What a show this was!
There was little hint of the
pyrotechnics we were in store for as first contender Lee Ansett settled down
for his specialist round. Lee was answering on the travel documentaries of
Michael Palin. I have to say that Lee must be a man after my own heart in
choosing this subject, and it provided me with my best specialist round of the
night. Which wasn’t as good as Lee’s. Lee showed admirable recall of the
details as he reeled off 12 correct answers. That’s how you do it.
I have to admit that I was
hoping that second contender, James Devine-Stoneman would do well. James, I
recalled from his 2017 exploits on University Challenge, is from Southall in
the London Borough of Ealing. So being an Ealing boy myself I lumbered him with
the curse of the Clark support. He still did pretty well despite this. 10
points on Lady Gaga showed that he had prepared pretty well. Gawd knows how but
I also took 3 points on this round myself to take the aggregate to 8 from 2.
I can imagine that the
production team were pretty much salivating when they saw Jane Mackey’s
application form stating her occupation as a retired goat farmer. That’s the
sort of occupation which is gold dust on an application form and guaranteed to
get you noticed at the very least. Not that goats had anything to do with Jane’s
specialist subject of Emily Dickinson. Considering that Jane had a very long
pause followed by a pass on one of her first few questions Jane did brilliantly
to recover and take her score to 10. The 2 I managed put me on a double figure aggregate
for the first time in yonks, with one round still to go.
Which actually turned out to
be the best specialist of all of them. Katie Bamber gave us an extremely good
round on the BBC sitcom Mum. Which I’ve never watched so I suppose my 1 point
was more than I had any right to expect. Katie just kept on answering all the
questions that were asked, in the end amassing a superb 14.
So, kudos to all of the
contenders for getting double figure scores. As an old contender myself who
spent absolute hours preparing all of my specialists it does my heart good to
see people who have obviously gone the whole hog themselves.
First to return to the chair
then was James. What happened next was a truly excellent GK round. James’ UC
background certainly hinted that he’d do well at the GK, but this was the sort
of thing I like to describe as a round straight out of the top drawer. James
added an excellent 16 to his specialist
score, setting the bar at 26. Not only was he putting all three of the others
in the corridor of doubt, but he was ensuring that this would be a bloody long
corridor as well.
Jane had a go, fair play to
her. In order to match James she really couldn’t afford to miss much, and I’d
say that she was too far behind the clock at halfway through the round. She
kept on going though, and in the end she added 11 to her own score. 21, her final
score, is highly respectable.
Lee Ansett, it turned out, was
never going to settle for mere respectability. He never quite seemed to be
going as fast as James, and yet this was not the case, since he too just kept
powering through, finding correct answer after correct answer. Yes, he scored
16, just the same as James had done. But having started 2 points to the good,
Lee finished with 28 and the lead.
Well, I wasn’t counting out
anything as possible after what we’d just seen. Katie Bamber wasn’t doing badly
either. But even though she was two points better off than Lee had been at the
start of her round, that still meant she needed a formidable 15 to win
outright. She was a little way short of that performance, although still
managing a double figure round.
Well played all four of you.
That was quality. Especially hard lines
to James, who sadly falls through the net because there are no repechage
places. But as for Lee – well there’s a many a slip between cup and lip, but
with a following wind, sir, your ambition of reaching the final is certainly
not unrealistic. Best of luck to you, Very well done.
|
Lee Ansett |
Michael Palin’s
Travel Documentaries |
12 |
1 |
16 |
0 |
28 |
1 |
|
James Devine-Stoneman |
Lady Gaga |
10 |
1 |
16 |
1 |
26 |
2 |
|
Jane Mackey |
Emily Dickinson |
10 |
1 |
11 |
0 |
21 |
0 |
|
Katie Bamber |
BBC Sitcom Mum |
14 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
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