Latest news with #Visigoths
Newsroom
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
Short story: Collective Tissue, by Craig Cliff
Terry Voss (born 1975) is the author of the story collection The Boring Aurora, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Supplement's best first book award in 2001. His poems and stories have been published in many print and online journals, including Visigoths, 2B/X2B, Sundown and Herringbone. He is currently working on an as-yet-untitled novel about Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web. Voss lives in West Tapping with his wife, K.M. Kildare, author of three highly acclaimed novels, and their two young children. Terry Voss is a writer and failed home handyman. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a filleter on a fishing ship, a milliner's assistant, a sandwich artist and a sock model. On his blog, Aurora, Aurora, Voss has described the decision he and his wife made to both become full-time writers: It was bonkers. We'd both sold our first books but the advances were meagre. We had two other mouths to feed, but we were so open to the idea of success. I shudder to think what would have happened if Katie didn't have The Ontologist's Niece in her bottom drawer.' Terry Voss is an author and birdwatcher. Gianni Hill, his companion on many twitches and the author of the Booker shortlisted Far Flies the Dunlin, has called Voss 'quietly brilliant and brilliantly quiet.' Terry Voss is a fiction writer and film reviewer ( His favourite film is the woefully underappreciated The Last Valley (1971), starring Michael Caine and Omar Sharif. He lives in West Tapping with his wife, K.M. Kildare, the author of six highly acclaimed adult novels and the bestselling High Salvage young adult series, and their own young adults, Dulcie and Cody. Terry Voss is a proud father of two. 'Cody and I are incredibly lucky to be surrounded by brilliant, original and driven women,' he said during his speech at the launch of Dulcie Kildare-Voss's debut novel, Quintessence. 'As Katie, Gianni and Ms Mackenzie have said, this book is all Dulcie. It's thrillingly honest about life as a teenager in the first decade of this new millennium.' Terry Voss is the author of The Boring Aurora, described by the West Tapping Courier as 'a promising debut from a local scribe'. His novel-in-progress, Connective Tissue, is a fictional account of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, during a zombie apocalypse. Dulcie Kildare-Voss, Terry's daughter and the author of Quintessence and Aftermathematics, recently described her father's project while onstage at the Hay Literary Festival: 'It sounds bonkers. I guess that's where I get that strain in my own writing from. The bonkers gene. A computer nerd battling zombies—I know! But he's actually very good at the sentence level. He does a wonderful line edit, if you catch him in the right mood.' Terry Voss was born and raised in West Tapping, a small town notable for the preponderance of published authors. 'It's worse than bloody Iceland,' he recently told the Observer, although the paper attributed the quotation to Terry Moss. Terry Moss is a brave new voice in English letters. The well-respected social commentator's first book, Connective Tissue, is the kind of debut you can't believe is from a first-time author. Terry Voss is a short story writer and the husband of K.M. Kildare. In an interview with the Guardian, Kildare described life in the Voss/Kildare household: 'Oh, it's a finely oiled machine. Terry's a great father. He always proofreads the kids' work and attends all their book launches. And mine, of course. When Cody got his deal with Bantam last autumn, Terry went out and bought champagne, proper French champagne, even though Cody was only fifteen at the time.' What Wisdom Could This Head Contain, Cody Kildare-Voss's first novel, has been described by Adam Mars-Jones as 'self-assured yet sweetly vulnerable and utterly, utterly compelling'. According to Michiko Katukani, 'Kildare-Voss, whose elder sister and mother are also writers, casts no shadow but his own.' Terry Voss ( writer, father, vegetarian. Terry Voss was the proofreader of the Fury's Reach trilogy by Dulcie Kildare-Voss. He is credited with questioning the decision to set all three books on a spaceship travelling to a distant planet without ever reaching that destination, and coining the phrase 'a claustrophobic space opera', which appears on the covers of each book in the bestselling series and the recently released posters for the Hollywood adaptation. Voss admitted on his blog that the full sentence was: 'A claustrophobic space opera without aliens or ray-guns is a recipe for sedation,' though he later claimed on Ms Kildare-Voss's Facebook page that it was an extended joke he shared with his daughter. Terry Voss is the author of the story collection The Boring Aurora, which was out of print until the author figured out how to use Amazon Kindle Direct. He is married to K.M. Kildare. In a recent interview with Radio 4, Kildare described life in the Kildare-Voss household: 'It's no picnic in a house full of writers. No one ever wants to do the dishes. And don't get me started on the Green-Eyed Monster.' Terry Voss was born in West Tapping in the mid-1970s and raised by his mother, memoirist Anita Custer. To friends and even his wife he claimed to have never met his father, but as Custer explains in her memoir, The Ship We Built at Sea, she regularly took Voss to see his father in London. 'Terry was always a bit of a cold fish. He never warmed to Reinier. Maybe it was the age difference, or Reinier's bohemian lifestyle. I gave Terry every chance to know his father but as soon as he was old enough to make his own way in the world, he broke off all contact. I don't think he's read a single one of Reinier's books.' Terry Voss has a foldout bed in his office, which comes in handy when progress on his novel, Connective Tissue, is slow, or when close friends or family publish memoirs disclosing his deepest secrets to his wife, the publishing phenomenon K.M. Kildare. Terry Voss is so fucking tired. Terry Voss is the son of the poet Reinier Voss (1929–1994). As a child, once a month he would be dropped off at his father's house in North London, which backed onto the grounds of Friern Hospital. Voss Senior liked to talk about his 'neighbour', previously known as Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, during rambling summer evenings as he and his guests drank dandelion wine. The main asylum building was famous for having the longest corridor in Europe. Terry Voss never drank the dandelion wine on offer, nor set foot inside the asylum, missing the chance to walk the nine kilometres of corridors before the facility was converted to luxury apartments for footballers' ex-wives and reality TV elites. Terry Voss is taking a break from fiction after two decades of toil. He is not writing a revenge memoir. Terry Voss is the new treasurer of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum Historical Society. He admits he was never that good with money, but his recent return to bachelorhood has shown him the importance of careful financial management. Growing up in a single-parent family, he took for granted the scrimping, saving and sacrifices on the part of his mother, perhaps because his father never seemed to work a day in his life. That house in Friern Barnet was forever filled with a revolving cast of blurry-eyed men in cardigans, incense-burning, barefooted women, and cloth-nappied toddlers at home in ambiguity. A proper-seeming woman, Mrs King, came and cleaned the house and cooked one-pot-wonder meals for whoever was around. As she worked, she sang one of three songs: 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy', 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and, when she was feeling more eloquent, Bowie's 'Let's Spend the Night Together'. Terry Voss finally broke the back of his Tim-Berners-Lee-faces-the-zombie-apocalypse novel when he decided to set the majority of the action in and around Princess Park Manor, on the site of the former Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. 'I became interested in the old asylum when I returned to that part of London after several decades away,' he wrote on his blog in September. 'I joined the Colney Hatch Historical Society pretty soon after and feel more than a little dense that it's taken me twelve months to see what is now blindingly obvious. My father wrote a sequence of poems about the fire at the asylum in 1903, in which at least 50 female patient-inmates perished—the worst peacetime fire in London since the medieval period. Now it is a site of pilgrimage for One Direction fans, as members of the pop group lived there for a time. Disaster, insanity, the ephemeral, young blood—it writes itself.' Voss hopes to complete his novel before Christmas. Terry Voss (@Terryvoss75) was the first person to see a wild Scopus umbretta, otherwise known as hamerkop, hamerkopf, umbrette or anvilbird, on UK soil. He was birdwatching in the wetlands south of West Tapping with his friend, Gianni Hill, whose play, A Feather for My Aunt, remains the number one non-musical production on the West End. 'Gianni and I have been to that marsh dozens of times, but not since I moved down to London a couple of years ago,' Voss told BBC World News. 'I rang Gianni to discuss a tricky section of my novel, which asks what if Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the world wide web, and the members of One Direction were the only ones who could stop a zombie apocalypse? Gianni suggested a spot of birdwatching to clear my head and I drove up Saturday morning. About three minutes after we settled into the hide, poor Gianni, he gets a call from his agent. I know, poor form having his phone on in the hide, but he had a film script that was going to auction. Anyway, he leaves the hide and heads back to his Land Rover to get better reception, and not five minutes later I see this self-assured brown wader walk right past me, so close I could probably touch it. I noticed its bill, its head—how could you not? That hammer shape. It's like nothing I'd seen before. I turned on my phone and in a few seconds I had identified it, tweeted, and here we are.' Voss's photos of the hamerkop have been hailed as 'historic' and 'not that shaky, given the circumstances'. Terry Voss does not know what a hamerkop was doing in the wetlands south of West Tapping, when the territory for this non-migratory bird typically does not extend north of Mecca. He does not know whether climate change, creeping urbanisation, deforestation, salination of waterways or any other Anthropocene horror is to blame. He still holds that it could be an escapee from a nearby bird park, though it wasn't tagged and no operator ever came forward. Yes, he has been told the various myths about the hamerkop. If you look into the water at the same time as a hamerkop, someone you love will die. If you disturb a hamerkop nest you'll develop leprosy. If you steal its eggs you'll be struck by lightning. Voss did none of these things. He simply took a couple of photos, shared them via social media, gave a few interviews with carefully deployed plugs for his novel-in-progress, and went back to his quirky bedsit in North London to knock the bastard off. He hasn't been struck by lightning. His kids are returning his texts. His ex-wife and mother are not, but they have both tweeted within the last twelve hours. His fingers are not about to fall off, though maybe that would be for the best. Terry Voss foresaw his own death. Before passing, he made sure both of his kids still had the playlist for his funeral he had emailed them a couple of years ago. It read: Waiting music: 'Da Doo Ron Ron' (The Crystals), 'Sigourney Weaver' (John Grant), 'Vein of Stars' (The Flaming Lips), 'There is a Valley' (Bill Fay). In lieu of a hymn: 'More Than This' (Roxy Music). For when you walk the coffin out: 'Don't Let it Bring You Down' (Neil Young). Terry Voss is prone to bouts of melodrama. He blames his childhood. Terry Voss woke one night when he was seven or eight. He called for his mother but she didn't come. He called long enough to forget for all time the content of the nightmare that had woken him. He got up and walked to his mother's room. He switched on the light. The bed was still made, but several dresses, scarves and jackets lay on the quilt. In the kitchen, dishes were stacked in the wire drying rack. His mother's keys weren't by the telephone. The clock showed quarter to twelve, not nearly as late as he had supposed. She was out—somewhere—safely betraying him. He flicked off the light and fumbled his way into the living room to turn on the television. He slid the volume down so he could hear it but if his mother returned home, unscathed and unaware, she would not be able to before he could leap up, switch off the set and slink down the dark hall and back to bed. On screen: the late film, part-way through. 'The next time I see you, Vogel,' shouted a man leaning against a tree, 'I'll cut out your eyes.' The other man, Vogel, ran to comfort a young blonde woman on her haunches. She was dressed, young Terry thought, like a milkmaid. Before he could get any further bearings, the film cut to a different man and woman lying in bed, a bearskin for a blanket. The man's torso was bare. Only her head was showing, but that was enough to be striking. Tanned skin, sharp features—the black-haired temptress to the innocent milkmaid. They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The man rose, pulled on a shirt and gestured for the woman to hide in the next room. She sat, facing away from the camera, allowing a second-long glimpse of her bare back. Terry sat down, cross-legged, two paces from the TV. The village, apparently under the protection of this man—the Captain—was being attacked by thirty men with swords, axes, a mace, bows and arrows, but also guns. Horses hurtled their riders into wooden spikes. A man licked another man's blood from his knife. It was a gift, all of it. A reward for conquering his fear. After the carnage, a priest threatened the Captain with an eternity in Hell. 'There is no Hell,' the Captain shouted. 'Don't you understand? Because there is no God. There never was.' Terry Voss, who still believed in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Heavenly Father, but was beginning to question practical aspects of their feats, received what felt like definitive proof of an adult conspiracy. There was no God. This heroic Captain knew the truth and wasn't afraid to speak it. But then the priest found Erica, the dark-featured woman, praying to Satan—Satan!—to protect the Captain and she was swiftly thrown on a pyre. When the Captain returned, mortally wounded from an extraneous battle, he mistook Inge, the blonde milkmaid, for his dark-haired lover. Young Terry could not quite fathom this. Inge and Erica had already become the two poles between which all alluring women must sit. But sweet, compliant Inge, encouraged by the other men, pretended to be fierce and fiery Erica and comforted the Captain as he expired. After the credits: the weather forecast. Terry Voss, aged seven or eight, pushed the on/off button of the boxy TV set and found his way back to his bed in darkness. The next morning he looked up the name of the movie in the Radio Times. The Last Valley. Already a dozen years old and relegated to late-night screenings. A commercial flop despite the star power of Michael Caine (the Captain) and Omar Sharif (Vogel). But The Last Valley was a place his imagination returned to again and again over the next weeks and months. He defended the valley from invaders. He convinced Erica there was no God and, therefore, no Satan. That it was better to lie in bed with him than be accused of witchcraft and burnt on a pyre. He started staying awake at night, waiting for the phone to ring and his mother to be invited somewhere so that he could watch the late movie. It happened once or twice a month. Sometimes he'd turn the set on before the late film had even started and catch the end of the news headlines or Wogan. He soon learnt that they didn't play late films on school nights, just Fridays and Saturdays, and, though it was still thrilling to rise once his mother had left, turn on the TV and position the volume slider just so, after a couple of minutes of Question Time or Italian language programming, he was completely deflated. As far as he knows, his mother never learnt of his late-night viewing sessions. She certainly has not mentioned it in the first two volumes of her memoirs. When he met Katie Kildare at university, he was struck by her resemblance to actress Madeleine Hinde, who played Inge. The straight blonde hair, the narrow nose, the slightest dimple in her chin. He was confounded, however, to learn by degrees that her personality was much more closely aligned to Erica. Not that he ever caught her praying to Satan, but she loved fiercely. There was something carnivorous about her approach to life and to writing. She would not abide the word 'something', for example. Early on in their courtship, Voss rented The Last Valley and watched it with Katie at her flat. She criticised the lengths the filmmakers went to make Omar Sharif's skin appear more pale. 'He's suffering from suspected plague,' he said. 'A convenient device,' she replied. She could not believe the scene in the first half of the movie where the Captain and Gruber, the town's de facto mayor, roll dice to decide who will get Erica. The Captain rolls a three but Erica announces 'Eleven', a winning score. 'Not only have we been given no reason for her to prefer Michael Caine over Gruber,' she said, 'but there's no way she'd be willing to risk everything she has to betray the most powerful man in the valley.' 'I guess,' he replied, though in the years to come he'd often find himself feeling his beloved had acted on similar hunches to Erica. That night back in Katie's flat, she announced the plot was confusing, the pacing poor. He did not agree, could not. He did concede that perhaps the first hour was not as striking or memorable as the second, and that he may have felt differently about the film if he'd seen it in full that first time, but he hadn't and he'd love the film forever as a result. This made her smile and lick her lips. They never made it to the end of The Last Valley, retiring to Katie's bedroom somewhere around the time Captain announced there was no God. The marriage of Terry Voss and Katie Kildare lasted thirteen books (one for him, twelve for her) and nineteen years. Terry Voss's Connective Tissue took nineteen years to write and was rejected by seven publishers (not such a large number when he started the project, but there are so few of the buggers left these days) before he decided to selfpublish. For legal matters, Mr Voss first asks lawyers for Mr Berners-Lee, Mr Styles, Mr Malik, Mr Horan, Mr Tomlinson and/or the estate of Liam Payne to consider the minimal financial gain likely to accrue as a result of this book's publication. Failing this, enquiries can be made via email: terryvoss@ Taken with kind permission from Landfall 249: Autumn 2025 edited by Lynley Edmeades (Otago University Press, $30), the latest issue of New Zealand's premiere literary journal, which includes new writing by Elizabeth Smither and James Pasley, a long, outstanding review by David Eggleton of CK Stead's collection of reviews and assorted prose, Table Talk (the best line in it is by Stead, when Eggleton quotes him saying of Maurice Shadbolt, 'Maurice could be good company, but he seemed to be constantly on the brink of hysteria'), and the winner of the Landfall young writers essay competition, Ava Reid (Te Ātiawa, Pākehā), who is studying anthropology at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. The issue is dedicated to the great Brian Turner (1944-2025). It's also the last issue that the journal will be known as Landfall. To mark its historic 250th issue later this year, it will be renamed Landfall Tauraka. The new name has been gifted by Te Irika o Wharawhara Te Raki, the Office of Māori Development t the University of Otago.
Spectator
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Venice is a city of love and menace
Jeff Bezos has brought much tat into the world, along with the undoubted convenience of Amazon's services. But in at least one respect, he is a man of good taste. In choosing Venice to plight his troth with his lovely bride Lauren Sanchez at the weekend, Bezos picked the best possible location: La Serenissima is indeed a veritable miracle. It is a logic-defying wonder, and despite my frequent visits, I still don't understand the physics of its construction. How can a city of hundreds of heavy palaces and churches, resting on petrified wooden piles driven into mud, continue to exist centuries after the Venetian lagoon was first settled by terrified refugees? Those who founded the city were of course fleeing the fury of invading barbarian hordes of Huns and Visigoths laying waste to the rest of northern Italy. It was probably that same remoteness of the 100-plus islands that saved Venice for civilisation. Those refugees evolved from precarious fishermen into a magnificent maritime empire, based on a miraculous floating city that is still – I make no apologies for claiming, though it is hardly an original suggestion – the most gorgeous and romantic place in the world. How can anyone resist a city without cars, where water rules supreme and, instead of buses or Tube trains, you take a speedy vaporetto to your desired destination? Just to be afloat here soothes the most jangled of nerves. I first visited Venice aged five. The only memories I have of that trip are of a drunken British sailor from a visiting warship reeling around St Mark's Square yelling 'Fred!' and the coloured glass globules adorning the wrought-iron gateway into Peggy Guggenheim's gallery on the Grand Canal. Peggy, like Bezos, was just one of many super-rich celebrities lured to Venice by its glitz. Since its empire declined from the 16th century onwards, La Serenissima has depended on tourism and its reputation – appropriately for Casanova's home town – as the place to go with your lover. I have been to Venice perhaps 30 times since that first visit. I have my own favourite modest hotel tucked away near St Mark's and would stay there for good if I could. Yes, I know all the clichés: Venice is thick with touts and pickpockets; it stinks in summer; it's overpriced and overwhelmed with day-trippers from the giant cruise ships that are going to finally capsize the sinking city; Venice is dying with a shrinking population the size of Brighton and Hove. Despite all these half-truths, 'trotz alledem' as the Germans say, I would like to end my days there. Many have done precisely that, both in fact and fiction. Just as some places – like Rome and Paris – are cities of life, so others like Venice and Vienna are cities of death, shaded by gloom and giving off a faint air of dissolution. Wagner died here, in the superb palazzo Ca' Vendramin Calergi on the Grand Canal which now houses the Casino, and Browning passed in another, the Ca' Rezzonico, acquired by his son Pen thanks to his marriage to an American heiress. I never see the ATM in the corner of St Mark's Square without her jibe ringing in my ears: 'That will be 150 euros for services not rendered' In fiction, the writer Gustav Aschenbach found both lust and death in Venice, via the pen of Thomas Mann – a novella memorably realised on screen by Luchino Visconti in Dirk Bogarde's finest performance. My three favourite Venetian films are all about death, the other two being Don't Look Now, a macabre tale by Daphne du Maurier, which includes the most erotic encounter ever seen in a mainstream movie, and The Comfort of Strangers, based on an Ian McEwan novel which sees a sinister Christopher Walken murderously obsessed with Rupert Everett. All these films mingle Eros with death and for me that is part of Venice's draw. You don't expect a honeymoon here to be entirely happy, as Mr John Cross discovered when he took his 60-year-old bride George Eliot there. For reasons still unexplained, young Mr Cross leapt from his hotel room into the Grand Canal and was fished out by gondoliers rather than perform his conjugal duty with the eminent novelist. A similar fate befell the great critic John Ruskin, who introduced Venetian architecture to the Victorian public. Ruskin was so shocked by the sight of his bride Effie Grey's pubic hair that it completely unmanned him (his only previous sight of a naked woman having been on classical statues). The marriage was later annulled due to non-consummation. The one time that I went to Venice with seduction specifically on my mind, fate also failed to deliver the anticipated outcome for me. To add insult to injury, the lady concerned asked me to pay her airfare home to Berlin. I never see the ATM in the corner of St Mark's Square without her jibe ringing in my ears: 'That will be 150 euros for services not rendered.' So if not romance, what is it that makes me adore the place? It is the mystery of this maze, and a definite air of menace. In the evenings, when the tourists have gone back to their ships and the shadows lengthen, you can wander alone and lose yourself in the heart of the labyrinth. There is a thrill in not knowing who or what will be around the next corner. And if it turns out to be a hideous knife-wielding dwarf in a red mac, a beautiful boy in a sailor suit or indeed Jeff Bezos – why, that would be exciting too.
Daily Mirror
14-06-2025
- Daily Mirror
Landlocked city home to one of Europe's warmest beaches hotter than Tenerife
Córdoba in central southern Spain has one of the warmest beaches in Europe. Valdearenas Beach sits on the banks of a reservoir and delivers bright blue water and orange sand A landlocked city in Spain is home to one of the warmest beaches. Think of Córdoba, and it's probably images of historical buildings and art galleries that come to mind. The Spanish city is one of Europe's culture capitals - home to the most UNESCO sites in the world including the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, Medina Azahara, the city's historic centre, and the Courtyards Festival of Córdoba. The city has now become an even more compelling destination after a new study by Saga Holidays revealed it's also home to one of Europe's warmest beaches. Although not a coastal destination, Valdearenas Beach in Córdoba sits by a stunning lake with sandy shores and promises tourists average temperatures of 31°C in the high season. It outperforms two coastal competitors in Badajoz; Playa de Cheles and Playa de Orellana, by just 1°C. The beach is something to behold. In the summer months watersports enthusiasts and sunbathers descend on it in great numbers, thronging over sand that is a brilliant orange colour and into bright blue water. A recent visitor to the beach said they were "incredulous" when they heard that there was a beach near Córdoba, given the settlements' setting more than 100 miles from the coastline. They had not heard that around 40 years ago the lake was dug out of the hillside to serve as a reservoir, with sand artificially piled up on one corner to provide a public place to splash and sunbathe. "I come early morning to walk my dog. The views are incredible. Some mornings it is just so quiet, you feel like the only person on earth. After the walk, and the dogs swim! It;s off up the track for breakfast. Come here in the afternoon and sit with a drink and watch everyone enjoying the lake and the facilities. On an evening, watch the sun go down," one enthusiastic fan of Valdearenas Beach wrote on Tripadvisor. There are plenty of reasons to plan a trip to Córdoba, not least that the area, enjoys over 300 days of sunshine throughout the year. The multiple religions, cultures, and civilizations that have lived in this fascinating city are reflected in its fascinating architecture and food. READ MORE: Holidaymakers stuck on Greek island thanks to little-known rule Founded by the Romans, the city was later ruled by the Visigoths and then became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate and Europe's second-largest city by the 10th century. The city was then taken by Christian forces in 1236 and integrated into the Kingdom of Castile. Other notable attractions include the Roman Bridge, built in the 1st century BC and reconstructed multiple times, and the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, a medieval fortress and former residence of Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, which also served as a seat for the Spanish Inquisition.
Edinburgh Live
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant loses biggest amount in show's history after blunder
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info In a dramatic turn on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the largest sum ever on the show due to a costly blunder. The quiz show, now in its 30th series, witnessed Nicholas reach the £500k question without using any lifelines, much to the amazement of host Jeremy Clarkson. But disaster struck and Nicholas walked away with a staggering £375k less than he could have won. After successfully answering the £125,000 question, Clarkson remarked: "He's just roaring along." READ MORE - DVLA issues urgent driving licence warning to anyone who passed test before 2016 READ MORE - BBC 'error' leaves fans seething just minutes before Gary Lineker's farewell The £250,000 question then challenged Nicholas with: "Which of these groups never successfully invaded the city of Rome?" The choices were: "a) Visigoths, b) Huns, c) Vandals, d) Gauls". Nicholas, exuding confidence, declared: "I do like history, I know the Gauls invaded pretty early on. I'm pretty sure the Vandals destroyed the city - that's why we have vandalism. I don't think the Huns did, I don't think they made it that far into Europe, whereas I knew the Visigoths were around. As it's a free shot, I'm 70-80% sure..", reports the Mirror. Despite Clarkson reminding him of his unused lifelines and advising against guessing, Nicholas confidently replied: "I don't think this is a guess though. Maybe on the next question I'll need them, so I'm gonna say Huns - final answer." His gamble paid off, and the correct answer propelled him to the £500k question. Clarkson noted Nicholas's apparent calmness, prompting him to admit: "It's not relaxed inside my head." The £500k question posed was: "Which of these long-running US sitcoms had the most episodes? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Friends c) The Office or d) Seinfeld". Unsure of the answer, he turned to the audience who believed it was Friends - but only 37% agreed, while 30% thought it was Seinfeld. Still uncertain and not wanting to risk it, he opted for the 50/50 lifeline, which left The Big Bang Theory and The Office (proving the audience wrong). Nicolas admitted that he struggled to articulate his thoughts before finally settling on The Big Bang Theory as his final answer. His gamble paid off and he moved on to the ultimate question, the £1million query. Clarkson then asked: "Which of these words, each coined by a famous writer, was derived from the title of a fairytale about three princes? a)Pandemonium b) Serendipity c) Utopia d) Yahoo." Nicholas responded: "The one that's standing out to me is yahoo, but I don't know." He sought advice from host Jeremy, who confessed he couldn't recall a fairytale involving three princes and noted that all four words were indeed coined by authors. Nicholas then recalled a puppet show he attended recently in Spain, which he believes was about three princes. He confessed his Spanish wasn't fluent enough to understand the storyline. "But I think someone was yelling yahoo", he added. He rationalised that he'd still have £125k even if his answer was incorrect, to which Clarkson highlighted the potential £375k loss and reminded him of an available lifeline. Nicholas opted to use the lifeline, but his friend Meg was clueless about the question. "Normally, I'm really averse to any kind of gambling, but I do think I'm going to go for it," he declared, confidently stating "Yahoo, final answer." The correct answer turned out to be serendipity, a term created by Horace Walpole inspired by The Three Princes of Serendip. With a nonchalant attitude, Nicholas remarked: "I've still got £125k" while Jeremy confessed he'd be "sobbing on the floor" after such a hefty loss. Clarkson, clearly astonished, exclaimed post-event, "Oh my giddy aunt," questioning whether this was the most significant loss in 'Millionaire' history. He praised Nicholas, saying, "I don't think I've had a contestant I've enjoyed more than you. Well done, enjoy your winnings." Upon returning from the commercial break, Clarkson greeted the audience with, "We've just seen someone lose what we think is the biggest amount in Who Wants to be a Millionaire history".
Daily Mirror
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Millionaire contestant loses biggest amount in show's history after huge mistake
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host Jeremy Clarkson admitted he would be 'sobbing on the floor" after Contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the biggest amount in show history Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the biggest amount of money in the show's history after making a huge mistake. The show, which has now been running for 30 seasons, saw Nicholas get all the way to 500k without using any of his lifelines, leaving host Jeremy Clarkson hugely impressed. However, things took a turn, and Nicholas ended up losing a whopping £375k. After the £125,000 question, Clarkson says: 'He's just roaring along.' Next up was the £250,000 question, which read: 'Which of these groups never successfully invaded the city of Rome?'. The options were: "a) Visigoths, b) Huns, c) Vandals, d) Gauls". Nicholas, looking quite confident, said: 'I do like history, I know the Gauls invaded pretty early on. I'm pretty sure the Vandals destroyed the city - that's why we have vandalism. I don't think the Huns did, I don't think they made it that far into Europe, whereas I knew the Visigoths were around. As it's a free shot, I'm 70-80% sure…' Clarkson proceeded to remind him that he's still got all four lifelines and that he doesn't need to guess, however, Nicholas responds: 'I don't think this is a guess though. Maybe on the next question I'll need them, so I'm gonna say Huns - final answer.' Lo and behold, the answer was correct, and Nicholas went on to the next question worth £500k. Host Jeremy Clarkson observed: 'You seem quite relaxed', to which Nicholas responds: 'It's not relaxed inside my head.' The £500k question read: 'Which of these long-running US sitcoms had the most episodes? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Friends c) The Office or d) Seinfeld'. Unsure on the answer, he asked the audience who thought it was Friends - but only 37% - while 30% thought Seinfeld. Still unsure and not wanting to take chances yet, he used 50/50, which left The Big Bang Theory and The Office (which meant the audience was wrong). Nicolas stated that it was difficult to get his words out before revealing The Big Bang Theory as his final answer. The answer was correct and then it was on to the final question, the £1million question. Clarkson asks: 'Which of these words, each coined by a famous writer, was derived from the title of a fairytale about three princes? a)Pandemonium b) Serendipity c) Utopia d) Yahoo.' Nicholas says: 'The one that's standing out to me is yahoo, but I don't know.' He asks host Jeremy, who says he can't think of a fairytale that's about three princes and points out that all four words have come from authors. Nicholas then remembers a puppet show he went to recently in Spain, which he thinks was about three princes. He said he doesn't speak Spanish well enough to know what the story was about. 'But I think someone was yelling yahoo', he said. He reasons that he's still got £125k if he gets it wrong, and Clarkson points out that he would lose £375k and that he has another lifeline. Nicholas then used his lifeline, but unfortunately, his friend Meg had no idea of the answer. 'Normally, I'm really averse to any kind of gambling, but I do think I'm going to go for it,' he says, 'Yahoo, final answer.' The computer then reveals the answer to be serendipity, coined by Horace Walpole from The Three Princes of Serendip. Nicholas shrugs and says: 'I've still got £125k' as Jeremy admits he would be 'sobbing on the floor' if he'd just lost that much money. 'Oh my giddy aunt,' Clarkson said afterwards. 'Is that the biggest loss in Millionaire history?' and he tells Nicholas: 'I don't think I've had a contestant I've enjoyed more than you. Well done, enjoy your winnings.' After the ad break he welcomed viewers back by saying: "We've just seen someone lose what we think is the biggest amount in Who Wants to be a Millionaire history".
