Episode 23 Mastermind

Our first contender tonight is James Radcliff,

a communications consultant from Surrey.

He's answering questions on the band Blur.

Gemma Wilson is a library assistant from Leeds

and her specialist subject -

the Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde.

Next, Don Crerar, a retired computer programmer from Hampshire

on the American Civil War.

And Ewan MacAulay, a PhD student from Cambridge,

on the short stories of David Foster Wallace.

Hello, and welcome to Mastermind with me, John Humphrys,

and four of the 96 people who have volunteered to take part

in these Mastermind heats in the hope that they will make it

through to the semifinal and then the Grand Final.

If they do, they will have a chance to walk away

with a lovely glass bowl

and the much-envied title of Mastermind Champion.

Before all that, they face a couple of minutes of questions

on the subject they have chosen

and two and a half minutes on general knowledge.

So, let's get on with it and ask our first contender to join us, please.

And your name is?

Your occupation?

And your chosen subject?

The band Blur in two minutes. Here we go.

Blur were one of the leading British bands of the 1990s.

What's the title of the band's third studio album?

It was their first to reach number one in the UK

and has a title track narrated by the actor Phil Daniels.

-Parklife.

-Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon

met the group's bass player Alex James

when they were studying at which college in London?

-Goldsmiths.

-What was the title of the band's debut single,

which was released in October 1990

and reached the UK top 50?

She's So High.

Which producer worked with Blur for the first time

on the single There's No Other Way

and produced most of the tracks on their first five studio albums?

Stephen Street.

Andy Ross saw the band perform for the first time

at a London venue in November 1989

and signed them to the label Food Records soon afterwards.

Which venue was that?

-Dingwalls?

-No, Islington Powerhaus.

What was the name of the album released by the band in April 2015?

It was their first new studio album for 12 years.

-The Magic Whip.

-At which festival

did Blur play a one-off gig at the Royal Festival Hall

on the 2nd of July 2000?

The four band members didn't perform together again until 2009.

-The Proms?

-The Meltdown Festival.

Who produced the band's 1999 chart-topping album 13,

which includes the songs Tender and Coffee And TV?

-William Orbit.

-What is the name of the studio that designed

the controversial artwork for the cover

of the single She's So High?

-Pass.

-The soundtrack of which 1996 film

features Sing by Blur

as well as Damon Albarn's track Closet Romantic?

Trainspotting.

According to the band's second top 10 hit single Girls And Boys,

"love in the '90s is..." what?

-Paranoid.

-At what East London venue

did Blur play to a crowd of around 27,000 people

in June 1995, supported by The Boo Radleys

and Sparks among others?

-Mile End.

-The opening track on Blur's eponymous 1997 album

gave them their second UK number one single.

What was its title?

-Beetlebum.

-The cover of Blur's The Best Of compilation album,

released in 2000, features digital portraits...

BEEP ..of the band by which artist?

They were displayed at the National Portrait Gallery.

-Damien Hirst?

-No, it was Julian Opie.

You had just one pass, James.

The name of the studio that designed that controversial artwork

was Stylorouge.

-You have scored 10 points.

-Thank you.

And our next contender, please.

And your name is?

Your occupation?

And your chosen subject?

In two minutes, starting now.

What device that enables the literary detective Thursday Next

to enter novels was invented by her uncle Mycroft?

She uses it to go into Jane Eyre.

The Prose Portal.

What's the name of Thursday's pet dodo?

She genetically engineered it herself

using a home cloning kit.

Pickwick.

In First Among Sequels, Thursday finds herself

in command of a ship and faces difficult decisions

while she tries to get to the Wreck of the Hesperus.

What is the ship called?

The Moral Dilemma.

The ballroom of which house from Sense and Sensibility

is the office of Jurisfiction, the policing agency of BookWorld?

-Norwood.

-Norland.

What name does Thursday's teenage daughter Tuesday

give to the subatomic particle

that she thinks might help predict random events?

Madeupion.

Who is Thursday's officially sanctioned stalker

and, later, her biographer?

He's also involved in a cheese smuggling ring.

Millon de Floss.

What is the name of the family of villains

that Thursday battles against throughout the series?

They include Aornis, who plants a memory

of a non-existent daughter in Thursday's mind.

-The Hades.

-The recipe for what dish

is actually an equation to help reverse the flow of time

and thereby enable time travel?

Unscrambled eggs.

Which English town is offered as reparations

for the Crimean War?

The Russian tsar's chief negotiator

accepts the offer.

Tunbridge Wells.

Who is the nonexecutive President for Life

of the English Republic at the beginning of the series?

-George Formby.

-For which genre of fiction

is Speedy Muffler the senator? He claims to have a dirty bomb

capable of hurling explicit suggestions

and scenes of a gratuitous nature.

Racy Novel.

Which team does Thursday help

the Swindon Mallets beat in a penalty shoot-out

in the 1988 World Croquet League Superhoop match?

The Reading Whackers.

What sort of book-dwelling parasitic life forms

are the adjectivores, verbisoids and parataxis

that inhabit BookWorld?

Grammasites.

What is the alphanumeric code name

of the extremely strong cheese that Thursday finds

while she is smuggling cheese...

BEEP ..from the Socialist Republic of Wales?

X-14.

X-14 is exactly right and I didn't understand one of those questions.

LAUGHTER

However, you did and you have scored, Gemma, 13 points.

And our next contender, please.

And your name is?

Your occupation?

And your chosen subject?

In two minutes, starting now.

Who led the American Marines

when they were sent to put down John Brown's raid

on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry

that contributed to the start of the Civil War? He later commanded

the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

Robert E Lee.

What name was given to the series of battles

in the Peninsula Campaign during June and July 1862

that included Mechanicsville and Malvern Hill?

The Seven Days' Battles.

What strategic piece of high ground

was the 20th Maine Regiment ordered to hold at all costs

on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg?

Little Round Top.

In which cabinet post in Lincoln's administration

did Edwin Stanton replace Simon Cameron in January 1862?

-Secretary of War.

-What name that comes from the light infantry

of the French army was adopted by many volunteer regiments

who wore baggy red trousers and embroidered waistcoats?

Zouaves.

Of which of his generals who was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville

did Lee say, "He has lost his left arm,

"but I have lost my right arm"?

Jackson.

In November 1861, the Union Navy seized two Confederate diplomats

from a British ship and caused a diplomatic crisis.

What was the name of the ship?

-Trent.

-Which was the first of the 11 southern states

to secede from the Union

and later form the Confederate States of America?

South Carolina.

What was the name of the barbaric commandant

of the Andersonville stockade?

He was hanged as a war criminal in November 1865.

-Wirz.

-In what capacity did Belle Boyd serve the Confederacy

and Elizabeth Van Lew serve the Union during the war?

-Spies.

-What is the name of the burial ground

after which Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge were named

in the Battle of Gettysburg?

-Pass.

-Who led the Army of the Ohio

that arrived at the end of the first day of the Battle of Shiloh

and helped to turn the battle in favour of the Union forces?

-Buell.

-In July 1864, John Bell Hood faced William Sherman

in battles at Peachtree Creek and Ezra Church

in the campaign to capture which city?

-Atlanta.

-What battle was fought near the Rio Grande in Texas

in May 1865 and was the last significant clash of the war?

-Brownsville?

-No, Palmito Ranch. BEEP

And your time is up.

You had the one pass -

the name of that burial ground after which Cemetery Hill

and Cemetery Ridge were named in the Battle of Gettysburg,

that was Evergreen Cemetery.

You have scored 12 points.

And our final contender, please.

And your name is?

Your occupation?

And your chosen subject?

In two minutes, starting now.

In Think, the narrator says that the woman who tries to seduce him

has an expression from a page in what catalogue?

Victoria's Secret.

Who is the host of the late-night television talk show

that the Emmy-nominated actress Edilyn

appears on in My Appearance?

-Letterman.

-In Westward The Course Of Empire Takes Its Way,

Mark Nechtr and his wife Drew-Lynn Eberhardt

are graduate writing students at which college?

-Wellesley.

-East Chesapeake. In a story from Oblivion,

the appeal of a new Mr Squishy snack cake

is tested by a focus group at the office

of the advertising firm Reesemeyer Shannon Belt.

What is the snack cake called?

-Felonies.

-In The Soul Is Not A Smithy,

what is the name of the psychologist

who interviewed the narrator and his classmates

the day after they witnessed a traumatic event?

Pass.

In Little Expressionless Animals,

Julie Smith has won every episode

of a television quiz show for three years

from 1985 to 1988. Which show?

-Jeopardy.

-In Forever Overhead,

what game is the boy's sister playing

in the swimming pool when he gets out

and makes his way to the high diving board?

Marco Polo.

What is the title of the human interest feature in Style Magazine

that Skip Atwater writes articles for

in The Suffering Channel?

Erm...

What In The World.

On what date does the narrator's little sister

celebrate her birthday in Signifying Nothing?

-Pass.

-What is the name of the counsellor

in Church Not Made With Hands who wears a T-shirt

that says, "Ask me about my invisible enemies"?

-Wang?

-Yang.

What is the nickname of the narrator

in Girl With Curious Hair

whose brother is a lieutenant colonel in the US Marine Corps

and carries the black box of nuclear codes

for the American President?

Sick Puppy.

In number 59 of the Brief Interviews With Hideous Men,

which television programme was the interviewee's favourite

as a child and inspired his adolescent fantasies?

-Bewitched.

-The narrator of the story Good Old Neon

goes to meditation classes

at the Downers Grove Community Center.

Who runs the classes?

-BEEP

-Gurumelalav...

-No.

-No, it's gone.

Gurpreet, Master Gurpreet.

Anyway, your other passes -

the date that the narrator's little sister celebrated her birthday

was the 4th of July and it was Dr Biron-Maint,

he was the psychologist who interviewed

the narrator and his classmates the day after

they'd witnessed a traumatic event.

You have scored, Ewan, 8 points.

Lots of very good scores there. Let's have a look at all of them.

And it is the general knowledge round now, of course,

and if there is 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

and if they're tied on passes as well, there has to be a tie-break.

So, let us get on with it

and ask Ewan to join us again if you would, please.

And you start out with 8 points and, as you will know,

we have two and a half minutes for general knowledge

so loads of time to catch up.

Here we go.

The dogs home founded in Holloway in 1860

is now a dogs and cats home named after which London district?

-Battersea.

-An elver is the young of which fish?

-Eel.

-Who returned to his role as the palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant

in the 2001 film sequel Jurassic Park 3?

Pass.

The Hanoverian British kings George I and George II

were both born in which present-day country?

-Germany.

-Which city in southeastern India

is capital of the state of Tamil Nadu?

-Goa.

-Chennai.

Which American president told his people

in his 1933 inaugural address

that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

Franklin Roosevelt.

Who wrote the novels High Fidelity

and About A Boy that have both been adapted to films?

-Nick Hornby.

-St Apollonia, who had her teeth knocked out

when she refused to renounce her faith,

is the patron saint of which profession?

-Dentists?

-Which prestigious prize is endowed

by a former newspaper magnate

and awarded annually for achievement

in American journalism, letters and music?

-Pulitzer.

-Adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine

are the four bases of a complex molecular structure

that determines the biological inheritance

of nearly all living organisms. What structure?

-DNA.

-Which former winner of the X Factor made a comeback in 2016

when he topped the UK singles charts

with Say You Won't Let Go?

-Olly Murs?

-James Arthur.

What name that comes from the Greek for "horse" and "a course"

was once widely used for theatres, cinemas and concert halls?

Hippodrome.

Which small, sweet yeast buns,

now available nearly all the year round,

were traditionally eaten in England on Good Friday?

Hot cross buns.

Gendun Druppa, who was born in central Tibet in 1391,

was the first person to bear which title

in the Buddhist religion?

Dalai Lama.

What is the name of the metropolitan county

that includes Liverpool and Birkenhead?

-Merseyside.

-In February 2016,

a Swiss-Italian football administrator

was elected president of Fifa in succession to Sepp Blatter.

Who is he?

Er, Pa...

-Platini.

-Infantino.

What is the title of the television series

that traces the progress of the Queen,

played as a young woman by Claire Foy,

from her childhood to her reign after the death

of her father King George VI?

The Crown.

Which celebrated religious building in Venice

was completed in about 1071

in the form of a Greek cross surmounted by five domes?

-St Mark's Cathedral.

-St Mark's Basilica, yes.

What name is given to a steel blade

attached at the muzzle end of a rifle?

It derives from the town in southwestern France

where it was first manufactured.

-Bayonet.

-Which Italian composer's... BEEP

..last two operas, written between the years 1884 and 1893,

were based on plays by Shakespeare?

Verdi.

You have one pass.

The chap who returned to his role as the palaeontologist

in the film Jurassic Park 3, he was Sam Neill.

One pass, Ewan, you have scored now a total of 24 points.

And now James again, please.

And you start out with 10 points, James.

Two and a half minutes for your general knowledge.

24 at the moment the score to beat. Here we go.

Igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary

are the three main classifications

of what natural substance?

-Rock.

-Long-eared and greater and lesser horseshoe

are species of which mammal found in Britain?

-Rabbit.

-Bat.

Who was the lead singer of Dexys Midnight Runners,

who had a 1982 number five hit with Jackie Wilson Said?

Kevin Rowland.

Hugh Scully was the long-time presenter

of which television programme before he was succeeded

first by Michael Aspel and then by Fiona Bruce?

-Antiques Roadshow.

-In which Middle Eastern country

did Bashar al-Assad succeed his father

Hafez al-Assad as president in 2000?

-Syria.

-What name is given to the top edge of a ship's side,

so called because the upper guns were supported on it?

Pass.

"The hopes of a nation rode on a long shot" -

that's the tag line of which 2003 film

about an undersized racehorse that became an unexpected champion?

Seabiscuit?

The leaves of which plant, used as a seasoning or garnish,

are also known as Chinese parsley and as cilantro,

especially in Mexican cuisine?

Coriander.

In which Winter Olympic sport do competitors run for about 40m

before they jump on a stripped-down, steel-framed sled

and race headfirst down an ice track?

-Bobsled?

-Skeleton bob.

In the United Kingdom, what is the colour of a 13 amp fuse

in a standard household plug?

Brown?

What is the name of the saint who was born in Assisi in 1194

and who founded an order of nuns noted for their poverty?

She was made the patron saint of television

by Pius XII in 1958.

-Teresa?

-Clare.

The Lofoten and Vesteralen islands

that lie within the Arctic Circle

are the largest island groups off the coast of which country?

-Norway?

-What senior title in the British peerage

did Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor succeed to in 1979?

Pass.

Which county is known in Welsh as Sir Benfro

and part of it is often called Little England Beyond Wales?

-Pembroke?

-Yes, Pembrokeshire.

The rich bachelor Charles Bingley,

the pompous clergyman William Collins

and the unprincipled adventurer George Wickham

are among the characters in which Jane Austen novel?

-Persuasion?

-Pride And Prejudice.

Carl XVI Gustaf became king of which country in 1973?

-Sweden?

-What was the nationality

of the composers Borodin, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff?

-Russian.

-Which architect is credited with rebuilding

more than 50 London churches after the Great Fire of 1666?

Christopher Wren.

Which writer created the television series Midsomer Murders...

BEEP ..and Foyle's War

and wrote a series of novels

about the schoolboy spy Alex Ryder?

-Pass.

-Well, I can tell you cos your time's up -

Anthony Horowitz.

Two other passes - Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor became Duke of Westminster

and the name given to the top edge of a ship's side

because of the upper guns is the gunwale.

-You have a total now, James, of 22 points.

-OK, thank you.

And now Don again, please.

And you start out with 12 points.

The score to beat is still 24

so let us see how you do with your general knowledge. Here we go.

The word "kindergarten", meaning a place

where very young children are educated, comes from what language?

-German.

-Who played Bonnie Parker

in the 1967 film Bonnie And Clyde?

-Faye Dunaway.

-Which Canadian singer and songwriter

released the bestselling album You Want It Darker

in October 2016, less than three weeks before he died?

Leonard Cohen.

Which British colony surrendered

to the invading Japanese forces on Christmas Day 1941,

just over a fortnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

-Hong Kong.

-The television game shows The Golden Shot,

Celebrity Squares and Family Fortunes

were all hosted by which comedian?

-Bob Monkhouse.

-What word, derived from "triumph",

is used in bridge and whist

for the suit that has been declared

to rank above the other three?

Trump.

An area on the River Cherwell in Oxford

that was widely used for male nude bathing

until it was closed in 1991 was given what clerical name?

Pass.

In Roman legend, what animal suckled the infant Romulus

and Remus after they were saved from drowning?

-Wolf.

-Which cricketer,

famed for his appearance in hair cream adverts,

played for England before and after the Second World War

and played football for Arsenal?

-Hobbs?

-Denis Compton.

The name of what former monetary unit

was first applied to a gold coin

minted by King John II of France in 1360?

-Noble.

-Franc.

Which spymaster was created by John Le Carre

and lives at 9 Bywater Street in Chelsea

with his unfaithful wife Lady Ann?

Smiley.

The Mojave Desert lies principally

in the south-east of which American state?

-Arizona.

-California.

Which birds of prey that have long been trained for hunting

have plumes called flags on their legs

and a sharp toothlike notch on the upper part of their bill?

Falcons?

What name that comes from the Greek for "going"

is given to an electrically charged atom or molecule?

Ion.

In 2012, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

sought and gained political asylum

in the London embassy of which country?

-Ecuador.

-In which novel by Alexandre Dumas, pere

does the hero escape from the Chateau d'If

in a body bag intended for a dead priest?

The Count of Monte Cristo.

Which prolific composer

worked in the musical establishment

of the Esterhazy family at the Austrian court

for around 30 years from 1761?

Haydn.

What marsupial creatures were the glove puppets Tingha and Tucker,

who appeared on a children's television show during the 1960s?

Koala bears.

The painting Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway...

BEEP ..expressed an English artist's interest

in the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.

Which artist?

-Turner.

-And you have one pass.

That area on the River Cherwell in Oxford

that was widely used for male nude bathing, I'm afraid,

was called Parson's Pleasure.

LAUGHTER

That notwithstanding, you have scored 27 points.

And, finally, Gemma again, please.

And, Gemma, you start out with 13 points, which is pretty good.

27 is the score to beat.

So, let's see if you can do it and get through to the semifinals.

Here we go.

Wild guinea pigs are native to which continent?

-South America.

-What French word is used

to describe the driest type of sparkling wine,

especially champagne?

-Cava?

-Brut.

Who created and presented

the Channel 4 satirical programme Brass Eye?

-Erm, John...

-Chris Morris.

Which distinguished mathematician and scientist

held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics

at Cambridge University from 1669 to 1702?

-Fibonacci?

-Isaac Newton.

Hearing, sight, smell and taste

are four of the five traditional senses.

What's the fifth?

-Touch.

-Which future queen of England

was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V as a five-year-old

and eventually married his son, Philip II of Spain, in 1554?

-Mary I.

-Which British singer and songwriter,

whose real name is Rory Graham,

went straight to number one in the album chart

in February 2017 with Human?

-Erm, George...

-No, Rag'n'Bone Man.

What member of the crew do the winners

of the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race

traditionally throw into the Thames at the finishing post?

The cox.

Which outpost town, founded in 1914 as a construction community,

later became the headquarters of the Alaska Railroad

and is now the state's most popular city?

Pass.

The dugong and the manatee are said to be the originals

of which mythical half-human, half-fish creature?

-Mermaid?

-Who made her big breakthrough

as Elle Woods in the 2001 film Legally Blonde?

She followed it up

with Sweet Home Alabama the following year.

Reese Witherspoon?

In which Yorkshire city was the Independent Labour Party,

one of the forerunners of the current Labour Party,

formed in 1893?

Bradford.

The Miller, the Cook and the Clerk

are among the storytellers

in which classic work of prose and poetry?

The Canterbury Tales.

Whose last major work was as librettist

for Edward German's 1909 opera Fallen Fairies?

He's best known for his collaboration with another composer.

-Puccini?

-Gilbert.

A tiding and a tittering are among the collective nouns

for which members of the crow family?

-Ravens?

-Magpies.

Whose fifth novel Swingtime, first published in 2016,

tells the story of two girls

who grow up on North London housing estates

and whose careers take different paths?

Pass.

Which painter who died in 2011

was the grandson of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud?

-Julian Freud.

-Lucien Freud.

Which yellow flower with a deep taproot,

considered a weed by gardeners,

has the Latin name Taraxacum officinale?

Dandelion.

What is the title of the 2016... BEEP

..reality television show in which

a group of eight older celebrities went to Jaipur to see

if they could enjoy a better retirement in India

than in the UK?

-The Real Marigold Hotel.

-That is it, yes.

You had two passes, Gemma.

Zadie Smith, she wrote Swingtime

and Anchorage is the Alaskan outpost, now a very large city.

You have a total of 23 points.

So, a very clear winner. Let's have a look at all the scores.

And that means, of course, that Don is tonight's winner

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

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

do go to our website.

And you can follow us on Twitter.

Do join us again next time for more Masterminds. Thanks for watching.

Goodbye.