PASST Q M M CHE UARTERLY AGAZINE OF THE ASTERMIND LUB
Summer 2001Rising from the ashes
MasterQuiz Round 2 answersThe Mastermind website
Youhavetwo minuteson
“Barrister/Comedians”inastyleofmychoosing . . .
The contents of PASS ©2001 by the Mastermind Club except where noted. Contributions are welcome but may be edited or held over owing to space limitations. All material is published at the sole discretion of the Editor and Committee. Copy deadline is normally the first of January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and October (Autumn), for publication around the end of the following month. Please notify the Secretary of any problems in receiving PASS (allow an extra week or two for printing and postal delays --- check for current status).
OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Tony Dart HON. VICE-PRESIDENT Dr. K. Gerald Powell-MacKenzie SECRETARY Gavin Fuller TREASURER Paul F. Henderson MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Peter W. J. Chitty EDITOR OF PASS Craig E. Scott COMMITTEE MEMBERS Patricia Owen Ann Kelly Phillida Grantham Alan D. Blackburn
MEMBERSHIP MATTERS Peter Chitty
IT IS WITH GREAT SORROW that that I have to inform you of the death of two members: Miss Patricia Erridge, who lived in London, and George Earnshaw, who lived in Fleet, Hampshire.
Patricia was one the select band of members who sat in the Black Chair twice, in 1983 and 1996; I had the pleasure of being in the audience in Bishopsgate.
George did his first round at the Open University at Milton Keynes in 1975, his subject being Aztec Mythology. His daughter tells me that Magnus had some difficulty pronouncing some of the names in the questions. If there are any members who can remember taking part in that heat and have either a recording or a group photograph, would you please contact me as she would dearly like to have a memento of his appearance.
It gives me pleasure to welcome back Brian Bovington to the Club after a two-year absence.
A NEW MEMBERSHIP LIST is being circulated with this edition. It has been updated to the end of July 2001. If you have any queries please contact me.
PASS SUMMER 2001
PASS NOTES Craig Scott, Editor
ALL OF YOU SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED contestant application forms from the BBC for the revival of Mastermind (story next page). I’ve checked with the BBC, who tell me that, if (as you read this) you want to apply but haven’t yet, do it now.
The mystery is solved LAST MONTH GAVIN alerted us to a website which promised to “eventually include a list of all contestants on the TV quiz Mastermind and biographies of many of them.” The absence of identifying details started a guessing game about who could have produced such a magnum opus – an insider, obviously, but who? It was rather a shock to find that I appear on the Web somewhere else than on our own site.
Upon revisiting the ever-expanding site last week, we found that it now bore the signature of this year’s Mugnum winner, Howard Pizzey. If you want to check it out, the address is: http://www.geocities.com/mastermind_hsp/
New membership list This issue includes the updated Club membership list asa loose insert. As required by the Data Protection Act, members are reminded that the list is held on computer and copyright is retained by the Mastermind Club. It is published solely for the convenience of members and may not under any circumstances be disseminated outside the Club. Any queries about the list should be directed to the Membership Secretary, Peter Chitty.
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IN THIS ISSUE
2 Letters, news and views
4 Club shopping
5 A handful of the South Wind
6 Brink of Peace
8 Life in the shadows
10 Master Quiz 2001 Round 2 answers
12 Mugnum answers
BC Wholly matrimony plus Lance
Illustrating a notice for Channel 4’s The Cleverest Ape in the World in London Metro, 31 August 2001
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2 PASS
The Oxford moth catching contest The contestants are seen here at a crucial point in the game; having shut their eyes, the
LETTERS, NEWS AND VIEWS
From Margery Elliott (who also submitted the cutting above)
DID YOU HAPPEN TO NOTICE that Geoff Thomas won his fourth consecutive game of Number One on Channel 4 today [12 June], and carried away over £7,000? He now retires, under the rules of the game, but will be back in a later Champions’ game.
From Ray Ward
MEMBERS MAY LIKE TO KNOW the end of the President’s Cup saga (PASS, Spring, p 5).
Kevin Ashman indicated his availability for the North v South match, and Ken Emond sportingly agreed to drop out, so it was Bob Jones, Paul Webbewood, Kevin and myself who faced the Southport and Formby team at the Festival of Team Quizzing in London on 9 June, and waltzed away with the Don Bisset Memorial Cup by 54 points to 24.
The President’s Cup and winners’ plaque will be going on display in the Grape Street Wine Bar, where Club members meet on the third Wednesday of each month.
Once again, my thanks to all who helped make it such an enjoyable and satisfactory season.
From Keith and Marga Scott
WE ARE ARRANGING A VISIT to see the RSC production of Twelfth Night at the Theatre Royal, Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, on Saturday 17 November 2001, starting at 2:00pm. Tickets in the Grand Circle cost £23.
As last year, there will be a meal after the performance at a venue to be decided.
For those wishing to make a weekend of it, we shall be ‘at home’ at Rothbury on Sunday 18 November, for coffee in the morning followed by lunch somewhere in the area and, weather permitting, a look at places of interest.
Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to come and send a cheque for £23 per person for the theatre. Booking began on 4 June, so an early response would be greatly appreciated.
Further details as regards meeting up, etc., will be supplied nearer the time. We will be pleased to help and advise if you are going to want accommodation in the area.
For north-east members, please contact us if you are interested in future meetings, which are held roughly once a month.
F I N I S H E D S O I T ’ S
S T A R T I N G
By Robin Young
THE quiz programme Mastermind, which had a 25-year run on television before it was axed in 1997, is to make a comeback with the talk-show host Clive Anderson replacing Magnus Magnusson as question master.
The new series will be made by the BBC but screened on the Discovery Channel, as part of its autumn and winter seasons, from November 12.
The show will retain its original format, with four contestants taking their turn in the spotlight on the black chair with a round of specialist questions, then general knowledge.
Anderson is expected to revive Magnusson’s familiarphrase when interrupted by the buzzer: “I’ve started,so I’ll finish.”
One new feature will be an interactive element for viewers watching through Sky Digital. They will be able to answer each time Anderson asks a general knowledge question. Viewers with high scores may then be invited to compete in a viewers’ final.
FROM THE TIMES, 18 AUGUST 2001
From Lance Haward
FIRSTLY: IT’S REASSURING to note from the Spring, 2001 Letters column that Ray Ward is not so super-literate as we had feared, but reads the Express – daily or otherwise. From a somewhat distant perspective on annual meetings, I had missed the mini-argument he reports, about the entitlement of question-setters to be Club Members; but his recollection on that is as accurate as one would expect – in our first constitution (about which, at this remove, the less said the better) it was clearly specified that “… membership shall be open to all who have at any time appeared in, or taken part in the production of, the Programme”. The question Ray poses, as to the subsequent point at which, if at all, that may have been formally abrogated, looks like a good one.
(I won’t bother to interrupt Marcus Berkmann in the matter of Thomas à Becket’s death, since Ray is doubtless sprinting to the post on this one even as I write.)
Secondly: the unique Stephen Follows puts me in my place, not before time. I had publicly opined that I was the only Member to have won University Challenge (though many, as we know, have reached the final!). Keble, of course, still stands a chance of becoming the first ever three-timer; there seems to be some doubt whether Open is going to be allowed that courteously equal opportunity! Ah well, I am still the only ex-Club President to have done the trick, that’s for sure. And even Ray isn’t going to matchme on U/C plus three Brains of Mensa now.
What primarily catches my attention in Stephen’s letter, however, beyond that provocation to shameless self-advertisement, is the revelation that he too is one of this world’s Precipitators, those on whose heels, as with Henry V, “famine, sword and fire crouch for employment”. (A surname change to Precedes seems to be indicated!) In my case, it’s travel that brings it on: I have been closely followed through Jordan by Six-Day War; Aviemore by Avi-lanche; Venice by floods (but then who isn’t?); Romania, by revolution; Calabria, rioting; Usbekhistan, ecological disaster; and Chiapas, by guerrilla insurrection.
In Cyprus, the pursuit came close to overtaking, when the bullets directed at Archbishop Makarios’ helicopter sent
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the Eoka-adjusted locals scurrying for cover under benches while I was walking to Church in Nikosia early one Sunday morning, and continued on my way innocent and upright (Morningside Syndrome once again?).
But at Sheikh Adi, in southern Kurdistan, my innocence at last ran out. You should know that this principal shrine of the Yezidis is the very point on our planet where the devil is kept immured by the direct expedient of a giant orthostat that doubles as threshold to the Sheikh’s tomb. Every Yezidi is aware from birth that to step on, rather than over, this stone is to release Satan and all his mischief.Europeans, on the hand, being less theological, and more careless of local technology…
Do I need to point out that this was on the eve of the FirstGulf War?!
From Philip Atkinson
I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED the latest edition of PASS, it’s doing very nicely nowadays. I’m not the most active participant in the club, but even such slackers as myself find it enjoyable and entertaining. My only adverse comment is that the Master Quiz seems to have become rather more difficult in recent years – far more difficult than the questions on the programme ever were.
Marcus Berkmann has been publicly mentioned by Magnus as a strong candidate for the Mastership in any future revival of the programme. I wonder if he did himself any favours by slipping in a fake date in his piece in the most recent issue? 1154 was of course the year that Thomas a Becket became Chancellor. He wasn’t murdered until 29th December 1170. Any fule kno that, as the great Molesworth would have put it. I’m only pointing this out in case Marcus Berkmann thinks he can put one over on us. Surely he knows he’s playing in a different league?
From Glenys Hopkins
WAS I JUST IN A GOOD MOOD, or was it a particularly good PASS this time? Interesting articles, more pictures, this will make a great contribution to keeping the Mastermind Club together.
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MORE LETTERS
From Leo Stevenson
AS YOU PROBABLY ALL KNOW I’m always complaining about being short of time, and how much I hate using the internet and email etc. However, I just couldn’t resist sending the following piece of information to you all, although you may already be aware of it…
Sometimes in life one comes across something that makes you glad to be alive; something that makes the world seem a better place, and that gives one a sense of fulfilment that money just can’t buy. Today is one such day.
While writing a letter in Microsoft Word, I had reason to use the computer’s in-built thesaurus (accessible by highlighting the troublesome word and pressing Alt+F7). Iwanted to find an alternative to the word ‘genius’; endearingly, the first option the computer thesaurus presented me with was the word ‘mastermind’.
From Lt. Col. G. C. Horridge, Army Cadet Force Association
Stephen and his family have asked me to thank you very much for your generous donation to the Stephen Menary Appeal. You may well have seen Stephen on television, and if you did you will know how determined he is. He now has had a number of operations on his eye and, after his last of seven hours, he has a little vision. It will not be for another two years, however, before we know if this little improvement is permanent. He is going to St Dunstan’s, who provide rehabilitation for blind ex-service men and women, for six months and that should give him more confidence to live with his visual impairment. His stomach injuries are slowly stabilising and he is looking forward to being able to be fitted with his artificial arm, although that will not be for a while yet.
I am delighted to say that we have reached our first target of £100K and are now looking at consolidating to give Stephen a reasonable base for the rest of his life.
Lieutenant Colonel Horridge is trustee of the Stephen Menary Appeal, this year’s Club Charity – Ed.
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C L U B S H O P P I N G
STILL AVAILABLE! T-shirts with “I’ve started so I’ll finish” on the front and “It’s only a bloody game” on the back, in white on dark navy – only £6.00 all sizes.
All prices include postage and packing. Send a cheque with your order, payable to the Mastermind Club, to Patricia Owen.
TIES £
NEW! MAROON (MULTI-LOGO) 7.00NEW! ROYAL BLUE (MULTI-LOGO) 7.00SILVER (SINGLE-LOGO) 6.00
T- SHIRTS
WHITE ON DARK NAVY (M, L, XL, XXL) 6.00
RUGBY SHIRTS
NEW! BURGUNDY, KELLY GREEN (M, L, XL) 18.00NEW! BURGUNDY, KELLY GREEN (XXL) 20.00
SWEATSHIRTS
OATMEAL (M, L, XL) 15.00RED (M, L, XL) 15.00
JEWELLERY
KEY RINGS 5.00PENDANTS 5.00NEW! TIE CLIPS 7.00NEW! STICK PINS 6.00
PENS WHITE WITH LOGO 6.00
PASS
A HANDFUL OF THE SOUTH WIND Lance Haward recalls an encounter with a turf legend
PERHAPS YOU WATCHED GORAN IVANISEVIC brimming with tears – not because he’d just achieved a life’s ambition but because he looked as if he was about to do so. All it needed was just one of those routine aces. Where had the technique gone to, just when it could have clinched the business? That’s what it is for your heart to be in the sudden grip of something promised twenty years ago. Panic.
DERBY MORNING, 6:30 A.M. That distinctive smell of dewy grass and frying onions, and every tree behind Epsom Downs gold-plated and shivering like a nest of wasps.
Most of the aspirants for glory had completed their work-outs the day before. This morning, before the crowds began to swarm out of Balham and the onion smell to be replaced by that of strawberries, was one for the work-horses. Those that keep their trainers in bread and champagne by picking up the selling-plates at Ludlow in between Classics.
But to the unpractised eye, one velvet-coated half-Arab looks much like another, sway-back and spavined hocks notwithstanding; and the exhilarating percussion of hooves on laundered grass is the same music, whatever the instrument.
One such, its fledgling jockey not much bigger than his mount’s head, came thundering over the horizon. The apprentice looked as though he’d stand a marginally better chance of controlling a runaway Chieftain tank.
AT ROUGHLY THE SAME MOMENT, a little man with a pair of hounds on leash came along the lane that intersects the course near the mile, half furlong start, intent on getting his animals to the open Downs on the other side before their vestigial instinct of canine responsibility dissolved.
From the shoulder of a thoroughbred passing in the wind at 40 m.p.h., and across the cushioned thunder of hooves, not more than a half-dozen crucial syllables came over: the mildest of the apprentice’s yells was in the order of: “Get
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those bloody dogs off the course, you--!!”
THE SMALL RESPONSE of the man being cursed was that slight, forlorn smile that conveyed all the melancholy of diaspora and Adam’s labour, a smile familiar to every race-goer of my generation, as he and his hounds passed through the intersection with the composure, and something more than the split-second closeness, of a musical drive by the King’s Troop. The dogs appeared more responsive to their diminutive handler than the horseto his. The walker’s instinctive mastery of animals showed not only in his unspoken instructions, which only the dogs received, but also in his awareness that the thoroughbred was displaying less cause for anxiety than its rider.
I thought it worth someone’s while to give him a civil “Good morning.”
“And thank you for all the entertainment,” I added. His acknowledgement was another modest smile. It wasn’t for conversational skill that he’d made his reputation.
There was, of course, no reason at all why the infant jockey, slightly older than his mount but still bunkered by youth, should have been expected to recognize the great “Scobie” Breasley, who twenty years earlier had entranced the racing world with his miracles of timing and subtleties of persuasion. The last man (on Charlottetown) to win a real Derby – one launched from a proper starting-gate. If anyone alive knew the exact length of a horse’s nerve and stride, it was this man.
I thought, as the perfectly co-ordinated trio walked off down the hill: Call me superstitious, but if the infant does go on to win this race some day a decade or so hence, could it be because on this of all mornings his path was crossed by one of the immortals?
WHEN DESTINY INTERRUPTS OUR PASSAGE, perhaps we need to be blind. Or distracted by the mundane smell of onions. If we recognized her, when it came to the climax would the nerve hold? Would those aces, like Jove’s lightning bolts, come to hand?
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BRINK OF PEACE Paul Slater messes about on the river
BRINK OF PEACE WAS THE NAME OF THE BOAT on which my wife and I, and our dog, spent a brief holiday on the Norfolk Broads. For two days, and part of two more, Brink of Peace was our home, and it took us down the River Bure from Wroxham to Horning, up the River Ant to Neatishead, Barton Broad and Wayford Bridge, and back again. A heat-wave at the start of our holiday gave way to thunderstorms and torrential rain, and then to breezy sunshine. We saw attractive river scenery, with miles of wooded banks, and several windmills standing by the water’s edge; we moored at staithes, and went ashore to shop and to eat at pubs, walking along quiet country lanes and at one point visiting a beautiful thatched church. The rivers were thronging with waterfowl; ducks and geese and their young crowded round the boat to be fed whenever we stopped, sometimes actually getting on board, and we saw more great crested grebes at closer quarters than we had ever done before.
Driving Brink of Peace was mainly my job, although my wife sometimes took over, especially if I wanted to step out onto the stern to take photographs of windmills or river scenery. We pottered along, at a gentle three or four miles per hour, often being overtaken by other boats, with whose occupants we would exchange friendly waves. At the driver’s seat, I had a steering wheel, a throttle, and – in place of a speedometer – a rev-counter calibrated to approximate speeds. I had a horn and windscreen wipers, which I used only occasionally, and a bilge warning light and a few other controls which I never needed. There was a single mirror, mounted on a short mast at the bow so that I could see river traffic coming up behind me. The upper reaches of the River Ant were very quiet, the other waterways were moderately busy; I had no problem giving way to sailing yachts, and where streams of traffic converged, I found it easy to fit my boat in among the others. Brink of Peace was very manoeuvrable, and with the throttle at full speed ahead and the steering wheel hard over, would turn in her own length.
Mooring the boat, and untying the ropes when it was time to leave our staithe, was my wife’s job; she was better than me at handling ropes and knots, while I was more confident at operating the throttle and steering wheel to
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bring the boat into a mooring and start her away again. Mooring and departing was a two-person job, with us synchronising the tying and untying of ropes with the engine and steering. Sometimes I gave another boat, or the bank, a gentle bump, but I never rammed another vessel hard when coming in to moor, although I had one or two anxious moments. On occasions, the occupants of the other boats would help my wife with the ropes. One staithe where we moored overnight was in a fairly long and narrow creek; I had driven Brink of Peace in forwards, and as boats do not steer well when going backwards, we decided next morning to haul the vessel out of the creek by hand. It seemed very strange to be towing our home along, my wife pulling on one rope and I on the other, until we had got it into the main channel and I could get on board and start the engine.
Brink of Peace was diesel-powered. To start, I would put the throttle at full speed astern, push in a control like an old-fashioned choke in a car, turn the ignition key, and press a button. Usually the engine would start first time; unless I actually wanted to back the vessel, I would push the throttle into neutral and then into full speed ahead, and turn the steering-wheel. Once we were on our way, I would ease the throttle back, check the rev-counter against the speed limit in force on that stretch of water, and steer as steady a course as I could. I had no fuel-gauge, so had to use a big wooden dipstick to check the amount of diesel in the tank. To check the oil, and the weed-filter on the cooling-water intake, I had to remove some of the cabin seats to get at the engine. The dipstick for the oil was like the one in my car; the weed-filter was jammed, and we had to ask a friendly Broads Authority inspector to check it for us. The inspectors are a kind of river police, and patrol the Broads in white launches with blue lamps; they can impose heavy fines for breaking speed limits or making excessive wash, and I took care on these matters, so that Brink of Peace scarcely rippled the water. The inspector had to attack our weed-filter with a vice before he could get it loose and check that all was as it should be. He also cleared up a confusion in our minds between the bilge and the holding-tank for the boat’s loo.
We were a little worried that we had damaged the
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underside of the boat when we went aground in Barton Broad. We had been rescued by two canoeists who had paddled across to another motorboat with one of our ropes. Once the rope was made fast, the other boat had gone full speed ahead, I had gone full speed astern, and with a lurch and a crash Brink of Peace had come clear of the submerged tree-trunk on which it had apparently become wedged.
CROSSING BARTON BROAD again next day, I took care to stay between the lines of stakes that mark the deep-water channels; there seemed to be several channels, forking and making triangular junctions, so it was a little complicated. Going upstream, I had to keep the red stakes on my left and the black-and-white ones on my right; going downstream, it was vice-versa. The wind had got up by then, and the broad was choppy, giving Brink of Peace a different motion from when it was on the calm waters of the rivers; facetiously, I had sung “A life on the ocean wave” as I steered our little vessel across the windswept lake.
Brink of Peace made a very snug home, with a lot fitted into a small space. There was a tiny bathroom with loo, shower and wash-basin, a minuscule bedroom, a little television, a folding table stowed in the bow cupboard, a small wardrobe, and a diminutive galley with cooker, kettle and refrigerator all powered by bottled gas. The bunk was meant for two, but it was so cramped that I had it to myself at night, my wife sleeping on the sofa in the cabin. The dog slept on the cabin floor, but during the day she lay on a blanket on the sofa; she would not stay on the floor while the engine was running, no doubt disliking the vibration. As it was midsummer, and the hours of darkness were short, we did not have a problem with electricity; the engine was charging the battery whenever we were on the move, and we had the lights on for reading or playing board games only at the end of the evening. Having a shower was more a question of hosing myself down with an attachment to the bathroom taps while I stood wedged between the door and the wash-basin; afterwards I would have to press a button to pump away the water that had accumulated on the floor. The soft thump-thump of the water-pump working whenever we turned on a tap was one of the characteristic sounds of
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Brink of Peace. My wife did most of the ‘housework’ on the boat, but I took rubbish ashore to a receptacle at Neatishead staithe, and three times refilled our water tank from a stand-pipe. It took a long time for the tank to fill, making me realise how much water we were using, but at last I would be throwing the hose over the side and going ashore to turn off the tap and put a coin in the honesty box. One tap on the boat contained a filter, so there was no need to boil drinking water.
THE BOATING HOLIDAY WAS A NEW EXPERIENCE for us, and was quite an adventure. We finished it tired, bruised from bumping against the boat and our luggage and from falling when a rotten staithe gave way under us, and bitten by the insects that frequented the waterways. Nevertheless,we enjoyed our holiday. There were times when the name of our boat seemed very appropriate, and it had led us into a peaceful, idyllic existence. We may not try living on a boat again, but I do not think this will be the last time we go messing about on the river.
Sarah found this photo from a Broads holiday of her youth – Ed.7
LIFE IN THE SHADOWS The Confessions of an Umbraphile by Michael Davison
HAVING EXPOSED MYSELF in PASS as an Eddie Stobart fan, so earning the magisterial disdain of Lance Haward, may I use your columns as a confessional to admit to another idiosyncrasy?
Call me an ecliptomaniac, an umbraphile, an eclipsoholic –but don’t call me late for the flight when there’s a total eclipse of the sun to be chased across a continent or two. Of course I am merely a beginner in this field compared with serious addicts of the calibre of record-holder Glenn Schneider, who has seen 21 solar eclipses. I remember experimenting with a pin-hole viewer in the garden during a partial eclipse in 1996, but my serious interest started only in 1999, the year in which the media went wild over the total eclipse supposed to be viewable in south-west England on 11 August.
Not trusting the English summer weather enough to rely on a sighting in Cornwall, my wife and I made for Lassigny in northern France, directly on the line of total eclipse and the point chosen by leading French astronomers as their viewing site. A leaden sky greeted our arrival. We bought the T-shirts, found a comfortable spot in a cornfield to sit and guzzle plonk – and waited for the clouds to clear.
Sadly, they didn’t. It seemed the ‘darkness at noon’ was going to be a bit of a flop. But not a bit of it. Suddenly we gasped as total blackness swept across the fields towards us, broken only by a few farmyard lights triggered by the dark. Just as remarkable was the return of daylight, when for a few moments every blade of grass was spotlit as if in a laser beam.
A DRAMATIC EXPERIENCE – enough to get me hooked and anxious to see ‘the real thing’. The travel operators were soon offering tours to Africa for the eclipse to be visible across five countries on 21 June 2001. What a crazy notion, I told myself. What a long way to go for four minutes of darkness… But eclipse fever isn’t so easily
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thrown off, and when in early June I read that Sunvil Discovery had a few places left on one of their Eclipse Safaris I picked up the telephone…
… And only a week or so later, on 15 June, I found myself on a flight to Zambia, for a week’s stay in South Luangwa National Park. (Without my wife, this time: sensibly, Mary declared that one eclipse in a lifetime is enough.) After living in Africa for four years in the late 1950s there’s always a part of me that feels at home there, and the red earth, waving banana palms and cheering totos (kids) by the roadside soon made me glad I’d come, eclipse or no.
South Luangwa’s speciality is walking safaris, so in addition to game-viewing drives by day and by night there was the added excitement of outfacing elephants and buffaloes on foot at 100 yards – always in the reassuring company of an armed scout as well as a trained guide. Our little party soon notched up lions, leopards, elephants, buffaloes, hippos and crocodiles, and swapped stories of our sightings with other parties over dinner round the camp fire at the well-appointed safari lodges.
AND SO TO 21 JUNE. South Luangwa wasn’t on the line of total eclipse, so we left at 7am for a two-hour drive to the nearest airfield, from which a light aircraft flew us in an hour to a tiny airstrip beside the lower Zambezi River. Here on the riverbank the tour operators had hacked a picnic site out of the bush and were waiting for us with chilled champagne, a barbecue lunch – and, most important, a cloudless sky.
For an hour and a half we watched through special goggles as the sun’s disc was gradually nibbled away by the moon’s encroaching shadow. As the great moment neared, we sat back in our canvas chairs, and camera buffs fine-tuned their complex equipment. I had my cameras ready, though I had resolved not to try anything too demanding which would distract me from enjoying the spectacle.
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AND WHAT A SPECTACLE! No photograph or description prepared me for the reality of the four minutes of total eclipse, during which we took off the goggles and looked in wonder with the naked eye at the great black disc of the moon hanging in the sky, silhouetted against the corona of the hidden sun flaring out into space all around it.
During those precious minutes, with the birds hushed and a chill replacing the mid-afternoon heat, it was easy to share the feelings of awe and superstition that eclipses have aroused throughout human history.
The great show in the heavens proceeded through all the classic stages of a solar eclipse, watched in cloudless clarity:the breathtaking ‘diamond ring’ effect as the first chink of sun reappears from behind the moon’s shadow, the so-called Bailey’s Beads as the sun’s rays leak through the valleys of the moon.
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As light returned, and we began to gather our belongings for the journey back to camp, the mood among us was subdued and humble in the aftermath of this great phenomenon of nature.
“There is nothing in nature to rival the glory of a total eclipse of the sun”. That’s the considered view of Patrick Moore, a veteran of seven eclipses, who has doubtless by now planned his viewing site for the next eclipse, which passes across part of Central Africa and the South Australian desert in December 2002. (‘With Eddie Stobart across the Nullabor Plain’, maybe…?)
If I have fired any other Masterminders with enthusiasm towatch the next solar eclipse to cross British waters, perhaps we could start thinking about chartering a boat for a reunion off the island of Rockall? Put the date in your diaries now: it’s Friday, 20 March, 2015.
Below: Goggling for Britain: Michael (far left) joins the shadow-seekers in Zambia
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MASTER QUIZ 2001 ROUND 2 ANSWERS With Craig’s report
33. Stri34. The35. Do
Sec36. 1 ho37. Tok38. Red39. J.M40. Che41. The42. Edg43. 35844. He
prin45. Yog
ano46. Arc47. Jim48. Thi49. The50. Ber51. 19452. A3 53. Pet54. The
Gaw55. Fish56. He
Bur57. Prin58. Typ59. Ant
Tro60. Pho61. Dev62. Div
oneboo
63. Min64. SPA
65. HeaJulinam
66. Syd67. Veg68. Tris69. To
I’M PLEASED THAT SO MANY OF YOU found the Round 2 questions so challenging, and thanks for the entries. Each question was correctly answered at least once, though (predictably) only Barbara-Anne Eddy got the ice-hockey question. The full results are on the facing page. You’ll be happy to know that Sarah has forbidden me from undertaking anything like this again.
Answers
1. Ancestor chart, used in genealogy, with each ancestor having a unique identifying number.
2. 0. 3. Hypertext Markup Language. 4. The Swedes (not the Teutonic Knights – different battle). 5. Artemisia Gentileschi. 6. ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. 7. Tristana. 8. Backing is a change of wind direction in an anti-clockwise
direction, veering is a clockwise change. 9. Robert I (the Bruce) after an interregnum. 10. Stuart Mackenzie. 11. 2500 Calories, 95g of fat. 12. Drought-loving plants. 13. Abigail Adams (not just Mrs. John Adams!). 14. Wind and Water. 15. The Most Honourable Order of the Bath. 16. Ted and Mary (Walker) (source: We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea). 17. Eloi and Morlocks (as forecast by HG Wells in The Time
Machine). 18. A runic alphabet. 19. Vostok. 20. “Cast a cold eye/On life, on death./Horseman, pass by.” 21. Teresa May (MP for Maidenhead). 22. ‘Bishop’ or ‘My Lord’. 23. Born Swiss, naturalised American after marriage. 24. Stewart, Chatham and Cook Islands. 25. Winfield House, in Regent’s Park, London. 26. Hypatia. 27. The Nile (White Nile and Blue Nile, respectively). 28. Springfield (in The Simpsons). 29. They remained on the Bounty after the mutiny (Quintal and
Young were mutineers; Coleman and Heywood were not). 30. The Eighteenth (some sources say he wasn’t the last king). 31. Jamie Bell. 32. Bishopthorpe, near York.
10
nged instruments from India. Floodline (for England and Wales).
rneywood (not Chevening, which is the Foreign retary’s). rse power. yo. . . Coetzee (for Disgrace). ating on the quiz show Twenty One. BBC. ar Cayce. 4 (we also accepted 1792 in apothecaries’ weights). saw the princes for the last time in Maidenhead, the cesses in London. a (we also accepted Sanskrit grammar, though this was ther Patañjali). hitect. Davis. rty-five years. Fool. yl Reid (the question should have read ‘Wraysbury’). 4. paper. er Mark. Green Knight (Bertilak de Hautdesert) challenged Sir ain. er. was burnt alive in his home (Njal’s Saga or The Story of nt Njal). cess. efaces. hony Trollope (only half marks for answering Frances llope). tography. anagari. ination by reading tea leaves (more difficult with tea bags, assumes!) – bibliomancy is divining from the leaves of a k. g. M®. thcote Williams (wrote the book; credit also given for
an Cope, who composed a piece of music of the same e).
ney. etables. tram Shandy, in the novel by Laurence Sterne. buy slaves for his Brazilian plantation.
PASS
SUMMER
70. Cha71. Loc
Cha72. A W73. Sup
year74. He 75. Geo76. Aus77. Uly78. The
and79. Ber80. Bot
KouSergfanssamcom
81. Thewaszon
82. Mic83. (b):
from84. Dia85. Dm86. The87. 19688. Link89. Cha
betwthe sym
90. Wen91. Car
tranlarg
92. Mo93. The94. Belg95. Lytt96. The
the Sou
97. Edw98. Play99. Lad100. Lon
1 Ga
2 Ge
3 Da
4 Pe
5 Ho
6 Ra
7* Ph
8 Ste
9 No
10 Ke
11 Le
12 Ke
13 Isa
14 Su
15 An
16 Ian
17 El
18 Pe
19 An
20 Ka
21 Jea
22 W
23 Jos
24 M
25 Ba
26 Ka
27 Go
28 Pa
29 Mi
* Philip’s
Magnum
rles de Gaulle. al firm Ferrari won the Formula 1 Constructor’s mpionship for the first time in 21 years. omble – the cook.
erstar Mario Lemieux returned as a player after over three s’ retirement. became the all-time leading test wicket-taker. rge Washington Carver. tralian. sses S. Grant. last U.S. Presidential candidate to win the popular vote lose in the Electoral College (in 1876). nardo O’Higgins. h have been romantically linked with compatriot Anna rnikova: last year she interrupted her relationship with ei Fedorov for a brief engagement to Pavel Buré. Hockey wondered whether it was wise to play both men on the e line, but there was no unpleasantness and they bined to score a goal. persistent rumour (not so far established as fact) that he murdered by the Mafia and buried under one of the end es while the stadium was under construction. hael Holroyd’s Basin Street Blues. “huddle” derives from American football, the others baseball.
ne Warren. itri Shostakovitch. Essex, sunk by a whale in the South Seas in 1820. 7. ing smoking and lung cancer. rles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, hired to fix the boundary een Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1763. By the time of
Civil War, the “Mason-Dixon line” had become the bolic boundary between the North and South. ceslaus Hollar.
go cults – based on the belief that propitiating effigies of sport planes might bring back “cargo” (American wartime esse). zart. Valley Girl. ian. on Strachey and Dora Carrington. proto-continent which included most of the land mass in Southern Hemisphere before the present-day Australia, th America, Africa, and India broke apart. ard R. Murrow.
boy of the Western World, by John Millington Synge. y Murasaki Shikibu. don (London – the Biography).
2001
M A S T E R Q U I Z 20 01
Preliminary-round scores (Italics = R entry)
R1 R2 Totalvin Fuller 416.0 239.0 655.0
off Thomas 386.0 251.0 637.0
phne Fowler 386.0 228.0 614.0
ter Richardson 344.0 206.0 550.0
ward Pizzey 325.0 179.0 504.0
y Ward 328.0 162.5 490.5
ilip Wharmby 252.0 202.0 454.0
wart Cross 274.0 179.0 453.0
rman Izzett 299.0 139.5 438.5
n Emond 288.0 138.0 426.0
slie Grout 266.0 150.5 416.5
ith Scott 240.0 159.5 399.5
belle Heward 250.0 141.0 391.0
san Leng 260.0 113.5 373.5
n Kelly 252.0 121.0 373.0
Sewell 263.0 96.5 359.5
eanor Macnair 228.0 116.5 344.5
ter Todd 240.0 101.0 341.0
drea Weston 194.0 135.0 329.0
thryn Johnson 300.0 300.0
n Burke 296.0 296.0
endy Forrester 185.0 87.0 272.0
eph Hand 162.0 106.0 268.0
arga Scott 261.0 261.0
rbara-Anne Eddy 139.0 122.0 261.0
te Vernon-Parry 254.0 254.0
rdon Stuart 166.0 70.0 236.0
tricia Cowley 230.0 230.0
chael Davison 198.0 198.0
entry was late, so he was placed 10th as the alternate for the
Quiz behind Ken Emond.
11
MUGNUM 2001 ANSWERS Gavin Fuller returns with the answers and results from this year’s members’ quiz
12
13: H20: S21: T22: S60: L61: A
89: A93: T
145:217:
253:275:280:286:287:307:321:337:342:412:
443:457:473:475:477:
504:507;526:532:549:554:579:600:
642:657:672:692:696:729:731:766:
e designed the font used in station name signs, etc. ilk he Whale Shark alad Days awn Tennis n oblong enclosure in which the Pharaoh’s name was written surmounted by the Horus hawk laska hey were “three sailors of Bristol City” in W.M. Thackeray’s poem “Little Billee”
Medina 15 years and five months; William Lyon Mackenzie King (21 years
6 months) Ergotism Chatting on the Internet Lord Byron, on hearing of the success of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Lawrence Feorlinghetti Sir W H Wills Admiral Maximilian Graf Von Spee Hear’Say The world’s first touring caravan The Llandoger Trow He was the only crew member on both of the atomic-bombing B-
29s Vimy Ridge (unveiling the Canadian war memorial there) Sophie Dahl Barataria The world’s earliest alphabet Each is the anagram of the surname of a composer (Britten,
Schubert, Haydn & Sondheim) Charles Blondin (Jean Francois Gravelet) Gene Pitney An Amber Cross Rose Pearl Slaghoople (Fred Flintstone’s Mother-in-Law) Dante met Virgil A Punt Pole b) Joby Jackson (he was not a member of the concert-party, the
other three were) Forty Clement Attlee Elsa Lanchester Ring Ouzel 1975 Euan Corlett Hergest Ridge Buenos Aires (Ezeiza International Airport)
779: 1798, between 20 and 25 819: Lou Hoover 824: They are being handed lollipops 825: Haig 844: Baltimore 847: Ray Doyle, The Professionals 849: Blackthorn Winter 866: Nicholas Hilliard 869: Ridley Scott 899: Both were code names for Dutch spies 914: The formation of United Artists by Charlie Chaplin, D W Griffith,
Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford
Results Individual
Howard Pizzey 35Kevin Ashman 32.5Sonia Anderson 27.5Sue Jenkins 26Eleanor Macnair 25.5Ray Ward 23.5Anne Ashurst 23Peter Richardson 23Ann Kelly 20Patricia Cowley 16.5Mel Kinsey 16.5Phil Wharmby 15.5Pauline Wells 15Leslie Grout 14Mary Gibson 13Margery Elliott 12.5Patricia Owen 11Wendy Forrester 10
Team
Allsorts (Phillida Grantham, Ken Emond, Paul Henderson)
30
Mary Andrews, Anne Miller, Susan Leng 22
Bob Jones & Irene 20.5
Keith & Marga Scott 18
Craig & Sarah Scott 17
PASS
WHOLLY MATRIMONY A quiz from Geoff Thomas
IF YOU CAN NAME the well-known people who married those named below in those years, a modest prize is on offer for the first correct set of answers, or the highest marks scored within three weeks of receipt of PASS.
Send your answers to me. Prize-winner(s) and answers will be published in the next issue.
1. 1382. 1543. 1584. 1615. 1716. 1737. 1758. 1789. 17810. 18011. 18012. 18113. 18314. 18515. 18516. 18617. 18618. 18719. 18720. 18821. 18822. 18823. 19024. 19025. 19026. 19127. 19228. 19229. 19330. 19331. 19532. 19533. 19534. 19735. 19836. 19937. 19938. 19939. 19940. 199
L A N C E
TIMOTHY ROBEY RISES TO LANCE HAWARD’S CHALLENGE
When Sir Lance threw down his gauntlet Percival was all I’d got So I undertook the challenge – Subsidized by Lancelot.
‘Mathematics for the Million’, ‘Science for the Citizen’. Lancelot brings erudition With his comprehensive pen.
Millicent and Lance and David, Pseudo, now-Sir-David, free, Satirized the high and mighty On T-W times three.
Nightly, at the knightly Table, Guinny wore her courtly gown Till Sir Lancelot’s reaction Brought King Arthur’s kingdom down.
Capable of great improvement In the hands of Lancelot Were the cluttered lawns of England With their formal wotnotwhat.
Lance’s numerous opinions, Mould of form, no fashion’s glass, Gain much well-won approbation From the readership of PASS.
Comfort, Macklin, Andrewes, Corporal, Shylock’s servant Lancelot, But no other Masterminder – So perhaps I’ve got the lot.
2: Anne of Bohemia 7: Thomas Seymour 3: Frances Walsingham 3: John Rolfe 9: Princess Clementine Sobieski 5: Elizabeth Porter 9: Martha Custig 2: Constanze Weber 7: Frances Nisbet 5: Caroline Ponsonby 6: Kitty Pakenham 1: Harriet Westbrook 6: Catherine Hogarth 4: Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls 5: Catherine Mumford 0: Elizabeth Siddall 7: Nina Hagerup 4: Emma Gifford 7: Antonina Miliukova 0: Hubert Bland 4: Constance Lloyd 9: Alice Roberts 0: Constance Gore-Booth 3: Jelka Rosen 7: Vanessa Stephen 4: Frieda von Richthofen 0: Gladys Smith 6: Helen Menken 2: Jessie Menzies 7: Laura Herbert 2: Nancy Davis 4: Richard Bonynge 7: Valerie Fletcher 8: Senator John Warner 1: Deirdre Langton 3: Lyle Lovett 7: Roberta Jones 8: Graca Machel 9: Wendy Deng 9: Norman Cook
