Hello, good evening and welcome. Dearly beloved, I know that you’ve been asking yourself – Dave, did you wiki at the weekend? Well, in a word, no. I just couldn’t get myself together over the weekend. Well, I am back in work now, so fair’s fair. I did score a total aggregate of 6 on the specialists tonight. Back to normal there, then.
Hamid Khan opened the bating with former England opening
batsman Marcus Trescothick. Cricket is one of the more popular sports used for
specialist subjects on Mastermind. Maybe it’s because of the wealth of
statistics involved in the game? Maybe not. Anyway, Hamid certainly knew a lot
about Marcus Trescothick. Even having said that, though, several questions
slipped the net, and I had a feeling that the 8 he scored might leave him with
some work to do in the GK round.
Adeline McCartney was answering on a good old traditional
Mastermind subject, in the shape of the poet Rupert Brooke. You know, when I
was young and even more stupid than I am now, I found it easy to get quite
sneery about Rupert Brooke and in particular his poem “The Soldier”, totally
ignoring the fact that Brooke put his money – and his life – where his mouth,
er, pen was. He was 100 percent sincere when he wrote it and I have to respect
that. Adeline knew a lot more about her subject than I did, and looked set for
a challenging score. Sadly a few mistakes started creeping in and at the end
she levelled out at 6.
Teacher alert! Teacher alert! Yes, Lesley Ravencroft is
another teacher, so her chances were scuppered immediately by the curse of
being supported from the Clark sofa. Lesley’s subject was Thomas Cromwell. On
paper this was a subject that should have yielded me more points than either
Trescothick or Brooke, yet it yielded just the 2, as had both of those. I felt
this was not an easy set at all, and I’m not just saying this because I wanted
Lesley to do well. 6 is certainly not a case of doing badly, but at this stage
she was 2 points behind, and there was every possibility that this gap could be
extended by our final contender.
This was Alex Shilton. Alex was answering on the Films of
Wes Anderson. In all honesty I do not think that I have ever watched any of
these films, and so the questions passed me by in a blur of ignorance. My
ignorance, mind you, not Alex’s. He produced the best specialist of the night,
by several points. Yeah he got a couple wrong. Not many though, as he took a
distinctly useful 11, giving him a 3 point lead and making him very much the
man to beat.
Well, if Adeline McCartney was daunted by being five points
behind as she sat down for her GK round, she didn’t show it. It was an
unremarkable start, but once she got into her stride she just kept piling the
points on with correct answer after correct answer. She finished with 13 and
that’s a seriously good GK score in the current era of the show. Remarkably she’d
set the target at 19, a score to at least give Hamid and Alex pause for
thought.
Not before Lesley had returned to the chair. Her round put
Adeline’s into perspective. The 9 that Lesley scored represented a pretty
decent GK round. However it left her four points adrift of the lead.
Hamid couldn’t match Adeline’s 13 either, but then he didn’t
need to. What he needed was a score of 11 and either no passes, or 1 pass. 11
and 2 passes would put him level with Adeline, and 11 and more than 2 passes
would leave her in the lead. Well, he scored exactly 11 and 1 pass, to give him
the lead by the narrowest margin possible with just Alex to go.
Wel, fair play to him, it didn’t seem to phase him at all.
Alex showed the same focus in his GK round as he had shown in his specialist.
He didn’t get them all right. In fact, judging by his reaction he dropped a
couple he probably would have had in other circumstances. This didn’t matter
though. He needed 9 and no passes to win, he got 13 and no passes to win
by points, and show a clean pair of
heels to the peloton. Alex had answered like a quizzer, although his piece to
camera at the end didn’t give away many clues as to whether he really is or
not. Makes no difference. Very well done sir, and best of luck to you in the semi-finals.
The Details
|
Hamid Khan |
Marcus Trescothick |
8 |
0 |
11 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
|
Adeline McCartney |
Rupert Brooke |
6 |
0 |
13 |
2 |
19 |
2 |
|
Lesley Ravencroft |
Thomas Cromwell |
6 |
3 |
9 |
2 |
15 |
5 |
|
Alex Shilton |
The Films of Wes
Anderson |
11 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
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