Did you watch Jungle Queen and X-Factor star Stacey Solomon’s surprise celebrity appearanace on Mastermind over Christmas? I was stunned at her confidence in pitting her brains against super chef Sophie Grigson, the Fast Show’s Simon Day and musician Steve Harley. After all, she does not come over as being Mastermind material. And surely brains and knowledge is what this programme is all about.
However, I admired the fact that Stacey pushed herself well and truly out of her comfort zone to promote her favoured charity, the Forest of Dean Hospice, and found myself smiling throughout her gaffs – not knowing that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and that Wayne Rooney married Colleen McLoughlin, as well as the amusing wrong answer in the video below which I will let you discover for yourself.
Would you have the courage to go on Mastermind or University Challenge? I admit I wouldn’t. My favourite agony aunt Bel Mooney found she lacked the courage to join the Christmas University Challenge team because she was afraid of making a fool herself, even though she always encourages people to try new experiences. In today’s Mail, she writes: “I said no because I was a coward and that was the easiest option.” And most of us would have done the same, afraid of looking daft in front of millions on TV.
Not Stacey though, a single mum at 17. With her infectious smile and an air of eternal optimism, she shared her philosophy with the genial presenter John Humphrys – and she certainly leads by example:Â “I want to do everything before I die. You only get to live once. You never know what you are missing out on. I don’t want to be missing out on anything.”
Which takes me back to Bel Mooney, who features a prominent quote by Goethe on her website which could have been written by Stacey herself:
“Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it –
“Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
Happy New Year, and let’s hope it is one packed with new experiences and challenges where we make our dreams come true with our boldness and courage.
In many ways it’s easy for people like Stacey who finds herself instantly liked and included socially. Gaffs instantly forgiven. People interested in her even though she’s thick, never achieved much, but has an edearing giggle and is pretty enough.
She’s probably never known any different so courage simply doesn’t come into it. Being unforgivably ignorant isn’t a sin for people like that. And some of this would have been unforgivable ignorance had it been anyone else.
It’s a lot harder for people who are disliked from the get-go for no reason other than their face doesn’t fit.
Anyway.
Happy New Year to you and all your readers.
xx
When I lived in England I became a Mastermind fanatic — “I’ve started, so I’ll finish — because I needed something to make up for Jeopardy over here. MM was brilliant. That was the year that London cabbie Fred Housego trumped all the puffed up Shakespeare scholars.
Anyway, dear Ellee, it was so nice to see you leave comment on my blog recently and I realized how much I missed interchanges with you.