Invicta Plastics Press Release June 2003

A businessman and a University of Leicester student who were brought together 30 years ago as the mysterious figures for the box on the revolutionary new game Mastermind, have been reunited for the first time since that historic day.

Distinguished-looking Bill Woodward was then the owner of a chain of hairdressing salons and young Hong Kong born Cecilia Fung was studying for a computer science degree at the University of Leicester.

as you tread on our dreams.... I should know by now that life is a slow process of corruption and decay but did thay really need to re-shoot this picture?

....there was an "International" Mastermind TV show, and I recall an hirsute australian with a specialised subject in Folk-Rock 1965-85 (or similar) I remember I got more questions right and being well chuffed.

followed by shattered expressions when I can't answer. The oft' repeated qualifier is "but you even know the bloke who did the Windows start up music"

I'm an Eno fan, so no surprise really, that I am aware of who wrote the Windows 95 opening chime? But I'm certainly not a rock'n'roll Norris McWhirter.

We played our joker on "Seventies American Singer Songwriters" and cleaned up. Also scored highly on Dr. Feelgood as being an answer on the grounds that the DJ doing the questions reguarly puts on gigs in town by the band, so it had to come up at some point. We still only came eighth, mind. The winning team only dropped two points throughout eight rounds, and that included identifying ten Sir Cliff songs by intro alone. Truly, we were in the presence of greatness....

get furtive phone calls from my daughter during a pub quiz when her team have not a clue about some obscure pop questions.

I once won a tie-breaker question for our team (prize = a gallon of beer). Question: who supported Talking Heads on their first headlining tour of the UK. Answer: Dire Straits. I saw it.

...being your trivia team's "music nerd" and it can backfire sometimes.

Luckily the quizmaster at our regular quiz in the North Shore of Auckland NZ is roughly the same age as me - and English - which means that her questions on, say, 80's pop music will draw on roughly the same well of memories as mine.

So I will confidently identify that Jimmy the Hoover single and know the full original name of Fuzzbox - leaving local Kiwis (quite reasonably) baffled. As a result when it comes to this round, my teammates will kick back, fill up on drinks and relax for a while, leaving me to it.

The backfiring happens when one attends an ad-hoc fundraising triv night and the music round strays into (my) unknown territories. For instance, ten excerpts from recent R&B hits will probably garner zero points from me.

Or even a round on 70s pop may be very kiwi-centric and the entire room sighs with affectionate recognition over big local hits from The Mockers, Th'Dudes, The Dance Exponents, etc. Moments like that make you realise that you don't really have the same cultural reference points after all.

The chilling moment is when someone says - "This bloke will know this - he's like a walking encyclopedia" and then they ask a question about who Fi(f)ty Cent may be shagging.

I was a ring-in at a very big trivia contest (more than thirty tables, first prize was $10,000.00) The music round started and all eyes in our team turned to me. The first song was techno, I just shrugged, we left it blank. The second song was also techno and I swear it sounded identical to the first one. Oh boy, the pissing and moaning coming from me would have been painful to listen to. Not that it mattered, every table was in similar uproar. We ended up coming second, the prize being free meals at a local pub. Bit of a comedown from $10,000.00 between us.

Another time we were asked "What was the last Beatles album?" I went up to the MC in mid-round and said "Hang on, there's no definitive answer to that. Let it Be was the last album they released in their lifetime but that was recorded before Abbey Road. Further, if you include compilations then.." The bloke cut me off in mid sentence and whispered "Just put Abbey Road will you"

I got roped in as a ringer on a general quiz by my mate. Some sort of team building thing with his work. There was a classical music round with ten excerpts and you had to name the piece and the composer. I think we ended up with something like 19 points out of 20, twice as many as any of the other teams, and a couple of people came up to us later and asked who the classical music buff was. I had to explain neither of us, and that they chose probably the only ten pieces of classical music that we knew and that we (incorrectly) presumed that any old fool would know.

my local pub team used to compete in.

The 'pop' questions, when all eyes turned to me, with only five decades under my belt the youngest team member by half a lifetime, were a nightmare. They usually involved knowing songs recorded by Alma Cogan, the names of Perry Como's backing band members, or the titles of Harry Belafonte's Christmas singles. Anything post-skiffle somehow hadn't registered with the question setter, and my fellow quizzers had all lost interest in popular music when Caruso croaked.

When the 'pot luck' round finally coughed up a question about music, it was something to do with The Bay City Rollers, and I was still stumped.

In a history round, however, I did know who Jethro Tull was. Sadly there were no QI-style extra points for amusing tales of 'Jethro Toe' misprints.

I've always thought the question on there swerve between eazy breezy and brain-achingly obscure (well chart/pop obscure)..