Fruit Machine Chat

Good to see the smile wiped off the most arrogant man in trivia , no not Brewis!- Mark Labbett. He said he was ranked number 1 in Wales and 17 in the U.k , thought it related to the heaviest men but no to quiz rankings. However was sorry to hear his parents are suffering from cancer and he is a quality quizzer. 99x out of a hundred he would have beaten his opponent in my opinion. Interested to see William G Stewart on the panel. Hated 15-1. The only thing that amused entertained me with the programme was when Trevor Montague appeared and won as himself as TM and a few years later as Steve Romana complete with wig and earring. W G Stewart and/or production company took him for 5 grand I believe?! The thing that surprised me was why on earth would somebody want to appear on that programme twice?

I didn't see it. Mark *is* arrogant, but to some extent with good reason: his estimation of his quizzing abilities is not unreasonable given quiz tournament results over several years. Also his arrogance usually comes with a certain tongue-in-cheekness which makes it difficult to dislike him. The "real boy" on the programme was Olav who, despite his age, is definitely top 5 in the UK, but was unlucky on the night.

By all accounts Stephanie, the winner, performed superbly. Yes, given a written test encompassing all of general knowledge, Mark would probably be the strong favourite to win, but given an entertainments-biased quiz against the buzzer I think that things were probably fairly evenly matched.

I'm surprised at your dislike for Fifteen to One - it was definitely up there with University Challenge as the best quiz programme ever and it was a crying shame they took it away...! You're right that WGS took Montague to the cleaners although I don't think it was quite as clear cut as everyone remembers it. Montague was a good quiz machinist c. early 1990s was he not? He's certainly a fearsomely good quizzer - top 10 in the UK I'd say, and maybe even top 5.

I'm with grecian on 15-1, great quiz, honest as well. Not like the others where they pick and choose who should appear. As for Montague, top 50, but nowhere near top ten, I could name six in my home town that are better, reading reference books alone is no longer good enough!