The prodigy

On Tuesday night on Channel 4, a stern male figure peered over his glasses (as equipped with one of those cords favoured by themiddle-aged specs-wearer) and offered us his robust views on how government benefits encourage laziness. Which might not sound that unusual — except that the male figure in question was 12.

His name, no less improbably, was Mog and he was a contestant in the new series of Child Genius, now hosted by Richard Osman — these days almost as ubiquitous on television as Susan Calman is onRadio 4. As ever, the first few minutes were spent assuring us how fiendish the quiz would be; but, as ever too, this was no mere hype. One of Mog’s early questions was what comes next in the sequence 1, 3, 5, 15, 17, and although the avuncular Osman disappointingly failed to explain why Mog’s instant answer of ‘51’ was correct, a spot of Googling has revealed that the sequence is formed by alternately multiplying by three and adding two.