Mastermind: Round One: Heat 18

The BBC did an odd thing last night. Unless I’m very much mistaken they swopped Mastermind with Newsnight. Which was actually fine by me for once, since the later time fit better in with last night’s schedule.

So, the first of last night’s staying up late contenders was Jon Clatworthy. Jon was answering on the islands of Scotland – and answering pretty well, it might be said. He was probably kicking himself for missing the Robert the Bruce question, even though that one was really only tangentially about the islands. This was my best round of the night as I managed 8 of these from the safety of the Clark sofa. Generally I didn’t have a dreadful night, since I managed at least one correct answer on each of the specialists.

Right, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the late Laurie Lee, which is something I doubt that he ever lost any sleep over. So I’m not really in a position to comment much n the difficulty of Lena Gazey’s round on the writer of “Cider with Rosie” and other works. It was one of those rounds where the contender obviously knows their stuff, but never quite managed to post a really competitive score upon the board, and this was a shame. I’ll come back to that point.

I was pleased with myself for knowing that Lester Piggott had ridden Red Rum in a couple of races, and a couple more of the gentlest questions in Kevin Baker’s round took me to 4. This paled into insignificance against Kevin’s 11. I do like to see a contender having covered pretty much all of the bases in a specialist round, and yes, ok, this wasn’t quite a perfect round, what with the 2 passes. Still, it was a good ‘un, and it put Kevin into contention for the win.

Talking of perfect rounds, this was exactly what Alan Morgan gave us in his round on the Films of David Fincher. I loved Benjamin Button, although others of his films I haven’t been quite so enamoured of, and I only scored a couple. Alan, though, did what we all dream of doing in a specialist round, listening to each and every question, and providing the correct answer. It wasn’t quite an express round, and so it meant that he had a lead of 1, having scored 12. Nonetheless, a very impressive display.

Right, let’s go back to Lena. Now, ok, I have made the point that I feel that in most heats the GK rounds have been a bit gentler than in previous series, and I felt this agin last night. For all that though I felt Lena’s 15 was actually a great round. I think that with the GK rounds the way that they are a halfway decent quizzer should be able to get a dozen. 15 though, even on an easier round, is quite a bit harder to achieve. You could hear that this is the case through the respect in John’s voice when he announced Lena’s score. It’s just such a shame that she was starting the round 4 points behind Alan. Still, at least it was a score that made a passage through the corridor of doubt into a necessity for the other three.

Jon looked for much of the round as if he just might do it. With about 30 seconds to go he was just a few short of the line. However the brakes came on at this point. A run of questions he didn’t know left him languishing on 20. So Lena had overhauled one of the leaders. Were we going to see something very unusual?

Well, no. I liked Kevin’s technique answering his specialist questions, and the same technique ensured that he scored the 13 that he needed to take the outright lead. A salutary lesson – he was asked who played the lead witch in the film version of Roald Dahl’s “The Witches” and passed, then when given the answer said that he thought that was the answer, and even John could not resist telling him that he should have said it – the point being that if you always say an answer you have no ore to lose than if you pass, and potentially you could be right.

So the target was clear for Alan Any score better than 13 and 3 passes and he’d win. Now, you couldn’t say that he looked as if he’d do it easily during the round, but he never looked as if he wouldn’t either. In the end he accrued a very respectable 14 to put daylight between himself and the pack. Well, played, sir, and well played all – an enjoyable show, and it’s nice to see all 4 contenders managing to get into the 20s.

The Details

Jon Clatworthy	The Islands of Scotland	11	1	9	1	20	1
Lena Gazey	Laurie Lee	8	0	15	3	23	3
Kevin Baker	Red Rum and Ginger McCain	11	2	13	1	24	3
Alan Morgan	The Films of David Fincher	12	0	14	1	26	1