I’m a very big fan of the UK version of Take Me Out (the Australian equivalent “Taken Out” is booorrringgggg). I’ve seen each of the 22 episodes at least three times, I think it’s funny and the host Paddy McGuiness is hilarious. No likey, no lighty!

The way it works is that a guy is brought out in front of thirty girls, each of the girls is behind a podium with a light on, and if they don’t like the guy, they turn their light out. After we see a video of the guy in his daily life, and a demonstration of a “special talent”, if any of the girls still has her light on, the guy picks one and they go on a date to the “Isle of Fernandos”, in Tenerife, Spain.

I was at Waterloo station on Wednesday, and I was standing on the platform for ages because there were severe delays. And I saw what I thought was a familiar face. It didn’t take me long to work out that it was John from Bournemouth, from Take Me Out’s very last episode (season 2 episode 14). This guy:

I really wanted to go and talk to him and I’d had a few drinks so that helped. I did go over and had a chat – I figure that anybody that’s been on TV is fair game to talk to in public places.

He said that he got noticed a lot at first when the show aired (which was around February sometime) but it’s died down a bit now. We talked about his date with Holly, he seemed genuinely surprised that I could remember the name of the girl he went on a date with (like I said, I’m a BIG fan). He was a really nice guy.

His special talent was making noises to the Blue Danube orchestral piece, specifically armpit noises, and noises from other parts of his body – it was very bizarre. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but if he wasn’t the penultimate guy of the entire series, I’m not so sure that he would have gotten a date

I’m happy because I haven’t seen anybody off the TV for a long time, and not sure I’ve ever talked to anyone off TV!

Is anyone else watching this on Channel 4 right now?

His fallacious maths and logic is making me CRINGE!  People will believe anything you tell them!!!

Although, you’ve got to hand it to the guy, it makes for entertaining viewing, and I bet C4 will be paying him as much as he would have won on the National Lottery anyway.

If he really predicted the numbers on Wednesday night, he would have shown us his predictions BEFORE the draw.  I mean, COME ON.

But I’m disappointed with myself, there’s a tiny bit of me (like 0.01%) that thinks that what he’s saying might possibly be true.  Oh god, what sort of mathematician am I?

What he said about one set of coin tosses coming up being more likely than another was actually true.  However, that bit where the guy was stamping on the cups?  Simple… he told him which cup had the knife in it off camera.  Hard?  I think not!

Tell me this people… if he predicted the lottery numbers… then why didn’t he buy a ticket and win the money!  “Because Channel 4 wouldn’t let me”?  Give me a break!!!!!  Why didn’t he let his family know the prediction?  Ridiculous.

I recorded Wednesday’s show, and watched it back over and over again… you can see that even though it appeared to be filmed on a hand-held camera, there was a split screen involved.  If you looked really really closely on a large TV, you could see one of the balls (the number 39) jump up a fraction at one point.  Not easy to see, but possible if you were looking for it.

According to Wikipedia, who have linked to a semi-reliable source, the ITV1 show Golden Balls starts again on Monday!

The reason I’m so excited, other than the fact that it’s an absolutely brilliant game show, is that I went along to 3 recordings of it, twice by myself and once with my sister and a good friend of mine.  Twice I sat in a position where the camera was right on me… so I bought a PVR (personal video recorder) just to record the show in case I’m on TV!  I could have my 15 minutes of fame!  Well, more like 15 seconds.  But I’m still excited.

ITV1 used to show this for months, then they went into this weird mode of showing a new game show every 2 weeks for the 5pm time slot, which meant that Golden Balls had to take a back seat.  Some of the replacement game shows were good (e.g. The Chase, Divided), others not so good (e.g. The Fuse – it’s so American!  Let’s light The Fuse!!!  Haha bollocks).  But this time, hopefully it’s back to stay.

To sum it up, four people go through a procedure (which involves bluffing and deception) to build up money into a pot.  Two people are left at the end who have to split the prize money between them, which could be as high as £150,000.

Each of the two have to make a decision whether to split the money between them, or take it all themselves (steal).  The other person doesn’t know what the other person has chosen.  If they both choose to split the money, they get half each and everybody’s happy.  If one chooses to split, and the other steals, whoever decided to steal gets all the money, and whoever decided to split gets nothing (and if you’re in the studio during the recording, here’s your chance to boo them).  If they both decide to steal the money, they both get nothing and everyone laughs about it.

The choice that each of the two chose is revealed at the same time in a very dramatic fashion, and it’s guaranteed to have you stop whatever you’re doing and stare at the TV to see the result.

I saw a show where a girl “stole” over £100,000 off some guy and you could see he was devastated.  But then there were two people who split £76,000, netting each of them £38,000, and it was a nice happy ending.  They said in the recordings that people who steal such large amounts of money get recognized in the street and heckled.

As I studied mathematics, it’s clear that if you don’t consider human nature, the best thing to do for maximizing your winnings is for you to steal all the money for yourself.  But of course, if you’re playing against someone friendly and nice, it would be better to split the prize money because then you both get something.  But what if you think they’re going to steal from you?  Gaah, there’s no easy answer.  I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision.