That's showbusiness....!
A long time ago, I was in a maths class at secondary school. We were all scribbling away in our books (I was doodling, I hated maths) and reading our text books. Then, rather abstractly, our maths teacher shouted out:

"Here's a question for you horrible lot! I have 2 watches, one is 10 minutes fast, the other has stopped completely. Which one is more useful to me and why? You've got until the end of the lesson!"

A cloud of confusion settled over our class.

"Watches? 10 minutes fast?! What is he blithering on about?" _{we might have used a few more swear words than that}

Half an hour passed and everyone was as close to the answer as Michelle McManus was to a "Lean Cuisine" lasagne.

"One of the watches has stopped? Is it a digital watch? Because you wouldn't see anything on the display! That's pretty useless!"

"No! He's talking about a sundial, that's a type of clock"

"What about a cuckoo clock? Because a fast one will still cuckoo, but a stopped one won't! At least the fast one will have a working cuckoo!" _{true answer}

The end of the class came.

"Anybody got the answer?"

We had more chance of getting a shag off a sixth former.

"The answer is, the stopped watch is more useful to me. Because at least the hands will be right twice a day, whereas, the fast watch will always be wrong!"

There were murmurs of "Oh yes! Of course!" and other murmurs of "What the bloody hell has this got to do with Maths?!"

We all walked out of the class confused and still crud at maths.

Now, rewind 3 months prior to this maths class. A group of friends and I were hanging around when we were bored.

"What shall we do?"

"I dunno. Football?"

"Can't be bothered."

"Why don't we apply for a TV show?"

"What TV show?"

He told us the TV show in question

"Brilliant idea! What have we got to lose?"

We filled out an application form, sent it away and, to be honest, forgot about it. No more was said about it.

Now fast forward 3 months and one week from that day and we received a letter.

"Dear Stiggy and friends,

Thank you for applying to our TV show. We would like you come and see us for an interview...."

I was as happy as Thora Birch's underwear!

So, we went to Norfolk for the interview. We met the producers of the show. They were very nice, gave us all a drink and some chocolate and the interview began.

It's started off all casual, name, where we come from, what do we want to be when we grow up (we were only 11 at the time) etc. Then, the interview took a more pyschometric turn. We were asked three questions. The first 2 were general knowledge questions, then came the final question:



(if you've figured it out, keep quiet!)

"If I had two watches......."

My chubby, brown face lit up like a gas leak! As soon as he finished his question, I waited 3 seconds (to give the illusion, that I figured it out) then blurted out the answer without even consulting my colleagues.

"The stopped watch, because it'll be right, at least, twice a day!"

The producers look surprised (dare I say, shocked) at my answer. Then looked at their clipboards, made a couple of notes and said, rather brusquely "Thank you for your time."

I was scared. "'Thank you for your time?!' 'Thank you for your frigging time?!' I've come all the way from London to here, answered your sodding questions correctly and all I get is a 'Thank you for your time?!'" I was livid, but such is life.

We left the studios and returned home.

4 weeks later, we received another letter:

"Dear Stiggy and friends,

Thank you attending our interview, we hope you found it enjoyable. We'd like you invite you to participate on our new series of our TV show..."

I was now happier than Caprice Bourret's underwear!

We went to the show, had a brilliant time and, on the show, we got to the 3rd (and final) level and lost out. We didn't care by this point, we were just glad to have been a part of it.

The point of story is this, logic and reason tells me that it was all a major coincidence and that we were extremely fortunate. But, in my romanticised way of looking at things, I'd like to think that (one of) the nicest things someone had ever done for me was that maths teacher getting the heads up on our interview (and the questions involved) and telling us the answer to the "watches question".

And in case anyone is interested, the TV show in question was this .......

Length? It was 10 minutes fast, so it wasn't any use.....
(The Stig, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:24, 17 replies)

Fantastic show!
You lucky boy, you!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:27, closed)

Knightmare
I am so jealous. Tell me you got to be the one wearing the helm whilst your friends shouted conflicting instructions at you.
(Feral platypus, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:28, closed)

Wow! your famous.
Who knew?
( girlinthehole, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:36, closed)

WOW!
Which one were you? The one with the helmet or the one with the breaking voice?
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:39, closed)

I remember Knightmare!!!
*clicks*
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 18:47, closed)

Which series was it? I have all the Knightmare series' on DVD so I'll watch it
and possibly lol when you died on level 3, but you've been on Knightmare which is more awesome than anything I'll achieve so have a big fact click!

Level 3: that'll probably be Corridor of Blades or The Card Game - am I right?

*CLICK*
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Thu 2 Oct 2008, 19:04, closed)

But
and I hate to do this, you seem so nice, and knightmare was great/shit and I am mildly jealous and everything....but...your answer is rubbish. Its far more useful if it was 10 minutes fast. Because then you can actually tell the time simply by, and heres the magic, subtracting 10 minutes. A stopped watch is fucking useless.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 19:13, closed)

I think
that's a mistake actually, I think the question should be which clock is more accurate, not which is more use.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 21:23, closed)

'Accurate' is ambiguous too
It's an old joke from Lewis Carroll, as it happens. Obviously it's meant as tongue in cheek. But you could make it a proper problem by asking 'which one is right more often' or something like that.

My favourite trick Maths question is this one: you have ten telegraph poles 10m apart, how much wire do you need to join them up?
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 8:22, closed)

10m
I presume?
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 8:32, closed)

90m?

(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 11:55, closed)

Nah, my favourite was:
How many squares on a chessboard?

I had this one in maths last day of term, year 9 or 10. The teacher thought it would fill our hour lesson as we'd finished the proper work.

It's not 64, as he wanted us to include the squares of 2x2 and 3x3, etc. He was very surprised when I gave him the answer after 5 minutes. He hadn't worked it out himself by that point.

Can anyone give me the right answer?
( gareth_alien will be human again at, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 12:11, closed)

Nope
I'm a maths oaf
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 12:30, closed)

hahaha
good skills, was a classics kids show.

I have a nice thing that involves appearing on telly, but will wait a few days until mine appears.

it includes Big Bob Mills and Kris Akabusi
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 19:49, closed)

jammy bugger!
me and my mates applied for that, but we never even got a reply!
me and a classmate were chosen as 2 "possibles" for blockbusters, but the school down the road got picked instead :(
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 2 Oct 2008, 23:10, closed)

Blockbusters
I had a mate on that!
He's still got the cheque frames at home...

He was the one who answered the question:
Bob Holness 'What E do 2.4 million...)
Buzz
Mate: 'Eggs'
BH: 'britons eat every day? Eggs'

Not sure if anyone remembers that moment...
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Mon 6 Oct 2008, 11:21, closed)

no, don't remember that
i do remember that the pair of fucktards who got to go on it instead of us only managed to answer one question.
our school got to send one girl on a year later, she got up to the fifth gold run, she won a holiday in kenya, the lucky bitch!
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 9 Oct 2008, 0:37, closed)