Mastermind - Round One - Heat 12

First up was Denise Smith from Aberaeron. That’s a little bit out of my local range – well , quite a long way actually, as it’s in Ceredigion, in West Wales. Her subject was Fleetwood Mac. I say Fleetwood Mac, but actually it was only about the early years up until 1977, I think. Denise seemed to be attacked by nerves, as there were a few questions where she seemed to obviously know the answers, but just couldn’t dredge them up past the tip of her tongue. It can happen to anyone. She scored 7. I managed 3.

James Mackenzie made a bid for the obscure subject of the show prize, with the lost railways of West Yorkshire. I like an old railway as much as the next man, but I didn’t think it was very likely that I’d get any of these. Indeed I didn’t. James, on the other hand, managed a good thirteen. Scores in the specialist rounds in both of tonight’s shows were not as high as some we’ve seen recently, so that seemed like a very competitive total.

Third to go was Rob Green, who offered us quite a wide, portmanteau subject in the shape of Astronomy. I thought that there was a chance of a couple of points here, and actually did a little better than I thought , scoring 6. Only one of them was a guess, as well. Rob managed 11, but with the target still standing at 13 that didn’t rule him out by any stretch of the imagination.

Martin O’Gorman brought the first half of the contest to a close with the Novels of John Updike. Once again, I did a quick mental inventory – which really didn’t take very long considering I’ve never read any of them. Rabbit Run – Harry Angstrom – Witches of Eastwick – sequel The Widows of Eastwick – er – that’s about it. It was enough for 2 points, though. Martin was becalmed at several stages of the round – desperate not to pass – a resolve in which he was successful – but unable to dredge up the answer. In the end he managed 8, and to all intents and purposes was out of the contest.

I will admit that I found the set of GK rounds we were offered in this show rather more difficult than I’ve seen for a while. It’s all relative and subjective, I know, but for the record my scores were 14, 15, 14 and 14. Denise managed to outscore her SS round, putting on 9 to take her total to 16. Martin followed in short order. I picked off 13 of his first 14 questions, but from then onwards I struggled to add another couple. Again, Martin probably hampered himself a little by trying very hard not to pass – to be fair he did only succumb to the temptation once. His 9 points were enough to set the lead at 17.

Rob really struggled with his GK round, I’m sorry to say. He actually got through fewer questions than any of the other contenders in this show – I made it about 16. In the end, his 7 points were actually enough to just bring him the lead. However the chances that he would still be there by the end of the show looked slim indeed. 6 correct answers would see James win the show outright, without resort to pass countback. He managed this , of course, adding 9 points which took his winning total to 22. It’s interesting that none of the contenders in this show managed double figures on the GK rounds, which suggests certainly that maybe these were a little bit harder than we’ve seen recently. Well done James Mackenzie, then.

The Details

Denise Smith	Fleetwood Mac	7 - 2	9 - 5	16 – 7
James Mackenzie	Lost Railways of West Yorkshire	23 - 3	9 - 2	22 – 5
Rob Green	Astronomy	11 - 2	7 - 3	18 – 5
Martin O’Gorman	The Novels of John Updike	8 - 0	9 - 1	17 – 1