“Bread and the Circus” by James Plaskett
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:24 pm
This is not a chess book, although chess is mentioned several times. It deals instead with the alleged cheating by Major Ingram and others and also the quest by James to get in the hot seat on “Millionaire” and try to win some money. History will relate that the Ingrams were found guilty in a criminal court and that James did eventually pick up £250K for his efforts.
The author has publicly stated before that he believes the Ingrams to be innocent, but he gives a more balanced view here of what went on, and includes plus and minus points. (I would expect this, as looking at his annotations of chess games, he is brutally honest – if he messed it up, he says so.) It certainly appears that the convictions might be regarded as unsafe. Why, he asks, were the programme makers allowed to tinker with the soundtrack just before the trial? It seems they enhanced some of the coughing to make things look bad. Why did nobody in the studio hear the coughing? Why did they not examine recordings of previous winners of a million pounds, which also had coughing in the audience? He also touches on the syndicates that are reported to help people get on the programme. I found the book interesting. I have to say that at the time, I thought the Ingrams could well be guilty, but now I don’t think the case was proved “beyond a reasonable doubt”, and indeed one wonders at the justification for bringing a criminal case at all. Celador (who made the programme) had a clause saying in effect, “we don’t have to pay you if we don’t feel like it.” Would they be prosecuted for fraud if they had a wrong answer to a question? (Some wrong answers have slipped through, as with every other quiz programme.)
There are a few typos and odd spaces near apostrophes, which are probably down to the printers, but overall I found it an interesting and enjoyable read.
The author has publicly stated before that he believes the Ingrams to be innocent, but he gives a more balanced view here of what went on, and includes plus and minus points. (I would expect this, as looking at his annotations of chess games, he is brutally honest – if he messed it up, he says so.) It certainly appears that the convictions might be regarded as unsafe. Why, he asks, were the programme makers allowed to tinker with the soundtrack just before the trial? It seems they enhanced some of the coughing to make things look bad. Why did nobody in the studio hear the coughing? Why did they not examine recordings of previous winners of a million pounds, which also had coughing in the audience? He also touches on the syndicates that are reported to help people get on the programme. I found the book interesting. I have to say that at the time, I thought the Ingrams could well be guilty, but now I don’t think the case was proved “beyond a reasonable doubt”, and indeed one wonders at the justification for bringing a criminal case at all. Celador (who made the programme) had a clause saying in effect, “we don’t have to pay you if we don’t feel like it.” Would they be prosecuted for fraud if they had a wrong answer to a question? (Some wrong answers have slipped through, as with every other quiz programme.)
There are a few typos and odd spaces near apostrophes, which are probably down to the printers, but overall I found it an interesting and enjoyable read.