Ahem… as a former Mastermind contestant, I can tell you that they ban people from having a specialist subject that is in any way related to their job. The reason is that if they get stage fright and fail to answer the questions it could be professionally embarrassing for them, and after all it’s “only a TV game show”.
The rule was introduced after a vicar chose a scripture subject as his specialism in one of the early series, and did very poorly.
I stand (or at least sit) corrected Chris. Congratulations on being a contestant.
My uncle, who have me the drawing board As a Morgan owner, I must say I'm ashamed of this carbuncle - #27 by John_Scully also gave me an armchair he designed (with footstool) that was a dead ringer for the Mastermind chair, though in sixty-six, way before Mastermind aired. I guess they were a la mode. I wonder when I got rid of that
A bit of Googling tells me that the Mastermind chair is by Eames:
The ‘Soft Pad Lounge Chair’ was designed in 1969 by Charles and Ray Eames as a more plushly upholstered version of their 1958 Aluminium Group. Two chairs were purchased for use in the initial 25-year run of the show, transported across the country by lorry. Said chairs are, according to one website that one sincerely hopes is trustworthy, specially modified with detachable arms “in case a Contender is too large to fit between them”.
Such was the impact of the chair on popular culture that in 2009 it gained the indescribable honour of being voted the second-most iconic chair of the 20th century in a survey for House Beautiful magazine, losing out to the Model 3107 chair designed by Arne Jacobsen, astride which Christine Keeler famously sat.
It’s very comfortable actually. I did not need the arms detached.
Fair comment - but I think they’d still discourage you from picking French Motoring Law as a special subject!
Actually there’s an art to choosing a Mastermind special subject - it can’t be too obscure or technical, as they have to find a question-setter for it, nor too narrow a field as then you would know the answers to pretty much all the possible questions.
(Side-note - a contestant in 2009 was actually contacted by a BBC researcher asking for help in setting his questions - he was an expert on the history of Northampton Town Football Club! Luckily he was honest and fessed up to being the contestant!)
Vice versa, too broad a topic could jeopardise your chances of getting a decent score, and it also has to be something that’s going to be reasonably accessible to the audience at home.
And lastly it needs to be something that hasn’t been chosen too many times before - “The novels of Jane Austen” (or J K Rowling!) will get rejected, for example.
I just liked the idea of a simple question, can I swap my UK C category, for example, resulting in a response that takes in ones birth sign, if there’s a “R” in the month, the Lunar cycle, the colour of the applicants socks, and when they put them on and, oh yes, can you actually drive
Does that imply that a red licence showing HGV will be accepted as proof?
I have nearly all my red card booklet licences since I passed my driving test in 1956. At age 21 it automatically included HGV and in 1972 (?) HGV became C1 - C etc with Acquired Entitlements aka ‘grandfather rights’. On the face of it I have grandfather rights and I worked for a major truck manufacturer driving and demonstrating all their models over 10 year period. After early retirement in 1993 I took on agency work driving trucks of various types including car transporters.
When I arrived in the Northern Territory of Australia in the early '60s they swapped my UK HGV licence (no classes then) directly for an NT one which entitled me to drive anything, including road trains with 3 40 foot trailers.
When I got to Sydney, they wouldn’t let me drive anything with a bend in the middle because the magic words ‘semi-trailer’ did not appear on it.
If I’ve understood correctly… in UK if one has “taken and passed a Test” in whatever driving category (way back wheneverr) … one can now ask DVLA for a personal printout which shows all such Tests and Categories gained ???
