Hello, dearly beloved, and thank you for joining me again. So. It’s Monday, and we’ve had another Mastermind heat. No novels this week, but there was a TV series, so we’ll pick up the thread from last week when we get to it.
For now, though, we began with Steve Brown, who was
offering us the first ever double Nobel Prize winner, Marie Curie. Personally I
wasn’t expecting much from myself on this round, so I wasn’t unhappy when I
managed to scrape a modest three. Steve did better, naturally. At one stage I
though he was going to do considerably better too. However, one thing I did
notice was that he was going slowly, taking his time and delivering his answers
in measured tones. This proved to be something of a luxury considering that
just a couple of wrong answers began to creep in, which robbed him of the
momentum he would have needed to boost his score at the finish. He scored 8,
but he looked and sounded knowledgeable enough that he might well have got into
double figures had he gone a bit faster.
Student Holly Franklin followed, answering on the BBC
sitcom Ghosts. Following what I said last week about the fiction rounds
concentrating almost totally on events from the story, there was at least one
question about the writers in this round. I have to admit, I do rather like “Ghosts”,
but I also have to admit that I don’t really find it funny, if I’m honest. When
I watch it the show tends to put me in mind of a show I was rather fond of as a
kid, “The Ghosts of Motley Hall”. Enough of such digressions. Holly produced a
perfect round of 13 from 13, and effectively put Steve out of contention.
Lisa Sedge was answering on a subject in which I am sure
that my daughter Jess will have scored many more than my rather measly 3 – Elizabeth
Woodville. Now, I felt Lisa was putting in a very good round, but even so as
the white line of death snaked its way around the score box she was still some
way short of the target, finishing on 10. One or two wrong answers can really
make such a difference. Maybe she was answering just a tad more slowly than Holly,
who had certainly answered pretty quickly.
Thence to David Dury. David was answering on the street
artist Banksy – and no, I don’t blame the setters for not really including any
biographical detail questions, bearing in mind the subject matter. I was a
little sorry we didn’t get any questions about the Banksy that appeared overnight
on a garage wall in Port Talbot a few years ago, but there you go, you can’t
have everything. David too scored 10. Putting that into perspective, it meant that
unless either David or Lisa was a superb GK quizzer, or Holly totally imploded
on the GK round, then it looked like the leader at the halfway stage was still
going to be leader by the end of the show.
I felt a bit of a mixture of frustration and sympathy
towards Steve Brown as he struggled with his general knowledge round. He wasn’t
doing brilliantly not because he didn’t know stuff, but because he was giving
each question a bit of consideration before answering – and time is a luxury
you just don’t have in a Mastermind round. This meant that when he got one that
he knew that he knew, but couldn’t get the answer past the tip of his tongue he
just sat there, frozen while the seconds ticked away. In the end he added 6 to
his score.
Lisa came next, and as with her specialist round, she
started pretty well. She was faster than Steve, but not superfast. If she had
been able to maintain momentum throughout her round then she might well have
been able to post a challenging score, but the second half of the round saw the
wrong answers creeping in, and this robbed her of a little momentum. As it was
Lisa managed a double figure score of 10, which was, I felt, a couple short of
what she would have needed to force Holly into the corridor of doubt.
Before we’d find out, though, David Dury returned to have a
tilt at the target himself. He had a go, but it seemed pretty clear from early
doors that his GK wasn’t going to be as strong as Lisa’s, and indeed it wasn’t.
He posted a respectable 8 to take his total to 18.
Holly had shown a commendably clear head in her Specialist
round, and it looked pretty much like all she had to do was keep the same calm,
composed approach to the GK and she’d surely get the 8 points she needed to win
clearly. She actually did quite a bit better than that. She top scored on the
GK as well with a pretty good 11. Her
point win was well deserved, and she was certainly the pick of tonight’s
contenders.
The Details
|
Steve Brown |
Marie Curie |
8 |
0 |
6 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
|
Holly Franklin |
The BBC Sitcom Ghosts |
13 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
24 |
2 |
|
Lisa Sedge |
Elizabeth Woodville |
10 |
0 |
10 |
1 |
20 |
1 |
|
David Dury |
Banksy |
10 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
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