University Challenge 2022: Round 2: Reading v. Dundee

The Teams

Reading

Alex Scopic

Margaret Ounsley

Michael Hutchinson (capt)

Sylvain Jesudoss

Dundee

Connor Philip

Olivia Russell

Barnaby Stonier (capt)

Jacob Spurrell

Well, good evening to you all, dearly beloved. Shall we take a quiet stroll through the form guide before we begin the review? Reading beat Strathclyde by 175 – 110 in the first round, while Dundee had an altogether narrower win over Royal Northern College of Music by 145 – 135. Not much in it, if all were said and done, but Reading looked to have the advantage.

Michael Hutchinson, whose fine and successful buzzing has already been remarked upon in this series, took the first starter, buzzing very early to link answers with the initials HH. Bonuses on early Celtic and Anglo Saxon manuscripts yielded a couple of bonuses. Another good buzz from Michael Hutchinson saw him correctly identify the Edict of Nantes as belonging to the 1590s. Words and phrases and their citations brought another couple of bonuses. Now, I’m very sorry to brag, but allotropy, the answer to the next starter, brought me a very early lap of honour around the Clark sofa. Nearly killed me – I’m past the covid, but not quite back to my old athletic self. Sadly Olivia Russell came in too early and lost 5, allowing Michael Hutchinson to take his third starter in a row. This time the bonuses asked the team to provide the surnames to various historical figures, and this time they took a full house. This brought us to the first picture starter, a map of south east England pointing to the location of Royal St. George’s golf course. The inevitable Michael Hutchinson buzz faced JP with the dilemma all of us who have had pretensions to quiz mastership have faced at one time or another – do you accept just Sandwich for Royal St. George’s? JP did. Three more courses that currently feature on the Open rota didn’t yield any more points for Reading, but that didn’t matter. At the moment the big question wasn’t – were Dundee going to get any starters, no. It was, would anyone other than Michael Hutchinson manage to get a starter? Well, he took the next, but again was just a little fortunate that JP didn’t penalise him for saying ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ rather than just Lincoln, which is what the question actually asked for. This gave them access to a pretty gentle set on medical tests, and they took a full house. This meant that by the ten minute mark Reading led by 100 to -5.

Well, Barnaby Stonier took on the burden of turning his team’s score from negative to positive, recognising clues that were leading to the word estuary. Two bonuses on declined peerages reduced the deficit a little more. The deficit was further reduced when Jacob Spurrell explained that myeloid tissue is otherwise known as bone marrow. Bonuses on the physicist Abdus Salam brought a couple of correct answers. Michael Hutchinson, who’d had a very quiet couple of minutes by his own standards, buzzed into identify Estonia as the location of the Singing Revolution. Bonuses on Kurdish and Kurdistan brought just the one bonus. Nobody recognised the work of the Damned, a popular beat combo of the 20^th century for the music starter. The big clue for the next starter was a provincial capital associated with a victory for the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War, but Jacob Spurrell failed to pick up on it, which allowed, well, it allowed Michael Hutchinson in. Going back for the music bonuses, three more records from Stiff Records’ early years brought two correct answers. I have to say, I too felt that Nick Lowe’s song sounded more than a little like Thin Lizzy. Neither team knew micrometeorites for the next starter, although Conor Philips’ ‘Green Elves’ wins the most surreal answer of the night. I cannot say that I was the least bit surprised that when the old chestnut about the sport invented by James Naismith reared it’s head, that man Hutchinson was in first for it. Reading took two of the bonuses on David Crystal (who I’m unreliably informed is called Balls by his mates) and were a little unlucky not to be given the other one. They answered that Eats, Shoots and Leaves was about Grammar and Punctuation. The way JP turned the answer down, I think that if they’d said Punctuation and Grammar I think they would have been given the marks. Michael Hutchinson seemed unconvinced when he buzzed in for the next starter with the element Indium, but he was right. Bonuses on schools of thought took them to 175 at the 20 minute mark, while Dundee trailed with 35.

Thankfully JP kept his ‘plenty of time to get going’ salt well away from Dundee’s wounds this week. Michael Hutchinson knew that Susannah Clarke’s second novel is “Piranesi”. Astronomical catalogues – I used to like Littlewoods – brought two bonuses and put Reading just a smidgin short of the 200 barrier. Barnaby Stonier denied them this for the time being, taking the second picture starter, recognising a still from the film of “The Day of the Triffids”. Now, I’ll be honest, the only other film with killer plants in it that I could think of was actually the third bonus, “Little Shop of Horrors”, - I’d forgotten all about the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, and both of us only took the one bonus. Now, I nearly took a second lap of honour for the next starter. Any Swiss mathematician question that comes up, I answer Euler, and this time I was right. So was Michael Hutchinson. Literature and royal succession brought two bonuses, but to be honest, it was all academic since Dundee were just too far behind now to come back in the few minutes remaining. A horrible science-maths thing for the next starter saw neither team answer correctly. As for the next one, I only knew Margaret Island is in Budapest because I’ve been there. Neither team knew that one. Now, up to this point I think that all of Reading’s starters had come from their skipper. This changed with the next, when Margaret Ounsley identified the Olduvai Gorge for the next. Liverpools around the world didn’t add a lot to the score, but hey, it was all gilding at this point. Michael Hutchinson took the next starter to identify early films of Ken Russell. Parliaments of different countries brought just the one bonus. Margaret Ounsley took her second starter, identifying Bernadotte as the family name of the ruling dynasty in Sweden. The contest was gonged before JP completed the first bonus on alternative history fiction.

I know that I’ve gone on a bit about Michael Hutchinson in this review, but he really was the story this week. He took 12 correct starters by my reckoning, which is superb quizzing, and I don’t recall one quizzer dominating a match in this way since Freddie Leo a couple of years ago. Fantastic performance. Hard lines Dundee, but you won the first round, so can hold your heads high.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

I knew that Winston Churchill turned down the Queen’s offer of a dukedom. So I’m told, she only offered it to him on the understanding that he would turn it down. However, I didn’t know that she offered to make him Duke of London.

 

Mastermind 2022: Heat 13

Well, I do think that after last week’s pyrotechnics this week was always going to be a little bit of a case of – after the Lord Mayor’s Show. But let’s be fair, and give each of this week’s contenders their due.

The first of these was Kit Lane. Kit was answering on Charles II’s long time squeeze, Nell Gwyn. You know – Nell ‘she was only the orange seller, but she certainly had appeal (a peel)’ Gwyn. Well, Kit knew, anyway. She knew a lot. As the round continued it became obvious that she had prepared brilliantly and was going to rack up a very impressive score. Indeed she did – 12 is a noteworthy score in specialist, and certainly acted as a warning shot across the bows of the other three contenders tonight.

Next up was Lillian Crawford. Lillian had some good answers, but somehow the round never quite added up to the high score it looked like it might produce at the start. 7 is a respectable s ore – and not one you’re likely to get without preparation before the round. However, it left her 5 points behind, with 2 contenders still to come. I’m afraid that every time I hear the name Sylvia Plath, or Ted Hughes, for that matter, my mind goes back to sitting in seminars at Uni, and every time Ted Hughes’ name was mentioned a couple of my fellow students muttering ‘the wife murderer!’.

Kathryn Howells’ accent suggested she may well be from Wales. I liked her attitude, when she seemed very delighted to be on the show. She didn’t do badly, either, answering on the sitcom “Still Game”. Judging from one of the questions, there were several series of the show, yet somehow it still managed to pass me by, so I’m not in a position to comment on the fairness or difficulty of the questions. Whatever the case, Kathryn managed 9 – a decent score indeed, but still one that left her trailing by three.

Finally Mary Evans answered on the Island of Sicily. This is the sort of subject that should come with a government health warning. I say this, because it means that the question setters can ask you literally anything even vaguely connected with Sicily. As the round progressed it rather seemed to me that Mary’s understanding of the parameters of her subject was noticeably narrower than the question setters’. In the end she managed to fight her way to 6 points, but being 6 points behind meant it was going to take a comeback on a Lazarus scale for her to win.

It was all the more of a shame, then, that Mary did put on a good GK performance when she was the first to return to the chair. It was really a case of ‘what might have been’ had Mary only managed a better performance on Specialist. I’ll come back to that.

Lillian’s GK round was somewhat similar to her specialist round. I liked the way she was giving the answers quickly and not messing around with them. Her score of 9 was perfectly respectable again. However, it wasn’t enough to allow her to challenge Mary’s total, and she finished with 16. Lillian seemed to be using the tactic of passing anything she didn’t know, and I just can’t help wondering if she might have been a bit better if she’d given a few more guesses.

Kathryn seemed just a cheerful and enthusiastic as she had during her specialist round. However this round did turn out to be something of a struggle. Like Lillian she finished with a total of 16, but accrued even more passes, and again, I’m not sure that this was necessarily the best tactic to use. If you can guess quickly, then you can keep your momentum, not add another pass to your score, and there’s even a chance you might guess correctly.

So this left Kit. Already on 12, she needed 7 points for an outright win, or 6 and few passes. No, that’s not a huge target, but we’ve seen GK rounds fall apart enough times to know that nothing is guaranteed. In fact, although Kit’s round was not as good as Mary’s, it was certainly good enough, and she scored 9 to win with 21. Now, coming back to what I said earlier, time was when I used to rather glibly say that you could lose Mastermind on your specialist, whereas you could win it on GK. Well, there’s times when that’s true, but other times when it isn’t. For tonight I’d argue that Kit won on her specialist. Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that hers was the best all round performance tonight. Well done, and best of luck in the semi finals.

Details

Kit Lane	Nell Gwyn	12	0	9	0	21	0
Lillian Crawford	Sylvia Plath	7	2	9	5	16	7
Kathryn Howells	Still Game	9	2	7	6	16	8
Mary Evans	The Island of Sicily	6	0	12	0	18	0

 

Back in the hot seat

 Or should I say, the reasonably warm seat? On this Thursday just gone I did my first stint as question master for the best part of two years. I haven't been keeping track but I'm pretty sure that the last time was or the New Year Quiz, the first quiz in January 2020.Remember those pre lockdown times? Seems a very long time ago. Funnily enough I've already agreed to QM for the New Year quiz this coming January, which was a bit of bravado on my part. After all, what if I'd done the quiz on Thursday and found that I hated it?

Well, yes, okay, that was unlikely to happen, I admit. I first attended this quiz in the summer of 1995, and Brian, the organiser, asked if anyone could do the quiz for the next week. I volunteered, did the quiz, and loved being question master. I loved being question master every bit as much as I enjoyed playing in the quiz, and became a regular setter. And I'll be honest, it really helped me become a better quizzer. During that first year I also began playing for teams in the Neath Quiz League, and the Morriston Hospitals Quiz League, both sadly defunct now. Especially in the Morriston Hospitals team, we had some very good players, and I used to measure myself against them, and to me, this produced tangible evidence I was getting better within a year or so. 

I used to take hours to put together a quiz. First of all there was the gathering of the questions from a range of sources. I didn't have a PC or the internet for the first 5 years or so I was doing the quiz, so this took quite a bit of time as you can imagine. I'd write all of the questions down. Then I'd look carefully at them and decide which questions were going into which round. Easy ones in round one - what the late Robert Robinson used to call the mental equivalent of a quick jog around the block. Increasingly harder ones in the next three rounds, then an easy round five, then harder round six, round seven would be the hardest, and then any old questions would do for round 8, because in those days there was no guarantee we'd get a round 8 in - although we usually did. Ooh, do you know, I'm getting a little bit of a warm glow just thinking about those days. So doing it like this, I'd end up always writing each question out twice, and often three times if I typed the quiz up in work during lunch time. Then I'd test the questions at lunch time in the staff room at work. Doing all of this meant that anything unclear or ambiguous in the questions would be ironed out by the time I did in the club. It was one of the biggest gripes I used to have about some of the guest question masters we used to had - their question ideas were often very good, but their phrasing of the questions really wasn't.

You could usually tell how the quiz was going down. Nobody would give you a hard time, but occasionally you could tell that it just wasn't going down how you would have liked with the teams. On other times, though, when the teams 'got' it, when you could see them enjoy working it out, there was nothing quite like it. You see, when you set a pub quiz, I've always believed that your aim as question master is to give your teams an evening's entertainment. It isn't to try to catch the teams out, and ask them things they have no chance of answering correctly. Any fool with access to the internet can do that. 

So, did I manage to give the teams a decent evening's entertainment on Thursday? I'm not sure. I looked through the quiz a couple of hours before the quiz, and I was convinced that it was too hard. Looking at the scores throughout the quiz, I don't really think it was, but . . . I don't know. I used a gimmick that I was the first to introduce o this quiz in the year that I started. I played in an open quiz for the Neath Quiz League, and this was the first time that I encountered a connection round. "'Ello" thought I, " that's a good idea. I'll take that and pretend that I came up with it." And so I did. Basically, in a connections quiz, in any given round, the first three questions will be unconnected. So for example, the answers might be

Bob Marley

Key

Crewe Alexandra.

The 4th question would ask what connects those three answers, which in this case would be Skeleton, as you can have a skeleton bob, a skeleton key and a skeleton crew(e). As a variation I used 9 part connections in round 1 and round 8. The good thing about a connection is that t makes it easier to find answers you didn't know - or if you have two possible answers to a question, then chances are only one of them will fit the connection. 

Of course, the connection quiz is not without its challenges. For one thing, you need to be pretty sure that there's only one connection between the answers. For another, I feel that on a three part connection, if you have all three answers correct, then the connection shouldn't be very obscure. It should be gettable if you have two answers right. Just my opinion, and as always, feel free to disagree. As for the three questions themselves, I feel you can have one obscure question, but at least two of them need to be gettable. 

In all honesty, then, I didn't get a huge, great buzz from being question master on Thursday, although I did really enjoy putting the quiz together. So I doubt very much I'll do it again before the New Year quiz in January, but I can see myself doing it again after that before another 2 years has passed. 

University Challenge: Round 2: St. Hilda's, Oxford v. Trinity, Cambridge

The Teams

St. Hilda’s , Oxford

Luca Chilvers

Akshay Pal

Catriona Dionisio (capt)

Christopher Bennett

Trinity, Cambridge

Hattie Innes

Navonil Neogi

Ludwig Brekke (capt)

Luke Kim

Hello, dearly beloved. How are you? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Never mind. Let’s cheer ourselves up a little by studying the form guide to last night’s match for a moment. St. Hilda’s just got past UCL by 140-135 in their first round clash. Mind you, that in itself seemed to tell a story, for UCL made it to the repechage and were only narrowly beaten by a good St. John’s team. Trinity meanwhile had a more comfortable win over Durham by 190-90.

I was a little surprised to see both teams sitting on their buzzers for the first question, but eventually Luca Chilvers buzzed in with the answer anthology to open St. Hilda’s account. Bonuses on Cleopatra saw them pick up two correct answers. Christopher Bennett had a rush of blood to the head and buzzed in early on the next starter. Asked for a 6 letter word which was Bonnie Parker’s partner in crime, he offered the 5 letter first name, not the 6 letter surname. This lost 5 and let in Navonil Neogi. Economics bonuses garnered me my usual zero, but two correct answers gave Trinity the lead. Being as I’m still self isolating following last week’s positive test for Covid I waived my right to a lap of honour for getting the next astronomy based starter right, and Luke Kim also took his own first starter of the evening recognising a description of the moon Miranda. Three words ending in the suffix – some brought 10 more points. So to the picture round. What we saw was a description of a ballet position in French, and what was required was the correct term, in French. I was rather pleased with my schoolboy/schoolteacher French for giving me the answer en pointe before Navonil Neogi buzzed in with the same. More French ballet positions brought Trinity another 10 points. Luke Kim took his second starter, recognising that it was Nicholas II whose troops carried out the 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre. The US psychologist, Louis Leon Thurston – Louis Leon Who? in LAM Towers – provided just the one correct bonus, but the momentum was all with Trinity, who had established a comfortable 75 – 15 lead by just after the 10 minute mark.

For the next starter, Hattie Innes was the first to recognise a series of works with titles beginning with the words The Way – Of All Flesh, Of the World, We Live Now, if I’m correct. Towns and cities on the Danube brought two correct answers, and pushed Trinity’s collective nose hard against the 100 barrier. A barrier they soon burst through with Luke Kim’s third starter, as he recognised a description of William III, or William of Orange (or The New Black) as he was known to his mates). Bonuses based on the idea of ‘slouching towards Bethlehem’ from Yeats’ The Second Coming brought another ten points. At this stage of the game, St. Hilda’s desperately needed to sling some buzzer, to upset Trinity’s rhythm if for nothing else. And fair play to Luca Chilvers, that’s what he did. Sadly he chose to come in early on a Shakespeare question you really needed to wait a little with, but so what? I’m firmly of the opinion that you might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb on UC, and the best way to turn around a contest in your favour is to buzz, and buzz and buzz. Given a wee bit of thinking space this let skipper Ludwig Brekke in with Jacques (or Hattie, as his mates called him. Ask your grandparents.) Tarsila do Amaral (yes, Tarsila Quien? In LAM Towers) brought just the one bonus. This took us to the music starter, and Ludwig Brekke was in remarkably quickly to identify the work of David Bowie. Other musicians who also made use of alternate personas brought a full house. I didn’t really understand the next starter, but the answer “Myers-Briggs” was quickly supplied by Ludwig Brekke. Tombs of military leaders brought another full house. Neither team knew the term chantry or the next starter, although I don’t blame Christopher Bennett for buzzing in and having a pop. Sadly, what had appeared to be the end of the question was just a pause, and he lost 5. It never rains but it pours, so when the next question began - the birthplace of the Emperors Trajan and Hadrian – I would have done exactly what Catriona Dionisio did and buzzed in with the answer -Spain. Not what the question was looking for, though. It wanted the modern day city close to where they were born. The 5 point penalty emptied the St. Hilda’s account. Navonil Neogi supplied the correct answer of Seville. Questions on opera brought a further 10 points, and meant that Trinity led by 200 – 0.

It was at this point that JP decided to issue the dreaded ‘Plenty of time to get going’ encouragement to St. Hilda’s. I wish he wouldn’t do this. I know he’s trying to be encouraging, but the way I see it is that you know you’re doing badly when he feels he has to say this. Especially when you’re 200 points behind and there’s already 20 minutes on the clock. Plenty of time indeed! The next starter allowed Luke Kim to name check our old friend, the Higgs Boson. The novels of James Baldwin – played in Corrie by the late Johnny Briggs, surely – brought us both just the one bonus, but this was purely academic since the contest was already won. None of us recognised the work of Edvard Munch for the second picture starter. And still the agony continued for St. Hilda’s as Luke Kim won the buzzer race to identify Saladin for the next starter. All he got for his pains, though, was a difficult set of picture bonuses which brought none of us any joy. I was pleased with myself for getting the logic starter which followed right after, but I was even more pleased for Luca Chilvers. Nobody wants to ever see a team get zero. Sadly St. Hilda’s were no better with the biology bonuses that followed than I was. At least they had found their buzzer range, since Catriona Dionisio buzzed in to supply the correct answer – Sojourner Truth – for the next starter. Kings of England who were anklebiters when they ascended the throne saw them take two more correct answer. And skipper Catriona Dionisio took the next startera s well, although she benefitted from some leniency from JP who accepted just Offa for the Offa’s Dyke Path. Point of order, Sir Jeremy – would you have accepted that answer if St. Hilda’s were only 5 points behind? Whatever the case they earned a set on collaborations between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. They managed one of a very gettable set. That was enough of that – Luke Kim buzzed in to correctly answer a hypothetical question about light passing through a refractive substance. The contest was gonged before JP finished the first of a set of bonuses on world languages. This gave Trinity a very comprehensive win by 235 to 45.

St. Hilda’s are better than they showed here, but just couldn’t get their buzzer fingers going until the contest was as good as over. It happens. As for Trinity, this was a highly encouraging performance, and they’ll feel confident going into the quarter final stages. Well played.

Interesting fact that I didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Tsar Nicholas II was nominated for the 1901 Nobel Peace Prize

Mastermind 2022: Round One: Heat 12

Yes, a lot better, thanks for asking. Isolation ends in a day , all things being equal. So let’s get on with this review of a remarkable edition of Mastermind, shall we?

First up was Andrew Fanko. Yes, Andrew Fanko, who won Series 15 of Only Connect with the 007s. Frankie reached the final when she appeared on Mastermind recently, so it’s fair to say that I expected fireworks from Andrew as well. Well, dearly beloved, I certainly got them. Andrew was answering on Great Britain at the Winter Olympics, and this was always most likely to be my banker subject for the night. Our Winter Olympians’ exploits always tend to be overshadowed by those of their summer counterparts, but the fact is we have had some notable successes over the years. Me, I was delighted to get half a dozen of these right, but this paled into insignificance when compared with Andrew’s magnificent 13. Specialist scores in the teens in the current series with the length of the questions being the way that it is, are like jockey’s legs – few and far between. Well, that was it – game over after the first specialist round. Wasn’t it?

Well it looked that way after Emma Harris’ round on the radio and TV comedy series “Good ness Gracious Me”. I really enjoyed the show, but this didn’t translate into points for me, and, sadly, it didn’t really translate into points for Emma either. We can speculate what went wrong with her round – maybe nerves, maybe inadequate or inappropriate preparation, maybe just sheer bad luck, but whatever the case she scored 3.

Next then was Patrick Buckingham. That, like Andrew Fanko, seemed to me to be a quiz name to conjure with. A very quick google revealed that Patrick, like Andrew, is a regular Quiz League of London player, and has also played in Only Connect. It made me feel even more sympathy for Emma Harris. Not only does it work out that you have a bit of a ‘mare on your specialist, it also turns out that in your heat you have two of the most experienced and knowledgeable quizzers in the whole first round. Which Patrick went on to show by whacking in his own 13 on Francis I of France. With his and Andrew’s respective pedigree, it was shaping up to be a very interesting GK round.

However, there was still Dan Sheehy to go. Dan came up clear on my very rudimentary search, but that often means absolutely nothing. Poor Emma must have felt that Pelion was being piled on top of Ossa as Dan too racked up a massive 13 on the High School Musical Trilogy. Since coming back to the blog this Autumn I have mentioned the risk-reward ratio in Mastermind, and sadly this show amply demonstrates this for me. I do hope that no ignorant sods take it into their heads to make insulting assumptions about Emma based on this performance. As far as I know we’ve never met, but I have no doubt that she’s a perfectly intelligent person.

It can’t have been pleasant for her having to return to the chair under these circumstances, and bearing that in mind she actually made a pretty good start to the round. She picked off the first few questions and was moving steadily forward. Sadly, as the round continued the wheels came off a little bit. You couldn’t blame her if her confidence was a little shot after the first round, and when you’re confidence is at a low ebb, and you come up against a question you can’t guess, then your round can ground to a halt, and you find yourself having to fight for answers. In the end Emma managed 7 to take her total to 10.

After Andrew completed his specialist round, I wonder if he had any idea he’d end up going second in the GK round. Well, he was still joint leader, whichever way you looked at it, and I reckoned he was going to set a total which would demand a hell of a round from the remaining two contenders. He did too. Andrew’s round was a fine GK round – as we’ve said many and oft a time in the last year, anything in the teens is a bloody good score. He seemed a little rueful at missing the last question, which was one of those you could take a stab at if you didn’t know the answer – in Roman numerals, a horizonal line above a numeral indicates it should be multiplied by a factor of what? In my 30+ years of quizzing I only recall being asked that once before, and it was the other way around – what number does an M with a horizontal line above it indicate? Andrew zigged with 10, and so stayed on 26.

At least he didn’t have long to wait before he would find out if it was going to be enough. In fact, the way things worked out Patrick too threw in an excellent GK round of his own. I couldn’t call whether he was going to beat the target or not for almost the whole round, but he’d reached 26 before the line of death had completely worked its way around his score, and Clive was asking the last question. Whereas Andrew was given an unusual question which you could have a guess at, I’d say that Patrick was asked a rather more common question, which you were unlikely to guess if you didn’t know. Patrick knew it, and that gave him 14 for 27.

It wasn’t all over yet, of course, since we still had Dan to go. And he gave it a lash, no doubt about that. Still, by the halfway mark I had him a question or two off the pace. By the end of the round he’d scored 100 to finish with 23, which is a very good score in its own right.

I’ve little doubt that Andrew’s score will reignite the debate over allocating places in the semi final to highest scoring runners up, and it’s certainly right that this should be debated. I terms of mere statistics, Andrew’s score would have won all of the heats prior to this one in this series. It is harsh to be excluded from the semis in these circumstances. As far as I know they may well be using the same criteria for deciding who plays who in the first round as they did in my day, when it all boiled down to making interesting combinations of specialist subjects in each heat. This can have the effect of making for the odd ‘top-heavy’ heat like this one. It’s not much consolation, Andrew, if you ever read this, but at least if you apply to Mastermind again, the chances of this happening to you twice are minuscule.

Congratulations, though, to Patrick. Apart from being a brilliant all-round performance, it was even more impressive when you consider that the GK round came immediately after watching Andrew whack in his own round. It was a fine display of cool-headed quizzing. I have no wish to jinx your chances, but I’m moved to say that heat was as good as a semi-final, and it’s quite possible that you might not even face opposition as tough as Andrew in your upcoming semi. Whatever the case, I wish you well.

The Details

Andrew Fanko	Great Britain at the Winter Olympics	13	0	13	0	26	0
Emma Harris	Goodness Gracious Me	3	3	7	5	10	8
Patrick Buckingham	Francis I of France	13	0	14	0	27	0
Dan Sheehy	The High School Musical Trilogy	13	0	10	0	23	0

"Moneyball"

I will admit the truth. Having reviewed “Moneybags” and “Sitting on a Fortune” and earlier in the week, “The Tournament”  I couldn’t help wondering if there are any other quiz games that have started over the last couple of weeks. This is why I came to watch “Moneyball” on the ITV Player a little while ago. So earlier on Saturday evening we had Gary Lineker presenting “Sitting on a Fortune”. Now we’re going to have a look at  “Moneyball” presented by Ian Wright. What's next – “Pets Win Prizes” presented by Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney’s “Supermarket Sweep”?

“Moneyball” faces a difficult task. If we take last night, it was up against the first hour of BBC’s powerhouse “Strictly Come Dancing”. Now, you might like Strictly Come Dancing, you might not like it. But it can pull in in audiences of some 10 million viewers, and there’s precious few shows that can do that in this day and age.  For what it’s worth I rather like Strictly, although that’s not really germane to he issue.

ITV have a problem. For the best part of 20 years ITV’s Autumn Saturday night schedule was built around music based reality/talent shows, from 2001’s Pop Stars, through Pop Idol, and then the different versions of the X Factor, which seem finally to have died the death a year or two ago. An ITV gameshow on an Autumn Saturday evening therefore always either served as an hors d’oeuvres, a lead in to the X Factor, or tried to hang onto as much of the X Factor audience as possible after the show.  At the moment, though, ITV seem to be between ideas. Something similar happened at the turn of the Milennium. Gladiators, the archetypal 1990s Autumn Saturday evening show came to its end, after several tweaks, and outstaying its welcome by at least a couple of years. It was another couple of years before Pop Stars came along.

So, presumably still looking for their next big thing, what does an ITV Autumn Saturday evening actually look like at the moment? Well, starting at 5pm yesterday’s schedule consisted of, “Sitting on a Fortune”, a quiz game show, then the ITV news, then“Moneyball”, a quiz game show, then a Catchphrase Celebrity Special , a game show. That’s 4 and a half consecutive hours of quiz/gameshows with just the news break after the first hour. And the problem with this is, I would argue, that all 3 of these shows are fine for the lead in to a big entertainment show, but none of them are strong enough to have a schedule built around them. This is certainly true of Moneyball in my opinion.

Let’s talk about the mechanics of the show, then. This is one of those shows in which a contestant comes on, and it’s not about beating other contestants, just about winning as much money as possible. In order to do this the contestants work their way through a series of questions. The questions themselves are the best thing about the show. So the contestant is given three things – for example – King Candy – Scar and Lord Farquaad – and then has to work out which one was in The Lion King, which one in Shrek and which one in Wreck-It-Ralph. Then the moneyball equipment is used to work out how much the correct answer is work. The moneyball of the title runs up and down a rather flattened and lengthened  U shaped piece of track. The contestant pushes a button – similar to the one used in Tipping Point – to determine how high up the track the ball will be released. The board above the bottom of the track is lit up in sections. Wherever the ball stops running determines the fate of the contestant. If you get the question wrong, then you have to play the ball to determine if you continue playing or if you leave with nowt. After a successful roll of the bal following a correct answer, then the contestant can either take another question, or play the moneyball to take the cash. If the ball lands in one of the right sections, you get to take the money and another contestant starts the game again.

Coming back to my original point, it is pretty ironic that two consecutive new ITV quiz games should both be presented by former England international star strikers, But as with Gary Lineker, Ian Wright has years of TV presenting under his belt, but unlike Gary Lineker he’s even presented Saturday evening Gameshows before – Friends Like These being one from a few years ago. So he’s a perfectly safe pair of hands. And “Moneyball” is a perfectly inoffensive little quiz game. Yes, I did say little. Because although the show at several times trumpets the potential jackpot of £100,000, the fact is that you’re unlikely to see any contender get close to £100,000. With the randomising factor of the ball, you’d have to be reckless in the extreme to pass up £20,000 to keep going, for example. Also, the nature of the show whereby there’s no building towards a Final, and there’s no endgame, means that it feels rather too long at an hour. If it was a 45 minute show leading into, well, into a Saturday evening spectacular like Strictly, I think it would work very well. But in a straight fist fight against Strictly, Moneyball has 2 chances - slim chance and no chance. And slim chance just left town.

"Sitting on a Fortune" and "Moneybags"

I caught two more new shows in the last few days. Let’s start with ITV’s “Sitting on A Fortune”. I saw this yesterday evening. Early Saturday evening? – I mused – Maybe ITV have hopes of this one catching on. So what have they got for their money? Well, it boils down to a big name presenter, Gary Lineker (don’t worry, I’ll get to him) some relatively easy questions, and some very big, neon lit chairs. Shall we have a look at the mechanics of the game?

We begin with 6 players. We continue playing until three of these players have been eliminated. There is a row of 6 chairs. The one at the back (red lit for danger) is the elimination chair. The one at the front (yellow lit for . . . custard?) is the question chair. The 6 players have drawn lots prior to the show to determine the order in which they choose which chair to sit in. Whoever is sitting in the question chair has to answer a question. If they get it right, they stay in the chair. If they get it wrong, then they move into the red chair and everyone else moves forward 1 chair. Whoever is in the question chair and gives the third correct answer – they go through to the final. Whoever is in the red chair when the third correct answer is given is eliminated. As for the final, well it works in a similar way. 1^st person through gets to choose first which of the 3 chairs to sit in and so on. Whoever is at the back gets to choose between two categories for each question asked. There are 7 questions. The prize pot starts on £100,000. For each wrong answer, £10,000 is removed from the prize fund. Get a question wrong and you got to the back, and the other two move forward. So you can have a situation where the person who starts in the money seat can answer the first 6 correctly, then get the last wrong, allowing the next person to come in. Having removed one wrong answer from the board, the next player has a one in three chance of guessing correctly, does so, and walks away with £90,000. Which is exactly what happened last night.

There are some things I really rather like about this. Because there must be a fair bit of tactical thinking that goes not deciding where you want to sit along the line, especially when there are 6 chairs. Then in the final, there is the opportunity to ‘shaft’ the person in front. The person in the question seat can ask for help from those behind, who may well want to get the first couple of questions out of the way before they want to get into the question seat.

The questions themselves – well there was nothing asked last night that I think a decent pub quizzer wouldn’t have been able to have a good guess at. So I would guess that none of the players we saw last night are regular pub quizzers at all. Fair enough, that’s the production team’s choice and it kept the game of musical chairs going, but one of my failings is I do get frustrated sometimes seeing perfectly nice, normal people struggling and bluffing their way through some rather gentle questions.

I’ll be honest, I was a little surprised to see Gary Lineker hosting. I shouldn’t have been, he’s been a television presenter and host for far longer than he was an international footballer and spent a lot of time presenting some pretty big events on live television, so I’m guessing that this must have been a bit of a doddle for him. I suppose it’s just that I associate him with the BBC, and with sport. He does a perfectly professional job with this – he seems warm enough towards the contestants, and has a little gentle dig now and then, and certainly has an appropriately relaxed screen presence. If you’ve been with me for any length of time you’ll know that I have a misanthropic dislike of any amount of time being wasted chatting to contestants about their hobbies or jobs – I just don’t care, when you get right down to it, but this was all at least relatively painless.

So when you get right down to it, how good is “Sitting on a Fortune?” Well, I wouldn’t have been watching it yesterday evening, but for the fact that BBC were offering us “Mary Poppins” – normally at this time on a Saturday evening I settle down with several of my daughters and my son in law to watch the shouting at the TV fest that is “The Hit List”. And if The Hit List were to be on next Saturday, then I wouldn’t be watching “Sitting on a Fortune” again. It’s fine for what it is, but for me there’s better elsewhere.

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If I was surprised to see Gary Lineker hosting “Sitting on a Fortune” – and I was – then I was even more surprised to see Craig Charles hosting “Moneybags” on Friday afternoon on Channel 4. Now, I like Craig Charles. I remember his early TV appearances in the mid-late 80s, popping up performing his humorous poems on such shows as “Pebble Mill”, and I loved the first half dozen or so series of “Red Dwarf”. You don’t get a career as long as Craig Charles, doing the variety of things that he’s done, without talent. In fact it’s worth arguing about whether he’s too versatile and too talented for something like “Moneybags”.

Which brings me to the game itself. If I understood the start of the show correctly, a sum of £1 million has been divided into various amounts and put into 100 bags. Twenty of these bags are in play during an individual show. Two contestants play a head to head to win through to the next stage. Craig announces a category – for example, cities that are north of London. A series of bags will pass in front of the two contestants. Each bag will have the name of a city on it. The player sitting in pole position gets first chance to grab. So if they grab a bag with a correct answer, they can reveal the amount they have won, and they may also get a bonus, like being able to steal a bag from their opponent. If they grab a bag with a wrong answer, then there will be a forfeit f some kind – eg becoming bankrupt. If the player in pole passes on the bag, then the second player can grab it if they wish. If they grab a correct bag, then they also move into pole position. Whoever has most at the end of the round moves through to the next round.

You get how it goes. I’m sorry to say that I had lost a bit of interest by the round of three, but the mechanics were pretty much the same. The winner, in the final, had to decide to take or leave again, and in my view sensibly stopped after grabbing one bag correctly, and took the money.

Look, despite what I said about losing interest, there is something at the heart of this show. For me, I like shows to have a bit of working out involved. It never did Pointless any harm, and I quite like Tenable as well. But, I don’t know, it somehow never felt quite as satisfying as either of those two shows. At the end of the day it was just people grabbing bags and ripping off bits of paper to reveal whether they were right or wrong and what the consequences were.

Coming back to Craig Charles, I‘m not sure that this is the best vehicle for him if he wants to conquer new territory in the field of quiz/game show presenting. Maybe I’m being unfair, but a lot of the host’s job on this show seemed limited to stating the bleeding obvious. I’m not saying that anyone could chat to a contestant about the boring and inconsequential details of their lives, and I’m not saying that anybody could remind contestants that if they make a wrong choice they could go bankrupt. But if the host’s job doesn’t involve a great deal more than this, well, you’re just wasting someone like Craig Charles by putting them in that role.

Like “Sitting on a Fortune”, “Moneybags” in my opinion is not a bad show. Both are professionally made, both have a clear concept and both are professionally presented. Yet neither, in my opinion, has that indefinable quality, that ‘x’ factor, to lift them above the common herd, and guarantee them a long run. But hey, what do I know? Yes, I liked both “The Chase” and “Pointless” the first time that I saw them, and thought that they would run and run. On the other hand, though, I disliked “Tipping Point” the first time that I saw it and thought sure it wouldn’t be back. I rather like it now and often watch it with my grandson, who loves it. So who knows? In the words of the great William Goldman, when it comes to working out the ingredients of what will make a movie successful, nobody knows, and the same holds good for quiz shows as well.

New Daytime Quiz Show - The Tournament

Look, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m in the habit of sitting on my backside watching BBC daytime quiz shows on a Wednesday afternoon during term time. The fact is, though, that Covid hasn’t left me with a great deal of other options for the next few days.

That’s how I came to be watching The Tournament this afternoon. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything about it until it actually came on. So, what can we say. Well, it’s a daytime quiz show, so there’s no point judging it against my favourite quizzes like Mastermind, University Challenge and Only Connect. That’s not to do down daytime quizzes. There’s an awful lot of care and skill that needs to go into even bringing a daytime quiz show to the screen at all, let alone a show capable of entertaining its viewers, or at the very least sustaining audience interest for 45 minutes. If we think of the twin teatime behemoths of the genre, Pointless and The Chase, they’ve both sustained high audiences and become required viewing for large swathes of the population over more than a decade. How many other daytime/teatime shows have come and gone in that time? Haven’t counted, but I bet the number is larger than you think.

I’m not going to start with my first impressions of The Tournament, but rather with a look at its game mechanics. 8 contenders face a first round in which host Alex Scott asks 8 questions, with 4 multiple choice answers. Players cannot lock in their answer until all four answers have been read out. At the end of the round, the players are ranked according to the number of questions they answered correctly, and then how quickly they locked in their answers. Each player is then assigned a pot of money, with the number1 player getting most, and the number 8 player getting least.

The 8 players then take part in a set of 4 head to head matches. So player 1 gets to choose which player they take on, and also which category of questions they both answer. The incentive to take on a higher ranked player is that the winners adds the loser’s money to their own. The incentive to take the lower player on is that if you win in under the 2 minute time limit, then you get a large cash bonus. Game play is basically a buzzer quiz. Both contenders face each other on a light bridge made of steps, not a million miles away from the sort of thing you see on The Chase. Buzz in and get the question right and you take away an opponent's step and add one to your own – until you’re full anyway. Once you’ve knocked away all of your opponent’s steps you’ve won. Game play automatically stops after 2 mins – the one with the most steps still intact wins. Then the next best player picks opponent and category, and this repeats until 4 of the 8 have been eliminated.

This is also repeated in the next round, with two head to heads. This time the player with the most cash makes the choices. Finally, the last two contenders standing face each other, this time on General Knowledge. If the winner knocks out the loser within 2 minutes, they get the chance to play a gold round. Don’t know how that works because it didn’t happen in today’s show. If they don’t, then they walk away with the cash amount they took into the final.

If you’re as long in the tooth as I am, then the first time you watch The Tournament you may well find yourself feeling a little déjà vu, as there’s bits of The Tournament which are at least slightly reminiscent of other shows. But then, quizzes are that sort of genre, and I don’t really mind that. I enjoyed the head to heads, even if they were rather slated towards popular culture and entertainment. That often goes with the territory in daytime quizzes. I didn’t mind Alex Scott in the host’s role either. She’s still a relative newbie to TV presentation, and she’s not a comedian so she’s not going to have the same style as Zander and Richard Osman for example. But she spoke clearly, projected some warmth, and didn’t get in the way, which is pretty much what I want from a host.

So I enjoyed it? Pretty much. Nothing much wrong with it? Well. . . Okay, this is not a HUGE thing, but the show does have a problem with the liberal slices of cheese it serves up at the start. At the start, each of the contestants has to issue their own ‘battle cry’ that is introduce themselves and make a boast about what they are going to do to the opposition. I don’t know how embarrassed the contestants were at having to issue these obviously scripted offerings, but I was cringing for them. There was more wood in their delivery than an Oak Furnitureland advert. Unless your contestants are all ringers and members of Equity, don't script things for them to say, for heaven's sake. Then to add insult to injury, Alex would then remind them of what they'd been told to say during the show. “Well Sue,” she said at one point, “Yesterday you said you were going to boss the rest of them.” Or words to that effect, Sue being a businesswoman. Sadly Sue did not reply, “Well I had to bloody read that out or you wouldn’t have let me on the show.” It’s just something that really grates on me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the kind of show that halts the action to ask the contender about their prize wining collection of egg cosies knitted from their own nostril hair either. But this aspect of the show is just so false that it not only adds nothing to the show, it takes away from it. Also that end game needs work. Not having the gold round felt like an anti climax to me, and I'd definitely want to tweak this.

So, for all that, will it catch on? For me the coin is in the air on this one. It might well find an audience. However my big concern is that as much as I like the 2 minute head to head format, 7 of them in succession is really a bit repetitive. If I were asked to make suggestions to make the show more viewer friendly, first change would be to get rid of the scripted introductions, and the second would be at least a slight change of game play for the second round, and then again for the final. If we look at the Chase, for example, there are three clearly different types of round in the show. Even in Pointless, while the point of the game doesn’t change they very cleverly vary the types of question to provide variety in any single show.

Well, if the producers of the show want the benefit of my suggestions, you know where to find me.

University Challenge 2022: Round 2: Edinburgh v. Bristol

The Teams

Edinburgh

Ben Russell Jones

Lewis Thomas

Rishi Sundar (capt)

Al Karunaratne

Bristol

Alex Regueiro

Sam Woodcock

Seb Priest (capt)

Anna Brian

Next up, this morning, then we have UC. The form guide seemed to suggest Edinburgh, who put a lot of points on Peterhouse in their first round would be too strong for Bristol. They had taken a close but decisive victory over Wolfson of Oxford. But you can only tell so much from first round form.

The first question gave us several clues to the word thief – or – thieves. Personally I prefer the Alexander Korda version of the Thief of Baghdad – I think Disney’s “Aladdin” owed more than a little to that one. Ben Russell Jones took that one to open Edinburgh’s account. Irish born Nobel laureates provided a full house for us both. Al Karunaratne was the first to recognise Anitra’s Dance as part of the music for Peer Gynt, and to correctly supply the name of composer Edvard Grieg. Again, bonuses, this time on Africa in 2011, provided us both with a full set, ad at the moment Edinburgh had 50 from a potential 50. Like Ben Russell Jones, I correctly guessed that the 1813 novel to which Charlote Bronte wrote a rather snarky review was “Pride and Prejudice”. I know a great many people who love Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”. I’m not one of them, so I think she was a bit of a cheeky mare being critical of the (in my opinion) far superior Jane Austen. My run of 7 on the bounce came to an end with a set of maths bonuses. Edinburgh took 1. Now, I’ve never studied German, so I was really pleased to work out that the German we saw for the first picture starter seemed to be talking about two warring families – which led to the correct conclusion that it must be Romeo and Juliet. Al Karunaratne took his second in a row with this one. Neither of us managed the next two , but the Macbeth one to finish seemed fairly obvious. 80 points down, and finally Bristol sprang into action as Sam Woodcock buzzed early to identify goose for the next starter. 18^th century prime ministers brought a brace of bonuses. This meant that just a few seconds before the ten minute mark, Edinburgh led by 80 – 20. So far it was 1 – 0 to the form guide.

How the hell the word graphene sprang to my lips at the mention of superconductivity in the next starter I don’t know – maybe from similar UC questions in years gone by. I was bowled over when Alex Regueiro correctly said the same. With Covid in my chest I will not be doing any laps of honour for now – but this would have earned this show’s, believe you me. Bonuses on astronomy are usually fruitful for me but this lot brought me nowt. Bristol, to their credit, took a couple, and in the space of 2 sets they had halved the deficit. Both teams dwelt on their buzzers a bit for the next starter, but when Rimbaud was mentioned Ben Russell Jones supplied the correct answer of symbolism. Edinburgh managed just the one on ducks. To be fair there’s always quite a few options on a duck set – shoveller, ruddy, mallard, mandarin, goldeneye and teal are each always a possibility. I took my second Science starter of the night, knowing that Hafnia – Hafnium refers to Copenhagen. They had to change the name because Wonderful, wonderful Hafnium was a syllable too short for the song. Sam Woodcock took that one. A full set on Hindu iconography helped the Bristol cause. Sam Woodcock, who buzzed super early on the music starter, couldn’t believe his luck to be given something so well known as Carmen. More opera, as sung by Leontyne Price brought them no joy, although they did seem to talk themselves out of at least one answer. Nonetheless, the gap had been cut to just 20 points now. Just as he’d done before, Ben Russell Jones got his team moving forward again, knowing the term gestalt philosophy. JP was moved to remark that this put Edinburgh through the 100 points mark – it had taken longer than seemed likely just 7 minutes earlier. We both took a couple of bonuses on the obscure. None of us knew what PPV means in terms of diagnostic tests – apparently my suggestion of Pay per View was incorrect too. Lewis Thomas took his own first starter knowing that King James I of Scotland wrote The King’s Quair while imprisoned in England. Us Politician Nellie Tayloe Ross saw us both take a couple of bonuses. Which meant that as we approached the 20 minute mark, Edinburgh had reimposed themselves on the competition and led by 135 – 75. Again, the form guide’s prediction looked safe.

Alex Rugeiro recognised types of waterfall for the next starter, a 15 point turnround considering that Al Karunaratne had just had a harsh 5 point deduction for his own answer. Bonuses on  - something to do with bacteria and diseases, I think, knocked another ten points off the score. The second picture starter saw the impressive Ben Russell Jones again step in, and he identified cricketer Moeen Ali. The full set of cricketers they identified would, I thought, put the match beyond Bristol. Nobody seemed to have told the Bristol team this, though. After Rishi Sundar lost five, Anna Brian identified honey to take her own first starter of the match. Words ending in pia brought two, and I would have thought that even if they didn’t know, utopia is one they could have guessed for the last. On such small margins . . . See if you can guess wo took the next starter for Edinburgh? Yes, Ben Russell Jones took a flier, recognising the title of a work by Edward Burne-Jones. The contiguous counties in which Stilton (mmm, Stilton!) may be produced brought two bonuses. Game over take two.  A superfast buzz by Sam Woodcock to identify iron pulled Bristol back. Even after a couple of bonuses on musical chords the gap was still 35 points with just a couple of minutes to go. Anna Brian identified the Village of the Damned as being the film version of John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. Scientists with surnames beginning with Sn brought a full house, and the gap was down to 10. Could it all be down to the next starter? It was Sam Woodcock who answered it – recognising names belonging to species of ants. Decades of the 19^th century brought them the one bonus they needed to take the lead for the very first time in the competition. If there was time for one more starter, then Edinburgh needed to win it, or Bristol had won – the facts were that simple. There was enough time. I hadn’t begun to get to grips with the question, but Lewis Thomas buzzed in with the answer trains. Correct. Cue gong, utter despair from Bristol after such a brilliant fightback, and joy for Edinburgh after the narrowest of squeaks.

A shame to see either team lose such a great contest, but congratulations to Edinburgh on saving the blushes of the form guide.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Fan, shoot, plunge and horsetail are all types of waterfall

Mastermind 2022: First Round: Heat 11

I’m sorry that I didn’t post last night, dearly beloved. I have just tested positive for covid, and it’s, as the kids in my school would possibly say, messing with me ‘ead, and I had an early night last night. Soldier on, though.

So first up last night was Emma Birch. Emma was answering on a subject after my own heart – British Butterflies. I got very interested in butterflies when my twin daughters – my youngest  - were only about 5. We saw a peacock butterfly and they asked me what it was. I didn’t know, so the next day we went to the library and found out all about it. I’ve been a member of Butterfly Conservation for years now, and this was a subject I briefly considered doing for Champ of Champs. So at least I know enough about the subject to be able to confirm that Emma received a testing set of questions here – I had 4 myself. Emma’s 8 was a perfectly respectable score, although I couldn’t help feeling that she was going to struggle to mount a challenge for the win on top of it, bearing in mind who was yet to come.

I have actually seen all 3 of the Cornetto Trilogy of films. I like Simon Pegg. I think he’s very talented and enjoyed his autobiography ‘Nerd do Well’. But unlike most of my kids, I don’t think of the films as works of near genius. So under the circumstances, I was glad to take my one point and run. Justin Wong, on the other hand was almost – but not quite – perfect, and set the bar at 11 and no passes. Whatever happened, he was still going to be in contention when the half time oranges were handed out.

As was Anna Melville-James. Now, when scanning down the list of last night’s specialist rounds, I couldn’t help feeling that butterflies was most likely to be my banker. Anna was answering on Tutankhamun, and this yielded me a bumper crop of 8 points, easily surpassing my butterflies score. I’m not suggesting that this in any way denigrates Anna’s score of 11 and no passes. n my case I guess it helped being an impressionable kid when the 1972 Tutankhamun Roadshow came to town – which my parents did not take us to see, much to my chagrin. I did catch up with Tut when the treasures exhibition came to the Dome/O2 a few years ago. A good score again from Anna – but then it needed to be, because I knew who was coming next.

On what has been a pretty gloomy morning for me thus far, it brightened my day considerably to see Rachael ‘Cherryade’ Neiman-Wiseman back in the first round of Mastermind. Rach has been a good friend of LAM over the years. She’s been a semi regular on Mastermind over the last decade. That’s quite a good pun actually, since she regularly makes the semis. Judging by Rachael’s surname she’s been married since last we communicated – Rach, I wish you and your wife every happiness. So, with a fine quiz pedigree in general, and a fine Mastermind pedigree in particular, how would she do in her specialist round on Kate Bush? Bloomin’ well, as it happened. Like the previous two contenders, Rachael whacked in a hefty 11 and no passes. I once took the Wikipedia challenge on a Kate Bush round a few years ago, and retained enough of this to pick up 4 points myself.

Clive felt moved to explain that if we were unable to separate the leaders at the end of the GK round, then we’d have a tie break. – Well – I mused – it’s possible, but Justin and Anna will need to go some to keep up with Rachael. First, though, Emma came forward, and if she was daunted by being three points behind the others, then she certainly didn’t show it. It wasn’t the quickest GK round we’ve ever seen, but I do often think that for a maybe non-serious quizzer, which I guess Emma is, to go steadily and make sure that you don’t miss any of the low hanging fruit is a sensible way of approaching the round. Okay, she didn’t quite make it into double figures, but 9 is a very decent score on GK in this day and age.

Justin never really got any of the vital momentum going in his own GK round. I never really felt that his all round knowledge was wide or strong enough to allow him to post anything better than a respectable score as the round developed, and a respectable 7 was what he achieved. Justin, if by any chance you’re reading, if the whole aim of your appearance was to appear, and test your knowledge of the films, then you’ve acquitted yourself well. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of coming back this way some time, then your specialist performance shows you certainly have potential, and with a couple of years at the quiz face to work on GK, it could well be a very different story next time round.

You know, there really isn’t much you can say about tactics in Mastermind (but I’m going to say it anyway.) It basically comes down to – what do you do when you don’t know the answer? Anna had clearly decided in her GK round that if she didn’t know it, then she would pass. It is a valid tactic, and it’s one I used myself – unsuccessfully – in Champ of Champs. That was only because I’d incurred a careless pass in the specialist round, and the great Pat Gibson had had 2 clear rounds, though. It didn’t matter if I had not passed in GK, I’d still lose if it came to pass countback. Normally, though, it is not a tactic I’d advise. You see, passes are contagious, and they breed like rabbits. While Anna was always going to exceed Justin’s score, a mid round pass spiral robbed her of the chance of setting a more challenging total for Rachael. Anna scored 9, to put the bar at 19 points.

Right, it’s just possible that you might have noticed just the slightest bias in this review, towards Rachael. Sorry – but I can’t help it. There’s no point here going on about Rachael’s GK scores in previous Mastermind appearances, since I would argue it’s harder to accrue a high total now than it was back in the day. Even so, though, I felt that Rachael would get the double figure score that she needed to take the win. I don’t know if Rach would agree with me on this, but I always felt that it got easier to be in the chair the more that you did it – easier in as much as it became easier to keep a cool head, and to keep your round chugging along on an even keel. And Rachael’s round was the round of a good, experienced Mastermind hand. In the end 12 points sealed what in the end was a pretty comfortable win.

I believe that in one of her semi final appearances, Rachael was 1 point away from making the final. Without wanting to inflict upon you the curse of the Clark sofa, I sincerely hope you can get to the final this time round, Rach.

The Details

Emma Birch	British Butterflies	8	1	9	1	17	1
Justin Wong	The Cornetto Trilogy	11	0	7	2	18	2
Anna Melville-James	Tutankhamun	11	0	9	6	20	6
Rachael Neiman-Wiseman	Kate Bush	11	0	12	0	23	0