What would be the ultimate nightmare special subject for Mastermind?  I thought about this question to calm my nerves while waiting to record the round in which I appear on December 5, 2008. [My best answer, which amused John Humphrys: Decimal Places Of Pi.

“What is decimal place of Pi  number 287,366?”

The savant contending in the chair replies “3 point 14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510…”

“Your two minutes are up,” says John frantically,but for the first time in the programme’s history the contender says “I’ve started so I’ll finish” and grinds out the remaining places.]

My nightmare was not far from the truth. According to the late Magnus Magnusson, the programme was offered as a special subject Perfect Squares From 99-Squared=9801. It was turned down. Other notable rejects have included Routes to Anywhere in Mainland Britain by Road from Letchworth, the Managerial Career of Brian Clough, the Development of the Self-Service Petrol Station, and the Banana Industry. A small girl’s plea for her father to go on the programme failed when she gave as his special subject The History Of Loganberries. What has Mastermind got against fruit?

More recently, the question-setting team turned down The Natural Life Of The Goldfish. Since goldfish proverbially have no memory, it probably feared a record number of passes.

Mastermind is not keen on professionals showing off their specialist knowledge, so it was thumbs-down for the private pilot who proposed  Meteorology for the Private Pilot Licence, and ashes for the undertaker who tried Cremation Practice and Law in Britain. And as for the surgeon who offered Orthopaedic Bone Cement in Total Hip Replacement – he came unstuck.

But as devotees will know, many special subjects which have made it are every bit as exotic as those rejected. Take for example, The Life-Cycle and Habits of the Honey Bee. Why were bees thought more worthy than goldfish? And did the cremation expert feel aggrieved when another entrant was allowed to answer on Burial Grounds of London? Mastermind turned down The History of the Existentialist and Phenomonological Philosophical Movement: did that outcast phenomenon shout out the answers when watching the 1992 winner, Steve Williams, take Post-Socratic Philosophy?

I dread to think who shouted out the answers to The Vampire in British Fiction and Notable British Poisoners, or indeed Aztec Mythology. Not many viewers at home managed The Moomin Saga by Tove Jansson, unless they had been readers of the old London Evening News, where the hippo-like trolls used to appear as a comic strip. And it was probably “nul points” at home for those watching The Eleventh-century Japanese Tale of Genji and Lady Murasaki or The Buddhist Sage Niciren.

The really esoteric subjects tend to come from the early years of Mastermind. The new series has been accused of “dumbing down”, especially last year when Jennifer Aniston was a special subject. In its defence, the BBC cited those in competition with her in that round: German wines (which produced many ad hock answers at home), painter and feminist icon Frida Kahlo, and the life and career of Henry Ford.

Such accusations are not new: Mastermind tends to attract purists among its devotees. As far back as the early 1980s some were shocked when jazz musicians began to appear as specialist subjects: Duke Ellington; Count Basie (and his Orchestra); Woody Herman. They were soon to be followed by Pop Music 1955-79, Paul Simon and the Beatles. In 1996 the Cornish ex-punk Alan Whitaker offered The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock. The BBC bleeped out the word Bollocks from his question on their first album. The door was also opened to Dr Who and Warner Brothers Cartoons. 

Penelope Cowell Dee, Mastermind’s producer in the 1980s, suggested revealingly that the admission of “popular subjects” was a response to the changing nature of contestants. “One of the assumptions made at the start of Mastermind was that everyone would know Shakespearean quotations and classical mythology – and people did, because they were educated in that way… but it was no longer true of younger contestants, however good or well-educated they were.”

I have competed in both series, having been joint runner-up in 1996. I did not find any evidence of dumbing-down in either the auditions for the new series or the actual round in which I was a contender. (By the way, Mastermind entrants are always contenders, never contestants. We do not compete against each other, we contend against a shared ordeal. The interrogator is our common adversary, as befits a programme invented by a prisoner of war). But  specialist subjects have undoubtedly become more popular since the early days. 

The first-ever winner, Nancy Wilkinson in 1972, offered French Literature, European Antiques and, in her final, the History of Music 1550-1900. The next five winning subjects were Grand Opera, the works of Dorothy L Sayers, Athens 500-400 BC and the Duke of Wellington. Throughout the first series, history dominated the choices of winners, and there were very few subjects that crossed into mass culture. By contrast, the winning subjects in the current series have been Golfing Majors since 1970, FA Cup Finals since 1970 (clearly a watershed year, 1970), Father Ted, Margaret Mitchell and Gone With The Wind, and LondonBridge. In my round, my choice of W C Fields was up against Tacitus, JonathanCreek and Keith Moon. I make that 3 – 1 to the lowbrows.

What makes contenders choose a special subject? Quite simply, because we love them. I love W C Fields and choosing him was a perfect excuse to watch his films again and savour his rasping, Martini-drenched locutions. My three choices in 1996 were Harry Truman, America’s principled, peppery postwar President, British politics between the wars, both subjects I cared about, and, for the final, my all-time cricket idol Garry Sobers.   

I had the thrill of meeting my special subject at a celebrity cricket match just before that final. He was tickled pink to be a quiz show subject but almost useless as a source, for although it was thrilling to hear him recapture his great feats he could rarely supply the dull details, such as time and place and score in the book, which would occupy the question-setters. I have always been glad that I did not have Geoff Boycott as a special subject. I feel that he would have taken me through his career ball by ball: “… and then I played forward, and then I ran out Derek Randall…”

We Mastermind contenders have to love our special subjects because they take over our lives. I have spoken to many others, and we all agree. When you go on the programme, you obsess about your special subject, so it had better be someone or something you want to live with for weeks on end. It even takes over your dreams. Twelve years on I still have a nightmare in which I cannot remember Harry Truman’s Vice-President (who, as every reader knows, was Alben W Barkley).

A Mastermind special subject gives a glimpse into a stranger’s secret life. It is especially intriguing when people break out of their stereotypes, when the giant wrestler offers The Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the university professor offers The Life of Big Daddy (given name, Shirley Crabtree).  Conversely, Mastermind also produces fascinating people who have lived very close to their special subject. The current series offered living history when retired Coventry teacher Jean Taylor answered questions on The Coventry Blitz – which she survived as a wartime teenager.

For this reason I really welcome the innovation in the current series, the mini-interview before the general knowledge round when John Humphrys asks people why they got involved in their special subject. At times he seems to slip into the inquisitorial role he uses for politicians, as when asking one contender why he liked the “miserable” music of the Smiths. But for most contenders, and certainly for me, he shows a genuine, friendly curiosity about why people seek out such extraordinary byways of specialized knowledge.

I wish he had been around to probe the contender’s motives for choosing Notable British Poisoners.