There has been a lot of excitement in the office this week as Howell, one of our drivers, explains:
“On Sunday night I was knowledgeable enough to win £250,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or WWTBAM which I now realise is the acronym for the show).
I say “knowledgeable” but could just as easily say “lucky” as, having watched all programmes in the current series, I would have struggled to get as far in most of the other shows – let alone any further!
Gathering General Knowledge has been a lifetime hobby for me. I love learning new things – but mainly in a fairly narrow area encompassing Military History, History, Geography, Sport and Politics. But my knowledge of subjects like Music and Literature are comparatively poor and other subjects fall in between these two groups.
Getting a seat to even attempt to be “fastest finger first” is a steep cliff. With 66 places available and 94,000 people applying there is a 0.0007% chance of even reaching this far. I first applied in October last year so it took almost exactly a year until the show was eventually aired!
Although it said “Delivery Driver” on the show (and I am one of the 2 drivers for MRC) the reality is that I spent almost the whole of my career working in Information Technology and so the fastest finger first question that got me into “The Chair” (Bit/Byte/Megabyte/Gigabyte) was a plum choice for me. Sitting in the chair is a bit like being in a daze, where you continually hope that straightforward questions come your way. I was fortunate enough to be certain of the answers for quite a long time and getting to set my safety net at £64,000 was a great opportunity to take a breather for a few seconds.
After that, I remembered the answers to the next two questions from Year 11 Geography and Year 10 History (A level and O Level when I was at school). Then I was finally faced with a choice of betting £186,000 on something I was not at all sure about. If I got the question right I would move up to £500,000, or if I got it wrong I would leave with £64,000. And so I decided to bow out unbruised, and take the £250,000.
It was a great experience – but I would say that wouldn’t I.”
All of us at MRC would like to congratulate Howell on his fantastic achievement… but we all want him to keep on showing up for work!
Sally
