Recently I attended a recording of the Weakest Link Game show as a contestant. Unfortunately I was voted off on the second round, not unfairly as I got the answers to both my questions wrong.
My early departure while not unfair could be construed as unlucky (if not somewhat unlikely!). When preparing for the weakest link I viewed several recent shows on the BBC iPlayer to estimate the number of questions I could typically answer on each round. This gave figures of between 90 and 95% for the first two rounds and something like 70 to 75% for subsequent rounds. This activity was conducted mainly to determine what my banking strategy should be, with these numbers I had decided that I should not bank the teams winnings before my question on the first two rounds, but always on subsequent rounds. It might be interesting to investigate optimal banking strategies but I did not have time for that so I settled for the above rule of thumb.
I had a total of four questions, two on each round, of which I got one right (no I can’t remember that question). The question that I got wrong on the first round was (something like): A trowel is most like what common item of cutlery? My first thought was that a trowel was not like any of the common items of cutlery (fork, knife, spoon) and as the trowel I had in mind was a builders trowel and I use mine like a large pallet knife I opted for knife. After some consultation with friends in the office we concluded that the question setters may have had a gardeners trowel in mind, which as it is dished makes some sense of the “correct” answer of a spoon. I suppose there is a possibility that the question read “garden trowel” but if so I did not hear the “garden”. On the second round my first question was the second name of the man involved in a celebrity wedding (her name and his first name given). After hearing the answer I am still no wiser as to who they were (and can’t google for them as I don’t recall their names). The last question was the name of the band responsible for a recent-ish album release (album name given), in this case at least I had heard of the band though am not knowingly familiar with their work. As I knew that the Eagles had released a new album fairly recently (Long Road Out of Eden) I offered them as my answer, the correct answer was “Guns N’ Roses”. There must have been something in the question to suggest that the band was a “classic” otherwise “Eagles” would not have suggested itself as an answer.
As questions like these should represent no more than 10% of all questions in these rounds,
I suppose I was just unlucky (or was I?
).
In the first round we banked a total of £50, we had got up to £800 but then the guy who had the £1000 question received a question like my trowel question (one lacking sufficient reference to allow the victim to make the necessary connections. It was something like: What does the abbreviation CRES stand for on an addressed envelope? Seeing this written down makes this much easier but in the show with no other reference making the connection to crescent was tricky)
Anne Robinson (the host) grilled me as she does most contestants, She described by job as sexy, as I suppose it is, and asked what I actually do, to which I replied that I mostly sit around drinking coffee, scratching my head and looking puzzled. She also asked for a mathematical joke, but I offered a philosophical one, then fluffed it (it was supposed to be the Descartes joke).
If I had survived longer I expect she would have grilled me about MHF.
It was a very enjoyable experience being on The Weakest Link, a real adrenalin rush. The other players are all friendly (even when planning on stabbing you in the back; I'm thinking of you Denis with one "n"
).
CB