Mastermind 2019 - Heat Nine

How are you all? It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’ve missed you, you know? Look, I’m sorry about last week, but I was making the Christmas present run to my family on the South coast, and so just didn’t have time to write and post. I’m here now though, and I’m going to do my best to catch back up as quickly as possible.

So, Friday 14^th’s heat began with Ellie Mackin answering on Sir Bobby Robson. Poor old Sir Bob was probably the finest England manager since Sir Alf Ramsay, and yet was never really appreciated as such until after he’d finished. 2018 has seen England reach the semi final of the World Cup, but this year we were beaten conclusively. I still haven’t got over the penalty shoot out in 1990 – and in that game we were at least as good as West Germany. Still, I digress. I managed 9 of these, which was the same score that Ellie managed. She obviously knew her stuff, but a few too many of these got away from her.

Isabel Morgan, our second contender, has been this way before, although to be fair she’s never been asked to walk through the portal of portent on her couple of previous appearances. These previous appearances were marked by good performances on SS, but merely decent performances on GK, so it looked important for her to really fill her boots on specialist. Answering on James Kier Hardie she didn’t really manage to do this. Don’t misunderstand me, you have to know a lot about your subject in order to score the 8 points that she did, but I’m afraid it’s just not a competitive score, and it’s going to leave you with too much to do in your GK.

Allan Wright strode through the portentous portal as if he meant business for his round on Links golf courses of the UK and Ireland. To be fair, this was an accurate impression, since what followed was a very competent demonstration of how to take a round by the scruff of the neck and accumulate a very tasty score indeed. His 13 points put him 4 ahead of his nearest challenger with just one more contender to go.

So, the nature of the challenge for final contender Stephen Simons was fairly clear. To be fair, he started his round on British submarines since 1945 looking as if he too was going to produce a double figure score. However when he reached 4 points in short order, the wrong’uns began to creep in, and it looked as if the rest of the round was something of a grim old struggle. In the end he finished with 7.

Well, let’s be fair. I never felt that Ellie, Isabel or Stephen had skimped on their preparations, as I sometimes do feel with some contenders. But all 3 of them had been found out by some of the more searching questions, and the effect was that the show was now very much Allan’s to lose.

Stephen’s round on GK was curiously similar to his Specialist. It started brilliantly, and the correct answers lasted a bit longer than they had in the specialist round. For the first minute or so he seemed sure to push his overall total into the 20s. However as we always say, the GK round is a marathon and not a sprint, and he did seem to run out of steam and lose momentum in the last 90 seconds or so. Now, don’t get me wrong, 11 is a perfectly respectable score on GK. But I’m afraid that an overall total of 18 was never going to be enough.

You know, I like Isabel’s attitude to a round in the black chair. She was going to enjoy whatever happened, and on those odd occasions during her round on GK where the answer would refuse to leap off the tip of her tongue she took it in very good humour. Let’s be honest, by the time you’re making your third attempt at Mastermind, I’d guess you’re either doing it because you enjoy it, or because you’re obsessed with it, or both. Definitely the former in Isabel’s case, I’d say. Good on yer. Good score of 12 too, which pushed her into a respectable 20 points overall.

A good 12 was also what followed in Ellie’s case. In fact I think you could say that with all three contenders so far in the GK round you could see that these were people who had certainly earned their right to have go at the black chair. Each of them gave answers which I would say you need at least some quiz pedigree to answer. It’s just a bit of a shame that it hadn’t worked out for the three of them in the specialist rounds. Ellie finished with 21 points, and couldn’t be worse than second.

Putting the task in front of Allan into perspective, he needed 9 points to win outright without recourse to pass countback. I do tend to think that you only really face a passage through the corridor of doubt when you’re facing a double figure total. The questions still have to be answered. Just as he had with the specialist round, Stephen gave a magnificently unflustered demonstration of how to deal with a GK round. 17 is a very good score, whichever way you look at it, and to be honest, his overall total of 30 for me suggests that Allan is a contender who could to very well when the semi finals come round. Well done to you, and best of luck in the semis, sir.

The Details

Ellie Mackin	Sir Bobby Robson	9	0	12	3	21	3
Isabel Morgan	The Life of James Kier Hardie	8	2	12	2	20	2
Allan Wright	Links golf courses of the UK and Ireland	13	0	17	2	30	2
Stephen Simons	British submarines since 1945	7	1	11	1	18	2