Mark Mason talks about trivia via books, articles, guided walks and the pub.
When you play a game – cards, backgammon, chess – should you listen to your head or your heart? Do you sit there coldly calculating the odds, or do you go with a hunch, gut instinct, your sixth sense? It’s a question I’m discussing with Marcus du Sautoy as we sit in the Beaumont Hotel
They are, to quote Mark Knopfler, down in the tunnel trying to make it pay. Transport for London has this week been holding auditions for buskers, assessing the performers for licences that allow access to pitches on the Tube and, for the first time, the Elizabeth line. It’s a bureaucratic approach to a traditionally informal
I love it when the England cricket team flies east in the winter. It means they’re playing in the early morning, UK time, and that’s just when I need them the most. Because cricket is a powerful antidepressant. Without the sound or sight of bat on ball, early mornings at the moment would hold their
What is it about a tunnel that excites us so? Last week’s story about the secret one in a New York synagogue fascinated the world, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that no one knew why the thing had been built in the first place. Police attempted to close it, and indeed fill it
Welcome to the month that faces backwards to last year and forwards to this – which is why it’s named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions, who himself has two faces. Read on to discover January’s trivia, including a joke from Stevie Wonder, a mistake by David Blunkett’s officials, and the reason Heather Mills
‘What do you know about Keir Starmer?’ My friend’s question came as we sat in the pub. It was part of an experiment, based on something he’d noticed. ‘Used to be Director of Public Prosecutions,’ I replied. ‘That’s the first thing everyone says. Anything else?’ ‘Er …’ John gave me a prompt: ‘Is he married? Does
This month’s timely trivia includes a canny England footballer, an endangered Lady Astor and a confused Nicholas Parsons. Oh, and we learn how many cups of coffee Steven Spielberg has drunk in his life … ANSWER: The stations are Heathrow Terminal 5, Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminals 2&3, Hatton Cross, Hounslow West, Hounslow Central and
Sad news from the Hall and Oates camp, where ‘I Can’t Go For That’ has become ‘I Can’t Go Within A Specified Distance of You’, Daryl Hall having taken out a restraining order on John Oates. Actually, we don’t know whether a distance is specified, as the details of the order remain secret. But we
This month’s crop of trivia includes a secret about the Tube map, the US state that’s named after Elizabeth I and something Jimi Hendrix had in common with Winston Churchill… Otto’s servants indulged his desire to shoot a peasant by taking it in turns to disguise themselves as one, then collapsing in the distance after
The name is the only clue you need. The French and German words for ‘yes’ show that the board will always tell you what you want to hear. Mind you, Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard, who invented the Ouija board for their novelty games company, claimed that Bond’s sister-in-law, a spiritualist, was given the name
When a building’s construction requires the closure of a nearby airport, you know that the building is tall. But that’s the thing about the Square Mile at the moment – it’s so successful that the only way is up. The cranes on 22 Bishopsgate (rather than the building itself) reached such a height, as the
If both players in a game of draughts stick to their optimal moves, the game will always end in a draw. You or I might have guessed that anecdotally. But being a mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy knows it for sure. The calculations that proved it took 200 desktop computers 18 years to perform. The Prussian
This month’s trivia takes in the reason football became known as ‘soccer’, the reason iPhones have virtual keyboards rather than real ones, and the reason Spiro Agnew once made a hurried departure from a Spectator lunch. Agnew once attended a Spectator lunch at which one of the other guests was Barry Humphries
Poor old Daniel Khalife. He must have thought his exit from HMP Wandsworth, hidden underneath a delivery van, would win ‘Most Creative Prison Escape of the Week’. But actually that title had already been nabbed by Danelo Cavalcante, who stood in a narrow external passageway at Pennsylvania’s Chester County prison, leaned forward so his hands
Thinking of adding another six strings to your bow? You wouldn’t be alone – lockdown inspired plenty of people to learn the guitar. The trend may have lessened as people return to the office, but it has still meant UK and European sales for the guitar maker Fender are £5 million higher than before Covid.
This month’s dose of trivia and anecdote sees a Yorkshireman insulting an England cricketer, the young Beyoncé training her voice in an unusual way, and Keith Floyd taking revenge on a table of diners who’d made one of his waitresses cry… All three female Prime Ministers of the UK have had the same initials, albeit
Farewell then, the Crooked House. The 18th-century pub, in the West Midlands village of Himley, hasn’t just stopped being a pub – it’s stopped existing, full stop. Just days after its sale to a private buyer for ‘alternative use’, the famously wonky building – where coins and marbles appeared to roll uphill – was gutted
We don’t know if the two teenagers who attempted a train robbery in Scotland this week knew that it was the 60th anniversary of the most famous one in British history. Given their failure – nothing was stolen and the charges include ‘malicious mischief’ – it seems unlikely. Either way, the train robbery of August
Our monthly trivia round-up started with July, named after Julius Caesar – now we reach the segment of the year named after the emperor Augustus. It’s the month with the shortest war in history, the theft of the Mona Lisa, and the execution of William Wallace. You won’t believe what happened to his left leg…
