My application for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is on hold | Blaise Tapp

Watching Donald Fear become the first Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? contestant in 14 years to correctly answer all of his questions was a genuine highlight of 2020.

Although clearing out my sock drawer has also made it into my 10 top of personal experiences during the past nine months!

Donald’s general knowledge masterclass was as clinical as it was impressive and was a reminder to the rest of us that we don’t know half as much as we think we do.

The fact that he only used one of his lifelines – a 50/50 – means the history and geography teacher will go down as the greatest quizzer in the history of one of the most successful British television shows ever made.

As somebody who has long aspired to sit in the famous tall swivel chair opposite Chris Tarrant and now Jeremy Clarkson, Donald’s performance was more intimidating than it was inspirational.

My half-completed application to the programme has been hanging about in my draft email folder for the last year, which is largely due to my very real fear that I might crash and burn, leaving the Manchester studio without even £1,000 to my name.

Although some could shrug it off, I suspect that type of national humiliation would haunt me forever.

It would be a very real risk, particularly if I was unlucky enough to be handed a question about knitting or makeup.

I have always fancied myself as something of a quiz aficionado.

I have lost count of how many times I have squabbled with pals in The Dog and Duck or The Red Lion about which answer to submit.

There was a time that I used to include pub quizzes on my CV under personal interests, until the penny dropped that it made me sound like a barfly.

Showing off how much otherwise useless information we know is a very British trait and has sustained millions of us through the most difficult of years.

Being able to demonstrate your unrivalled knowledge of Britpop guitarists or knowing the colour of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber is not only handy if it means you win £20 worth of Amazon vouchers, but allows us to escape from whatever is going on in our lives.

During the darkest depths of lockdown, online quizzes saved many of us from going round the bend, giving us something to look forward to other than standing on the doorstep to clap with the neighbours.

One quizmaster who attracted hundreds of thousands of players to his website each week became something of a celebrity and even made the 10’o’clock news.

Our thirst for knowing random pieces of information tends to start from an early age, usually at Christmas when the grandparents pull the Trivial Pursuit out of the ‘special cupboard’.

Childhood is all about discovering which family members are cheats and mean spirited pedants, particularly those who refuse the answer Stanley Matthews because the ‘Sir’ has been missed.

In my experience, these little life lessons are vital because a dedicated quizzer won’t make the same mistake again.

It could be argued that Donald Fear’s own childhood was the key to his success.

He has since revealed that he grew up in a house full of quiz books and competitive siblings including his brother Davyth, who won £500,000 on the same show last year.

When the brilliant Donald went one better, he took the art of quizzing to a new level, meaning that I would need to lock myself in a room with a truckload of encyclopedias for a lifetime to even think that I could come close to repeating his performance.

It looks like that email will remain in drafts for a while yet.