Working on the chain gang (part 5)

Round 6

This round saw me give my first wrong answer. Anne asked: "In UK media, which word precedes Mirror, Sport and Times to give the names of three national newspapers?" The first answer that popped into my head was "Daily"; but The Times is obviously just that – The Times, plain and simple – and I had an inkling (unfounded, as it turned out) that the Mirror had dropped the word "Daily" from its weekday title. By now pretty punch-drunk, I blurted out "The" – only to be treated to a withering look from Anne and, in a sing-song voice, "Sun-day!"

Overall, though, our performance improved considerably from the previous round, with the team banking a respectable £470. The statistics were:

Gail was the strongest link with 5 right answers. This time both Peter and I spotted that Jennifer was the weakest player and voted accordingly. Gail voted for me again, with Jennifer voting for Gail.

Anne had a lengthy exchange with Peter that began when she asked him, "PC Plod, why Jennifer?". He countered with, "It’s PC Pete" but, before he could continue, she insisted: "PC Plod, why Jennifer?" Again he replied, "No, PC Pete." This continued for some time, with Peter determined not to give way. Eventually, Anne broke down into giggles and said, "You won’t get the last word you know – and even if you do it’ll be edited out." And thus it proved to be; only the opening salvos in this particular skirmish made it to the screen.

Round 7

I rediscovered my form in this round, with no wrong answers – despite one being a total guess. Anne asked: "In geography, what is the specific English word for an inhabitant of the Italian city of Milan?" I had no idea that such a word existed, so I invented one: "Milanese". Luckily for me, someone else had invented it first...

This time we banked £420. The statistics were:

I knew that Gail and Peter had answered one wrong each, but keeping count of the right answers by this stage was well-nigh impossible. As Peter had banked more money, I reckoned Gail must be the weakest link and voted for her – as did Peter.

In fact, Peter was the worst player according to the statistics, with one fewer right answer than Gail. This time, Gail’s thunderous look as the boards were turned over was justified, as she had been denied her place in the final. However, there was some poetic justice in the way she reaped the rewards of voting for her biggest rival – me – three rounds in a row. With hindsight, I rather wish I’d voted initially for Peter. That way, it would have been a three-way tie, and – as the strongest link – I would have had the sadistic pleasure of changing my vote to eliminate Gail.

I had a grilling from Anne about my vote, much of which got left on the cutting room floor. The italicised bits in the following never made it to the transmitted programme:

Insinuations of tactical play notwithstanding – and as Anne so often points out – it’s votes that count. Gail left the set to give her exit interview, and Peter and I continued alone.

Round 8

The last round before the final is a killer. You have only 90 seconds in which to try and maximise the prize fund, and – with all money banked during the round being trebled – mistakes can cost you dear. Not surprisingly under such pressure, Peter and I gave a slightly underwhelming performance, getting three wrong each and banking just £120 (trebled to £360). At least one of my wrong answers was due to not fully taking in the question. However, notwithstanding the tense atmosphere in the studio, somewhere at the back of my mind was the dim but comforting awareness that – no matter what happened in this round – I could no longer be voted off and had made it through to the final.

The statistics were:

The extra £20 banked meant that I’d scraped into pole position once again. In total, we’d banked £3,930 – one of the highest amounts won on the UK daytime edition of Weakest Link. The only question now was: who would be taking it home?

The final

I spent the next five minutes or so in a surreal daze while the studio around me hummed with activity. The podium at the mid-position in the semicircle was taken away, and Peter and I were repositioned either side of the gap to create a symmetrical visual composition for the final head-to-head. While we waited for Anne to return one last time, one of the production team came over and asked me, as the strongest link in Round 8, whether I would be choosing to go first in the final (presumably so that the scoreboard graphics could be set up with the name of the player going first on the top row). For reasons I can’t now remember, I said I would rather go second. "OK – but don’t say you want to go second," I was told; "say you want Peter to go first."

When everyone was ready, Anne returned and we were away. Peter didn’t know the answer to the first question (to my great relief, as neither did I). Then it was my turn: "In food, in the Scandinavian dish gravlax, what herb traditionally accompanies salmon?"

I hesitated, answered without conviction, and rolled my eyes with evident relief when told I’d got it right; but, contrary to appearances, "dill" (like "Gravesend" in Round 5) wasn’t a complete guess so much as an answer that surfaced from somewhere in the depths of my mind without my having the faintest idea where. There’s a big psychological difference in the way you answer questions in the final: the pressure’s off, there’s no ticking clock and you’re no longer worrying about being voted off if you make a cock-up. So, while "Milanese" in Round 7 was a desperate guess, I had no time to think it through so I just said it as soon as it came into my head; whereas, because I wasn’t confident about the dill answer, I took the time to think, "well – why is it that?".

My mind went truly blank on hearing my third question, so much so that I had to ask Anne to repeat it (though this was edited out of the transmitted programme): "According to film legend, which non-human star was born in a trench in World War I, appeared in 24 films and died in the arms of Jean Harlow?" I wrongly guessed "Lassie" (the right answer was Rin Tin Tin).

By this time I’d lost count of how many questions each of us had answered. To make the money chain in the earlier rounds easier to read, the image on the large projection screen in the studio was zoomed in to the left hand side of the onscreen graphics; the scores during the final, which run across the bottom of the screen, were thus largely invisible. Peter had had a couple wrong, but was I safe? Anne asked: "In biology, what word means both the throbbing of the heart and a seed used as food?" Ironically, my own heart stopped for a moment. Then it came: "Pulse".

I heard Anne say, "That is the correct answer." Then, strangely, there was silence. What had happened? In the gloom, I sensed cameras and people moving. Suddenly, four climactic chords of music rang out, the lights flashed and swivelled and I realised it was over.

"That means, Phil, that you are today’s strongest link, and you go away with three thousand, nine hundred and thirty pounds." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peter taking a step towards me with his hand offered in congratulation. I glanced towards him for a microsecond – then I ignored him and faced Anne again, smiling cheesily. I felt awful for cutting him, but I knew that I would be in a close-up shot at that moment and was pretty sure that the director wouldn’t be happy if I moved off my mark. "Peter," added Anne, "you leave with nothing." Talk about rubbing it in. Thankfully, unsuspecting viewers would have been unaware of my faux pas (click the photo to see a video clip of this moment as it appeared on screen).

Her trademark wink to camera done, the recording was over and the studio was suddenly flooded with harsh fluorescent light. Mortified by my graceless snub of a moment earlier, I immediately strode across to Peter and offered him my hand. "Sorry for cutting you dead there," I apologised. "I just didn’t think we were supposed to move." He laughed it off and shook my hand warmly. I’m glad Peter made it to the final. He answered very few questions incorrectly, played fairly and was a gentleman throughout.

The studio was now a hive of activity once again, as the crew started preparing for the next recording. What came next was probably the most surprising thing that happened to me that day. While Peter and I were having our mikes and radio packs removed, I looked up and realised that Anne was walking towards me.

"Well done, you played extremely well," she said, now once again with the rather cautious smile and quiet voice she’d used when she first entered the studio. I was practically dumbstruck; I fully expected Anne to leave the studio as soon as the recording was over, to preserve her mystique and to have a short but well earned break. One of the production team approached and tried to chivvy her away.

"Yes, in a minute," she said – and turned back to me. "You were the strongest player all the way through – you deserved to win."

"Thank you," I replied. "It hasn’t quite sunk in yet."

Finally, after a few more words of congratulation and wishing me well, she acquiesced to the producer’s demands and left me to be escorted out of the studio.