"You should go on Mastermind"

someone said yesterday. He was talking to a friend who had just managed to answer a question about something some footballer had done. 

His wife and I looked at one another and she muttered, "The last thing I would want to do. He watches it every night and it drives me insane."

I could only sympathise. I do not watch Mastermind. I rarely watch anything but the first part of the international news service. Quiz programs are most definitely not something I would choose to watch. Mastermind may be a little better in that it does not have the commercial hype of some of the more glitzy shows but it irritates me. 

If I happen to turn on the television set a minute too soon and get the tail end of the general knowledge questions I grit my teeth. I may not know the answer to "who played X in Y television show" but I can name the capital of Taiwan. Therein lies the problem. I know almost nothing about television programs, "pop" music, bands, sport and any number of other things. I am much more likely (but by no means certainly) to provide an answer if someone asks me for something which is apparently of lesser importance. 

My maternal grandmother loved quiz shows. It was not that she could answer the questions necessarily. Her general knowledge was not that good. She was "not much of a reader" but she liked the way that the "hosts" asked the questions, encouraged the participants and more. I think she was more than a little in love with her "favourite" - a man called Bob Dyer on something called "Pick a box". We had to endure it if we happened to be there at the time the show was on. "It will be good for you. You might learn something."

My paternal grandmother might actually have been able to answer quite a few of the more general knowledge sort of questions but she did not have a television set. (It took them years to get one and then it was rarely turned on and only to the ABC - the Downunder equivalent of the BBC at the time.) Grandma knew all sorts things because she read a lot. She read to make up for her lack of schooling. Grandma didn't need quiz shows. 

The idea of going on national television and trying to answer questions about a "specialist" subject and general knowledge questions about football or soccer or the person who played such and such a character in such and such a series does not appeal to me in the slightest. I am no Mastermind at anything. I squirm at the very thought.  I have never been to a "pub quiz night" either but it seems to me that having a team of people answering questions would be preferable. (No, thank you but I do not want to do that either.) At very least someone else can decide who won the Brownlow medal and who was the person who scored the most runs in the latest cricket match.

I still think knowing the capital of Taiwan might be more useful.