And your specialist subject...?

[beanzontoast]

Caught an ad for Mastermind the other day and it started me thinking. I realised I wouldn't know what to choose as a specialist subject. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades (or as Diana Krall sang to me last night, "I know a little bit about a lot of things"). Really, it's the story of my life. What I wasn't taught and needed to know, I went and found out to the extent that nowadays, most of what I know is stuff I've taught myself. Probably wouldn't survive 2 mins on any one area, but the general knowledge stuff would be ok.

Am I alone in not being an expert on anything?

What would your specialist subject be?

 

[Night Train]

Scammell lorries 1929 - 1956

 

[Chrisz]

Despite having a Degree and being a lecturer - I still know an awful lot about nothing

 

[beanzontoast]

Despite having a Degree and being a lecturer - I still know an awful lot about nothing

My degree was multi-discipline. I studied 5 totally different subject areas (and one of those subdivided into 3) in all over 4 years, then did postgrad qualifications in 2 other new subject areas. All of which pales by what I've had to teach myself since.

 

[Hilldodger]

The life of 'World's Bicycling Champion' Fred Wood.

But they'd probably have to come to me set the questions

 

[Chrisz]

My degree was multi-discipline. I studied 5 totally different subject areas (and one of those subdivided into 3) in all over 4 years, then did postgrad qualifications in 2 other new subject areas. All of which pales by what I've had to teach myself since.

Blimey!!

I did a Joint Honours - don't think I'd have been able to handle 5 subjects !!

 

[Night Train]

Unicorns - the myths and the facts.

 

[Steve Austin]

The collected works of Josh Homme

 

[TVC]

The metrology of automotive brake disks.

 

[Dave5N]

Oil.


Ooops, wrong thread.

 

[Priscilla Parsley]

Martha Stewart

 

[PaulB]

You could choose pretty much anything, they give you a crib sheet anyway, apparently!

But what you don't want to do is what an arrogant surgeon of my aquaintance did and choose too broad a subject. He thought he was the bee's-knees and told everyone he was going on the show...until he'd been on it and then refused to say when it was being broadcast. He chose "Winston Churchill" which is way too big a subject. "Winston Churchill - the War Years" maybe but he asked to be quizzed on this subject and so he was. He got 4 points on his specialist round! Fffffffour points! He was so embarrassed, he never recovered and got fewer points in both rounds collectively than the next worst scoring player got on their specialist round alone.

 

[vernon]

I once scored more than a contestant on the specialist knowledge round. He scored thirteen and I scored fifteen points. The subject? Post grouping and pre-nationalisation railways in the UK 1923-1948. My wife was gobsmacked.

Train-spotter, railway buff and railway modeller, me? Nahhh. Not in public anyway....

 

[vernon]

You could choose pretty much anything, they give you a crib sheet anyway, apparently!

if this assertion was based upon a Radio Five personality's assertion it is wrong.

Apparent the celebrity contestants on celebrity mastermind were given sheets which pointed them to sources of information about their chosen subjects.

There is the tale that once contestant chose such an esoteric subject in which he was a world authority - the research department of Mastermind approached him to help set the questions not realising that he was also the contestant. Musty have been called John Smith or something similarly common not to arouse suspicions or there was a dopey researcher employed.

 

[rich p]

I often think that anyone who has a huge depth of knowledge of some subject like Startrek or the novels of Catherine Cookson is someone I probably wouldn't want to spend and evening with in The Bag of Nails