The smartest lookWhich candidate stood out? What was Maarten’s moment andwhich gallery offered the most conversation material? A look back at thesecond week of The smartest person.
Candidate
Amused, I watched actress Anniek Pheifer shout ‘chips’ this week. It’s such apedagogically sound swear word that only mothers use to set a good example.But it was too late for that. In almost every broadcast, Pheifer – so far themost fanatical and smartest of the candidates – dropped a strong expletive.Startled, she then clapped her hands to her face. How ironic it was that shewas asked a question about Tourette Syndrome and could only partially answerit. These are moments that TV makers cannot stage. Delicious!
Anniek Pheifer breaks down on the gallery round with eight mnemonics. © KRO-NCRV
Gallery
Small sample. Do you know what is meant by ‘Make Eight Meters of Fabric YourJapanese Pajamas’? Or: ‘I replaced Xander’s tasty lemons with mandarins’. Theyare two mnemonics that passed in the gallery round. In the first case, thecapital letters stand for the planets (M = mercury, V = venus, A = earth,etc), the second sentence refers to the Roman numerals (Ik = I/1, Verving =V/5, Xanders = X /10, etc.). Well, as if you remember Japanese pajamas easierthan the solar system? This round was way too hard. There are mnemonic devicesthat have benefited me more. For example, in my student days: ‘Beer after winegives poison, wine after beer gives pleasure.’ When the winter time startsagain: ‘You WIN time with it’. (In other words sleep an hour longer, huh). Orthe trick I use to tell Nick and Simon apart. Just pay attention: Nick isalways on the left of the picture, Simon on the right.
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Martin moment
After a question about the Battle of Arnhem, Maarten van Rossem told an almostunbelievable story. It would have been close if he had become a victim of war.When a residential area in Wageningen was bombed by the Allies on 17 September1944 – the bombs were actually intended for German barracks – little Maartenwas lying in a pram in the garden on Rijksstraatweg. The shards flew around,the neighbor and 42 others did not survive. It is a story that Van Rossem – ‘Isurvived, as you can see’ – likes to tell. But whether he really escaped deathas a 1-year-old is doubtful. In a broadcast by Omroep Gelderland, two yearsago, he says that his grandfather once wrote in a letter that the parentalhome and garden were never touched. Van Rossem felt ‘stolen from an incrediblyexciting story’ in which he was emotionally directly involved in the violenceof the so-called Operation Market Garden. So he calculated whether it waspossible that the shards had flown past his pram after all. “My theory is thatit can,” he said. Okay, he admitted, maybe it’s a bit of mythology. “But I’mattached to it.”