Monday 29 November 2021

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

 

10 comments:

Paul Gilbert said...

Spookily, Kit managed to equal her scores from her previous appearance (December 2018) in both rounds (although she only managed 3rd place first time round). Not only that, but her opponents were all female on that occasion as well!

Londinius said...

Hi Paul - thanks for taking the time and trouble to comment. Wow - that is spooky, considering that all female heats are not that common.

George Millman said...

Lillian was on this year's Brain of Britain, don't know if you listened to that this year. I felt she stood out more as a contender on that - she didn't win her heat, but she was only one point behind a repechage place in the semis.

Although, I did think there was one answer she gave that Clive accepted controversially - she'd said Fitzroy Street when the correct answer was Fitzroy Road, but she still got the point. What are we making of that?

Londinius said...

Hi George - I didn't get to listen to BoB this year. Like I said, I felt the way that Lillian answered her questions marked her out as someone who knew what she was doing, even if her score was lower than I think she might have liked. As regards the street, that's a judgement call. I'll be honest, I do tend to feel that if it ain't what's on the card then you don't accept it, but I don't think it's a massive deal. It's not on the same level as, for the sake of argument, allowing SLovakia when the answer is Slovenia.

George Millman said...

I'm pretty sure Lillian's been on University Challenge in the past as well, although I can't remember when or from what university.

Personally I'm quite a stickler for not accepting something if it's not what's written down, unless it's clearly the same answer but in different words (such as when Kit said 'The king didn't have any money on him' when clearly Clive had 'She had to pay the bill' written down - it's exactly the same answer). The problem with being lenient is, how exactly do you determine where to draw the line in a way that makes it fair for everyone? I remember an episode of Fifteen to One where someone gave 'Mary Collinson' as the first female president of Ireland, instead of Mary Robinson. Clearly, the contestant did know it to be so close, but I don't think most people would argue that that answer should be accepted. Once you start being lenient, you dig yourself into quite a difficult hole.

Londinius said...

Yeah. It's interesting you mention Fifteen t One. One of the only complaints I ever used to hear people making about the William G. Stewart years was that if he liked you you only had to be in the same town as the answer, whereas if he didn't, then you had to have it spot on. I have no evidence for this, and can't say that I ever noticed it myself, but it was an opinion I used to hear expressed quite a bit.

George Millman said...

I've heard that complaint about William G as well. Unfortunately I haven't seen enough of his era of the show to really comment as I was only nine when it was cancelled (saw the odd episode).

The instance I'm referring to was in the Sandi Toksvig era, which I have seen every episode of. I felt that things were always judged fairly and consistently in that era.

Londinius said...

Hi George. I have no complaints about my own appearance on the show in 2014. I didn't do brilliantly but that's the way it goes.

Carly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Carly said...

George she was with Trinity in the 2019/20 season - made the semi-finals. I almost didn't recognise her without the straight hair! Much more glam on this appearance and I liked it on her.