Well, after the Lord Mayor’s show. . . Is that a bit mean? Sorry if it comes across that way.
So let’s get down to brass tacks. Ben Farren kicked us off
with the late journalist and columnist Christopher Hitchens. I have to say that
I tended to go along with Christopher Hitchens’ views on the Elgin Marbles/Parthenon
Frieze so I was glad to see that this was the basis of one of the questions.
And yes, Ben is a teacher, and you know my views on providing support for my
brethren and sistren. Thankfully, though the support from the Clark sofa didn’t
seem to do him any harm, and he posted a highly competitive 12 points to set
the standard.
Raminda Kaur was offering us the subject that I thought
offered me the best chance of success tonight, the racing driver, the great
Ayrton Senna. As it happened I did less well with this round than I did with
Christopher Hitchens. Did that mean it was a particularly hard round? Maybe. I
don’t claim to be enough of an expert on Senna’s life to really comment. Raminda
herself managed 6. It’s by no means a disastrous score, but it did mean that to
all intents and purposes she was not going to be challenging for the win in the
GK round.
Our next round was another of those trickier – than – they –
seem popular entertainment rounds. Quinn Holmes answered questions on the TV
series Killing Eve. I’ve never watched the show myself and so in all honesty I
couldn’t possibly say whether this was another difficult, fair or relatively
easy set. Sadly Quinn didn’t score very highly on this set, ending with a total
of 3.
Richard Holmes, then, brought the specialist round to a
conclusion. Of all the specialist subjects tonight, Richard offered us the most
traditional Mastermind subject in the shape of Field Marshal Montgomery. He did
pretty well with it too. You couldn’t have blamed him for being a little
daunted following what had happened to the two previous contenders, but he
powered on, and for much of the round it looked as if he would achieve double
figures. Well, he didn’t quite do that, but he managed 9 by the end of the
round.
It cannot possibly be easy, to walk out to the chair again
after you’ve had a disappointing specialist round. So I was pleased for Quinn
Holmes that she managed to put that behind her, and posted a respectable 8 in
order to take her total score to 11.Sadly this wasn’t quite enough to put her
into the lead.
It’s maybe a little dangerous to speculate what exactly
causes a particular round to go off the rails, but when it comes to Raminda’s
GK round, it looked to me that one question early doors really tripped her up,
and after this she fell into a spiral of wrong answers and passes from which she
never really recovered. All I can say is that sitting in that chair can do
funny things to you, and there but for the grace of God might have gone any of
us. Raminda ended with a total of 10 points.
At the business end of the competition, Richard returned to
the chair needing a high score in order to force Ben to walk through the
corridor of doubt. As with his specialist round, Richard produced a perfectly
respectable 9. Perfectly respectable, but not, I felt, really enough to give
him a realistic chance of winning the show.
Nothing is certain in life – other than death or taxes,
anyway – but you could probably have named your own odds if you wanted to bet
against Ben achieving the 7 points that he needed in order to win outright.
There were times during the round when he looked a little uncertain, but his
score just kept mounting. In the same way that Ben clearly won the specialist
round, he also was comfortably the best performer in the General Knowledge
round. He added 13 points to take his total to 25. No, not the best we’ve seen
all series, but certainly a competitive total. Well done to you sir, and best
of luck for the semi-finals.
The Details
|
Ben Farren |
Christopher Hitchens |
12 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
|
Raminda Kaur |
Ayrton Senna |
6 |
0 |
4 |
3 |
10 |
3 |
|
Quinn Holmes |
Killing Eve |
3 |
4 |
8 |
2 |
11 |
6 |
|
Richard Taylor |
Field Marshal
Montgomery |
9 |
1 |
9 |
3 |
18 |
4 |
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