Mastermind - First Round - Heat 18

Well, now that I’ve got that rant off my chest, and broken that resolution rather earlier in the year than usual, lets get back to something a lot more positive. Heat 18 of Mastermind to be precise. Looking down the list of specialist subjects I felt that I had a decent chance of achieving my weekly target of being able to answer at least 1 question in all of the specialist rounds, with only Iron Maiden looking rather tricky on that score.

Before that though we kicked off with the Life and Work of John Steinbeck, which was put before us by Harry Woodward. The very first question gave me a point, a gentle lob asking where Steinbeck was born. Thank you very much, and I picked up another 5 on what I felt was a tricky round. Certainly it seemed to concentrate rather too much on the life for Harry’s liking, or mine for that matter. He managed to take his own score to 9 by the end of the round.

It was Tom Scotney who offered the afore-mentioned Iron Maiden. Difficult as it is to believe, I was a bit of a headbanger back in my early 80’s youth, but for some reason Iron Maiden never really did it for me. Thankfully ‘Eddie’ and ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’ brought me 2 points. We’ve discussed popular culture subjects before , and I have been at pains to point out that whatever certain sections of the media might suggest, these are certainly nothing like soft options. So I thought that Tom’s 12 was actually a pretty good score on what seemed like a tough round.

I did think that I might do a little better on Ellen Salkeld’s subject, Mahatma Gandhi. He was the originator of one of my favourite quotations : -
To Gandhi – What do you think of Western Civilization ?
Gandhi – I think it would be a very good idea.
As it was I think that I only managed to answer the two easiest questions of the round, “Great soul” and “salt tax”. Ellen looked rather nervous compared to the other three contenders in last night’s show, but 11 points on the round was no poor return.

Finally my banker subject , Stephen Porter’s English First Division Football of the 1970s. Now, ok, my team , Spurs, were not in the first division for every year of the 70s, but nonetheless I managed a respectable 7. Which was next to nothing compared with Stephen’s 15,easily the performance of the night in the specialist rounds. All of which put him in the enviable position of having a three point lead at the halfway stage.

Neither Harry nor Ellen managed to impress greatly with their GK rounds, I’m afraid. It happens, and while a score of 9 is no cause for shame or embarrassment, it gave neither of them a realistic hope of progressing any further. A look at the repechage board revealed that to have any chance of making the semis via a runners up slot Tom Scotney would need to push his score up to 27 and 1 pass. Well, he did give it a fair go. Pretty soon , though, he had more than 1 pass, and he never quite established the head of steam he would have needed to get the 16 points to take him to 28. He didn’t do badly though, getting 13 and 3 passes to finish on a decent 25.

OK, so anything can happen when you’re in the chair. Still, Stephen Porter only needed 10 and less than 4 passes to bring him the win, and frankly that is not that much of a chore in a 2 and a half minute round. To be fair to Stephen he certainly didn’t make it look like a chore either. He had clearly been the best quizzer throughout the show, and he answered what he knew quickly and with an economy of reply. 15 is a good score, and 30 a good total, and he thoroughly deserves his place in the semis. Well played.

The Details

Harry Woodward	Life and Works of John Steinbeck	9 - 3	9 - 5	18 - 8
Tom Scotney	Iron Maiden	12 - 1	13 - 3	25 - 4
Ellen Salkeld	Mahatma Gandhi	11 - 3	9 - 4	20 - 7
Stephen Porter	English Division 1 football of the 1970’s	15 - 0	15 - 3	30 - 3

Current Highest Scoring Runners-Up

Nick Mills – 34 – 4
Hamish Cameron – 30 – 2
Anne Skillen - 30 -7
James Collenette - 29 – 2
Philip Evans – 28 - 1
Duncan Byrne – 27 – 2