NOT everyone on TV’s Mastermind is a certified genius . . .
Applicants for the long-running BBC quiz show are being vetted with a series of easy questions the average pub quizzer would scoff at, which maybe explains some of the howlers given when hopefuls are sitting in the famous black chair in front of the cameras.
Some simple online multiple-choice questions are one part of the Beeb’s application process. Wannabes must answer 20 head-scratchers, including: “In a common expression, a person who must admit to being wrong after taking a strong position must eat what type of pie?”
Amy Jones brings you some of the daftest answers given by contestants, and also stars on the celebrity version.
See if you can get them right. The correct answers are below.
The 2019 book entitled No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference is a collection of speeches made by a Swedish climate-change activist. What’s her name?
A. Casualty actress Amanda Henderson: “Sharon.”
Which breakfast cereal is a slang term for serving time in prison?
A. EastEnders’ Paul Bradley: “Cheerios.”
Who acceded to the throne at the age of nine on the death of his father, Henry VIII, in 1547?
A. MP David Lammy: “Henry VIII.”
In an 1819 poem, what season of the year does Keats describe as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”?
A. Ex-England cricketer Monty Panesar: “Oliver Twist.”
In which city is the television comedy series Cheers set?
A. Monty Panesar (. . . again): “America.”
Stanley is the capital of which self-governing British overseas territory?
A. Shaun Ryder: “Didn’t he write Spider-Man?” (Stan Lee did.)
In the stories by A.A. Milne, who owned a bear called Winnie-the-Pooh?
A. Paralympian Kadeena Cox: “Bob.”
What is the name of the sea between the UK and Norway?
A. Towie’s Lydia Bright: “The Pacific.”
According to Thomas Carlyle, Napoleon put down a royalist uprising in Paris in October 1795 with “a whiff of what”?
A. Contestant: “Cheese.”
Which sweet dessert is named after a day of the week?
A. Contestant: “Wednesday.”
What’s the opposite to an evergreen tree?
A. Contestant: “A nevergreen.”
Which former Tory MP lost in Rochester & Strood in 2015 after defecting to Ukip?
A. Contestant: “Mark Careless.”
Correct answers: 1) Greta Thunberg, 2) Porridge, 3) Edward VI, 4) Autumn, 5) Boston, 6) Falkland Islands, 7) Christopher Robin, 8) The North Sea, 9) Grapeshot, 10) Sundae, 11), Deciduous tree, 12) Mark Reckless.
