Saturday 8 January 2011

Sleb Mastermind - Show 10

The last of our sleb shows, and not a moment too soon, for the real McCoy started up again shortly after this on BBC2. I’m afraid that three of the slebs on the show were not people whose work I was previously acquainted with, still, that’s neither here nor there. First up was Martin Roberts. He presents a daytime TV show called Homes Under the Hammer – not, as I originally thought, a programme about demolition, but about buying properties at auction. Takes all sorts, I suppose. I liked Martin’s subject – Hanna Barbera cartoons. Anyone growing up in the 70s in Britain surely would have watched a few of these. Still, some of the questions were pretty testing, but you have to say that Martin looked to be out of contention when he posted a 6.

So who was the sleb I already knew of on this show ? Sashay forward Kristina Rihanoff. Kristina is probably most famous for being the professional dancer who partnered the immortal John Sargeant on Strictly a couple of years ago. Her specialist subject was Patrick Swayze. They didn’t mention it in the chat interlude, but Patrick Swayze himself was quite a fan of Strictly Come Dancing, and I even remember him once appearing on the BBC2 weekday show, doing an impression of Bruno. When you consider that I don’t think that English would be Kristina’s first language, you have to say that 13 points represented a very good performance.

Seeta Indrani, though, went on to show just what an excellent performance looks like. Seeta is an actress, singer, dancer, who has sung opera, acted on TV, and been a member of the cast of Cats for good measure. She was offering the Operas of Puccini, and virtually sprinted through a set of questions to earn a massive 18 points. A performance from the top drawer, that.

The last sleb of this series to offer us a specialist round was Micky Flanagan – a comedian. I’m not much of a fan of Bruce Springsteen, which I know is hardly likely to cause the Boss any sleepless nights – so I couldn’t really judge the relative easiness or difficulty of this set of questions. Still, a score of 13 is not to be sniffed at, and ensured that Micky – who decided that comedy was for him after training as a teacher – sensible man – would have a bit of a rest before returning to the chair.

Martin returned to the chair, and atoned for his less than impressive first round with a battling 12 , the joint highest of these GK rounds. Still, it would only need 6 for Kristina to improve upon his total, and this she managed. The GK round really does I think put you at a disadvantage if you have only been UK resident for a limited period, and Kristina did seem to find this round rather heavy going. She finished on 20.

Being realistic , it was Micky or Seeta to win, and if Micky was going to set a realistic target he was going to need a very good round. Well, he equalled the highest GK score of the night with 12, but with respect that was not going to put anything like enough pressure on Seeta . Faced with the task of scoring 8 for the outright win she never looked 100% at ease, but was never behind on the clock, and in the end did it with a few points to spare, scoring 10 for a total of 28.

Well done, and well done and thanks to all the Slebs who have entertained us in this year’s series.

The Details

Martin Roberts Hanna BarberaJust A Drop / Animals Asia6 - 312 - 318 - 6
Kristina RihanoffPatrick SwayzeLatch13 - 47 - 720 - 11
Seeta IndraniOperas of PucciniMultiple Sclerosis Resource Centre18 - 010 - 428 - 4
Micky FlanaganBruce SpringsteenKids Company13 – 0 12 - 025 - 0

4 comments:

Ewan M said...
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Ewan M said...
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Ewan M said...

As a recent convert to counting my scores as I play along at home (thanks to your blog) I was hoping to get take advantage of the easier GK questions on celeb MM and score a perfect round. After several nearish misses, the closest I got was 19/20 on Mickey Flanagan's round, though I could swear that John Humphrys said "Lobscout" for the stew that featured in the question I got wrong (then corrected himself to Lobscouse when he read out the answers to Mickey's passes). Ironically that matches my high score on the "real" MM, though with 2 and a half minutes on that show, and a generally faster response time from the better constestants, John can rattle through a good few more questions. I was wondering, David, if you occasionally racked up "perfect rounds" on GK when answering at home or are there invariably at least one or two questions that trip you up?
My highest scores on the specialist subjects on celeb MM were, inexplicably, 13 on Dean Macey's Back to the Future trilogy, 10 apiece on Terry Christian's Manchester Music Scene round and Digby Jones' Kings and Queens of England (my patchy knowledge of which requires some attention).

Apologies for the deleted posts above btw, wish there was an edit function available to correct typos...

Londinius said...

Hi eugene

A good question. On the normal MM show there's always one or two questions per round which trip me up. I went through Micky Flanagan's round unbeaten though, and one or two others during the series - not that many, but a few.

Dave