Quiz that's no real brainer

AS a chronic sufferer f rom compounded Sesquipedalophobia ( the fear of long words), I consider the Pantagruelian sentiments penned by clearly leptocephalic self- confessed deipnosophistical epistemologists to be no more than unmitigated effluvium.

Nevertheless, since installing the complete Oxford English Dictionary on my computer, I have discovered that there is a positive side to lexicographical prolixity, and even to scholastic verbosity.

If I mistakenly use an obscure word in conversation, and somebody says, "ooh, swallowed a dictionary, have you?", I can dumbfound them by removing the CD-ROM from the slot in my PC, breaking it up, munching the bits, and then saying: "Yes, actually, all 12 volumes."

Admittedly, it costs me £200 every time I do it, but it breaks the ice at parties, especially when I follow it up by standing next to my microwave oven, switching it on, and making my pacemaker spark.

Ultimately, the use of long words is really a subtle form of discrimination, instigated by people with good memories in a bid to intimidate everyone else.

I've often thought it cruel that victims of brain diseases should be expected to remember that they're suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or even to have to pronounce the words), and most semi-comatose daytime TV viewers certainly aren't up to the "complete brain workout" that Five's daily Memory Bank threatens to inflict on them.

"It's a brand new quiz show that challenges your memory," boasts the programme's PR, but despite its highfalutin claims about " Pelmanism" and "right-brain thinking", the reality of yesterday afternoon's edition was a half hour of lowfalutin tedium. However, it did help me to overcome my own forgetfulness in one respect, because from now until the day I die, I know I'll always remember never ever to watch this show again.

Given the subject at its core, it seemed ironic that almost everything about this quiz was so utterly bland and unmemorable. That certainly-applied to the three contestantsthe sort of personality-free human ballast who continually appear on game shows, seem to have no jobs or lives, and presumably spend their days simply travelling from one TV studio to the next, where they survive by grazing on green room nuts and cheap white wine.

The cramped set was equally featureless, and I cannot even recall the female presenter's name, although I have to confess that her tremendous breasts did burn themselves indelibly into my retinas. Sorry, but I'm a sad old cunctator who is rapidly approaching middle age, and I must seek a moment's fleeting happiness where I may, which is why the unnamed hostess of Memory Bank will (unlike the show) live on in my Mammary Bank.

As for the games themselves, they simply tested the ability of the contestants to remember (or to guess wildly at) the flags of many nations or the names of a few film stars, hidden beneath a numbered grid. And considering the comparatively tiny amounts of money on offer (probably less than their houses had gone up in value during the broadcast), the attempts to generate tension with a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-style thudding drum and bass underscoreseemed little short of hubristic.