I went on Countdown

You apply online, you go to an audition in a hotel function room in a city near you, and you play a mock game against strangers with a producer timing it on a phone. Then, if it goes well, they ring you about a year later and ask whether you can get to Salford on a Wednesday.

They record five programmes in a day. Between each one you go back to a room and change your top, because on television those are five separate afternoons, and you are told to bring more clothes than you would need for a week away. I brought six tops. I wore two.

The conundrum

I won the first game by eleven, on words, with a nine-letter spot that I want to say I saw immediately and did not — I wrote down an eight, crossed it out, and got the nine with about four seconds to go.

The numbers rounds went the way the numbers rounds were always going to go for somebody whose pub quiz team had to hand her the geography and take away the sport.

I lost the second game on the conundrum, level pegging, everything on it. The letters on the board spelt GRANDIOSE, which is itself a word, and which is therefore not the answer. The answer was ORGANISED. My opponent had it in four seconds. I had it in the car park.

Every contestant gets a teapot. That is the tradition and it is much older than the current studio, and mine is on the shelf above the kettle. It holds about six cups and it pours extremely badly.

Of everything on this website it is the only object in the house that visitors ever ask about, and Barry, who runs the league table in a spreadsheet he will not share, watched both games and has said nothing to me about either of them.