Woman Wins BBC Quiz

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 947, 4 October 1957, Page 22

Woman Wins BBC Quiz

By

J. W.

GOODWIN

(London)

| [F you don’t know how to make yogr hurt or what the Rigsdag is, you need not feel ashamed. Neither did the "Brain of Britain, 1957," after 56 people had competed for the title in the BBC Light Programme series "What Do You Know?" At a time when so many of the most boosted brains are far. from attractivelooking mechanical marvels, this brain is a 27-year-old teacher from Belfast, Miss Rosemary Watson. No woman had previously survived as far as the semifinals, and she had never before broadcast, but she beat 44 men. Just how decisively she defeated her two final male competitors, qa clerk and a curator, is shown by the scores: she gained 27 points, compared to their 12 and 10. Interest in horses took her over one hurdle when she answered a question which the other two finalists failed: What is a sorrel horse? She knew it was a_ reddish-brown colour. International affairs, food values, tennis, bridge-on all these subjects she answered correctly questions which stumped the others. What Do YOU Know? How would you have fared in Miss Watson’s position if asked the following questions? Those requiring special local knowledge of Britain have been omitted. (1) What happened at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944? (2) What is the calorific value of a buttered slice of ‘toast? (3) What is the correct size of a tennis ball? (4) What is a singleton in bridge?

(5) What is the French equivalent to New Scotland Yard? (6) Which famous poem ends: "You'll be a Man, my son"? (7) Which work by Beethoven includes a sound picture of a thunderstorm? (8) What are the four sections of the heart called? (9) Which heraldic colour is argent? (10) What does "homologate" mean? (11) Where would you be most likely to see orphrey work? Her correct answers were: (1) Foundations laid of United Nations; (2) About 200 calories; (3) Between two and a half inches and two and fiveeighths; (4) Solitary card of a particular suit held by one player; (5) Sureté; (6) "If," by Kipling; (7) Pastoral Symphony, No. 6; (8) Right and _ left auricles and right and left ventricles; (9) Silver, usually represented as white; (10) Agree or approve; (11) Gold embroidery, usually on priest’s vestments. Would you have done any better with the 10 questions the "Brain of Britain" was unable to answer? (1) What was the rise recently given to British M.P.s? (2) How would you make yoghurt? (3) Which European country has been first a part of Spain, then of Austria, of France, and finally part of the Netherlands? (4) What is the difference between the stratosphere and the troposphere? (5) Who is King of Greece?

(6) What is the Rigsdag? (7) Who was Phileas Fogg’s servant in "Around the World in 80 Days"? (8) Who is Prime Minister of Pakistan? (9) To whom, would you give a sostrum? (10) Where did the polka originate? Of course you knew: (1) From £1000 to £1750; (2) Add bacillus bulgaris to sour milk; (3) Belgium; (4) The troposphere extends seven miles up, the stratosphere is above that; (5) Paul I; (6) Parliament of Denmark; (7) Jean Passepartout; (8) Mr Suhrawardy; (9) Reward to anyone who has saved your life. The last of Miss Watson’s failures was one of the most surprising. She knew what to do with a passe-measure, she would dance it; she knew that when you "polk" you dance a polka; but she did not know that the polka originated in Bohemia. That must have made her hopping mad!