise: Randy Newman is a genius, but you knew that anyway.