RTÉ Radio One’s Mooney Show featured a guest called Olan McGowan who spoke about his experience as a question writer on the (short-lived) Irish version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He also discussed some funny incidents from the world of tv/radio quizzing.

Have a listen here:

Dear readers, sorry if I have been a bit sparing with the blog posts in the last week.  I have been busy preparing for the start of a new quiz show I am hosting on Claremorris Community Radio.  It’s called After the Fact and it’s broadcast on Thursday evenings at 7pm.

The first episode went out last Thursday and it’s now available online via the Claremorrisfm account on mixcloud.com.  Alas, I haven’t yet found a way of embedding mixcloud files directly into this site so the best I can do is point you in the direction of the specific programme. I hope you enjoy it!

Listen here: www.mixcloud.com/claremorrisfm/after-the-fact-alcohol/

"Your starter for 10..."

Last weekend, Claremorris Communiy Radio, the volunteer-run station on which I host a small show, held a 48-hour* Broadcastathon to raise funds to help meet its ongoing costs.  As part of this unique (and, I have to say, fun-filled) event, I was invited by Andrew Newman, the presenter of the Classic Sounds show, to join him on-air and test his knowledge of all music (classical, that is).

The show itself took place between 10pm and midnight on Friday last, so we were getting a bit giddy by the end.  Andrew said it was weird to be broadcasting in the dark.  To me it was reminiscent of late nights cramming with friends before college exams. You try and stay focused and do the work but the novelty of the situation leads to distraction.

That being said, I think it made for good radio! Check it out below:

http://soundcloud.com/jhnolan/claremorris-classical-quiz

* If you add on the final, hour-long ‘wrap’ show, it actually lasted 49 hours.

You can check it out below or via the oh-so-handy box on the right hand side of the page.

I have plans for these little quizzes.  For example, I’m thinking of doing at least one per month as an audio round or featuring dialogue clips.  What do people think?

I’m putting this here just in case the podcast link on the RTÉ site becomes defunct some day.

This morning started off with a disappointment as I received an email which told me that the article in the Irish Independent had been put back until “early next week”. Sad, true, but what can one do? When I hear any more about it I’ll let you know.

Not being a big fan of driving in the early morning, I had travelled up to Dublin last night and stayed with my friends Bob, Keith and Maurice, who very kindly gave me a bed and a parking space. Thanks lads.  I had been asked to present myself at the RTÉ Radio Centre at 10am, with my appearance on-air scheduled for 10.15.

I was quite surprised to find that, after kicking up my heels in a waiting room, I was basically brought straight into the studio when the call came.  I had presumed I’d meet the team beforehand, perhaps during the 10am news.  I was introduced to Ryan Tubridy during an ad break, so obviously our preliminaries were quite rushed. I wonder if all radio presenters have Tubridy’s ability to engage in banter while keeping an eye on a clock counting down? I hadn’t even noticed he was doing it until, just at the end of a sentence (in our private chat), he pushed up a fader and, almost in the same cadence, announced “And we’re back …” into the microphone!

My 15 minutes of fame lasted about 15 minutes.  So that was nice.  It did fairly fly by though.  So much so that I forgot to mention this site – and that had been my main reason for agreeing to go on in the first place! Oh dear.

During the course of it, Ryan Tubridy tested me with 10 questions on history and 10 on TV & film.  I did a bit better in the first one than the second, and he was a very generous quiz master.  I can’t remember them all at the moment but I do recall feeling smacked around the head when the very first second* question was:

• Which countries attended the Munich Conference of 1938?

Yikes!

If you missed it earlier, and would like to find out how I got on, please click this link right here: http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2011/pc/pod-v-03021116m08stubridytrivia-pid0-968568.mp3.  You’ll also get to hear Damien Owens, the author of the new Trivia TV series.   Also, here’s a link to the Tubridy show blog. Update: audio of show here.

Finally, here’s a picture:

Other news:

• Trivia starts tonight: RTÉ One, 10.15pm. Watch it!
• My night hosting the quiz in Gilligan’s, Claremorris, has been brought forward to next Tuesday, February 8.

* Just listened back to it. Funny how memory plays tricks on you.

Trivia

Tablequiz.net and yours truly will feature in an article in this Thursday’s Irish Independent. I’ve known about that for almost a week now and was interviewed for it on Friday last.

However, I got a huge surprise this afternoon when I was contacted by a researcher on Ryan Tubridy’s radio show on 2FM, asking me to appear on the show on Thursday morning. I don’t know the exact time I’ll be on air, with the researcher only being able to estimate it’ll be between 9.30 and 10.30am.  If you’d like to hear what I have to say (or even what I sound like), tune in to 2FM or else via the station’s website, www.2fm.ie

A quiz, basically, that does everything the ‘Just a Minute Quiz’ on Larry Gogan‘s radio show does.

I’ll be turning 33 this month and, as far back as I can remember, there’s never been a time when the JAMQ did not exist.  It is, by accident or design, a perfect nugget of quiz – quizzing distilled, if you will. The 60 second time limit puts pressure on the contestants, prevents cheating and ensures that the round is over before the listener’s attention wanes.

It was quite a thrill this week when, in honour of this blog’s 100th post, Larry Gogan himself spoke to me about the JAMQ.

The first thing I asked the great man was how the quiz came about.

Larry in 1979

“It started the same day as 2fm did, May 31st, 1979.  Cathal McCabe was my producer and we had this idea that we needed a ‘slick’ quiz to go with this ‘slick new station’. So that was the thinking behind the rounds only taking a minute.”

After 31 years, is there a chance that it’s the world’s longest-running quiz?

“It’s funny that you should ask that as the Guinness Book of Records people are looking into that idea!  Someone mentioned it on Rick O’Shea‘s show recently and he called them up, I guess.  It hasn’t been on for the entire time, though. In 1981, the director of radio thought no-one was interested in our ‘silly quiz’. So we cancelled it. But there was pandemonium, uproar! We brought it back after a month.”

The JAMQ has become part of our culture and is certainly the most famous quiz in Ireland. Larry’s own generous phrase “Sure, they didn’t suit you”, to those contestants who (let’s say) didn’t do so well, is instantly recognisable.  There is also a long-standing chain email which tells us of over 30 “Actual answers given to Larry Gogan…”  I asked Larry what he thought of this particular part of his fame.

“Well, regarding the catchphrase, I hear that everywhere I go. It’s the first thing people say to me! But, I feel that you have to be fair to people, especially if they don’t do well.”

Does he ever wonder why those people who struggle to answer a single question ring in?

“Not really. I’d say that nerves must play a part, if someone doesn’t do well. But I wouldn’t be into slagging people off.”

Brendan Grace: the source

And the email?

“Now, they’re not true at all! I’m nearly certain of that. I even know where that one, the one about ‘a pig in sh…’, where that came from. It was a joke Brendan Grace used to have in his act. Someone heard it one night and then told it on Gay Byrne‘s show. I don’t know if they said it was a joke or not… But, to this day, people come up to me and say ‘Oh I was listening that day when you asked the As happy as… question!’ and sure it never happened at all!”

At this point I laid out two theories I have about the JAMQ. Firstly, that the scores through the years would make a good base for a study into how the Irish public’s intelligence levels have gone up or down. Has Larry noticed any changes in the ability of the contestants?

“That’s hard to say. We give out a jackpot prize if someone scores over 18 points and it hadn’t been won for a long time but now, in the last month, two people have claimed it. I know our record score is 25 and that happened years ago. Other than that though, I can’t really remember the scores…”

Happy that my idea for a PhD proposal is obviously still available I proceeded to big theory number 2: the time limit of the JAMQ makes it impossible to cheat.

“Oh I think so, yes.  It’s just too quick. You’d know if someone was popping away to check google but it’d take up a lot of time.”

Have they ever had any instances of cheating? For example, during the end-of-year championship, is there a chance that a competitor might ask some quizzing expert to stand in for them?

“Well, we have no way of knowing. We’re just dealing with voices at the end of a phone line. I believe we had cases in the past of people pretending to be from that day’s location when they were actually from the other end of the country.  These days though, our system can tell you where someone is ringing from if they’re on a landline. With mobiles we have no idea, of course. But we do note the numbers. Not so long back we had a guy ring in, and he called himself Paddy or whatever, and the system said that we’d had a guy called Mickey ring in from that number previously. When the researcher asked him about this he claimed that Mickey was a different fellow and that they shared the phone!”

What does the future hold in store for the JAMQ? When the unthinkable day comes and Larry retires,what then? Will it also be retired? Or are Rick O’Shea and Ryan Tubridy even now circling, hoping to pick up the inheritance?

“Well, it’s such a simple idea, and that’s why it’s been a success, in my opinion. But all I really have is the name. There’s other shows even now, Tony Fenton, Ian Dempsey, that are doing quick quizzes. I think I even heard Derek Mooney say one day, to a caller, that the quiz she was taking part in was “Just like the Just a Minute quiz…”!  So who knows?’

On that note, he bid me farewell. A charming man, I’m glad to report, just like he is on the radio.

You can listen to Larry Gogan’s Golden Hour (featuring two rounds of the JAMQ) from 1-2pm, weekdays, on 2fm (90-92 FM). Someday, you might even hear my voice – if I ever pluck up the courage to have a go at the JAMQ!

If you’d like to hear how we get on, or even just want to know what I sound like, then tune in to Today FM (that’s 100-102 MHz in Ireland) or else click on the “Today FM Live!” link in the top-right of www.todayfm.com

We’ll be on-air from about 11.20am tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, in what will be the penultimate first round match.

Wish us luck!

The four qualifiers take place in Sligo, Cork, Dublin and Kilkenny, with a maximum of 50 teams taking part each night.

I’m not sure how many teams will qualify from each round but it will have to be at least two as that would provide the eight teams needed for those quarter-finals (if they are simple 1v1 affairs).

If you’d like to enter a team, get on to http://www.puca.com/SparWebsite/allirelandquiz.html quick, as the first qualifier is due to take place on Thursday September 17.