Go 50:50… or punch a friend
THE Brush Strokes opening credits playing on Cunk On Britain – repeat the series, BBC! Taskmaster. Al Pacino in Paterno. Henry Winkler in Barry. Mountain. Mira Sorvino definitely not taking off Gwyneth Paltrow on Modern Family, honestly. DAVID Goldstrom, commentating on the European weightlifting championship, said: A.Wightman of Newport wins £35 for that howler. Keep ’em coming to the address at the top of the page.
THEY’VE added an option on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – ask the host.
That’ll be handy if any questions come up about throwing right-handers, ethnic slurs or the Saab variable compression engine.
Fastest Fist First was the choice I wanted to see.
Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t tease and torment like Tarrant, but is he as good? We’ll find out after the break…in this case next Sunday.
Britain takes TV quiz shows seriously, possibly because in a world of fake news and micro-celebrity dunces they celebrate pure knowledge.
Quizzes are totally democratic. Class, race and gender are immaterial. All that matters is what you know. Although what you don’t know often delights too.
When Anne Robinson asked one Weakest Link contestant what word beginning with H in the Lord’s Prayer meaning blessed comes before “be thy name”, she wasn’t expecting the answer: “Howard.”
We’ve had people who think Bob Dylan is Scottish, Captain America is real and that the “ten gallon” associated with cowboys refers to whisky.
But the real joy is winning. A total of 17million watched Charles Ingram, an apparently nice but dim major in the Royal Engineers, luck his way to a million smackers on Millionaire in Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday,
10 Lower Thames Street, London
EC3R 6EN 2001. Ingram didn’t even know what language the Norman invaders spoke.
Yet he always “guessed” correctly – aided, a court later found, by his wife and a college lecturer pal who helpfully coughed after the right answers.
It was the biggest quizzing scandal since a multiple murderer appeared on Bullseye 16 years earlier.
Britain has produced 105 quiz shows of which Mastermind is the purest. TV producer Bill Wright, a former RAF gunner, based it on his experience of being interrogated by the Gestapo.
Only Lydia Bright’s woeful performance on the dumbed-down “celeb” version was more traumatising. Lyds made David Lammy look good.
Quizzes can be life-changing. Dark destroyer Shaun Wallace landed his job as a Chaser after winning Mastermind, just like London taxi driver Fred Housego, who enjoyed a long career in radio.
Judith Keppel won £1million and the Eggheads gig after becoming the first to answer 15 questions correctly on Millionaire.
A million quid for knowing which king married Eleanor of Aquitaine! See kids, those history lessons you moan about can really pay off.
The top five UK quizzes: Millionaire, Mastermind, The Chase, Fifteen To One and The Weakest Link. I came second on the last two, but they won’t have me on Mastermind. Apparently the underwear of January Jones doesn’t count as a specialist subject. IF Britain’s Got Talent why does Cowell stuff the show with imported professionals?
We’ve seen Dutch illusionists, Vietnamese acrobats, Belgian dancers, a Canadian magician, a Maltese singer, an Australian circus pro, a prop comic from LA, a Japanese nutcase...
Oh, and a singing Irish priest who has already had a platinum album…
Do his scouts just sit in an office watching other countries’ talent shows?
Yet without the foreign contingent, the show would just consist of cute kids, sob stories and decidedly average singers. Even the better British turns aren’t what they seem. “Retired” Jenny Darren, left, who claimed she hadn’t sung rock since 1981, released an album last year with musicians from Iron Maiden, AC/DC, and Wishbone Ash. Scatty magician Mandy Muden was on Bradley Walsh’s The Big Stage 18 years ago. There wasn’t anywhere she could go after that. Sadly there still isn’t.
Last night’s gee-whizz acts were Korean quick-change pros Ellie & Jeki (he was on America’s Got Talent) and knife-throwing Malaysian Andrew Lee, a semi-finalist on Asia’s Got Talent.
You may recall seeing Donchez, the Singing AA Man, on GMTV. JOEL Kinnaman, right, Altered Carbon (Netflix)... Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld (SkyAt)… Homeland. TRUE Horror, left – shockingly poor...High And Dry – low and wet...The Split... Invitation To A Royal Wedding – revealed about as much as a nun on a hen night. ROYAL Wedding overkill. Kale. Corrie’s Jude – duller than a wet weekend in Whitby. The ugly houses on The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes. ITV wasting The Americans. Netflix’s The Stand-ups – except for our own Gina Yashere.
‘Maria Alemanno failed in the first round and now it’s Shatova the Bulgarian’
BE careful what you wish for, Corrie fans. Misery junkie Kate Oates is leaving but if the alternative is “comedy” like gormless Jude’s gift-shop saga, then the Street is more doomed than Aidan Connor. QUOTE of the week from historian David Starkey: “You look at Wallis Simpson and you think – why bother?” SO, a “mountweazel” is a bogus entry in a reference book, and not as previously thought what Stacey did to Max Branning last Xmas. Thanks, Only Connect.