Wednesday 31st July, 2003 – Money

Inexplicably, we failed to win the National Lottery again last night. I know; I can’t believe it either. Having faithfully bought tickets once or even twice a week for the last couple of years, I’m beginning to suspect that it might all be some kind of con. Or maybe I am just cursed, and having bad luck is the price I must pay for having indestructible testes. He giveth and taketh away.

While I am obviously earning a handsome second income from being a professional pub quizzer (a total of £19 directly into my pocket over the past forthnight – a sum which, it now occurs to me, if ploughed back into lottery tickets, may well tip the odds back in my favour), I need a more reliable source of easy money.

Obviously, one possibility would be to apply myself to my job, work hard, and reap the rewards of this dedication gradually over the course of the next 30 - 40 years. But, while this tempts me, it seems like a massive gamble. The sensible money is in throwing as much cash as possible at the maximum possible number of harebrained schemes, and hoping that either a) one of them works out, and I become a millionaire, or b) Channel 4 hear of my eccentric lifestyle, and commission a film crew to follow me for a year, and chart the ups and downs of my Quixotic pursuit of fame and fortune, thus making me a celebrity, and justifying the preceding years/decades of metal-detecting, panning for gold, marrying rich widows etc.

But, having taken a second to think about it, this is also a ridiculous idea. Given my pub quiz-proven, and clearly encyclopaedic, general knowledge (as long as it falls under the categories of films, pop music, and identifying badly photocopied pictures of celebrities, and doesn’t involve, history, geography, literature, sports other than football, current affairs or miscellaneous) the path open to me is clear. I must go on a TV quiz show.

I actually came pretty close to doing so last month, when I filed out an online application form to appear on the new Channel 4 quiz show ‘Beat the Nation’. The opportunity to do so was advertised on their website and, although it gave almost no information about the show itself, it asked – Can you "Beat the Nation?" 50% of the nation don't know the answer to this question:
What is the highest mountain in the world?

Ha! Even tiny babies know the answer to that question! It is obviously Mount Everest! Full of confidence in my status as part of the country’s intellectual elite, I dashed off an application form and coolly awaited a response.

Weeks after I’d sent it off, I received a phone call at work asking me if I would like to come to an audition in London the next day. Only once I’d agreed to it did I wonder what the show might actually involve. I looked it up on the internet, and was directed toward a website devoted to hardcore quiz players, where vest-clad single men exchange tips on how to outwit Catchphrase’s Mr. Chips and cut your Fastest Finger First reaction time.

Initial signs were good. It was to be presented by former Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Dr. Graham Garden. However, I was dismayed to find that the maximum prize money that a competitor could take home was £500, and that the standard of

competitor in the recordings that had taken place so far was very high. It seems that it is poised to take over Channel 4’s prestige mid-afternoon quiz spot - currently filled by Fifteen-to-One, under the strict yoke of William G. Stewart – where participants compete for glory rather than cash. This is no good for me. I need more.

Not much more, admittedly, as I’ve long flirted with the idea of applying to appear on The Weakest Link, where prize money rarely breaks the £2000 mark, but where the questions are of the “If a snooker cue is not long, then it is what ‘S’?” variety. Only two things hold me back. Obviously, the prospect of being made to look like a chump by Anne Robinson, which would no doubt be made worse by my Tourettes-like inability to resist making lame quips when under pressure. But also, the application form is rather complicated and asks lots of open-ended questions like ‘How competitive are you? Give an example of when you have been competitive’. This is obviously an intentional ploy, to keep away the lazy and unimaginative, and it is working a treat.

Given the current trends in TV of big cash prizes and theatre of cruelty style reality shows, I’m astonished that no TV exec has as yet come up with the idea of making a gameshow out of those drunken, juvenile conversation that go “Would you lick Eamon Holmes’ bum etc. for £1000? For £2000?” This would be ratings gold, and while a few killjoys might have a moan, it could make all the difference to people like me, who are high on desperation and low on dignity. The critics can gnash their teeth all they like – I will be on a sun-drenched isle, dislodging Eamon Holmes’ pubes from between my teeth with a solid gold pick.

If you injected a ‘Friends Like These’ team of friends format, it would be even better. Asking people who know each other well to suggest the challenge and oversee the bidding would be perfect. I have been present at such a conversation when a (theoretical) price of £5000 was named for the individual in question to submit to being strapped to the ground beneath the Eiffel Tower, a clear Perspex tube leading from the top to his genitals, and a tin of baked beans being launched down it. This would be magical television.

And of course, for me, such a challenge would be money in the bank.