Who am I?

This is the introduction to my book, The Quiz Masters, which was published by Allen & Unwin in 2022. It covers all aspects of quizzing from pub trivia to board games to radio quizzes to TV game shows to the World Quizzing Championships, and features interviews with Cary Young, Tony Delroy, Issa Schultz, Larry Emdur, Martin Flood and many, many more. You can find the answers to all the questions mentioned in the text at the bottom of the page.

Four questions. Thirteen seconds. Forty-eight thousand dollars. I can do this, but I’ll have to be bloody fast. Come on, Brydon. Focus. Listen. Speed. Jump in when I can.

‘And your time restarts . . . now.’

‘The confectionery name “nougat” is from which— (This must be about languages, I have to jump in and take the punt).

‘Correct.’

‘In which Sydney park is the Archibald Fountain?’ (Ugh, I’m from Melbourne; guess whatever Sydney park I can name.)

‘Correct.’

‘The film Darkest Hour stars Kristin Scott who?’ (Easy, there’s only one actress with those names).

‘Correct’.

‘In which ocean is . . .’ (Two seconds left, do I jump in and guess Pacific, it’s the biggest ocean with the most islands? No, I can spare one more second.) ‘. . . South Georgia Island? (Thank God I waited.)

‘Ooooohhh! He’s got it, team! Oh, team, it does not get closer than that! I’m really sorry to say goodbye to that $48,000. You have been a terrific team . . .’

***

Four good, hard-working people have just seen their cash prize—$12,000 each—vanish before their eyes. Had I stabbed at Centennial Park instead of Hyde Park, the money would have been theirs. If I had jumped in on the percentage guess—the Pacific Ocean—for the final question, they would have been laughing. Instead, their winnings have disappeared on a remote island in the South Atlantic. The contestants are devastated; I have done my job.

Perhaps running those two thoughts together is misleading. My job is not to devastate people, per se, but it’s a common side effect. As a ‘chaser’ on the television quiz show The Chase Australia, my task is to stand between contestants and their prizemoney, to either beat them and stop them winning a cent, or to make them really earn their cash if they are good enough to defeat me. The role frequently leaves me with mixed feelings. Viewers may be surprised to learn that chasers even have feelings. Much like professional sportspeople, we are fiercely competitive and hate losing, but when we are beaten there is a silver lining: the ecstatic contestants on the winning team have just experienced the highlight of their year. It may even have been a life-changing moment. Good on them, I always think, while simultaneously kicking myself for not knowing what sport Ryan Broekhoff plays, or choosing the wrong colour for the left-hand stripe on Mexico’s flag, or failing under intense time pressure to work out what four-letter word can precede ‘file’, ‘polish’ and ‘clippers’. The flip side is that, more often than not, the contestants go away disappointed, and I always feel for them. Why? Because I’ve been there before. Many, many times.

Years ago, well before The Chase, I read the popular science book Outliers, in which the author Malcolm Gladwell analyses the factors that contribute to success. Gladwell makes frequent references to the ‘10,000-hour rule’, the concept that virtually anyone can reach the elite level in any skill if they put in 10,000 hours of practice. I saw his examples—musicians, sportspeople, entrepreneurs—and wondered why I had wasted my time doing a bit of this and a bit of that. I was a fairly good cricket writer, having spent a decade as a correspondent for ESPNcricinfo, but anyone who works in the same field for ten years should become an expert. Outside work, I was a jack-of-some-trades and master of none. It never occurred to me that quizzing was a skill that I had spent thousands of hours honing—perhaps not 10,000, but well on the way. If that seems like a remarkable lack of self-awareness, I should explain that much of my quiz practice had taken place organically, over nearly three decades. When professional cricketers bat or bowl in the nets, they are clearly refining specific skills for an identifiable purpose. A pianist is obviously practising when they sit down at the piano. I didn’t set out to become a professional quizzer. As far as I knew, no such job existed. But all those hours I came home from school and flicked through atlases and encyclopaedias, memorised lists of prime ministers and capital cities, obsessively watched Sale of the Century and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, trained myself to go on those shows and win money, and wrote thousands of my own trivia questions, turned me into one.

I’m often asked what got me so interested in trivia. The glib answer is that, as the youngest of four children, I was always trying to prove that I was just as good as my older siblings whenever we played Trivial Pursuit. There is some truth to that, but the real explanation is that I have always been intensely competitive at games and sports, and deeply curious about the world around me. Combine those two traits and what do you have? An obsession with quizzing, a sport for the brain.

Sometimes I wonder what my grandfather would make of my job. Ned Pollard, my mother’s father, was a rugged Aussie bloke who grew up the eldest of eight children with not much money, fought in World War II and drove an Army truck that was blown up by a German mine in the North African desert, came home to a Soldier Settler block, cut down timber and split fence posts and built a dairy farm from scratch, lost a finger in a machinery accident, milked cows twice a day for most of his life and worked his body bloody hard until his heart gave up while he was carting hay in his late seventies. And here is his grandson sitting on his backside in an air-conditioned studio, in a tailored blue suit, hair slicked back like a sleazy Mob lawyer, showing off by recalling what famous singer launched the House of Dereon fashion label, or which Marvel character is also known as Power Man, or the name of the easternmost Caribbean island. I hardly know what to make of this absurd situation myself.

I shouldn’t make assumptions. My grandpa loved reading and learning, and in later years we discovered he was a secret bush poet. When I was fourteen, I read his most poignant poem, about the passage of time, at his funeral, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. He was also a great raconteur, always ready with a funny story or a witty aside. He would probably have been proud of the learning involved in my job—and of the need to not take the role too seriously. All four of my grandparents were dairy farmers. Ten of my twelve uncles and aunts were dairy farmers. My parents were dairy farmers. As a child, I had milk flowing through my veins. (Not literally, that would have killed me. Blood is a superior fluid for the human circulation system.)

My father, David Coverdale (who shares his name with the lead singer of which rock band?), dreamed of being a radio presenter, and, as a naturally talkative, curious type, he would have been great at it. But he never got that chance. He was pushed into dairying by his father and made to leave school at fourteen despite having little interest in the farm. He never wanted to impose that on his children; we were encouraged to choose our way in life, and, for all four of us, that meant moving to Melbourne to study at university. Like many family farms of the era, ours was sold when Mum and Dad retired. I studied journalism and travelled the world covering the Australian team’s tours in my dream job as a cricket writer. Now, I’m a professional quiz player. How is that even a thing? Here I am, a married father of three, dropping my kids off at school or kinder while the other parents go off to perform valuable, important occupations. Doctors. Police officers. Teachers. But I wouldn’t trade this job for the world.

Dictionaries tell us that trivia, by definition, has little value or importance. Dictionaries are wrong. Trivia can bring together families over a board game. It can unite communities at a fund-raising quiz night. It keeps friends in touch over a pub trivia evening, and in a locked-down world in 2020 and 2021 it maintained vital social connections through quiz events on Zoom. It has turned the loneliest hour, midnight to 1 a.m., into a lively hub on national radio. Trivia can provide an outlet for people who struggle to find their place in life, and gives them something of which they can be proud. And if that is not enough value, it can also lead to cold, hard cash. Just ask Martin Flood, Rob Fulton and Andrew Skarbek, all of whom became millionaires on Australian quiz shows. Just ask the countless other contestants who have earned life-changing money on television quizzes.

Just ask me. At 5 p.m. on weeknights, I sit in judgement on trivia players, hundreds upon hundreds of contestants since The Chase Australia began in 2015. I know exactly how they feel. Once upon a time, it was me trying to win big on game shows. Or win small on radio quizzes. Or win bragging rights at Trivial Pursuit. This is the story of my experiences—the triumphs, the hurdles, the failures—and those of others like me. From prime ministers to meatworkers, from comedians to funeral celebrants, Australians love their trivia. Why? That’s the million-dollar question.

Answers

Q: The confectionery name ‘nougat’ is from which language?

A: French

Q: In which Sydney Park is the Archibald Fountain?

A: Hyde Park

Q: The film Darkest Hour stars Kristin Scott who?

A: Thomas

Q: In which ocean is South Georgia Island?

A: Atlantic

Q: What sport does Ryan Broekhoff play?

A: Basketball

Q: What colour is the left-hand stripe on Mexico’s flag?

A: Green

Q: What four-letter word can precede ‘file’, ‘polish’ and ‘clippers’?

A: Nail (I find the answer to this kind of question either comes to mind straight away or not at all)

Q: Which famous singer launched the House of Dereon fashion label?

A: Beyoncé

Q: Which Marvel character is also known as Power Man?

A: Luke Cage

Q: What is the name of the easternmost Caribbean island?

A: Barbados

Q: Which band was fronted by singer David Coverdale?

A: There are two acceptable answers: Whitesnake or Deep Purple