Show winner and runner-up now a couple after falling in love following filming of quiz in city\n<\/p>\n
A couple who travelled here as quiz show rivals ended up as lovers following the show \u2014 after chatting at the airport before their flight back to England.<\/p>\n
Claire Reynolds and John Robinson were both competing in the final of the famous programme, which was filmed in the city.<\/p>\n
The nailbiting episode took place in November, but was only broadcast this week on BBC Two.<\/p>\n
Claire (42), an actuary with NFU Mutual who is from Stratford-upon-Avon, was beaten by a point in the dying seconds.<\/p>\n
But rather than feeling resentful of victor John, also 42 and a teacher from Sutton Coldfield, in the end love won \u2014 with the the pair hooking up after discovering they had a lot in common.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show was shot in Belfast and we were both flying back to Birmingham and we were on a flight together,\u201d John explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we filmed the final, we had some time to kill at the airport. So we had a few drinks together and then got the plane back together and stayed in touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we started as friends, it\u2019s more than that now. It did generally just start with the two of us just going out and having a drink together over a pop quiz. We happened to be single. And then, naturally, one thing led to another, and we became a couple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the Mastermind powerhouses like to quiz together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve teamed up on a few occasions to do pop quizzes and stuff together,\u201d explained John.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019ve gone from being rivals on the show to working together as a team. Although I think I\u2019m probably more competitive than Claire is.\u201d<\/p>\n
To prove the point, John won \u00a3500,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2019.<\/p>\n
Claire is also a regular on the local quiz scene.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI\u2019ve always been a quizzer, and am part of a team on a Monday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my life I\u2019ve done pub quizzes and always watched quiz shows on the TV. I still don\u2019t really know what possessed me, but at the start of 2024 I decided to apply for Mastermind.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that one point loss continues to rankle for Claire.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt will always kind of be in the back of my mind because there were a few questions where I knew the answer, but because I was trying to answer quickly, the wrong thing came out. So that will always be there, but I don\u2019t mind, he was a very good quizzer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claire had scored 12 points and no passes on her specialist round on mathematician Emmy Noether, and 17 on general knowledge.<\/p>\n
John scored 12 and got one wrong with no passes on his specialist subject, the Empire State Building, leaving him needing more than 17 points in the general knowledge round to secure the win.<\/p>\n
Recalling the final, John said: \u201cI was the last to play and needed to beat Claire\u2019s score of 29, but you can\u2019t think about that, you just have to focus on the questions, really. By the time I got to the end I had no idea if I had beaten her, lost or drawn \u2014 there\u2019s no running score in the studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was only when presenter Clive Myrie said \u2018congratulations, you\u2019ve done it, you\u2019ve scored 30 points\u2019, that I finally realised.\u201d<\/p>\n
After acing the online quiz and a video audition, and more cunning questions, Claire made her first appearance last August.<\/p>\n
She came second but had a high score as a runner-up and made it through the semis, which she won, and then on to the final \u2014 where she was at least lucky in love.<\/p>\n
Claire says her strengths are literature and geography, with food and drink and some sport being her weaker subjects.<\/p>\n
It takes her about two months swotting up to learn a specialist subject, which has to be pre-approved by the Mastermind team.<\/p>\n
It was announced in 2023 that Mastermind would be based, filmed and edited in Northern Ireland. The programme was previously produced from Salford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Show winner and runner-up now a couple after falling in love following filming of quiz in city A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[192,2378,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-127834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-belfast","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114562506664817587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}