Oh - I should have mentioned

 Sorry - I should probably have said before. I'm off on holiday tomorrow - taking Mrs. Londinius and some of the family off for a cruise. I'll be back this time next week and I'll catch up as soon as possible after that. TTFN.

University Challenge 2026 - Repechage 2 - Sheffield v. New College

The Teams

Sheffield

Rhys Lewis

Abdelrahman Elsisi

Jacob Price (Capt)

Isobel Dobbie

New College, Oxford

Benji Stimpson

Paige Crawley

Jonah Poulard (Capt.)

Daan Timmers

Last of the two repechage matches, then. The form book said Sheffield, but then the form book should always be treated with a little scepticism.

For the first starter we had to wait and wait until it became obvious the answer required was Lost World. New College miscued with Lost City which allowed Abdelrahman Elsisi in with the right answer. National flags on which stars represent islands brought a great full house – it’s one thing when you can see the flags but when they are just described to you it's quite another. Paige Crawley came in too early for the second starter in a row, allowing Isobel Dobbie to identify a description of the word propaganda. Listed buildings used as locations in Avengers films revealed that one of the locations was Sainsburys, although it didn’t say which branch. Sheffield only took one of this set. Benji Stimpson wiped out the New College deficit with the answer ‘steady state’ for the next starter. A full house on the absurd was swiftly taken. Jonah Poulard capitalised by recognising the location of Naples for the first picture starter. Three more locations recognised by Unesco for culinary heritage saw a welcome name check for famous Argentinian born revolutionary Fray Bentos (see The Office) but only 1 was correctly answered. After a Sheffield miscue, Jonah Poulard identified Charles Rennie Mackintosh being associated with Glasgow. Responses to war by female artists yielded one correct answer. This meant that they had come back after a shaky start and led by 45-35 on 10 minutes.

A lead which grew after Jonah Poulard buzzed in very early to identify the word hero linking the titles of several works. New College rather threw away a correct answer on muscles by giving the answer trapezoid rather than trapezius which was actually required. It’s a shame because they did have the other two. However on the next starter the New College skipper came in too early and lost five, allowing opposite number Jacob Price in with the answer of Schengen. I’m not familiar with the work of Paul Auster nor, I think, are Sheffield. However they guessed one of them. Sheffield now incurred their second penalty for an early buzz allowing Paige Crawley in to identify Greece. Confucius proved a bit confucing to New College, who managed just the one bonus. For the music starter Benji Stimpson was in very early to identify the tones of Pete Seeger. Other artists who regularly appeared on some musicologist’s 1940s radio show saw some interesting guesses from New College, but they were at least right with Woody Guthrie. Abdelrahman Elsisi was first to identify the Nicobar pigeon as one of the closest living relatives of the dodo. Winners at the 2024 Peabody Awards which celebrate outstanding public service – no, I’m surprised I wasn’t nominated too, now you mention it – yielded one bonus. Rhys Lewis took his first starter identifying the Gregorian chant Dies Irae. Whatever lights your candle. Lev Landau’s genius scale – beats working for a living, I spose – brought me a lap of honour for knowing Paul Dirac which could have become two laps when I identified Heisenberg for the third. Sheffield also took a pair. Abdelrahman Elsisi knew a group of Roman Emperors whose names all began with G-A -L. Gallopingourmus was apparently not one of them. Sheffield managed one of a set of gettable bonuses on the openings of Dickens novels, which was enough to give them a narrow lead of 95 – 90 on 20 minutes.

Isobel Dobbie was in very quickly for the second picture starter to identify the work of one of my favourite artists, Caravaggio. Other depictions of the story of Echo and Narcissus brought a timely full house. All 8 contenders were too young to have heard of the Gleneagles agreement for the next starter. Jonah Poulard knew that Trignav is the tallest mountain in Slovenia and the subsequent bonuses on dumplings brought their own full house. The match was still too close to call. Paige Crawley restored her team’s lead with Jibril of the angel Gabriel. 2 bonuses on dentistry were taken. Isobel Dobbie identified the artist John Singer Sargent . Two bonuses on Greek mythology restored the lead to Sheffield. Benji Stimpson’s twitchy buzzer finger cost five points for the next starter which was compounded as Jacob Price correctly identified Diego Garcia. Smaller locations in England whose names include – burgh – brought one bonus. This meant New College needed an unanswered full house to draw level. Jonah Poulard took a flier but couldn’t make it stick with the next starter which penalty meant that New College were going to need at least 2 visits to the table. Abdelrahman Elsisi more or less sealed the deal knowing the Afro-Asian language family. Bonuses on the old Bafta or most promising newcomer. I loved Abdelrahman Elsisi suggestion that Judi Dench might have received the Best Newcomer BAFTA for Bugsy Malone. Didn’t matter. There was daylight between the teams and little time left. Jacob Price knew the word ‘cometh’ – as in The Iceman Cometh – an early play about the X Men, I believe. Words only used once in Shakespeare yielded nowt. That was that. Sheffield won by 175 – 125.

For the record Sheffield earned a BCR of 45% while New College looked better with 58%, but that was on top of 5 penalties, which helped keep Sheffield in the game until their power charge kicked in.

Amol Watch

When New College managed to get the last of the music bonuses right, “Thank goodness you got that one!” responded Amol. Gotta be honest, that’s not the nicest reaction, Amol. Smacks of saying – I can’t believe you didn’t get the others. We can do without that.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Joe Pesci won the best newcomer BAFTA for Raging Bull. To be honest I thought he might have been around for longer.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Well done setters! Nothing provoked the internal orchestra this week. Keep it up!

Mastermind 2026 - First round heat 15

Another week, another first round heat. To be honest, the series has fallen a little into the doldrums in recent weeks, with much honest endeavour but little real quality. Apologies to every contender in the last few weeks. You’ve all given it a lash – this is just how I feel and please feel free to disagree. It’s been a little while since any of the contenders really blew my socks off. Could last night’s manage to do this?

Rachel Sambrooks started us off with the short fiction of George Saunders. This was not the same George Saunders who voiced Shere Khan in the Jungle Book, I hasten to add. No, this was the Booker Prize winner who wrote my current read, “Lincoln in the Bardo”. I guessed the ‘I Am Spartacus’ question, but that was all I could manage in this round. Rachel did better, but the questions persisted in going into areas she maybe hadn’t considered during her preparation, and the round ended with Rachel having scored 5.

Like the previous round, Beth Younge’s round on the musical “Les Miserables” brought me just the one point – Bring Him Home, if you must know. For the second round in a row I think we saw a contender having to face up to the fact that the setters took a wider view of the subject than the contender had. Beth too scored 5.

I didn’t really expect that I was going to do that much better with our third specialist, Florence Nightingale. Well, I was right about that. At the start of the round I was on zero and I was still there by the end of it. Terry Edwards managed a respectable 8 on the subject – which is pretty decent considering that our Flo did live a long time. My grandmother Florence was named after Florence Nightingale. Well, sort of. She was actually named after her father’s sister, Florence. Now she was the one who was actually named after Florence Nightingale. There you go.

Submariner Tomas Stevenson brought the specialist round to a close with the O.C., a popular television series from the United States. Which I have never watched. So it was cue another zero points round and an aggregate of a measly 2 points. Tomas stumbled here and there – well, that seemed to be a bit of a linking theme tonight, but he pushed on and like Terry before him he put together a decent round worth 8 points.

An interesting contrast in styles between the two contenders tied in third place actually brought about similar results in the subsequent general knowledge round. Rachel seemed very tense but was snapping out the answers – not always correctly but she really gave it a good go. A respectable 8 points took her up to 13. Beth, on the other hand, seemed a lot calmer, but consequently never really built up a head of steam, either. She too scored 8 for 13, but was behind on pass countback.

Terry, then, had two clear goals. One was to score the 6 points he needed for an outright lead. These he managed. His second objective was to push on to set the most daunting target that he could for Tomas. In this I’d say he was less successful. The questions just seemed to refuse to fall his way, and despite a fair amount of time left in the round he ground to a halt with a total of 7 for 15 overall. Judging by the look on his face he must have known that it wouldn’t be enough.

Still, there’s many a slip twixt cup and list. Alright, Tomas only needed 8 but he still needed to find those 8 correct answers. Well, despite a wobbly first half of the round he settled enough to find nine which gave hm a won with 17. Maybe not the highest winning score we’ve ever seen – well, there’s no maybe about it – but a win is a win is a win. Well done and good luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Rachel Sambrooks	The Short Fiction of George Saunders	5	0	8	0	13	0
Beth Younge	“Les Miserables” The Musical	5	1	8	1	13	2
Terry Edwards	Florence Nightingale	8	1	7	4	15	5
Tomas Stevenson	The O.C.	8	0	9	3	17	3

University CHallenge 2026 - Repechage 1 - SOAS v. Imperial

The Teams

SOAS

Hatau Mozayen

V Davis-Aladren

Andrew Graham (capt)

Matthew O’Regan

Imperial

Rahim Dina

Eugenia Tong

Oscar O’Flanagan (capt)

Justin Keung

So to the repechage round. Last night was an all-London affair with SOAS taking on Imperial. Rahim Dina came in early for the first starter and correctly identified meanings of the word rust. Works in the National Portrait Gallery did not sadly mention my ancestor George Dawes’ work – he has a couple of portraits of Royalty there, don’t you know – but despite this oversight they took one bonus on King ‘Make Me An’ Offa of Mercia. An early buzz saw Imperial lose five, allowing Andrew Graham to answer that the name of Pakistan first appeared in print in 1933. 3 questions on Wheelers – none of them namechecking Geoffrey, sadly – brought one correct answer. Andrew Graham took his second starter in a row, recognising a quote referring to logic. You know, it’s a funny thing, but I still think of Mr. Spock every time I hear that word. Umbrellas in British novels, a subject about which we just don’t hear enough these days, brought two correct answers. Imperial’s star buzzer, skipper Oscar Flanagan, opened his account recognising that a graph related to a fuel source used in electricity generation was pertaining to coal. More graphs brought us both a full house. The next starter about an order of mammals took a long time to get where it was going but when it mentioned navigating around a room at night it was obviously bats, and Oscar Flanagan took his second starter. Darleane ‘Who?’ Hoffman brought me last night’s lap of honour for correctly guessing plutonium for the first bonus. Imperial took that and the second into the bargain. This ensured that they led by 55 – 35 at just after the 10 minute mark.

V Davis-Aladren knew various works linked by the word adventure for the next starter. Spanish food items beginning e and ending ada brought two bonuses and put the teams level again. Matthew O’Regan was first in to answer a question about the late, great Benjamin Zephania for the next starter and biographers of Richard III proved my point about needing someone familiar with Tudor history in your team – even if Andrew Graham earned brownie points for daring to give Young Ones’ University Challenge answer Toxteth O’Grady for the archbishop of Canterbury in whose household the young Thomas More lived. SOAS did not score on a really rather gentle set. I think Eugenia Tong was thinking of the right answer to the next starter when she gave Bevin instead of Beveridge – which is a shame because she didn’t get any points for it. Rahim Dina worked out from the question that American artist Harvey Littleton specialised in glass – must have been when he wasn’t recording I’m Sorry I haven’t A Clue (and don’t pretend you didn’t see that one coming). A full house on creatures and people described as infelix in the Aeneid followed. Music, maestro please. Nobody recognised the work of Brahms. (insert Are You Being Served reference here please.). Neither team dredged up coeliac disease for the next starter. Justin Keung recognised tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow from Shakespeare’s Scottish play to earn the music bonuses. Other composers of classical works used in Civilisation IV – no, me neither – brought a lot of discussion and one correct answer. And an apology from Oscar O’Flanagan for saying ‘I bloody hope so’. The momentum was with Imperial and their skipper who knew Guy of Lusignan was the meat of a question to which the answer would be The 3^rd Crusade. Computing vocabulary in French were surprisingly easy, and Imperial took two while the word repertoire went begging. Justin Keung knew that Rossini wrote The Thieving Magpie. Two bonuses on a tricky set on literature meant that Imperial led by 135 – 55 at 20 minutes and SOAS were in the do do.

Oscar Flanagan knew that Saskatchewan is the only Canadian province not bordered by – well, a lot of stuff frankly. The Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking brought just the one bonus – I was surprised they didn’t recognise the War of the Worlds for the last. For the picture starter Matthew O’Regan buzzed but couldn’t answer allowing Imperial to identify senator Joseph McCarthy. Notable people testifying before HUAC brought Imperial 2 bonuses as they marched onwards towards round 2. Now Andrew Graham finally managed to get his team a word in edgeways identifying a description of the velociraptor dinosaurs. People who died on their birthdays I felt sure would include Shakespeare but I was wrong, Nonetheless SOAS had two of the three who were described. Seretse Khama saw Eugenia Tong strike like a coiled cobra to give the answer of Botswana. A full house on Olympic Water Polo (do the gold medals for the event have holes in the middle? I think we should be told.) followed. Oscar Flanagan is very effective on what I think of as ‘penny dropping’ questions – the sort which suddenly become clear and launch a buzzer race and he had mutation for the next. Waterways of London brought just one correct answer, but hey, Imperial had already won, even if there were still a couple of minutes on the clock. Hatau Moyazen correctly answered that Gibraltar Point is in Lincolnshire. Best International Feature Film Oscars brought a good full house and at least put SOAS into triple figures. Andrew Graham identified the Mekong Delta (named for the little green fellow in Dan Dare) for the next starter and the team took two bonuses on ancient Mesopotamia. Oscar Flanagan knew about someone or other’s law, At this point sounded the gong, giving Imperial a win by 220 – 115.

As for the stats, SOAS BCR fell from 80% in round 1 to round about 50 in this match. Imperial managed 64%. Thanks SOAS and hard lines.

Amol Watch

I’m always pleased to see Amol namechecking the BCR. It’s fine Amol, you don’t have to confess that you’re really a LAM reader, we’re just happy to have you.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

The first portrait acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London is a portrait of Shakespeare.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Congratulations setters! Nothing soporific in this show.

Mastermind 2026 - First Round Heat 14

Good morning, dearly beloved. I’m just starting to emerge from my head cold which mucked me up last week, and so if I sound a bit curmudgeonly in this review I hope that you’ll accept my apologies. For the fact is that I found last night’s episode a bit of a slog. You know me, I love the show and I have empathy for all of the competitors, but for me last night’s show never caught fire.

Not that the specialists didn’t show endeavour and knowledge, for the most part. The first of them, Jonathan Bartley’s round on Richard Nixon certainly did. Jonathan had prepared thoroughly and this brought him just desserts in the form of a double figure round of 10. I had 2 and frankly that was all I was ever going to get on this set, but I know enough about the subject to think that this was a testing set.

Matthew Patenall offered us the first of last night’s subjects on which I would fail to score, Nirvana. Incidentally I saw a newspaper feature the other day about the baby on the cover of Nevermind. He’s a grandfather now (slight exaggeration). Matthew was well up to the size of the challenge and his deep knowledge of the subject took him past Jonathan’s score to set the target at 11.

Jane Kendrick offered us a subject I knew nothing about , the architect George Skipper. I’ve never listened to any of his albums either. Normally I’m not bad on architecture, but my Skipper’s career had certainly skipped past me. Jane did respectably well, but ah, in just not quite getting an answer or two for not quite remembering them correctly she missed out on double figures, scoring 8.

What have we said so often in the past about rounds on TV series? They should come with a government health warning. In all honesty, you had to feel for Savannah Phillips. I would imagine that you’d only opt to take a TV show as a specialist subject because you absolutely love it, so then to find out that you don’t know as much about it as you probably thought you did, that’s tough. There’s no sugar coating this, Savannah scored 5.

Off the top of my head I’m not sure if 2 is my lowest aggregate of the series on specialist so far – come to think of it I believe there might have been a 1 in there somewhere. Still, that was behind me as we began the GK. Savannah did a bit better with her GK questions, and scored 7 to end with 12. All I can say, Savannah, is that you gave it a lash which few enough people have ever done. Stuff the begrudgers.

Jane Kendrick sat down, composed herself, and delivered a double figure round of 10. Normally ‘d say that 18 was never going to be enough to win a heat, but, I don’t know, there seemed to be something in the air during this particular heat and so at this stage I wasn’t ruling anything out.

Jonathan couldn’t beat it. He matched Savannah’s round, but having incurred a pass in round 1 he needed to beat Jane’s total – he couldn’t force a tie break, and in the end he just couldn’t summon up enough correct answers to make his way through the corridor of doubt and emerge victorious the other side.

Finally, then, Matthew Patenall. He would incur no passes, just as Jane had done before him. So a tie break was certainly a possibility, and with only a couple of questions to go that seemed to be where we were heading. Matthew managed an 8^th correct answer to take him to a winning score of 19, though. Well done.

So, as I said, this wasn’t the greatest heat we’ve seen all series. It didn't blow my socks off but then it wasn’t totally without interest. And what you have to acknowledge is that I think that for all the contestants, in a first round heat you’re honestly not thinking about the Grand Final and the glass bowl. You’re thinking about doing your best and, if possible, winning the heat. End of. And that’s exactly what Matthew managed to do. Well done! Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Jonathan Bartley	Richard Nixon	10	1	7	1	17	2
Matthew Patenall	Nirvana	11	0	8	0	19	0
Jane Kendrick	The Architect George Skipper	8	0	10	0	18	0
Savannah Phillips	Derry Girls	5	1	7	2	12	3

University Challenge First round - Magdalen, Oxford v. Robinson, Cambridge

The Teams

Magdalen, Oxford

Aidan Woo

Lily Costa-Ferreira

Benjamin Sharkey (Capt)

Sasha Walker

Robinson College, Cambridge

Michael Shipman

Jessica Cronin

Eve Temmink (Capt)

Otis Moran

I shan’t lie to you. Last week’s Quizzy Monday being on Tuesday messed up my schedule for the whole week, and being ill on Wednesday onwards didn’t help a great deal either. Okay, enough of my problems.

Jessica Cronin took the first starter for Robinson recognizing two works with jungle in the title. They rode their luck a little with the second of a set of bonuses on cities named after Roman Emperors but still took two. Skipper Eve Temmink was the first to buzz for the next starter which seemed all the way along to be pointing to Mondrian, as indeed it was. I only knew one of the botanicals used to flavour gin for the next set and so did Robinson. The next starter showed that it often pays to have someone with a good working knowledge of Tudor history on your team as neither recognized fairly obvious clues to the surname Seymour for the next starter. Sasha Walker recognized references to perennial crowd pleaser Kurt Godel in the next starter. It was nice to see the Trolley Problem, known to all of us used to doing a big shop in Tescos on a wet Tuesday getting namechecked in a bonus set on double effect thinking. Magdalen had one of these. Sasha Walker took her double with the picture starter identifying the sites of Agra and Petra. More maps showing locations of two world heritage sites brought a well earned full house to Magdalen. The splendidly titled To Pimp a Butterfly (sequel to the album why The Hell Would You Want To - ) brought Aidan Woo his first starter. Diseases named after places brought just one correct answer on a gettable set. So, after a lively first period the score on 10 minutes stood at 55 – 35 to Magdalen.

Michael Shipman took his first starter on Archimedes of Syracuse and Robinson faced three bonuses on Romanesque architecture in England. One of which they answered correctly. They weren’t all easy to be fair. Michael Shipman then came in too early for the next starter allowing Magdalen to identify the dessert Charlotte. Captain Benjamin Sharkey took that one. US Secretary of State William Henry Seward provided two bonuses. Seward was badly injured by the conspirators who murdered Abraham Lincoln. A very interesting figure. For the next starter Lily Costa-Ferreira knew the word horror  - surprised that nobody had it after the Heart of Darkness clue but there we are. Fandom in fiction was a really interesting bonus theme for the next set but only the last question on Turning Red proved gettable for any of us. So to the music starter and Lily Costa-Ferreira took her double with The Stooges. Sadly I don’t think that they ever had a line up where they were just a trio. Other 60s songs with titles mentioning dogs brought two bonuses. Our second baby elephant walk inducing starter passed me by completely but Sasha Walker said the answer was insulator and I ain’t about to argue with that. French chemist Henri Braconnot and his discoveries gave me a lap of honour for knowing chitin. Magdalen took two and let’s be honest, they seemed to be bossing this stage of the match. This continued when Benjamin Sharkey knew that Henry II was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine. He seemed awfully pleased to get a set of bonuses on places commemorating battles of the Napoleonic Wars. They took two. Various places with words for Cross in their name fell to Sasha Walker. The poems of Elizabeth Bishop – written before she was a character in Corrie? – brought a single bonus. Aidan Woo knew that the work referenced in the next starter focuses on Indonesia. Memorial or Ceremonial Gates provided one bonus – a rush of blood to the head from the skipper prevented it being two. Didn’t matter. It looked to me as if they were already over the event horizon by 20 minutes as Magdalen led 180 – 45.

Finally Eve Temmink managed to elbow her team back into the game recognizing the picture starter, a terracotta warrior and the dynasty during which it was created. More pictures of artifacts followed and Robinson identified two of the dynasties in which they were created. Nobody in either team seemed to know that as well as the Floor, the Vault is the only other discipline to feature in both women’s and men’s gymnastics. Eve Temmink knew that a malar rash is a sign of Lupus. Insects brought couple of bonuses. The skipper was quite rightly throwing caution to the wind with her buzzing, but sadly lost five with the next which allowed Aidan Woo in with Guyana. Cattle deities in world mythology promised something interesting and delivered, but only one of them was answered correctly by Magdalen. Sasha Walker won the buzzer race to give the term protectionism. The ballet Swan Lake gave another two bonuses. The excellent Sasha Walker won another buzzer race to identify Lombardy for the next starter. A full house on velodromes followed. The next starter was an old quiz chestnut about the gemstone that was believed to prevent a drinker from becoming drunk – yeah, hope springs eternal was correctly answered by Jessica Cronin. Geological terms derived from Celtic languages yielded one bonus. Benjamin Sharkey knew the Abbasid empire for the next starter. Trilogies named after a city didn’t add to the Magdalen total, but it would have just been gilding anyway. I’ve never drunk Kombucha and frankly having listened to its description I don’t plan to do so any time soon. Eve Temmink took her team into triple figures with it. They took one bonus on departments of France and the contest ended during the next starter. Magdalen won by 245 to 105. And that, ladies and gents, is the first round done.

Curiously there was next to nothing between both teams’ BCRs – Magdalen was the slightly better with 50% while Robinson’s was 48%. However, Magdalen had earned almost twice as many bonus to attempt.

Amol Watch

Sorry Amol, but 19 minutes in is just too late to say there’s plenty of time left. There isn’t. Say – still enough time to get going - if you’re this far into the show. Mind you, it’s better than saying – Robinson, are your buzzers still working? -  so fair play to you.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Orleans was named after the Roman Emperor Aurelian.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Including an early example of exponentiation to express very large numbers, the Sand Reckoner is a work by which ancient thinker, in which he attempts to estimate how many grains of sand could fit into the universe? It was written as a letter to Gelon II, the King of Syracuse. Yes, the mention of Syracuse made it obvious it had to be Archimedes, but goodness me we had to wade through so much dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum to get there.

Repechage qualifiers

Sheffield	170
SOAS	170
Imperial	160
New College, Oxford	150

Mastermind 2026 First Round Heat 13

Welcome to Quizzy Tuesday, folks. Yes, blessed be the name  of international football, and even quizzy Monday must make way. Still, at least this week’s Mastermind had probably my biggest banker subject of the whole series so far. I’ll come to that.

First of all though we had Paddy Moore, answering on the films of Billy Wilder. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that Billy Wilder was great and “Some Like It Hot” is still one of my favourite films. But this didn’t bring me many points though. 1 to be precise. I didn’t think they were any easy set at all. Paddy struggled manfully with it, but a relatively modest 6 meant that there was going to be a substantia hill for him to climb in the second half. David Niven told a wonderful story about Billy Wilder. On a trip to Europe his wife had asked him to obtain a bidet. Unable to do so he telegrammed her saying ‘Unable to obtain bidet stop. Suggest handstand in shower stop. “

If you’d suggested to me before the start of the show that I’d earn more points on Neil Diamond than on Billy Wilder then I would have been surprised. But that’s exactly what happened, with me taking 2. Davina Keby-Beck had obviously prepared thoroughly and she sailed through to a double figure score of 10.I took 2 on this and to be honest that’s two more than I had expected. Cracklin’ Rosie, a song apparently about a girl’s unhealthy love of pork scratchings, was one of them.

Yes, my banker for the night – and possibly for the whole of this series, was the Apollo Space Program, which was offered by Anjaneya Bapat. I scored 9 on this round, which incidentally is the same score that Anjaneya achieved. We didn’t get all of the same questions mind you. I had that Ed White, killed in the tragic Apollo 1 capsule fire, was the first American to walk in space – and if I’m honest I thought that was one of the easier questions. But then Anjaneya got a hard one I didn’t so fair’s fair.

Richard Carr brought the round to an end with his specialist set on the Battle of Normandy. Fair play, he knew his stuff. I used to take parties of schoolchildren to Normandy every year, and learned a fair bit about the Normandy campaign during these trips. People think that once D Day had happened the war in Europe was virtually all over bar the shouting, but this wasn’t the case at all, and the Battle of Normandy saw some of the hardest fighting at any time in any theatre of the war. Richard’s knowledge was certainly up to the demands of the task and he top scored with an excellent 11.

So to Paddy Moore fell the daunting task of returning to the chair after seeing the lead set at a score five points higher than what he had achieved in his specialist. And fair play, he really gave it a good old lash. Paddy added 12 to his score for a total of 18. In my heart of hearts I did not think it would quite be enough, but nonetheless it was a great effort.

Anjaneya could not match it. Mind you, he didn’t have to match it exactly. He was three points to the good after the specialists and thus needed 9 and 2 passes for the outright lead. Well, he did only take two passes. Sadly though he only managed a perfectly respectable 8 correct answers.

Davina Kesby-Beck was a further point ahead with 10 on the specialist round, and this meant that if she could match Anjaneya’s GK performance then she would go into the lead. Well, shebettered Anjaneya in one way, managing to answer every question and thus not incur any passes. Sadly though only 7 of these answers were correct. This meant that she too finished with 17, a respectable score but not a winning one.

So, only Richard remained. I think that either he had decided beforehand that passin rather than guessing was his preferred option. Either that or he opted for the tactic on the hoof as the round progressed. It was getting pretty late on and he still hadn’t reached the target. A late rally, though was enough to see him over the line and to put daylight between himself and the trailing pack.

Well, done Richard, best of luck to you in the semi finals. As for Mastermind, well, I’ll see you on Monday, where you belong.

The Details

Paddy Moore	The Films of Billy Wilder	6	2	12	1	18	3
Davina Kesby-Beck	Neil Diamond	10	0	7	0	17	0
Anjaneya Bapat	The Apollo Space Program	9	0	8	2	17	2
Richard Carr	The Battle of Normandy	11	0	9	6	20	6