How unusual. I’ve just this minute had a surprise telephone interview to be on a TV quiz show on Monday. I didn’t get chance to have any pre-exam nerves, as I had no warning, the guy just phoned me. Didn’t he know it’s the King of Thailand’s birthday, and that I am sick and shouldn’t be disturbed? Clearly not.
When he said that he was from “TV’s Brainteaser”, I thought he must be phoning to complain that I have been swamping their web site with competition entries to win a prize at about 25 entries per second for the last few days. So I was a bit defensive. But he didn’t want to harass me about my web bombardment. He didn’t even mention it.
I was initially relieved when he said that he just wanted to do a phone interview for me to be on the show. About five seconds later, I realized that I was having a phone interview, and that he was asking me general knowledge questions. I had a dilemma. He said that I could return to questions I couldn’t answer later. I was sat in front of my laptop, connected to the internet, and every single answer was at my fingertips. Could I type quietly enough so that he wouldn’t hear? I could surely find the answers out in the time it took me to bluff my way through thinking about answers. Could I mute the phone while I typed like a secretarial chicken on crack, and found the answers to questions about Swedish footballers?
As Internet Explorer leapt into life, and I pondered this conundrum, I noticed that I wasn’t paying any attention to the man asking me questions, or to coming up with the answers. As I asked him to repeat the question, I remembered that professional quiz show entrants are ringers. They normally flunk about a third of interview questions so that they didn’t present too much of a mismatch with other entrants. That way they are paired up with ‘average contestants’ and can unleash their full potential when the money is up for grabs on TV. My fingers shrank back from the keyboard. I got some answers wrong, and in doing so, I passed the interview.
I must admit that it’s been a while since I’ve been asked to get ready to appear on television in 72 hours time. So I declined the kind offer to ‘win up to 3000 pounds’ on Monday afternoon, saying that I was busy. They’ll be back again. Begging for me to appear no doubt.