Mastermind is a uk quiz show in which contestants answer questions on general knowledge and on a specialist subject. My specialist subject was the naval careers of Horation Nelson and Cuthbert Collingwood, two men who enjoyed a friendship of over thirty years, and who saved their country from an otherwise ustoppable invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Neither is as well known as he deserves. Nelson is commonly confused with a modern statesman named after him - Nelson Mandela - and Collingwood is hardly known at all outside his native Northumbria, where he is rightly regarded as a hero. The best part of the programme was being able to explain their relationship in a conversation with the UK's favourite journalist, John Humphrys. The worst was coming second to a contestant answering questions on an obscure but well-named pop group, Erasure.
I've been asked to give two talks on Nelson and Collngwood to local societies. The talks are illustrated with contemporary pictures and quotations, and the first went well enough for me to be asked to repeat and extend it. I'm happy to do more, in return for donations to the charity A Book of My Own.