Mastermind 2018 - Round One - Heat 23

Nearly at the end of the first round heats now, dearly beloved, with only next week’s heat to go after last night’s. And a very interesting show it was too, demonstrating as it did some of the enduring truths about Mastermind. We’ll come to that as and when.

I liked a bit of Blur, back in the day in the mid 90s, although I was on the side of Oasis in the so called Battle of the Bands. I still didn’t do very well on James Ratclif’s round, scoring just a couple for my pains. I did know that, like me, several of the members attended Goldsmith’s College, but that was almost it. James’ definitely knew his stuff, but his score of 10 was one of those which, while it shows you prepared and knew your stuff, it’s still likely to leave you quite a bit to do in the GK round.

Gemma Wilson offered us The Thursday Next Novels of Jasper Fforde. Now, as it happens I have read all of the first series, although this still means I haven’t read the second series of four novels. Funnily enough, the Novels of Jasper Fforde was the specialist subject of Matthew Williamson who was runner up in my semi final in the 2007 SOBM. So I am ashamed to say that I managed precisely nowt on this round. Gemma though breezed through the whole thing, and had scored a fine 13 by the time that she was beeped. 

In the last 6 months or so I’ve read a couple of books about The American Civil War and associated topics, and so I hoped at least to score more than a couple on Don Crerar’s round. And while I was never in any danger of achieving a double figure score, the 8  did achieve at least put my aggregate for the SS scores in this show just into double figures. Which is just as well since I wasn’t going to add to it with the next round. I did think that Don was going to equal Gemma’s score, but he just missed out n his last question to finish with 12. A really useful performance, which gave him every chance in the GK round.

If you were watching the show last night it’s quite possible that you recognised our final contender, Ewan MacAulay. He was the captain of a useful Christ Church, Oxford outfit in the 2014 UC series, and then one of the Mixologists in Only Connect in 2015. So he is an experienced TV quiz campaigner, and something of a known quantity in GK – put simply, when it came to that round he looked likely to do well. However, as I’ve said before, while you can win MM on your GK, you have to make sure that you at least don’t lose it on your SS. That’s an enduring truth, which I mentioned earlier. I’m not trying to be horrible, or to suggest that Ewan’s 8 on The Short Stories of David Foster Wallace was a bad round, it certainly wasn’t. However, on 5 behind the leader, it left a huge question mark on whether it would be good enough to give him a realistic chance of a win.

Of course, when he returned to the chair, Ewan went on to deliver a great GK round, in my opinion one of the best that we’ve seen this series. It wasn’t quite perfect, and he did miss a couple and pass on 1, but even so it was still an excellent display of nerveless GK quizzing. He finished on 24, meaning that everyone who followed would need 12s or over to win outright, and that is the kind of target which definitely forces you to confront the corridor of doubt which can so affect a GK performance. He could do no more. 

Within the first minute or so of his round I was fairly sure that James Ratclif was not going to get the 14 and few passes he needed to go into the lead, and I wasn’t wrong about that. Nonetheless he too managed a double figure score, a good 12 to enable him to finish on a perfectly respectable 22. 

Don Crerar’s round , while it might not quite have matched Ewan’s, was in itself a demonstration of some of the enduring truths in its own way. If you have a good general knowledge, which Don clearly does, and keep your head, maintaining a steady rhythm and having a good guess when you don’t know the answer, then you can rack up a good score. Make no mistake, 15 on GK is a good score, and more importantly, it put daylight between himself and Ewan. 

It meant that Gemma had to score 15 to win outright, and I just couldn’t see this show providing us with 3 15+ rounds. Gemma never lost her head, and kept picking off answers, but it was clear that her GK was not going to be good enough on this occasion from the first minute or so of her round. No shame in that, you can only do your best. As it was Gemma’s round saw her into double figures for GK, and she finished 3^rd with 23.

Well played all. Especially well played Don. On this performance he certainly won’t be just making up the numbers in the semis. Best of luck to you, sir. 

The Details

James Ratclif	Blur	10	1	12	3	22	4
Gemma Wilson	The Thursday Next Novels of Jasper Fforde	13	0	10	2	23	2
Don Crerar	The American Civil War	12	1	15	1	27	2
Ewan MacAulay	The Short Stories of David Foster Wallace	8	2	16	1	24	3