Wednesday, 5 January 2011

Sleb Mastermind - Show 7

The current series of Sleb Mastermind enjoyable winds is way onwards, and last night we saw Elaine C. Smith – best known for the seminal comedy show Naked Video, and its subsequent spin off Rab C. Nesbitt – take to the chair to answer questions on Joni Mitchell. I’m neither a great fan nor very knowledgeable about Joni Mitchell’s oevre, and I was sincerely hoping the Big Yellow Taxi would be one of the answers. It would, and thus a duck for the Clark sofa was avoided. To be fair I did guess the ones about Woodstock, Leonard Cohen , and the Isle of Wight festival. Elaine herself posted a very useful 12.

She was followed by Robert Llewellyn. I loved the first few series of Red Dwarf – Robert joined the regulars from series 3 after – and I was also a devotee of Scrapheap Challenge, so Robert was burdened with my support tonight. Mind you I don’t think he made life any easier for himself by taking what looked like a decidedly left field subject in the shape of electric cars. In the end I though that 8 points was not a bad score at all on these questions, but the fact was that it left him with a mountain to climb in the second round.

Michael Buerk – or Mike – as John called him throughout the show, offered the Aubrey and Maturin novels of Patrick O’Brien. I’ve never read any, and I’m afraid that I haven’t even seen the film of Master and Commander, so I’m afraid that I sank without trace on this round. Not so Michael Buerk. He managed a good 14, and looked comfortably in pole position after this.

Cerrie Burnell is an actress currently to be seen on the Ceebeebies channel. I’m afraid that’s about as much as I ca tell you there. Still, she was offering as a specialist subject the Life and Work of Augustus Boal – about whom I could tell you even less. A Brazilian writer, I believe. Cerrie got stuck in a bit of a pass spiral, and though she extricated herself from it before the end of the round she was, as you might say, holed below the waterline, and sinking fairly rapidly. Still her score of 7 was certainly not the worst this year.

A quick turn around for Cerrie then, as she went first in the last round. To be honest for three of the contenders the GK rounds became a bit of a pass fest, with only Elaine C. Smith showing commendable restraint on this score. Cerrie added 8 passes to her total, but this was at least less than the 9 correct answers she managed. Robert Llewellyn also scored 9 in his round, but he only passed 7 times. Elaine C. Smith only passed three times, and she jogged along well enough to score a very respectable 14, setting the winning post on the score of 26. So Michael Buerk needed 12 to be certain. Well, although John was delighted to point out to Michael that he had, in fact, passed o less than 8 times, he also added 14 correct answers to his score, for a comfortable win with 28 points. Well done.

The Details

Elaine C. Smith Joni MitchellPaul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre12 - 313 - 325 – 6
Robert Llewellyn Electric Cars NSPCC 8 - 3 9 – 7 17 - 10
Michael BuerkAubrey and Maturin novels of Patrick O’BrienAction for Children14 - 114 - 828 - 9
Cerrie BurnellLife and work of Augustus Boal Scope 7 - 6 9 – 8 16 - 14

4 comments:

HughTube said...

It's a strange game sometimes. I was thinking I would do quite well on Joni Mitchell seeing as I'm a fan - I have all her recordings - however I only got seven, yet somehow I managed to get five on Augusto Boal of whom I've barely even heard. I doubt I could say five things about him.

Des Elmes said...

First Sir Clive Sinclair achieves one of the highest individual numbers of passes in recent times - then, the very next night, we get another possible pass record.

How often do you get a show that has as many as 39 of them?!

(In addition, poor Cerrie came within one of matching Sir Clive's tally.)

I was rooting for Buerky, so was delighted when he won. And who didn't expect John to call him Mike - given that they've been colleagues for forty years...

Aaron said...

Hi Dave

You might like to know that Epicureans v Gamblers is now, at short notice, scheduled for next Monday (8.30pm), with Crossworders v Emmanuel the week after.

Best, Aaron

Londinius said...

Hi Guys

Hugh - that would be five more things than I could have said about him !

Des - yes, I know, and you don't mind them getting matey on a celeb show, so much.

Thanks for the heads up Aaron, I will post to that effect now.

Dave