Mr Average who turned into a quiz genius
By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 1:22am BST 26/04/2008
As someone who cheerfully admitted to having a poor memory and no time for reading books, Glen Brighton's grasp of general knowledge could be politely described as average.
But in the space of just one week he transformed himself into a quiz genius thanks to an extraordinary combination of speed reading and mind techniques.
Mr Brighton, 40, an aviation insurance consultant from Hornchurch, Essex, learned to absorb the contents of hundreds of encyclopaedias and reference books, on such subjects as art, geography, history and science.
He then took on more than 100 of the finest general knowledge brains in Britain in a "champion of champions" contest - surprising everyone with an astonishing performance.
Mr Brighton, a married father-of-two, employed two techniques to expand his memory and store a phenomenal number of facts and figures in his mind.
First, he speed-read mountains of text by mentally "photographing" it in his mind, taking only a few seconds per page.
Then he associated the words on the page with visual images which enabled him to recall them easily.
After setting himself the challenge to learn as much as possible in seven days, no one was more astonished than Mr Brighton when he suddenly found himself able to recall the number of hummingbird types found in the Amazon rainforest (319) or the currency of Liechtenstein (the Swiss franc).
His objective was to enter the Night of Champions quiz at a pub in Fulham, south-west London.
The event is one of the biggest in the pub quiz calendar, drawing champions from pubs across the South East to compete.
It is famed for its fiendishly difficult questions and while the other 23 teams each had up to six members pooling their knowledge, Mr Brighton entered alone.
Andrew Burns, the quizmaster who devised the questions, was astounded to learn the truth about Mr Brighton.
"We were told that a guy would be coming along and entering on his own, and we all found it unbelievable that he could know so much.
"These were the best teams out there and the quiz questions were exceptionally hard because it was a 'champion of champions' contest. What he has done is amazing," Mr Burns told The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Brighton was taught the techniques by Derren Brown, the magician, for a Channel 4 television series.
His performance, and the final result of the quiz, will be revealed in the first episode of Derren Brown: Trick Or Treat, which will be broadcast on Friday.
Mr Brighton applied to be a "guinea pig" on the show without knowing what he would be required to do.
He admitted to finding his sudden acquisition of knowledge "scary" but is thrilled by his new found talent.
"I'm just an average guy with an ordinary background. If I can do it, probably anyone can."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ius126.xml
