this week

What a week!

Robert Suban is the Maltese champion of the prestigious French television quiz Questions Pour Un Champion.

INTERVIEW BY ZILLAH BUGEJA

The programme, Questions Pour Un Champion, goes on air daily on France Trois at 18.20. At that time it is the most popular programme, and for the last 13 years, it has had an audience of six to seven million. You can even buy the game, kind of similar to Trivial Pursuit.

I am Maltese, but went to live in France with my parents when I was eight, so French is my mother tongue, I even think in French. I used to watch the quiz show every day and wondered what it would be like to go on, but never believing that I would.

Once a year they have an international programme, where they invite candidates from 10 countries the world over. This was the first time Malta had taken part, and now we won too!

They had selected four candidates from each country. They came over on 16 April when we were given an oral and written exam, followed by two sets of 50 questions.

We were all invited for a week to Paris for the recording of the programmes, which included a full programme of excursions too, which started off with a trip to Monet’s house and gardens at Giverney and to the Eiffel Tower.

I was already exposed to a mix of cultures during my study period in Belgium, but I had never met people from countries like Vietnam so close. I learned that the greeting in Vietnam, is not ‘how are you’, but ‘have you eaten well?’. If yes, then you’re okay. We take food for granted, but they still cannot.

Meeting people is what I love about my job as senior sales and marketing manager at Mondial Holidays. Because we also take groups abroad, I tend to go to the same place and see the same sites over and over again, and it can get a tad tedious, but the satisfaction of making people happy is what makes me tick.

It is impossible to revise for the quiz, because the subjects are so vast. There was one candidate who actually bought a copy of the previous year’s questions and went through them all, in order to feel better prepared.

The others were quite nervous throughout, but not me, because to me it was just a game. I just wanted to play it because I like it. Obviously the idea of the prizes were nice, but I wasn’t that interested. I never felt that there was any rivalry between us.

The recordings, which went on from Monday to Thursday, were always casual and everything was done to make us feel relaxed.

During recording the presenter would come over and make jokes, and make it a point to get to know us, even to speak a sentence in each foreign language, just for a laugh.

Some of the excursions included dinner and a show at the Lido, a night trip and dinner on the bateaux mouches.

For the final evening, we had to rent tuxedos. At first, I didn’t manage to get to the buzzer on time, and I got a bit worried because during the rehearsal I had not been the fastest but was still managing. It was then that I knew it was going to be tough.

They told me that I would take part again in a few years’ time, so I’m looking forward to that.

People here are not that familiar with the French quiz programme, so they cannot appreciate that it is probably the most popular programme of its time slot. But the Maltese who work in Paris really understood my achievement. It provided a good opportunity to present Malta and its culture to the French public and for them to even find out its location. The French know about Malta only for our 12-1 loss against the Spanish football team, for the grandmasters and the Erika, not all positive points. At least through this quiz programme, we can offer another image. Even for us Maltese, we can appreciate that we can be as good, if not better than other countries.

Most of the candidates had previously been to France and Paris, so it was not like I had to be a tour guide for them. But none of us were allowed to visit friends there, or take up family members either. The idea was that we would stick together as a group, and get to know each other’s cultures.

There was a time during the quiz when I knew the answers, but by mistake they came out wrong: for example, instead of bateau mouche I answered peniche, another kind of boat. At that moment I knew I had to slow down, but I didn’t let it get on top of me.

Imagine, the Senegal candidates had been training for a whole month and a half so that they would be fast on the buzzer!

The last programme was recorded on 20 May. In the last phase, I obviously was quite confident and was faster than my Senegal opponent. In the end I won 15–6, but at the time didn’t know by how many points. Other people came in to congratulate me because they had been told they could come and shake me. They then gave us the prizes at the podium. I had already won an encyclopaedia from the first semi-final, and now am eagerly awaiting its arrival, as well as other books that I have won.

In the beginning, we all had a friendly bet about who would win. The other three Maltese candidates bet one me, but I bet on Vietnam – I couldn’t exactly bet on myself, now could I?

At first I needed time for the truth to sink in. The public were really excited, and the ambassador of Malta to UNESCO and a lady from the NTOM in Paris were very happy for me.

After the final programme we all went to a disco and had dinner and then we all started to depart.

I was happy to have won mostly because I truly liked the game and I had wanted to win it. Winning the game was not about luck as such, you have to think or to be faster, it is an intellectual challenge, and that gave me much more satisfaction. I wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t given us such lavish prizes. I was obviously happy for Malta to win, being the smallest country. I had expected that someone from a larger country would have taken the prize, one that was more francophone.

My family knew about my win, of course, straight away, but they were not allowed to divulge it until it was broadcast on TV. Then when I finally saw myself on TV, I could better understand what the audience were seeing, and the reasons for the technical side of things.

I’ve been in Malta for almost seven years. I can tell you that Malta in July and August is completely different to the rest of the year. I still have a French mentality in a way, not that I’m proud, but I did get influenced by the French education system.

Here in Malta, I do go to the Alliance to borrow films and books. Apart from playing tennis at Marsa and in the Pembroke singles league, I also lecture at university, economics and banking, so with work and a young family, this takes up most of my time. I’m married to Mireille, yes, she happens to have a French name, and my daughter Celine is five-months-old. I already speak to her in French, and I think that she will associate French with me, have it as her mother tongue and be able to cope with languages very well. I’m sure that even Mireille speaks to Celine in French when I’m not around.