Celebrity Mastermind

Guy fails to win a quiz.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-thirty-sixth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 15th of September 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. 

The RedHanded lawyers have obtained a cease-and-desist order banning me from doing a cover of their cynical podcast. This gives me time to bring you news of my appearance on Celebrity Mastermind. The Undercover Intern was chosen as Richard & Judy’s Podcast Club’s podcast of the month for September, and everybody’s now desperate for proximity to my A-list celebrity status. Not possible, I’m afraid. Magnus Magnusson visited the zoo a couple of weeks ago and was granted special permission to enter my living quarters. We talked a bit about getting my ban from entering Iceland revoked. Sorry, I should say that as well as being the presenter of Mastermind, TwoMagnus is also deputy-king of Iceland. Everyone there has to multi-job and TwoMagnus is supporting Bjork in her first term as king there. Many say that Bjork is just an affirmative action puppet king, and that TwoMagnus is de facto leader. I don’t like to speculate, except to say that TwoMagnus seems more king-like than Bjork to me. But anyway, the main reason TwoMagnus visited was to get me on Celebrity Mastermind. Ordinarily I can only get permission to leave the zoo for funerals. I had to have an extremely vigorous and painful therapy session with John Smith, but he did give me permission for supervised leave to go to the BBC studios. The next problem was that I needed to choose my specialist subject. I couldn’t think of anything so said ‘Pass’ which seemed to annoy TwoMagnus. I panicked and chose the first thing that eventually came to mind, The Three Colours Trilogy. Anything to stop TwoMagnus staring at me like that. 

My episode will be on BBC One next week but I just want to explain why I didn’t get to the semi-finals. I have no idea why I selected The Three Colours Trilogy, I’m no specialist. I’d just recorded the ‘colours’ Radiolab cover podcast, so it might have been that, I was super into colours at the time. The main problem is that I haven’t watched the Blue one and I couldn’t get the subtitles to work with the White one. I watched the Red one but on a very small TV and I couldn’t remember a thing apart from it being long and pretentious and there being a dog in it. I’m not allowed to show you the video of my appearance but I’m going to play the audio. I warn you, this isn’t pretty.

TwoMagnus:  In Three Colours: Blue, how does the director visually represent Julie’s attempt to isolate herself from the world after her husband and daughter’s death, and how is this symbolically reversed by the end of the film? Me: [Hm. Long Pause] Has time started already? Could you repeat the question please, TwoMagnus? Repeat [long pause] Does she live in a literal bubble and then it bursts? No, that’s silly. Actually, Pass. Final answer.
TwoMagnus: What is the primary color motif associated with Three Colours: White, symbolizing equality? Me: White isn’t a colour, so I’m going to say Pass.
TwoMagnus: Which real-world historical event coincided with the beginning of the production of the Three Colours Trilogy, influencing the director’s reflections on European identity? Me: The opening of the Cadbury Chocolate factory in Bournville near Birmingham.
TwoMagnus: In 'Three Colours: White,' how does Kieślowski address the notion of equality within personal relationships, and what commentary does this provide on post-Soviet Eastern Europe? Me: The main characters share a single pair of jeans, which fit neither of them particularly well. The commentator is arguing that Post-Soviet Eastern Europe needs to allow Levis in.
TwoMagnus: In Three Colours: Red, what is the significance of the ending, where characters from all three films are shown surviving a ferry disaster, and how does this tie into the overarching themes across the trilogy? Me: That dogs must be provided with floating devices on public water-transport.
TwoMagnus: Which actress played the lead role of Julie in Three Colours: Blue? Me: Gérard Depardieu.
TwoMagnus: Which prior film series did the director and screenwriter work on together that deeply influenced the thematic structure of the Three Colours Trilogy? Me: Two Men and a Baby.
TwoMagnus: In Three Colours: Blue, what real-life composer’s style did they imitate for the “Song for the Unification of Europe,” and how is this referenced in the film? Me: Bob Geldof, and the film takes place in July 1985 during Live Aid.
TwoMagnus: In Three Colours: White, what type of business does Karol Karol start to regain his financial independence and power? Me: A podcast network.
TwoMagnus: What major philosophical work is subtly referenced throughout [Buzzer]. I’ve started so I’ll finish. Three Colours: White in relation to Karol’s struggle with his personal identity and quest for equality? Me: Hmmm. It was arguably too subtle, [Pause] Pass.

Some of my guesses weren’t great, but it’s much more difficult than it looks on TV, with all the lights, cameras and with TwoMagnus looking at you. I did not know they had a Round Two, but I might as well play that for you too.

TwoMagnus: Name something people take with them to the beach. Me: Turkey
TwoMagnus: The first thing you buy in a supermarket. Me: Turkey
TwoMagnus: A food often stuffed. Me: Turkey
TwoMagnus: Any famous snooker player: Moira Stewart

[cutting in] Actually, can we stop it there? It doesn’t get better. I didn’t know they had a round two, like I said, so didn’t prepare. I was so flustered but knew I needed to answer quicker than in Round One. I got my only point for my third turkey answer, but nothing for the first two. I’m having turkey dreams every night now and that must mean something? Turkeys must be able to help me? I’m hoping the BBC edit out the bit where I vomit over the leather chair, as it’ll be broadcast before the watershed. I won’t be going back to Iceland, I don’t think.

Let’s start the second half of this episode with a quote. Start: I remember reflecting on the bizarreness of jail as a punishment – like sending someone to his room, really … did it ever occur to people that getting put away could come as a relief, on occasion? End. That’s Anne Tyler, and I think she’s talking swear. I doubt Anne Tyler has spent two weeks locked up in zoo living quarters without access to any of the technological opiates with which we dampen our miseries. All I can do is look around and think. In the past, when I went down the, ‘Guy, you useless piece of swear, you have made the wrong choices at every opportunity and deserve to be lonely and miserable’ road, I’d go onto Facebook to find someone from school who’s died recently, or at least gotten a cancer diagnosis, and this would assuage my angst, or even bring a bit of happiness. But now there’s no technological balm to stop the thoughts and I’m truly beginning to wonder if I’m entirely wrong about every interpretation I have of the world. I don’t mean things like having HP brown sauce with my beans on toast, I’m pretty sure I’m right on that. But bigger things. 

I had some good news and some bad news this week. The good is that OpenAI have decided not to chop off my right leg, just below the buttock. The bad news is that my falling-to-the-right disease is much worse now. That’s inevitable, I guess, given that I already had falling-to-the-right disease and then had another part of my left, that being my left arm below the elbow, erroneously removed. I’m falling to the right maybe ten times a day now and things are only going to get worse. The problem is that I’m spending so much time sleeping on my right side that, internally, organs are slowly moving that way. That makes the disease worse. It’s a vicious and viscous, circle. Doctors have given me until 50, as the very best-case scenario. Maybe 2,000 days left. It’s not much, is it? Outside of ball parks and bouncy castles, which I’m not allowed to visit nowadays anyway, I need to wear a helmet, otherwise life expectancy would be months rather than years. I have too much time to dwell on all of this, yet ironically I’m running out of time. I feel like someone who has ten thousand spoons, but desperately just needs a knife.

John Smith is doing his best, with my therapy. But I’m wondering if my therapy could be more word-focused, rather than me silently providing friction for John Smith’s penis. Again, I’m not questioning my Higher Power, the ways of John Smith are beyond my understanding, and providence unfolds in enigmatic ways. John Smith is an enigma, I’ve never been able to work him out, even going back to when I signed the lease for my flat and he turned up in a cape. I just need to trust his process.

I’ve lost weight though. Some of that is obviously just the removal of the left lung, finger, nipple, testicle and arm. Not so much the nipple, actually. But I don’t get much food here and cannot stomach the hay. I’m still receptive to wives and girlfriends, though it’s only fair to warn you that, except for Ira Glass, conjugal visits are banned at John Smith’s Podcast Zoo, and so ours would be a relationship of distanced longing and imaginings. Also, I will almost certainly be dead by 2031.

I’m writing my memoirs, Guy Snapdragon: The Unauthorised Autobiography of an Internship Pioneer– in my mind, and have over 50,000 words so far. Some of them are repeated and they keep getting jumbled, but they’re all in my head, somewhere. I’m visualizing some of my favourite places from my childhood, such as the market stall where Bianca worked, and I’m trying to have an inner conversation about ideas and philosophies. I’ve also got to think about my strategy ahead of my upcoming murder trial. So I have plenty to keep me occupied during conscious hours. I’m not sure that I make a great exhibit at the moment for zoo visitors, laying down on my right side, often with tears streaming. You might want to avoid me if you’re looking for a cheery day out, there are 60-odd other podcasters in the zoo, though Ed Gamble and James Acaster did escape last week, hidden within a giant turkey. Please do not approach them if you see them in the wild, unless you have a gun or allotment tool and are prepared to use it. There is a reward of 35,000 pounds for each of them, dead.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Robert Barnes. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.