Don’t mock the TV quiz dunce who scored nul points. I know the crippling shame of your brain freezing in public

WAS there ever a time in our history when developing a thick skin was so necessary for getting through life? Whatever has become of kindness, sympathy, compassion, understanding and forgiveness of human frailty?

I ask because of the torrents of ordure poured, via Twitter, over the head of hapless Hannah, the languages student at Bath University who performed less than brilliantly on Tuesday’s edition of the ITV quiz programme The Chase. Well, quite a lot less than brilliantly, if truth be told.

What can she be going through today, the poor thing, after even the Ant half of Ant ’n’ Dec — official national treasures and Grovellers-in-Waiting to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales — thought fit to tweet to his 5.5 million followers that she was, ‘bloody awful . . . worst I’ve EVER seen’?

Yes, it must be admitted that Hannah, who lives in West Sussex, started the show badly and went downhill from there. Indeed, she came a humiliating cropper even before her first round of questions began.

Having said she was studying French and Italian, she was asked by the show’s host, Bradley Walsh, to say in French: ‘Hello Brad, it’s a pleasure being on The Chase.’

‘Erm, bonjour,’ she said, adding through agonised nervous laughter: ‘Sorry, I can’t do the end of it.’ ‘OK,’ said Brad, ‘what about in Italian?’ This time, she got no further than ‘ciao’ before admitting defeat.

Malicious

It was much the same story when her grilling began in earnest. No, she didn’t know in which Monty Python film Graham Chapman played Brian Cohen (but since Life Of Brian came out a good decade and a half before she was born, why should she?).

Nor did she know which part of a guitar neck is also a word meaning to worry… nor that the former actress Nancy Davis is better known as Nancy Reagan… nor that Charles Darwin was the grandson of the potter Josiah Wedgwood…

Then came the question: ‘ The Biblical book of Psalms sets a man’s lifespan at three score years and … what?’

She took a brave stab at a number. It’s just a pity she settled on three instead of ten.

Even when asked in which TV naturalist’s honour the Attenborosaurus dinosaur was named, she could manage no better than a pass ( though, to be fair, the name Attenborough passed her lips before her courage failed her).

To cut a long humiliation short, by the end of her cash-building first round, she had accumulated a grand total of £0.00.

Oh, how the cybersphere erupted in malicious glee.

‘Did this Hannah say she had a degree?’ demanded Sam W (no, actually, but I imagine she’s studying for one). ‘Christ on a crisp, she’s thick as a lead mattress.’

Rock Ape of Dorset ventured: ‘I’d rather have a scaffolding plank on my team in the final.’ While a certain Andrew Ball fumed that she was a ‘Tramp’.

Meanwhile, those few who stood up for the unfortunate girl, pointing out that all this abuse might affect her badly, were dismissed with that all-purpose internet sneer, directed at anyone who speaks out against cyberbullying: ‘Diddums.’

Of course, Hannah wasn’t forced to appear on The Chase — and those who put themselves forward for quizzes, hoping to impress others or carry off prizes for their command of knowledge, can’t expect immunity from gentle mockery if their performance doesn’t go quite according to plan.

But have we really become such a horrible race that even national treasures think it acceptable to heap obloquy on a young woman, who gave every appearance of friendly politeness, just because her mind appeared to go blank on telly?

Have the legions who rushed to abuse her, throwing insults for good measure at all today’s students, never felt those steel shutters come crashing down on their brains at moments of stress? (OK, I’ll spare message-board contributors the trouble: ‘Diddums, diddums.’)

As for myself, I felt only a mighty surge of fellow-feeling for young Hannah. For as regular readers may recall from a previous confession, I, too, have performed less than dazzlingly on a quiz show.

It was during my first and last appearance on the airwaves, as a contestant in the long- defunct Radio 4 quiz The Year In Question, that I matched Hannah’s score exactly, chalking up a resounding nul points in my solo round.

Rescued

The mortification of it stays with me to this day. How well I remember the high hopes with which I entered the fray, thinking this was when my genius would be acknowledged at last, with Radio 4 listeners all over the country swooning over my brilliance.

And how miserably I recall the aftermath. Inside the pub round the corner from the recording, my teammates celebrated the triumph they’d rescued from the disaster into which I’d plunged them.

Outside on the steps I sat alone, my head in my hands, wishing the pavement would swallow me up, the celebratory champagne turning to bitter gall in my mouth. I suppose I was lucky. Not only was this a radio show, which meant I wouldn’t be recognised by strangers in the street as that thicko from The Year In Question, more mercifully still, this was in the days before the internet, and so I was spared subjection to the abuse and contempt of the likes of Ant McPartlin and Rock Ape of Dorset, revelling in the chagrin of a la-di-da public schoolboy and supposed graduate of an ancient university.

But even without the Twitter pillory, the shame of that nul points round was enough to put me off trying my luck on a quiz show for the rest of my days.

Mind you, it hasn’t stopped me rolling my eyes and shouting at the telly when contestants make stupid mistakes — or, rather, when they get wrong an answer I happen to know.

Nor has it cured me of chuckling contemptuously every fortnight over the Dumb Britain feature in the satirical magazine Private Eye, which collects examples of moronic answers to quiz questions.

Two random examples. Here’s Paul Wappat, a host on BBC Radio Newcastle: ‘How long did the Six Day War between Egypt and Israel last?’

Contestant: ‘Fourteen days.’

Comfort

And here’s Alex Trelinski, of the Late Show on BBC Midlands: ‘What is the capital of Italy?’ Contestant: ‘France.’ Trelinski: ‘France is another country. Try again.’ Contestant: ‘Um, Benidorm.’ I cannot be the only one who has often wondered how it’s possible to experience a minimum of 11 years’ formal education in Britain without discovering that France is a country or developing the brainpower to guess that the Six Day War was six days long (though it has to be admitted that the 100 Years War lasted for 116).

Ah, but we shouldn’t sneer. For galloping to the rescue of all quiz show dunderheads this week comes an intriguing scientific study, which confirms what Hannah and I could have told you for free: a part of our brains really can switch off when we’re under pressure and being watched. It’s called the inferior parietal cortex, to be precise.

According to researchers at Sussex University and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, this explains why footballers miss important penalties and pupils hit the wrong notes in piano exams.

It must also be why so many of us who can type fast and flawlessly when nobody’s looking make dozens of mistakes when the boss is dictating to us over our shoulder.

If being observed affects our physical coordination, something similar surely happens to our minds when we’re being stared at by a studio audience on a quiz show. Those steel shutters really do exist.

As for Hannah, she can draw comfort from another source, too. For though she failed so abysmally in her cash-building round, she managed to survive her encounter with the Chaser in round two, having knocked £1,000 off her teammates’ prize pot. And though she answered only one question in the final two-minute round, her team triumphed — giving her a £2,666 share of the winnings.

Now, I call that pretty damned smart.