Read by Patsy Prince - Listen to full podcast
The guidance system they used in the Apollo 11 moon landing only had 64 kilobytes of memory. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? That’s less than a modern electric toaster. We put men on the moon with a device that couldn’t even play Donkey Kong.
Here’s another one: which kiwi was named first, the fruit or the bird? No? Nothing? It was the bird – the fruit only got its name in the 1970s, when the New Zealand marketing board noticed its similarity to their avian resident. Before then, it was called the Chinese gooseberry.
I had that one on Quiz of the Decade. Won myself two grand and a holiday in Portugal. Not bad for a girl who dropped out of school at sixteen.
Asperger Syndrome was named after an Austrian paediatrician, Hans Asperger. International Asperger’s Day is 18th February, Hans’s birthday. He served in World War Two – on the wrong side – and had alleged connections to the Nazi party.
See what I mean?
It was my Mum who first suggested that I go for the big one. I’d already done Quiz of the Decade, NumberWhizz, Knowledge Quest and Crock of Gold. Finished with the top score of the week in the last two. Brought home over ten grand, two holidays, a top of the range laptop and an ironic cuddly toy. But Questionmaster – well, that’s where the real money was. Weekly prize fund of half a million, viewing figures in excess of two mill. In a couple of cases the big winners even got book deals. I’m sure you’ve got a copy of Len Smith’s Fifty Funky Facts on your bookshelf somewhere. Or maybe in the loo. If not, check down the local charity shop.
Did you know that elephants have been known to climb trees? That’s one of his. They can get up to six feet off the ground, using their trunks to pull themselves up among the branches. Probably after bananas, I’d imagine.
Still, getting onto Questionmaster wasn’t easy. Before you even made it to the early rounds you had to submit a CV and a take a thirty-question test on their website. I scored full marks of course, finished in under five minutes. Broke all sorts of records – so their producer said, when he called me. They’re used to people cheating, flicking through their dictionaries and encyclopaedias to find the answers, phoning a friend. I didn’t need any of that. I’ve got it all up here, me.
The local heats were in Woking, so we made a day of it. Mum took me to the Wetherspoon’s for lunch. Just soda water for me, she had a glass of chardonnay to calm her nerves. I was confident, though. Personally, I think they gave me the harder questions on purpose, after my score on the website. I still won by twenty points. I only got two wrong in the entire quiz, and they were both about football. Dad was always the football fan, not me.
By the way, Prince Charles uses wine to power his vintage Aston Martin. True, that. Google it if you don’t believe me.
The show itself was scheduled for 3rd June, but they were recording it two days in advance. Dad said it was so they could bleep out any swearing when contestants got the answers wrong. I wasn’t sure if he was kidding me or not. He came with me on the Tube, holding my hand, saying he felt like John Travolta, and I was his O’Trivia Newton John. We laughed so hard I thought I’d wet myself.
Did you know that Henry Winkler, the Fonz, was originally cast in the Travolta role in Grease? Or that Travolta fell over during one of the dance routines and sprained his wrist? Or Stockard Channing, who plays Betty Rizzo, was once arrested in Dublin for indecent exposure?
The queues snaked round the block, but we waltzed through the artists’ entrance round the side. I tell you, I felt like a princess that day. My dressing room was bright and posh, like the ones you see in films. There were fresh flowers on the dresser.
Daffodils are edible, and were often served in medieval France as an accompaniment to fish. Roses can grow up to twenty feet high. Flower pollen has been found on the moon.
The highlight, of course, was meeting Eamon Richards. My Mum always had a crush on him, right from when I was small. I must admit, he’s not bad for an older man. He shook my hand and said he was proud to have me on his show, that he’d never had a contestant who’d performed so well in the heats before. It was his privilege, he said. I was going to take the world by storm.
And then…
And then…
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Give me a moment.
I’m supposed to own up to it. My therapist told me that. Say it out loud, make it real. So, yeah. I’m sorry. None of that’s quite right. It’s not… it’s not exactly how it happened.
I won a couple of small quiz contests when I was younger, that much is real. NumberWhizz. Right Answer, Right Now. I doubt you remember that one. I do have the ironic cuddly toy on my shelf, but I never won most of that other stuff.
And I entered Questionmaster. I did. This was ten years ago, though. You won’t have seen me on it. I didn’t make it that far. I got knocked out in the first round, the one they don’t even show on TV. Closest I got to Eamon Richards was watching him turn to the other contestants, as I was ushered off the stage.
As for Dad… he didn’t take me. He wasn’t in any shape to. He was lying in a hospital bed at that point, on the other side of London. Lung cancer. Final stages. Inoperable. Mum said I should defer my entry in the quiz, but I was so confident, so full of it. I think I thought I could cure him, somehow, if I did well enough. If I could be a winner then anything was possible. But instead, I was still at Television Centre when he passed. By the time I got back to the hospital they’d taken him away. Mum was crying by herself, waiting for me in the lobby. I didn’t get to say goodbye.
My therapist says I’m still reliving the pain from that day, ten years on. I don’t know about that. I know I have problems with the truth sometimes, so I’m sorry again. It’s just who I am. I didn’t mean anything by it.
I think I’m going to go for a lie down now. Take my Vitamin D supplements. They help with your memory, you know. I’ve got a sprig of rosemary under my pillow too. The Ancient Greeks used to swear by it, they’d wear it behind their ears if they wanted to remember something. Honestly, it’s true that one. Google it if you don’t believe me.
(c) Dan Coxon, 2017
Dan Coxon is the editor of Being Dad: Short Stories About Fatherhood (Best Anthology: Saboteur Awards 2016) and a Contributing Editor at The Lonely Crowd. His stories have been read at Liars' League events in London, Hong Kong and Portland. When he's not writing, he runs a proofreading and copy-editing business at Momus Editorial.
Patsy Prince trained at RADA and King's College London. Film includes Culture Shock, directed by Steve Balderson, which premiered at Raindance 2012. Theatre credits include: Voices From September 11th (The Old Vic), Like Being Killed (Actors’Centre NYC) and Hidden Voices (Paradoxos Theatre Co., National Tour). www.patsyprince.com
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