The Rapt Quiz and an Art lesson
Four of the Team
RAPT stands for the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust. It is a truly worthy cause. Many people find themselves in prison each year having committed crimes while being addicts. The answer has been to lock them up for a period of time and then let them out. At this point, having had no help to deal with the root cause of the problem, their addict ion, they most likely go back to commit further crimes. RAPT is a non government funded, independent charity, and the only group working in prisons offering help to people trapped in this destructive cycle.
My wife Sophy and I have been supporters of RAPT for a few years now. Sophy is a great reader and loves quizzes and Rapt hold a quiz once a year at the Tabernacle in Nottinghill Gate to raise vitally needed funds. The fellow contestants are generally made up of the West London intellectual cool elite so I’m not sure where I come in but the evening is great fun and as we have a secret weapon on our team in the form of a human Google, we usually do quite well or even win. In fact he is so brilliant that the rest of us just sit in awe. This freed me up to do a little drawing on my note taking paper which I have put at the top of the page. Rick is second from the left.
Jeremy Vine on-stage
The Radio 2 DJ and talk show host Jeremy Vine was the quiz master and the questions were set by Judith Kepple, the first person to win on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. They were brilliant. We had a brief talk about the good RAPT has done given by a former prisoner
who had been through the program and could speak with genuine authority on the subject.
This year I offered a days art lesson as a lot in the auction. Here is the description from the catalogue.
Rapt Auction Lot
I got quite a good pitch from Jeremy Vine. Once I gave a painting to be auctioned for a racing charity and the auctioneer was the TV presenter Clair Balding. She started the auction off, what do I hear for a painting by artist Will Topley.
£2000 someone shouted.
£2000?!!! Are you sure? She answered.
Not exactly encouraging.
My lot went well and raised £350 for the cause which pleased me greatly.
Here is a video clip I discretely shot over my shoulder during the bidding. The Camera shake is me getting excited.
The evening was a great success and we came in second place, two points behind the winners. Most of the answers that I knew were also known by Rick (the fore-mentioned human Google) but I did know the name Marcel Duchamp signed on the infamous urinal – R Mutt.