Richthofen questions on Mastermind

[Nigel Jackson]

Hello All,

Just been watching the BBC tv competition Mastermind. One of the contestants, Stephen Adams, chose Richthofen as his specialist subject. In two minutes of questioning he scored 11 points with no passes; your correspondent gained just 8.

Best wishes
Nigel

[macsporran]

But he'd spent days beforehand swotting up on the murderous little Prussian, whereas you, (and I,) just winged it. I think your 8 is actually worth more!
If you'd re-read Kilduff, DSA, Rote Kampflieger, etc, etc again just before you got the questions I'm sure you'd have beaten him.
(His general knowledge 2nd round was quite poor, I thought.)
S
(Previous MM contestant)

[Nigel Jackson]

Wow, Sandy, what did you choose as your specialist subject? I think mine would have to be something English Civil War related, or maybe the outbreak and first year of the Great War.

As to the show last night, his general knowledge seemed indeed quite poor. I agree that he could have prepped pretty easily for the life of R. The sort of Richthofen questions I could answer were nothing to get carried away about  - things like the official number of victories, Lanoe Hawker's name, the arsenal name of the guns on a Dr.I, but i was pleased to get the SPAD VII one. I have no real interest in the man.

Best wishes
Nigel

[macsporran]

My first round subject was the composer Gustav Mahler and second would have been Sopwith Aircraft but I didn't get that far!
Thing is, anybody who chooses a band like Oasis, Eagles, The Who, etc, always tend to get much easier questions related to song lyrics, or band line-up. So there is quite a lot of gamesmanship involved.

Magnus Magnusson, (it was that long ago,) told me that they always tried to get an acknowledged expert to set the specialist questions - but that of course means a wide variation in how obscure some might be.

He said that one contestant had chosen Submarine Torpedo technology as his subject so they approached the Navy and Imperial War Museum to ask for names of anybody who could set questions. Both told the BBC that the acknowledged world expert on the history of the subject was the guy they were going to be questioning!!!
S

[Dirigible-Al]

The best I ever did was on 'Douglas Adam's Novels' a few years ago.

I have started so I will finish. A few weeks ago me and the missis were watching it when a guy had Welsh rugby as his specialised subject. I said to the Missis "this guy will say my name in a minute" he did seconds later when the answer to a question was 'Alan Pask'.

Alan Pask (another one).