Fifteen-to-One - Schools 04
So the next day we arrived at the station, content in that whatever the outcome of today and hopefully tomorrow, we'd got at least one day off school. We went through the train ritual again, and arrived at East Putney some time in the early afternoon. This time we had to walk straight to the studio, as only the winners of the semi-finals, which are all recorded today, would get to stay in the hotel and be treated like A-list celebrities once more. In a fast-forwarded version of events last time, we signed in at the studio, and went to the green room again, where we were slightly intimidated to find that we were the only team not to be wearing a school uniform in this show. We also appeared to be considerably older than the other teams, which set alarm bells ringing that in 10 years' time we'd all be pushing 30. After make-up, Lizzie drew our position on the set again. This time we were number 1 (how appropriate), so we'd be getting the first questions, which I considered an advantage because we'd always be pushing ahead to begin with, but the football watching contingent of the team disliked it, saying the other teams would have "questions in hand".
There was just time for our quick team talk again (imagine watching a basketball team talk with the sound muted), and then we were called to the set. For some reason, one of the dogsbodies wanted to talk to me about my dark jumper (how clever of me to wear that in the heat of the studio), so I arrived on set five minutes after the rest of the team, and everyone else for that matter. With all of us in a state of nervous delirium, we try the Mexican wave stunt again, this time it does get as far as the third team, who were Dollar Academy from Scotland, but sort of petered out after about 12 or 13 people, and was met with a query of "what exactly is the purpose of this exercise?" from Rathmore Grammar of Belfast, the school in the middle. We couldn't answer this, so we didn't try it again. Oh well. While Philip recorded the opening voice-over again, we went through the procedure of recording the opening sequence once more, this time I think I managed to stand up straight, only for us to be shown the opening sequence featuring a shot of me tilted even further than last time. William G. walked onto the set, had his usual talk with us all, I tried - and failed - to wangle a career in television, and then we started...
And what a start it was. Daniel: "Ready Steady Cook" (10 points!). Sarah "Chocolate" (10 points!). Me: "Lotus" (10 points!). Nick "Space stations" (10 points!). Andrew: "Ajax" (10 points!). Once again, a clean sweep of the first five questions! With the second set, we didn't do as well. Two things which are supposed to be important to A-level students are university points and beer, but Daniel and Nick get their questions on these things wrong. Not to worry, we still ended round one in the lead with 80 points.
In the second round, our good fortunes continued. At least one person on our team knew the answer to each question we were given, except the question about the "Winter Of Discontent", which as luck would have it, came up in an economics lesson about two weeks later. Sarah even managed to hold up recording for five minutes while an "incorrect" answer she gave was checked, only for it to be discovered that her answer was more correct than the one on William G's card!!! Her moment of glory, however, was brutally cut out. The entire question and answer was re-recorded with William G. giving his famous "well, the answer on my card is...but that's acceptable, too", and this got shown instead of the seemingly endless umming and aahing of William G, Michele the floor manager, and Mary. Next time you see him say that, remember this: he doesn't know-it-all, but Mary-the-adjudicator-who-lives-upstairs has a book that does. Our relaxed attitude to all this malarkey (been there, done that...) paid off, as we ended round two on 185 points, about 40 ahead of the other two teams. During the break, one of the other two people who would appear in the second half said "Should we bother? It's a forgone conclusion?"
Well, it should have been, but that's not exactly what happened...
Following the shooting of individual profile shots, and Philip's recording of the second half voice-over, where he accidentally credits me with doing four A-levels instead of three plus a GCSE, we start the final, where whoever had the highest score at the end, no matter how high or low, would be in the final. I thought would be best to take it easy at the start and not carelessly lose my lives, but my calmness was soon shattered by the other two. Buzzing in at the earliest opportunity each time, after about halfway Dollar had caught up with and overtaken me, and Rathmore were very close behind as well. Then, on the nineteenth question, having lost two lives already, the Dollar student buzzed in too early, and lost his last life. Suddenly, I was back in the lead again. William G continued with the questions. On the next one, James from Rathmore and me both went in at the same time, but his light was the one that came on. But again, he gave a wrong answer, and lost his last life. That meant that I'd won our way into the final, having only got three questions right in the whole of the second half! The feeling of relief was immense; a bit like a wet dog running straight at you and turning away just as it looks as if it's about to dry itself off all over your new Ben Sherman shirt.
So we returned to the hotel that was almost our second home (we wish). It was quite late in the afternoon, so we didn't have too long to wait before another fancy dinner for free. Put off by the prospect of revision, we then returned to our rooms, only to all reappear in the hotel's bar later in the evening to watch some football match or other, along with the almost entire membership of the other teams who were in the final tomorrow. We even found an Ipswich Town fan. Honestly, they're everywhere. Except, of course when you need one. Then they're nowhere.
The next morning, we woke up in our rooms, which were scattered all over the hotel, and arrived for breakfast at the slightly more socially acceptable hour of 8:00am. Further attempts at revision squashed by Sarah answering everything with "The Menai Straits", we went back to our rooms to make ourselves pretty. Then everyone turned up in the room owned by me and Nick, telling me I looked a complete arse with my hair spiked up at that length, and we finally succumbed to the need for some last minute cramming of European capitals. At some time later in the morning, we got on the minibus to face our impending fate. Arriving at the studio and signing in yet again, we (where "we" = all three teams plus reserves and teachers) went to the green room (our third home), which, especially for us, had been furnished with eight chocolates and eight liquorice allsorts (those are estimates, but they're not very far out), and today's newspapers, going as far up the scale of quality as The Times. In make up, we are told that the crew behind the scenes have a sweepstake on the grand final's outcome, and that the lady doing my make up has drawn our team. No pressure, then. No pressure at all.
As an extra treat for getting through to the grand final, all the teams were allowed into canteen A. For those who could stomach cooked food, there was roast beef plus extra stuff, something which William G apparently demands on the day of every grand final. For the rest of us, there was a variety of fancy salad, bread and stuff. I chicken out, choosing to have a lump of Edam, a slice of granary bread and a lettuce leaf. Me, Lizzie and Andrew sat around this tiny table, which already had a lady in a green jumper sitting there. Andrew asked her what she did. "I do William's hair", she said. ""Oh, wait, hang on" I said "Your name's... Jade, isn't it?". "Yes, it is". I'd seen it on the credits of other shows, and we had a small, but not hysterical, laugh about this kind of "mini-fame". The four of us chatted for the rest of the time we were there, while Daniel, Sarah, and our teachers did the same around another table; and Nick sat on yet another table, pointing out to me that he was behind Laura, who does the voice-over for the grand final.
...and then we went to the studio for one last stab at glory. Once more we did our opening pictures (hey, I'm almost vertical this time!), while at the same time Laura fluffed the opening introduction several times over, and then we started. In the first round the first two teams, Haberdasher's Aske's from godknowswhere and Audenshaw from Manchester both did reasonably well, and we knew that we (in position 3, although I wanted position 2 so that we could be under the big sign that said "Fifteen to One SCHOOLS GRAND FINAL") would have to do at least as well to keep up. It's not exactly a good start. Daniel and Sarah get their first questions wrong. Daniel doesn't know that the Welsh National Party is called Plaid Cymru. Fair enough. But for Sarah to not know that the English football goalkeeper is David Seaman and even worse guess at that famous Englishman Peter Schmichel, well... Me, Nick and Andrew manage to salvage some pride, as we all get ours. In our second questions, we do our now traditional clean sweep to recover ourselves, and actually take the lead, having 80 points to the other teams' 70 points each. In round two, we decide to confer if at all unsure, and this pays for us, even though we go into the break in last place, as we are only three questions or so behind Haberdasher's Aske's, and only 5 points behind Audenshaw.
To get extra confidence, and just to avoid being the only person left standing on the set during the break, I went into the space in the "audience" where the rest of my team were sitting. After another team talk, I went out onto the set, and got ready for battle. William G reappeared, and we started.
I got off to a fantastic start, taking loads of the early questions, some of which with some outrageously early interruptions. But it wasn't quite enough.
I just failed to keep the advantage over Haberdasher's Aske's, although we were both outshone by Audenshaw, who, courtesy of the v.v.tall Ian Moss, stormed ahead at the end to take the prize.
Laura came on and presented the prize, sadly not a relic from the sixth century BC but a silver trophy from the twentieth century AD, and then spoke to me as we recorded the extra-long end-of-series credits, in front of an audience of about 30 real people plus the applause button.
So that was it. Our voyage, which began over half a year ago had finally finished with us becoming the third best quiz team in Britain. Not bad for a group of lower sixthers, who looked like mere kiddies compared to many of the other teams in the series, who looked as though they were all at least 25. We went back to the green room for one last time, where we were presented with a presentation (funny, that) pen, plus the name boards that we'd stood behind. Spotting a photo opportunity, we do a "standing on the spiral staircase" shot in the studios' courtyard, and some of us, still starstruck despite being veterans of this place, get our name boards signed by televisual DEITY William G.
Since then, we got home (obviously), the shows have been transmitted, to many congratulatory phone calls from friends and family. In combination with two appearances in the local paper WITH THE SAME PHOTO EACH TIME, some of us have become minor celebrities for our achievements. Sarah's been on the receiving end of all sorts of "humorous" comments for saying that the England goalkeeper was Peter Schmichael, and I was spotted in a record shop by a trio of twentysomething DJs, who spotted me as I was taking an Art Of Noise single back. Possibly my one and only encounter with the world of "cool".
If YOU were on 15 to 1 (for schools), and reading this on that wonderful thing that is the information "WARNING! SLIPPERY FLOOR" corridor, why not e-mail me. Actually there's probably many reasons not to e-mail, but if you're still deluded enough to want to, you can write a message to me, at marks25@nme.com. That is all. I'm going now bye. Where's my £5?