Crikey, what a fun day it’s been! After spending the afternoon admiring the variety of London architecture, I made my way to The John Snow where I’d arranged to meet my fellow Eggheads auditionees.

As I was entering, I got a text message from Omally. We’re not here, it said. Hmm… I wonder what that means. Once I get inside I’ll ask the others what they make of it.

So I went inside, and discovered what it meant. It meant they weren’t there.

Outside I tried calling Carol, who I understood had already arrived. Her phone was switched off. This was starting to get suspicious - for reasons I explained on Saturday, the rest of the team weren’t entirely convinced that the whole thing wasn’t a big trick. Had they decided to beat me at my own game by not actually turning up?

It transpired that they’d relocated to another pub across the street, which I presently found my way to after a few false starts, and there we sat wallowing in terror of the experience ahead.

Wallowing

Eventually the time came to make our way down the graffiti-strewn back alley to the home of 12 Yard Productions. Here el10t pressed a button on the intercom and introduced us by our team name.

“Hello, we’re the Clevertrouserses,” he said, exactly as someone came out the door and gave him an odd look. We were buzzed in and followed the signs to 12 Yard’s offices on the first floor.

The point of no return

So now I come to describe the audition itself. The others will, I trust, correct my mistakes and add anything I forget in the comments.

We were sat down one side of a table in a little office. Down the other side were the team we were about to compete against, but first we had to fill in some forms, then we each had to talk briefly about ourselves into camera (how we know one another, strongest and weakest subjects, that sort of thing). Then they explained the rules of the game, and if the rest of this is going to make any sense, I’d better do the same.

Though there were six of us at the audition, on the TV show there are only five members in a team. The sixth person is used as a standby. There are four rounds on specific subjects, and for each round, you have to nominate one person to answer questions against the opposition. Everyone who wins gets through to the final general knowledge round - since there’s one more person than round, one of you will be in the final even if everyone loses.

The first round was History. I suggested that we nominate The Merman, since I remembered him saying something about this being one of his strongest subjects. Apparently what he actually said was along the lines of “History is definitely not one of my strongest subjects", but that was close enough, so he stood up to face one of the chaps on the other team.

I don’t remember any of the questions, but they were a heck of a lot easier than the ones we’d been asked on the phone. It was also multiple choice, which helped, though it did rather stymie our strategy, which was: if you don’t know, say Batman. Or possibly Ian Botham or Oscar Wilde, we never quite decided.

Anyway, he did respectably, but the chap on the other team won, so already we were one man down in the final. The next category was Entertainment. We elected Kouros, who did us proud by not losing too horrendously, but lose he did.

Next up was Sport. This was a problem - the only person who hadn’t chosen Sport as their weakest subject was The Merman, and you’re not allowed to pick the same person twice. So we elected Omally, on the grounds that he’s the only other person on the team who knows what shape a football is.

He also did respectably, but lost. Three down.

Next was Science, for which we nominated Carol. At this point, el10t and I were feeling quite smug - according to the rules, there were only four rounds before the final, so it looked like we were off the hook. The only problem was that if Carol screwed up, it was the two of us against the entire other team in the final. Which, we felt, might not work out that well.

But we needn’t have feared, for Carol won! She actually won! She got all her questions right, and the other team messed up - one of theirs was ‘What do you call someone who doesn’t think it’s possible to know whether there’s a God?’ and they said atheist instead of agnostic. When they heard the right answer, they tried arguing that the question was wrong, which can’t be a good idea if you want to get on the telly.

By now, el10t and I were well chuffed. Not only did we not have to answer a round on our own, but we could let Carol handle all the questions in the final general knowledge round. Basically we could just sit back and watch the fun.

Then they said that the next round was Food and Drink.

Ooer - apparently they weren’t quite playing by the same rules as the telly version. Apparently they wanted to see every one of us suffer individually. Apparently el10t and I would have to go through the torture after all.

Food and Drink is most definitely not my strongest subject - apart from Sport and Geography, it’s probably my weakest, so when el10t offered to take it, I was all in favour. He didn’t do too badly, but, like so many before him, he lost. If Carol wasn’t to be alone in the final, it was up to me.

Unfortunately, my category was Geography.

I’m really not good at Geography. My first question was ‘What sea is something-or-other-that-I’ve-never-heard-of in?’ I guessed the Mediterranean, which turned out to be correct. Hoorah! One up! My next question was ‘What county is Harwich in?’

Harwich is a seaport in Essex. I live in Essex, and I write marine navigation software for a living, so I spend a lot of my day with a map of Harwich on my screen. So all in all, I should probably have known this. I said Suffolk.

At this point the woman got a bit confused. “You’ve only got one right, haven’t you?” she said. “No, seven,” I answered, but she didn’t fall for it. Pity that.

I got another one wrong too - something to do with mountains - and, in short, failed miserably. So it was now Carol against five big blokes in the final.

And guess what? She won! She completely thrashed the five big blokes! We had been behind, but come back and triumphed in the face of adversity! We’d won! We had actually won!

We’ll hear next week whether they want us for the real thing, and frankly we reckon they will. If the team we were up against is anything to go by, we’re much better than the competition. They were boring, they argued about the questions, and they lost - whereas we were entertaining, well-behaved, and thanks to my triumphant performance (with a little help from my team mates), we triumphed. They’d be mad not to put us on the telly!