Article on pages 15 - 16 of Dickon Independent issue 86

Pointless

I wish I had been a contestant on Pointless on Monday 22 October as I knew the answers to many of the questions and even got a Pointless answer in the final - which would have won me the jackpot!

For those who don’t know, Pointless is on BBC One every week day at 5.15pm. The object is to get as few points as possible. Every time a contestant gets a Pointless answer - 0 - £250 is added to the jackpot of £1000 a day. This mounts up until one of the four pairs of contestants who start the show each day gets a Pointless answer in the final. Next day the jackpot starts at £1000 again. Anyone who gets to the final wins the Pointless trophy, regardless of whether they win the money or not - and most don’t.

But on 22 October, one of the questions in the Head to Head concerned the Wars of the Roses. Gleeful cheers from me! Bill said I must get them all right and decide which question would get the lowest points ie which was the answer least likely to be known? All the questions are put to a panel of 100 people before the show, and however many people answer correctly is the number of points won by the contestant who chooses that answer.

The two male friends who got through to the final chose “Century the wars took place in” but answered incorrectly. However they answered the other two questions in the round correctly to go through - it’s the first pair to answer two questions correctly in the Head to Head who make it to the final.

So here are the questions, with many thanks to BBC One HD and iPlayer and Apple’s iPad:- (see the illustrations below)

The answers are on page 19.

In the final they chose to answer a question about Sporting Achievements, from a list of five alternatives. Usually sport draws a blank from me but this time I was inspired! The question was to name three Goal of the Season winners on Match of the Day since the 1970's. Well, Bill and I regularly watched Derby County at the Baseball Ground in those far off days. We’d walk to the ground clutching our sliced and buttered malt loaf to eat at half-time (often the best bit of the match!) So I said Archie Gemmill - and lo and behold he was one of the Pointless answers! The two men didn’t win.

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