This show completed the first half of the first round heats, and we'll make a few general observations about this after we've commented on tonight's show.
Up tonight were three newbies, Brian Bogie, Gordon Innes, and Ian Bayley, together with a veritable Mastermind veteran, Christopher Gonet. Mr. Bogie kicked off the show, with a fine round on Ian Botham. He maintained this lead throughout the specialist rounds. Gordon Innes mad an uncertain start to his round on The Munros of Scotland, but recovered well, and put on a spurt towards the end to push up to 12. Next up was a familiar face to viewers of "Are You An Egghead ", Dr. Ian Bayley, although billed as just plain Ian Bayley for the purposes of this show. His tactics were obviously to be as accurate as possible, but this did mean he was very hesitant on some questions, and he managed 13. Bringing the round to a close was Chris Gonet. This was his third tilt at mastermind, having also taken part in first round heats in 1991 and 2005. His grasp on some of the more obscure and arcane details of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels wasn't as secure as it needed to be, and he found himself bringing up the rear with 10.
Mr. Gonet somewhat redeemed himself with a good quickfire general knowledge round to push himself up to 23. This was good enough to push him ahead of Gordon Innes, however Ian Bayley was lurking in the wings. I thought that he had a tough general knowledge round, and to score 13 as he did was a very good performance, which is no less than we would have expected since watching his magisterial performance in the first round of AYAE. So, 26 was by no means unbeatable, and 12 would have done it for Brian Bogie. To my eyes Mr. Bogie had a rather easier general knowledge round than Dr. Ian, but he proved himself unequal to the task, scoring only 8, and even slipped back into 3rd place on pases. So well done , Dr. Ian. Not the finest performance in the first round so far, but you can't help feeling that he is only likely to do better in the semis, and thats something you certainly can't say for all of the other heat winners so far.
The Details
| Brian Bogie | Ian Botham | 15 - 0 | 8 - 4 | 23 - 4 |
| Gordon Innes | The Munros of Scotland | 12 - 2 | 9 - 1 | 21- 3 |
| Ian Bayley | Tchaikovsky | 13 - 0 | 13 - 0 | 26 - 0 |
| Christopher Gonet | The James Bond Novels | 10 - 0 | 13 - 0 | 23 - 0 |
Mastermind First Round Heats - Half term reports.
Well, we're halfway through the first round and we've had some good performances, some shocks, and even a tie break. Have we had a series winner, though ? Its really difficult to tell. After all, last year, we saw Hamish Cameron set a marvellous score of 33 in the first round, yet he didn't even reach the final. Stuart Cross in his semi final had his best performance, hit absolute top form, and even though Hamish had the 3rd best score in all of the semis, he was still beaten. So a great deal depends on who is against whom in which semi final.
Allowing for that , then , I have to say that the contender who caught the eye so far is John Beynon. His 14 on General Knowledge looks very impressive. However, after getting through a nervy heat, you'd fancy that Ian Bayley has the General Knowledge to do very well . As I said before, I think that he is only going to do better in the semis - while I don't think this about some of the others who scored more highly in their own heats. At the moment Nancy Dickmann looks the most likely woman to reach the finals. For what its worth, here's a run down of the relative performances of each of the heat winners so far.
| John Beynon | 15 - 0 | 14 - 0 | 29 - 0 |
| James Corcoran | 16 - 0 | 13 - 3 | 29 - 3 |
| Mel Kinsey | 16 - 1 | 12- 1 | 28 - 2 |
| Gillian Taylor | 18 - 0 | 9- 0 | 27 - 0 |
| Nancy Dickman | 13 - 0 | 14 - 1 | 27 - 1 |
| Roger Canwell | 14 - 1 | 13-1 | 27 - 2 |
| Thomas Armer | 13 - 0 | 13 - 0 | 26 - 0 |
| Ian Bayley | 13 - 0 | 13 - 0 | 26 - 0 |
| Sally Jones | 15 - 2 | 10 -1 | 25 - 3 |
| Jenny Dunn | 13 - 0 | 11 - 3 | 24 - 3 |
| Ara Varatharaj | 16 - 0 | 7 - 1 | 23 - 1 |
| Nicholas Flindall | 15 - 1 | 8 - 4 | 23 - 5 |
Only Connect
My, my, but Dr. Ian has been a busy boy recently ! We've only just seen him being beaten by James Webb in AYAE, and win his place in the Mastermind semis, but last Monday he showed himself to be a team man as well, representing The Crossworders, David Stainer's team, in the second round of Only Connect. Victoria Coren passed a comment along the lines of The Crossworders being the team to beat, and you have to say that she does have a point. Not that they had it all their own way this week. They were made to battle all the way by the Edinburgh Scrabblers, but their prowess on the wall, and in the missing vowels round saw them emerge triumphant. A very enjoyable match up. Well done gents !
Are You An Egghead ?
I found Dermot Murnaghan to be a very nice guy when I made my ill fated appearence on Eggheads, but , by God , he doesn't half drag out this show. Its a 30 minute show stretched to last 45 minutes, and it does get tedious in parts. Still, this week saw the second round being finished off. Congratulations to Pat Gibson, Mark Kerr, Shaun Wallace and Terry Toomey for clinching their places in the second round. Special congratulations to Dave Rainford too, for winning his quarter final match against James Webb. Could he be the next Egghead ? Yes he could. There might be stronger quizzers still left in, although Dave has proven himself to be an excellent quizzer already. However this format, and the terrible balance between some of the questions tends to mean that you're always in with a chance. David has the likeability factor by the bucketload, and if he did win I could see him becoming a popular Egghead very quickly.
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