Look, I know what you’re asking yourself. Just how well did Dave do on the specialists this week when he only told us yesterday that he hasn’t wikied any of them. Well, all will be revealed, but there are other issues to discuss first.
Like Molly Quinn-Leitch and her round on Film Adaptations of
Shakespeare’s Tragedies. There’s always a thing when you’re discussing
Shakespeare’s Tragedies – which plays do you actually count as tragedies? This
round took the pragmatic view which includes more than just the five great
tragedies, and why not? Well, I said yesterday that I thought I might nick a
couple of points on each of tonight’s rounds, and my familiarity with Baz
Lurman’s R and J from teaching it so many times brought me one point and I took
another 2 for 3. Sadly this was all Molly managed as well. She even apologised
at the end of the round and thankfully Clive reassured her that there was no
need to do so. Sometimes it just ain’t your night.
Anna Milford Goldstein last passed this way in 1976, 47 (Yes,
47!) years ago. She came third then. I don’t know if there’s a record for the
greatest time elapsed between consecutive appearances in the same quiz show,
but surely this has to be right up there. Tonight Anna was answering on the
Great Fire of London. She knew her stuff too, although she did fall into a
rather obvious trap when one of the questions quoted Evelyn’s rather than Pepys’
diary. She stumbled badly and wasted a lot of time on one question which meant
that she finished with 6 on a round which had promised more. Me? Four (count 'em, four!). So far so good.
Perfect rounds are difficult to achieve. I know, I never
quite managed it myself, my best performance still saw me getting 1 wrong. So
Zahir Kazi’s round on John Barnes was extremely impressive. Sometimes when you
watch a perfect round you get the feeling that the contender has such a command
over their subject that you could keep asking them questions on it for half an
hour and they still wouldn’t get any wrong. This is how I felt about Zahir’s
round. I didn’t do quite as well on this round, but still got a brace for
Graham Taylor and the Maracana. 9 points from 3 rounds. Double figures beckoned.
It can’t be easy having to face the chair for the first time
after you’ve just watched the previous contestant deliver a perfect round. So,
let’s give full credit to Voirrey Blount for composing herself well, and
delivering her own very good round on The Lord of the Rings. Yes, okay, not
quite perfect, but 11 on this round was impressive. I’ve read the books several
times, and I still only managed 2. Which, if you’re more mathematically gifted
than I am, will tell you that yes, I did managed an unwikied double figure
aggregate of 11 which is probably my best unwikied performance of the season so
far.
Well, it all looked fairly predictable didn’t it from this
point? Quinn and Anna would take their rounds, and then the real contest would
begin. Poor Quinn had the difficult experience of working very hard on her GK
round to produce a respectable score of 7, to find that this hadn’t been enough
to move her more than one place up the leader board. As I said, when it’s not
your night, it’s just not your night.
Anna Milford Goldstein by way of comparison produced a
fantastic performance in her own GK round. I want to stress that I did not
think that she had any real chance of winning at this stage. Nonetheless her
round of 14 points was superb, and as her score continued to climb I started to
think that just maybe she was giving some decent opposition to the top 2. Even
so, with 20 points it meant that leader Zahir would still only need a
respectable score to win.
Before that, though, it was Voirrey’s turn to have a go. She
needed 10 points to go into the outright lead. Well, as we’ve seen, any double
figure target requires a contender to negotiate the corridor of doubt, and
although she started brightly enough, Voirrey began treading water as she
inched towards the target. It was close, but her 8 points left her 1 adrift of
Anna on 19.
Putting the task ahead of Zahir into perspective, he needed 6
and no passes to force a tie break. 7 and it would be all over. Judging by his
best answers, under normal circumstances I’m petty sure that this is well within
his capabilities. But sitting in a Mastermind chair is not a normal
circumstance. He wasn’t going very quickly, and the wrong answers were accumulating.
He’d scored 5 as the white line of death encircled said score. Could he do it?
Well, no, because he’d already passed once, so even a correct answer wouldn’t
have been enough. As it was, he couldn’t find the answer, and was left to
ponder on what might have been with a score of 19.
This really was quite a show and Anna’s performance was a
serious contender for the best comeback since Lazarus. Thoroughly enjoyed it,
and I wish you the very best of luck in the semis, ma’am.
The Details
|
Molly Quinn-Leitch |
Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies |
3 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
|
Anna Milford Goldstein |
The Great Fire of London |
6 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Zahir Kazi |
The Career of John Barnes |
14 |
0 |
5 |
1 |
18 |
1 |
|
Voirrey Blount |
The Lord of the Rings Novels of JRR Tolkein |
11 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
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