Ian Dunn was making a quick return to
the show after last year’s first round appearance. Ian was answering on the
radio show “Bleak Expectations” last year – and very well he did too. In this
year’s heat he picked on the topic of the 4 (synoptic) Gospels. We last saw
these as a specialist subject back in 2008, when Kathryn Price scored an
impressive 14. Ian’s score, sadly, was half that. Maybe I’m wrong, but looking
at him as he answered in several cases I formed the distinct impression that he
was having one of those rounds when the answers just won’t jump off the tip of
your tongue.
By way of contrast we had Christine
Quigley’s round on Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam novels. I’ll be honest, the only
one I’m at all familiar with is “Oryx and Crake”, and that one not much. So I
didn’t trouble the scorer on this particular set. Christine, on the other hand,
produced a perfect round of 15. Now, that, ladies and gents is how you prepare
for a specialist round. You can’t expect to get a great score without at least
knowing your subject inside out. It looked to me as if Christine knew hers up
and down and side to side as well. Fantastic performance.
Now, let’s think about Colin Atkin’s
specialist round for a moment. Some might say that he was tempting fate by
taking World Flags. Why? Well, National Flags of the World was the subject
which yielded the all time Mastermind record score of 23, for Jesse Honey in
his heat of the 2010 Champion of Champions series. Well, nobody is going to get
23 on a specialist round nowadays, with the length of questions. However I did
think that Colin might well have been kicking himself a little with his round
of 9, having let several gettable ones pass by.
So to Simon Cottee, and the colour
films of Danny Kaye. Here’s a funny thing. I watched a lot of Danny Kaye films
when they were on telly when I was a kid, and I thought all of his films were
in black and white. Then I realised that we only had a black and white telly
when I was a kid. Enough of such nonsense. Simon too looked as if he maybe
missed a couple he might have had on another occasion, reaching 9 as well.
Totally off the point, I was banking on the flags round to break last week’s
aggregate of 10, which it did, and when you added my score from the flags round
to 4 from the Gospels and 3 from Danny Kaye I set the new mark at 19. Getting
back to the point, with a lead of 6, Christine Quigley pretty much had one foot
in the semis already.
I felt for Ian when John told him
that there was plenty of time left just before the start of his round. It kind
of leaves you in no doubt that you didn’t do brilliantly with your specialist
round, does that, however kindly it’s meant. Maybe it put Ian a little off his
game as well - last year he scored a competitive 11, whereas this year he put 8
more on the board. Some nights, Ian, it’s just not your night. Hard lines.
Colin, now, started 6 points behind Christine’s score. Being realistic, you
need to set a target of as close to double figures as possible in order to
force other contenders to traverse the corridor of doubt. Colin never really
looked like doing that. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it was a gritty, battling
performance, and any double figure round is a good one, but a target of 6 for a
win was never going to be enough.
So it fell to Simon Cottee to try to
raise the bar. What we got was a perfectly respectable round of 9, but again,
in terms of raising the tension for Christine’s round yet to come, I’m afraid
it couldn’t do it. So Christine had the luxury of knowing she only needed to
answer 6 questions. Never having been in that position in any of my own
appearances I can’t tell you if that would make you more relaxed, but the first
2 minutes of Christine’s round were pretty good. Then, surprisingly, she fell
into a pass spiral for the last 5 questions. None of which mattered, since she’d
already set the highest GK total for this show, and passed the target some time
previously. Well played Christine – good luck in the semi finals.
The Details
Ian Dunn
|
The 4 Gospels
|
7
|
0
|
8
|
2
|
15
|
2
|
Christine Quigley
|
Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam novels
|
15
|
0
|
12
|
6
|
27
|
6
|
Colin Atkin
|
World Flags
|
9
|
3
|
11
|
3
|
20
|
6
|
Simon Cottee
|
The colour films of Danny Kaye
|
9
|
2
|
9
|
3
|
18
|
5
|
3 comments:
I applauded Caroline's perfect SS round. She did a brilliant job of preparing for her round, which is a distinct skill, I believe. I really enjoyed most of my specialist rounds; listening to the question, pulling up the answer as the question is being asked, mentally checking, and then bouncing the answer straight back. You develop a rhythm with John Humphrys and it becomes a friendly duel.
It's a clear indication that questions have, on the whole, got longer. Caroline answered fluently but was only asked 15 questions, where I was asked 18.
Hi Gillian
Yes, you're dead right about preparation. I hope that it doesn't come out in the reviews themselves, but I do sometimes get frustrated when I get the distinct feeling that the contender hasn't prepared properly for their specialist round. My first example of this was when a fellow contender on one of my shows told me that he hadn't even finished reading his book on his subject. Now, there was no way I was going to say what I was thinking so I merely made encouraging noises. However in my head I was screaming - Book?! Singular?! You have only used one book in preparation?! Which you haven't even finished reading?! And that's all you've been doing, reading it?! - and so on. Personally, I feel that your application for the show is a kind of promise that you will do your very best to prepare thoroughly, and if you don't, you're welching on the deal AND you're preventing someone else from appearing in this series.
Hi,
I'm Colin Atkin and just thought I'd leave a comment after stumbling across this blog post. Christine performed fantastically and I'm looking forward to see how she gets on in the semi-finals.
With regards to the comments on the show, you're right in that I did let a couple of gettable questions pass me by (the pressure of the black chair really can take it's toll). In my defence, I had only returned from my honeymoon in California a few days prior to filming the episode and only found out that I was going to be in Manchester less than 24hrs before sitting in front of John (I'd originally been on the standby list but got 'bumped up' due to someone else being unable to attend). A great experience though overall, I will hopefully apply again in the near future and will be looking to get my preferred choice of questions (World Flags was actually my 3rd choice specialist subject on my original application form)
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