Mastermind 2023 First Round Heat Fourteen

Good evening and welcome to the last Mastermind before Christmas. Kicking off this evening was Katherine Pathack, answering on rebellions against the Tudors. I was a bit disappointed to only manage a couple of these myself – alright, it’s a very long time since I did my A level History, but the Tudors were a significant part of the course. Katherine knew a lot more than I did – not difficult – and she managed double figures with 10. Always a mark of quality, that.

From the sublime to the – well, I’ve no doubt that some people would describe Christina Aguilera as sublime in her own way, and who am I to argue? Bhagwan Manku went at his round on this particular chanteuse with gusto and frankly it came as a surprise when he missed out on just one of the questions – up to that point this seemed to have perfect round written all over it. A terrific performance. I was surprised that I managed to get exactly the same score as I’d managed on Tudor rabellions – 2 – and all that without having had the benefit of studying for an A level on Christina Aguilera.

Stewart Holden followed on the US Space Shuttle programme. Once again, two points were forthcoming to add to my aggregate total. Well, I can’t say I ever followed the Space Shuttle thing as avidly as I did the Apollo programme. Stewart was definitely very knowledgeable, but he was taking a little longer over his answers than the other contenders and I think that this was the reason why he fell just a little bit short of double figures with 9.

This left Jonathan Evans to finish off the specialists for us with James Parkinson, he of the eponymous disease. I did manage one point on this round, but only one. Jonathan did a lot better, overhauling first Stewart and then Katherine, to finish with 11. Taking all of the contenders’ rounds into consideration it’s been several weeks since we saw all four contenders in a single show produce rounds of this quality, so this was very much a pleasure and I congratulate all four for this.

However, this still left the GK rounds to be negotiated. Stewart returned first. He wasn’t really answering more quickly than he had managed in his specialist round, but for the first minute or so he was doing so pretty accurately. However, as we so often say the GK round is a marathon and not a sprint and Stewart’s round started to run out of steam a bit in the second minute. Ideally he needed a double figure score to put those who had to come after him within the corridor of doubt, and he didn’t quite manage that. In the end he scored 8, which gave him a respectable 17.

Katharine’s round was in a way quite similar to Stewart’s in the way it played out. For the first minute she was going very well, but once the wrong answers started to crop up she found it harder going. In the end though she added 9 to her first round score to raise the bar to 19. A very respectable performance that, and at least both of the contenders yet to come were going to have to fight for it.

Jonathan Evans, it must be said, fought well. No, okay it wasn’t the best GK round we’ve seen all series, but it was a good performance – any performance in double figures nowadays is a good one. The key to this was not letting a couple of wrong answers put him off his stride – and until you’ve tried it for yourself it’s difficult to appreciate just how hard this is to do. You’d still rather have been in Bhagwan’s position, but whatever happened this was not going to be a walkover.

Now was it. In fact it was a very close run thing. Bhagwan was not putting together as good a round as Jonathan had, but then he was starting 2 points ahead of the mark from which Jonathan had done. It was a desperately close-run thing. As the line started snaking round the number he was just one point adrift AND he hadn’t passed, while Jonathan had passed once. All Bhagwan had to do was find a correct answer and he would win. Alas, he couldn’t quite do it. In the end he scored a respectable 8 to finish with a good total of 21. Good, but not good enough and so to the victor, Jonathan, went the spoils. Well played everyone, an enjoyable show.

The Details

Katherine Pathack	Rebellions against the Tudors	10	0	9	0	19	0
Bhagwan Manku	Christina Aguilera	13	0	8	0	21	0
Stewart Holden	The US Space Shuttle Programme	9	0	8	0	17	0
Jonathan Evans	James Parkinson	11	0	11	1	22	1