Brain of Britain – Semi Final 2
So sorry to everyone involved that I missed the first semi final. Unable to catch up on the iplayer, and busy on Monday lunchtimes I’ve been trying to catch the 11pm Saturday night re-run. Well a week ago I fell asleep and dozed all the way through it. So I can only apologise to the winner, whose moment of triumph has had to go unrecorded by this column.
The second semi last week though was a cracker. The contestants were, in order, Graham Barker, John Beynon, Caroline Pearce and John Watson. Graham you may recall scored a massive 30 points in his heat to record the highest score of the first round. John Beynon was a high scoring runner up, and both Caroline Pearce and John Watson had good scores in their heats as well. No mugs in this show, then.
Up until the Beat the Brains interval it was difficult to pick a winner, with both John Beynon and Graham edging ahead of the others, but neither establishing a dominance over the other. A lovely listener’s question stumped the contestants – What is the derivation of the name Aslan ? It is Turkish for lion. I didn’t know that. Mind you, like the contestants I guessed that the connection between Mein Kampf and the tribe of Naphtali is that they both translate into English as My Struggle.
Throughout the second half of the show it looked like a straight fight between Graham and John B. However John Watson also started to pick up points at this stage. Going into the final round, the positions were – Caroline Pearce had 5, John Watson – 9, Graham Barker – 11 and John Beynon – 13. Graham started the last round in fine form , picking off three in a row. This gave him 14. John B. levelled the scores with a bonus, but didn’t answer his own, a medical question, which Dr. Graham was on in a trice. 15 – 14, and advantage Graham. Caroline failed her first question – John B took it to level the scores. Then John Watson reeled off 4 correct answers on the bounce. He now had 13. If he got the 5th one right, then he would also get a bonus, and we would have a three way tie. Agony of agonies after such a great fight back, he didn’t, and John Beynon won the buzzer race to secure the point, and the win.
Great show – many commiserations , especially to John Watson and Graham, who put up a terrific fight, and couldn’t have come much closer. Congratulations to John B.
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2 comments:
First semi-final was a close one as I recall Dave, but Mark Kerr of Alesman fame came out on top, so he is in the final. Shame Dr Barker won't be there as well, but there you go.
Ah, thanks Jack !
Phew, that's a hell of a line up already. I'll wait and see who wins next week, but I can't help hoping Mark does it. He's a great guy, great quizzer, and he deserves another title to add to that of Britain's Brainiest Estate Agent.
Dave
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