Well, we’re coming towards the end of
the first round, dearly beloved. It seems as if the contenders have been
walking through the portal of portent for years now, but there we are, just a
few more heats and then it’s the semis.
First to try to earn his place in
aforementioned semis was Abhi Chatterjee. Abhi was answering on The Goons. Now,
although I wouldn’t call myself an expert, or even a great fan, I do know a
little bit about the Goons, and I managed to get 9 on this round. Yes, I was
sitting on the Clark sofa, not in the studio. Still, when Abhi managed to get
7, you got the feeling that either nerves or some under-preparation had affected
his performance, and it was likely that he was going to have some catching up
to do after half time.
I had another good round on Kathy
Bracy’s questions about the Trojan War. Greek mythology was my specialist
subject in my first ever Mastermind competition (Elthorne High School
Mastermind 1981 – won thanks very much) and I once rewrote the Iliad in double
dactyl verse – don’t ask. So this time I took 10. However this was not as good
as Kathy, who managed 12. Trust me, on those questions this was a fine
performance and meant that she would certainly be in contention going into the
GK.
My run of good rounds soon came to an
end, though. I provide that I don’t know a great deal about the artist Egon
Schiele. Sean Climo, though, proved that he knows a great deal indeed about
him. This was a terrific round, where
Sean had obviously thoroughly prepared, and he made pretty short work of it. A
score of 14 on GK in this day and age is a really terrific performance, and the
way that he’d answered his questions made him a pretty safe bet for the Clark
50p.
Which wasn’t to dismiss the chances
of Jeremy Baker. He was answering on the novels of Mary Wesley. Now, apart from
having watched a couple of episodes of The Camomile Lawn back in the day – ah,
Jennier Ehle – I am a stranger to the works, which I proved as the round
progressed. Again, Jeremy obviously knew his stuff, but the round found out a
few gaps in this knowledge. 9 is a perfectly respectable score, but it left him
5 points behind, and that’s the kind of gap which is very, very difficult to
bridge.
So Abhi returned to the chair, then,
probably knowing in his heart of hearts that the gap was too wide to have any
realistic chance of winning. Sadly what followed was not a great GK round. The
questions didn’t fall his way, and he joined the ranks of those who failed to
score more than 6 in GK – and I don’t want to bang on about this but there have
been far more contenders this series who have done so than there were in the previous.
Hopefully the new production team will reverse this trend next year. Apart from
any other consideration, it looked like quite a painful experience for Abhi,
who shook his head in pain when John announced he had 6 passes.
Jeremy gave his own GK round a good
old lash, and emerged with a fighting 12 points to take his score to 21. I did
think that he’d started too far behind Sean to have a realistic chance, and I
was sticking with that, but it was still a decent round, and gave him a score
over 20. This was put into perspective by Kathy’s round which followed. Kathy
had started with 12, 3 ahead of Jeremy, but she never looked convincing in her
round. She came close to matching Jeremy’s total, but couldn’t answer the last
question as the blue line of death completed its stranglehold of her score
while it still languished on 20.
Yes, if I’m honest I did think it was
all over bar the shouting as Sean took his seat in the chair, knowing that 8
would be enough to win outright. But then I’ve thought that before and been
proven wrong. But no, Sean didn’t quite produce an outstanding round, but then
he didn’t need to. He still produced the best GK round of the show, and added a
good 13 to take his total to 27, which gave him a winning margin of 6 points.
Very well done Sir, and you never know, he may just be one to watch in the semi
finals.
The Details
|
Abhi Chatterjee
|
The Goons
|
7
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
12
|
11
|
|
Kathy Bracy
|
The Trojan War
|
12
|
0
|
8
|
4
|
20
|
4
|
|
Sean Climo
|
Life and work of Egon
Schiele
|
14
|
0
|
13
|
1
|
27
|
1
|
|
Jeremy Baker
|
The Novels of Mary
Wesley
|
9
|
2
|
12
|
2
|
21
|
4
|
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