Episode 16 Mastermind

First in the spotlight tonight is Alyn McFetridge from Belfast.

He's answering questions on the sitcom The IT Crowd.

Next, Robert Webb, a retired insurance broker from Birmingham,

on the North American Plains Indians.

Lotte Houghton is a postgraduate student from Liverpool.

Her specialist subject, Homer's Iliad.

And those Bruce Horton is a teacher from Kent.

His subject, the history of Hong Kong.

APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to Mastermind with me, John Humphrys.

Four more contenders are all set to take to the stage tonight.

They sit there nurturing two hopes.

One, that they have done enough revision

to get through the specialist rounds safely.

Two, that the questions in the general knowledge round

fall kindly for them.

After all, there's nothing they can do to prepare for them.

They get two minutes on the first and two and a half on the second.

The winner will go through to the next round

and will be on course to become the next Mastermind champion.

So, let us have our first contender, please.

-And your name is?

-Alyn McFetridge.

-Your occupation?

-I am currently unemployed.

And your chosen subject?

-The IT Crowd.

-The IT Crowd. In two minutes, starting now.

Who wrote the television comedy series The IT Crowd,

which follows the lives of Roy, Moss and their boss Jen

who all employees of Reynholm Industries IT department?

Graham Linehan.

In the opening episode of the series,

Moss first enters his new boss's office

to find her deep in conversation on the phone.

What does he say he has come in to do?

To connect her phone.

Who checks the of validity of Moss's 16-letter word "overnumerousness"

when he gets involved in a game of Countdown

and it's confirmed to be an acceptable world?

Gyles Brandreth.

What management title does Jen take onto herself

in addition to being head of the IT department?

It's written on the sign stuck to her office door

throughout most of the series.

Relationship manager.

In Bad Boys, Roy bets Jen that he can last a day

without uttering his IT support catchphrase

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

How much is the bet worth?

-£20.

-£100.

In 50-50, what is the name of the restaurant

where Roy and his online date meet up?

Jen and the security officer Daniel

are also having a meal there.

Messy Joe's.

What is the name of the computer game Roy and Jen are playing

at the start of Men Without Women?

The fact that Jen is so good at it makes her worry

that she's wasting her life.

Guitar Hero.

Who plays former executive, Richmond Avenal?

He first appears when Jen finds him incarcerated

behind the red door in the IT department.

Noel Fielding.

What is the name of the Italian businessman

who visits Reynholm Industries in Italian For Beginners?

Jen acts as an interpreter at the meeting with disastrous consequences.

Silvio Bernatelli.

In Moss And The German, the boys are arrested

while they are visiting the cannibal Johann.

For what crime are they taken into custody?

-Having a pirate DVD.

-Yes, copyright violation.

An impersonator of which pop star appears in The Haunting Of Bill Crouse

to perform a memorial song after Moss starts the rumour that Jen is dead?

Elton John.

In Bad Boys, which film director does Douglas Reynholm claim

to have flown in to meet Roy and Moss?

They missed the meeting because they were skiving off work.

George Lucas.

Moss and Roy create a small metal box with a red light on top

for Jen to present to shareholders during her employee of the month speech.

They convince her that the box is actually what?

The internet. Yes, the whole entire internet, all of it.

So, Alan, no passes, you have scored 12 points.

APPLAUSE

And our next contender, please?

-And your name is?

-Rob Webb.

-Your occupation?

-Retired insurance broker.

And your chosen subject?

North American Plains Indians, 1850 to 1910.

Plains Indians in two minutes. Here we go.

The Sioux leader, known in his own language as Thathanka Iyotake

was known by what name in English?

Sitting Bull.

Which Sioux chief lamented, "Wherever the whites are established,

"the Buffalo is gone and the red hunters must die of hunger"?

-Crazy Horse.

-White Cloud.

Under which President was the Seneca Iroquoi Ely Parker

appointed Commissioner for Indian Affairs

with responsibility for dealing with the Plains Indians?

Pass.

Which US Army captain's name was given to a massacre of 1866

in which he and 80 of his men were killed by Indians

under the leadership of chiefs High Backbone, Little Wolf and Red Leaf?

Fetterman's Massacre.

What was the name of the Comanche leader

who described himself as a good Indian,

which prompted General Sheridan's infamous reported remark,

"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead"?

-Ten Bears.

-No, Tosahwi.

What sacred mountainous region

was known to the Plains Indians as Paha Sapa?

Black Hills.

A key role was played in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876

by a war chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux

who later split with his adopted brother Sitting Bull

over the break-up of the great Sioux reservation. What was his name?

-Crazy Horse.

-Gall.

At what fort in Wyoming were major treaties

concerning land ownership and access rights

signed by the US government and the Plains Indian tribes

in both 1851 and 1868?

Fort Laramie.

Which tribe of Plains Indians, included the Upstream,

Calling River and Touchwood Hills people?

-Assiniboine.

-The Plains Cree.

Nicotiana multivalvis, cultivated by the Crow

and considered sacred and ceremonial,

was a variety of what plant?

Tobacco.

The Northern Cheyenne war leader Roman Nose,

was killed at a battle in September 1868

that took place on the Arikaree Fork. Which battle?

Beecher's Island.

Which law of 1887 authorised the subdivision

of the tribal reservations into parcels of private land,

with the aim of assimilating the Plains Indians

into mainstream white culture?

Pass.

Mercenaries from which tribe, acting as scouts,

accompanied cavalryman in an attack on Black Bear's Arapaho village

on the Tongue River in August 1865?

-Arikaree.

-The Pawnee.

The two passes you had, Rob, the Dawes General Allotment Act

was the law that authorised the subdivision of reservations.

And Ulysses S Grant was the President

when the Seneca Iroquoi Ely Parker was appointed Commissioner.

Two passes, Rob, you have scored six points.

APPLAUSE

And our next contender, please.

-And your name is?

-Lotte Houghton.

-Your occupation?

-Postgraduate student.

-And your specialist subject?

-Homer's Iliad.

Homers Iliad in two minutes.

The epic poem the Iliad tells the story of disputes among the Greeks besieging Troy

and the wrath of Achilles against his commander Agamemnon.

Which of the Greek gods indirectly caused the quarrel

between Achilles and Agamemnon by sending a plague to the Greek camp?

Apollo.

Which of the Greek leaders does Helen describe to King Priam

as master of all kinds of manoeuvres and strategies?

Odysseus.

What creature is depicted round the centre of Agamemnon's shield

flanked by images of rout and panic?

-Lion.

-Gorgon.

What is the name of the senior Trojan councillor

who proposes in an assembly that Helen and all her possessions

be returned to the sons of Atreus?

Antenor.

Who is described in Books 3 and 6

as the most beautiful of the daughters of Priam and Hecabe?

The description is used elsewhere for Cassandra.

Laodice.

Which queen's story does Achilles tell Priam

in order to encourage him to eat before he weeps for Hector?

Pass.

Who had given refuge to the god of sleep

when Zeus set out to throw him into the sea

because he helped Hera's plot against Heracles?

-Poseidon.

-Night.

The war god Ares collapses with his hair in the dust

after Pallas Athena hits him with an object that had once been used

as a boundary marker. What object?

-A wooden plank.

-A boulder actually.

Achilles awards ten double-headed and ten single-headed axes

at the funeral games of Patroclus to the winners in which event?

-Sprint.

-Archery.

Agamemnon returns Chryseis to her father

and in compensation takes a female captive from Achilles.

What is her name?

Briseis.

What name is shared by the river that rises up against Achilles

after he refuses the request of its god to stop killing Trojans

and the talking horse that prophesied his death

at the hands of a god and a man?

Xanthus.

What is the name of the Thracian leader,

killed by Diomedes in the night raid,

whose horses are whiter than snow and run like the wind?

Rhesus.

On which island had the Greeks left Philoctetes

on account of the wound he received from a water snake?

-Crete.

-Lemnos.

Hector named his son Scamandrius

but others call him Astyanax, a name that means what?

-Pass.

-I can tell you because you're out of time.

It means Town Lord or Lord of the City.

Anyway, you had that pass and one other.

The queen whose story Achilles told Priam in order to encourage him

to eat before he wept for Hector was Niobe.

And you have scored, Lotte, seven points.

APPLAUSE

And our next contender, please.

-And your name is?

-Bruce Horton.

-Your occupation?

-Teacher.

-And your chosen subject?

-History of Hong Kong 1841 to 1997.

Hong Kong in two minutes.

At the end of the first Opium War, the island of Hong Kong was

formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking.

On board which British warship was the treaty signed in August 1842?

-HMS Sulphur.

-HMS Cornwallis.

Which former Army officer in the East India Company

became the second administrator of Hong Kong from 1841 to 1843

and its first governor in June of that year?

Henry Pottinger.

The former coastal part of Hong Kong Island

where Captain Edward Belcher raised the British flag

on 26 January 1841 became known as what point?

Procession Point.

The Society for the Protection of Women and Girls

was set up by the colony's Chinese community, following an enquiry in 1878.

By what Chinese name is the charity usually known?

Tung Wah.

Po Leung Kuk.

Under an agreement of 1860, the tip of which peninsula,

along with Stonecutters Island was ceded to Britain in perpetuity?

Kowloon.

The agreement of 1898 that leased the so-called "new territories"

on the Chinese mainland to Britain for 99 years

is often referred to as the Second Convention of...?

Peking.

Which post, created in the mid-19th century,

was renamed by Ordinance in 1913 as Secretary for Chinese Affairs?

Colonial Secretary.

Registrar General.

What four-word term refers to the constitutional policy

that when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, it would retain

its own capitalist economic and political systems for at least the first 50 years?

One Country, Two Systems.

Who was appointed as the first Chinese member

of the colony's Executive Council in 1926?

A hill on Hong Kong Island is named after him.

Shouson Chow.

What term meaning "little sister" was given to the Chinese practice

of keeping domestic female bondservants,

a practice that the British MP John Ward campaigned to end in 1917?

Mei bo.

Mui tsai.

Which shipping magnate was elected to become the first

Chief Executive of a special administrative region of Hong Kong?

He assumed office in 1997.

Tung Chee-hwa.

Sir Frederick Lugard, when Governor of Hong Kong,

laid the foundation stone for an institution that officially opened...

BEEP ..in 1912, and for which he is particularly remembered.

Which institution?

The Hong Kong University.

That is correct.

No passes, Bruce. You have 8 points.

APPLAUSE

So that's the specialist round done. Let's have a look at the scores.

In fourth place, 6 points - Rob Webb.

Third place, 7 points - Lotte Houghton.

Second place, 8 points - Bruce Horton.

First place, 12 points - Alyn McFetridge.

APPLAUSE

And it is now the General Knowledge Round, of course.

And if there's a tie at the end of it, then the number of passes

is taken into account and the person with the fewer passes is the winner.

If they're tied on passes as well, there will be a tie-break,

and the six highest scoring runners-up will be able to claim

a place in the semifinal. So, lots to play for.

Let's get on with it, and ask Rob to join us again, please.

And you have 6 points at this stage, but there's two and a half minutes

of general knowledge, so loads of time to catch up. Here we go.

The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets

forms the backdrop to which of Shakespeare's plays?

Romeo and Juliet.

Which river rises in the mountains above Lake Bala

and flows past Llangollen and Chester

to its estuary on the Irish Sea?

Severn.

The Dee. Which Canadian singer won a Grammy award for her 2001

UK top ten hit, I'm Like A Bird?

Pass.

What title, used by many Christians for the Virgin Mary,

comes from the Italian for "my lady"?

Madonna.

By what unflattering epithet is Prince Myshkin known

in the title of an 1868 novel by Dostoyevsky?

Pass.

A political position not constitutionally established

in Britain was first held by Clement Attlee

in Winston Churchill's wartime government,

and has been held subsequently by Michael Heseltine,

John Prescott and Nick Clegg, among others. Which position?

Deputy Prime Minister.

The cover of the Beatles' album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

was designed by which pop artist, along with his wife, Jann Haworth?

Pass.

Which imperial city on the Atlantic coastline, at the mouth

of the Wadi Bou Regreg, is the capital of Morocco?

Rabat.

Which character, who was a former slave, was created by Joel Chandler Harris

and related folktales about Brer Rabbit in a series of stories

originally published in the newspaper the Atlanta Constitution?

Uncle Remus.

What is the title of the television comedy series that featured

a Royal Artillery Concert Party based overseas during the Second World War?

It Ain't Half Hot Mum.

In a story by E Nesbit, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane

and their baby brother discover a grumpy sand fairy called the Psammead,

who can grant a wish a day. What is the story?

-Pass.

-In which country were the composers Chopin and Gorecki born?

Poland.

What fish are smoked whole to make bloaters, a food

particularly associated with Great Yarmouth?

Herring.

Which King of England was mortally wounded

while besieging the castle of Chalus in France in spring 1199?

Richard I.

The Academy Award-winning song, When You Wish Upon A Star

features in a 1940 Disney cartoon film.

What's the film's title?

Pinocchio.

The 2007 book, Provided You Don't Kiss Me,

by the Nottingham Evening Post journalist Duncan Hamilton,

is a biography of which football manager?

Brian Clough.

In the British peerage, the holder of what title is ranked

above a viscount but below a marquess?

Viscount.

Earl. The Popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI

were members of which notorious family...?

BEEP ..originally from Valencia in Spain?

Borgias.

Indeed, the Borgias.

Four passes, Rob. Five Children And It

was that story by E Nesbit.

Sir Peter Blake did the cover of the Beatles album with his wife.

That unflattering epithet, the title of the novel was The Idiot.

And Nelly Furtado was the Canadian singer who won the Grammy in 2001.

You've now gone up, Rob, to 18 points.

APPLAUSE

And now Lotte again, please.

And you start out this round with 7 points,

with your knowledge of the Iliad.

Let's see how you do with your general knowledge. Two and a half minutes.

What name do Americans generally use to refer to

their underground railway systems?

In the UK, we use the same word for a passage under a road.

Subway.

In Herge's Adventures of Tintin, what is the English name

of the absent-minded eccentric scientist who is a recurring character?

Pass.

Which poet married Jean Armour in 1788 in a civil ceremony

in Mauchline, Ayrshire

a year before giving up farming to take up a post as an exciseman?

Housman.

Robbie Burns. The Australian actress Cate Blanchett

has played a British monarch in a 1998 and 2007 film. Which monarch?

Elizabeth I.

What name is given to a substance enclosed under pressure in a container

and released as a fine spray by a propellant gas?

Vapour.

Aerosol. Which large whale is also known as "the sulphur-bottom whale"

because of the yellowish underside of some individuals

caused by algae living on their bodies?

Killer whale.

The blue whale. What name is given to an espresso coffee

topped with a dab of foamed steamed milk?

It means stained or marked in Italian.

Cappuccino.

Macchiato. The largest expanse of medieval stained glass in Britain

was created by John Thornton and is in the East Window of which minster?

Westminster.

York. Which composer, who was born in Bohemia, completed his first symphony,

sometimes known as the Titan, in 1888?

Holst.

Mahler. Which comedy actor, who stars in the films Bruno and Borat,

rose to fame in 1988 on The 11 O'Clock Show after he sent the producer

a tape of himself posing as an Albanian television reporter?

Pass.

What name for the breathing tube used in skin diving was originally

applied to the ventilation tube introduced in German U-boats

in the Second World War?

Aqualine.

Snorkel. With which European country did England sign

the Treaty of Windsor in 1386?

The treaty is the oldest alliance in the world that's still enforced.

France.

Portugal. What is the name of the possessed Plymouth Fury motorcar

in the title of Stephen King's 1983 novel?

Pass.

The statue of Achilles in Hyde Park, unveiled in 1822,

commemorates which military leader, who later became Prime Minister?

Wellington.

In 2012, which country joined Australia, New Zealand

and South Africa in competing for the rugby championship

previously known as the Tri Nations?

Zimbabwe.

Argentina. What word that comes from the Italian for aforementioned,

is used to indicate that one item in a list

is the same as the preceding one?

Ditto.

The use of a compound of a metallic element in the 19th-century

hat making industry caused brain damage,

and it's thought to have given rise to the phrase "mad as a hatter".

BEEP Which element?

Mercury.

Yes. Mercury it is. Three passes, Lotte.

Christine was the name of that possessed Plymouth car

in Stephen King's novel. Sacha Baron Cohen was the...

LAUGHING: Yeah, absolutely. ..the comedy actor.

And Professor Calculus was the absent-minded scientist in Tintin.

You have 12 points.

APPLAUSE

And now Bruce again, please.

And you start out with 8 points with your knowledge of Hong Kong

and you have two and a half minutes to add to it

with your general knowledge. Here we go.

What is the name of the Queen of the Iceni,

who is thought to have poisoned herself after she was defeated by the Romans

in a desperate battle in the 1st century AD?

Boudicca.

Cosette, Fantine and Madame Thenardier are among the female characters

in which novel by Victor Hugo?

Les Miserables.

In November 2014, who became the first British female singer

to have five solo UK number one singles,

when I Don't Care topped the charts?

Pass.

Which navigational instrument for measuring angles,

that incorporates a small telescope,

is named after the sixth part of a circle?

Sextant.

What word for an automaton with semi-human powers,

that comes from a Czech word meaning slavery or drudgery,

was first used in a 1920 play by Karel Capek?

Robot.

Whose Symphony No 9 in C major, also known as The Great,

was completed in 1828, the year of his death?

Schubert.

Ian Rankin's books about Detective Inspector John Rebus

and his newer creation Malcolm Fox of the police's Professional Standards Unit

are mainly set in which city?

Glasgow.

Edinburgh. Walt Whitman's poem, When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloomed,

is an elegy on the death of which American president?

Lincoln.

Which England all-rounder scored 14 centuries

and took a then record, 383 wickets, during his test career?

Botham.

What river forms most of the boundary between Devon and Cornwall?

Tamar.

In Germanic folklore, whom does Brunhilde kill after she finds out

that he has wooed her and won her, not for himself but for someone else?

Siegfried.

In which 1953 film musical does Marilyn Monroe's character, Lorelei Lee,

sing Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend?

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Sir William Stanier and Sir Nigel Gresley were famous designers of what?

Steam locomotives.

Which British social worker opened Britain's first birth control clinic

in the Holloway, 1921, along with her husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe?

Marie Stopes.

What is the name of the butler played by Ted Cassidy

in the 1960s television series The Addams Family?

Lurch.

Which English actress accompanies Serge Gainsbourg,

whispering and singing, on the 1969 chart-topping hit

Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus?

Jane Berkin.

Antananarivo is the capital of which island republic

in the Indian Ocean?

The Maldives.

Madagascar. Lacecaps and mopheads are two of the main types of a shrub

that produces showy clusters of blue flowers in acid soils,

and pink flowers in alkaline soils. Which shrub?

Azaleas.

Hydrangea. What monastery in County Meath...

BEEP ..gives its name to the famous illuminated copy

of the Gospels now kept in the library of Trinity College, Dublin?

Kells.

Yes, The Book Of Kells. You had one pass.

The first British female singer to have five solo UK number one singles,

and all that, was Cheryl Cole.

You've scored now though, a total of 23 points.

APPLAUSE

And finally, Alyn again, please.

And you start this round, Alan, with 12 points.

But, as you have just heard,

the score to beat is 23 if you're to get through to the semifinal.

So, let's see how you do with your general knowledge. Here we go.

Two and a half minutes.

Which comedy team had a 1991 UK top five hit with

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life,

taken from the film, Life Of Brian?

Monty Python.

Which rocky promontory is known in Cornish as Pedn an Wlas?

Lizard Point.

Land's End. Which country set up the first agitprop organisation in 1920?

The phrase has come to mean any cultural enterprise with an overtly political agenda.

France.

Soviet Union. Who was the Ancient Egyptian god of the sun and creation?

Ra.

Chinook, chum and pink are all species of which fish?

Salmon.

In the television series Doctor Who, two actors

with the same surname have played the Doctor. What surname?

Baker.

Which Glasgow-born poet wrote the collection of verse Selling Manhattan,

published in 1987, and Rapture, that won the 2005 TS Eliot Prize?

Ritchie.

Carol Ann Duffy. In Australian slang, what is the profession

of a person known as a chalkie?

Teacher.

What nickname is Mahler's 8th Symphony In E Flat Major known by

because of the large number of people required to perform it?

Mass.

The Symphony Of A Thousand.

In June 1859, a town to the west of Milan was the scene of a bloody battle

between Napoleon III and the Austrians.

Shortly after, its name began to be used for a shade of red. Which town?

Marengo.

Magenta. In American politics, what name is given

to the person elected by congressmen of the largest party in either house

who acts as the party's chief spokesman and strategist?

Whip.

The majority leader. Lerwick is the principal town of which island group?

Shetlands.

What's the name of the coach who was Great Britain's

cycling performance director of the Beijing and London Olympics?

He also managed Team Sky to two consecutive Tour de France victories.

Pass.

In June 2014, Telangana became the 29th and newest state

of a country when it formally separated from the state of the Andhra Pradesh.

Which country?

India.

Which theory of the origins of the universe was independently proposed

in the 1920s by the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann

and the Belgian Catholic priest Abbe Georges Lemaitre?

The Fermat theory.

The Big Bang. A Journal of the Plague Year, purported to be an account

of the Great Plague that swept London in 1664 and 65,

is the work of which dissenter, adventurer and author?

Fiennes.

Defoe. What are Portobello, pom pom, and black trumpet edible varieties of?

Mushrooms.

Mushrooms is correct.

In 1919, an American-born aristocrat became the first woman MP

to take her seat in the House of Commons.

She was returned for her Plymouth constituency...

BEEP ..at subsequent elections until her retirement

in 1945. What was her name?

Nancy Astor.

Nancy Astor is correct.

You had one pass, Alyn. It was Dave, or Sir Dave, as he is now,

-Sir Dave Brailsford, who was that coach, the cycling coach.

-Yeah.

-Total, I'm afraid, of 21 points.

-Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Well, a noble effort but he didn't quite get there.

Let's have a look at the scores.

In fourth place with 12 points - Lotte Houghton.

Third place, 18 points - Rob Webb.

Second place, 21 points - Alyn McFetridge.

And in first place with 23 points - Bruce Horton.

Which means that Bruce is tonight's winner

and he goes through to the semifinals. Congratulations to him.

If you would like to be a contender in the next series,

do go to our website:

And you can follow us on Twitter:

And do please join us again next time for more Mastermind.

Thanks for watching. Goodbye.