The Curious Case Of... David Clark
(All of us are born curious. Some of us actively practice it, irrespective of age. Our Curious Cases series give you a glimpse into the minds of such curious folk. May they rub off you the right way!)
David Clark won the coveted title of BBC Mastermind in 2007 (this was broadcast in 2008). He is a teacher and a self-described "total quiz obsessive". He runs the popular 'Life After Mastermind' quiz blog where he posts questions and reviews quiz shows. He has also authored several quiz books.
Name
David Clark
Location
South Wales
What I do
Teacher and Quizzer
On the Curiosity scale, I am...
Off The Scale Curious
What I prefer to consume (in descending order of preference):
Books/Newspapers/Social Media/ Audio/TV Shows/movies
Number of books and movies I get through in a year
Books - between 75 and 100 - Movies - not many
One book I’d recommend to a friend / colleague:
The A to Z of Almost Everything by Trevor Montague, Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
My best source for book / movie / website recommendations:
One movie / show I’ve loved that hardly anyone else has watched
Movie - Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea
I am currently reading:
In The Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland
One place on Earth that I am very curious about:
Website(s) that I get a lot of useful info from:
One topic I am super-opinionated about:
The use of internet phones during quizzes
People come to me to find out what I think about these topics:
Education, Quizzing, Television, Children, Politics, Religion, The English Language
What I prefer to use (in descending order of preference)
Facebook/Twitter
The strangest food item I have eaten
If I could spend a day in the mind, body, and shoes of a person, it would be...
William Shakespeare. To understand how much of what he wrote was conscious design, and how much just pure inspiration.
One interesting / fun fact I recently learnt:
The jackalope is a mythical creature of North American folklore which resembles a jack rabbit with antelope horns.
I stay up-to-date by doing this...
Reading three daily newspapers EVERY day, and writing down quiz questions based on the news therein
One interesting/fun fact about myself
I have never seen ET or The Sound of Music
I express my curiosity by doing these things:
Asking questions. Searching for the answers. Finding the right people. Thinking for myself.
The one thing I am very interested in
Everything - or - to put it another way, General Knowledge. Narrowing it down, specific interest in The Olympic Games, Bridges, History, space exploration, the Mysteries of Rennes le Chateau and the Rosslyn Chapel, Mythology, Doctor Who, World championship Boxing, (you did say just one, didn't you?)
A habit or skill I’d love to acquire:
The ability to focus whole heartedly on just one subject, and one line of enquiry at a time, without dissipating my energy going off on a tangent.
If there was one mystery I’d like to solve, it would be
I would love to do this at least once
Walk out of my school satisfied that my job is finished.
People I would like to ask all these same questions to:
William Shakespeare, Keith Watson, Henry Ford Sr, Peter de Colechurch
Curiosity is important to my work because...
Curiosity is the engine that drives the desire to learn - and as a teacher that is something very important to me. My function is not to answer all the questions, my function is to inspire my pupils to ask the questions, and to seek for the right answers for themselves.
Someone I know who asks a lot of questions
Me. Also my grandson Oliver - may he never get out of the habit.
My curiosity tip
Ask why.