Well, dearly beloved, we’ve now had our first three Quizzy Mondays of this season, and I have to say that I’m enjoying them immensely. I prophesied that I could well end up with an aggregate of zero from the specialists on last night’s show. So how did I do?
Well the first of these was the Novels of Zadie Smith,
offered to us by Chris Devine. Never having read any of them the chances of a
cricket score for me were non-existent. However, there’s always a chance you
might scrape one on an unfamiliar specialist through General Knowledge and so
while I haven’t read Fraud, I do know that the famous Victorian case Clive
asked about was the case of Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant. Chris’ round
was interesting. At the end I thought – how the hell did he only get 8 points?
He only had 3 wrong. Well it’s true, but on the three he had wrong he hesitated
waiting for the answers to come and I would say between the three of them this
cost him as much as two more questions. A round which displayed a depth of
knowledge that deserved a higher score I would have said.
No, I didn’t score on Cathryn Gahan’s round on the musical
of Sweeney Todd. It is actually the first production staged by my last school,
but I was not involved in it so any chance of points there went begging. One
thing I’ve really enjoyed about this series so far is the knowledge pretty much
all of the contenders are showing in their specialist rounds. If you have done
your best to try to cover all the angles you might be asked about during your
preparation, then you’ve certainly earned my respect. Alright, it’s just one
musical but the depth of knowledge required to answer this set was considerable
and with 12 points Cathryn smashed it.
Every season we see some rather ‘out there’ subjects.
Charlotte Love’s on the History of Shetland Hand Knitting was such a subject.
Mind you, I had the gimme on Fair Isle. Like Cathryn, Charlotte has the depth of
knowledge necessary to cope with questions being fired at her from all angles
of the subject. In fact, she looked good to equal Cathryn’s score, but the last
question did for her. Only she could answer whether this was the buzzer
breaking her concentration. I had it happen to me in the first round of the
2007 SOBM. I asked John H. to repeat, and in the couple of seconds he took to
say sorry, but the buzzer had gone so he couldn’t repeat, the answer came to
me.
Ronny Cheung was answering on the sitcom Spaced. Yes, you
guessed correctly, I have never watched Spaced. So no, I did not add to my
score and finished with a measly specialist aggregate of 2. All I can say in my
defence is that it could easily have been a golden duck. Ronny, like the two
previous contenders, really knew his subject. Let’s be honest, to get into
double figures on specialist in the current era of Mastermind you’ve gotta be
good. Ronny wasn’t perfect and so didn’t quite equal Cathryn or Charlotte, but
two points behind going into the GK is certainly a bridgeable gap.
Four points? Well, it’s not impossible but it’s certainly a
much taller order, but it was the task facing Chris Devine. Chris proved that
he has a good General Knowledge but the same hesitations as he showed in the
first round cost him again in this one. It meant he didn’t quite make it into
double figures for the round, scoring 9 for a total of 17.
The next three contenders each had legitimate aspirations
towards the win. First was Ronny, to points off the lead. He produced another
10 point round. This is pretty decent quizzing. He missed a couple where you
would possibly think – hmm, a regular quizzer would have that – but if he’s not
a quizzer, or only a social quizzer, then this was a pretty good display. 20?
Well, it might have been enough, but you had the feeling that he maybe needed a
couple more to have a realistic shout of staying at the top.
Now, to Charlotte’s round and a wee bit of controversy. It’s
not Charlotte’s fault, but Clive Myrie’s. Asked about the Beatles’ 1967 studio
album Charlotte answered “ Sergeant Pepper’s lonely-“ and started to tail off.
Immediately Clive leaped in and accepted. Now, forgive me if I’m speaking out
of turn, but I think this was a bit dodgy. Right, let’s suppose Charlotte had just
answered ‘Sergeant Pepper’. I don’t think anyone would argue. But Charlotte was
trying to give the full answer, and Clive kindly cut her off, preventing her
wasting more time. Is he right to do so? Is it fair to the other contenders
when this might have made the difference between starting another question on
the buzzer or not? It’s a tricky one. Charlotte finished with 10, same as
Ronny, but her extra point on specialist put her in the lead.
You know, these contenders tonight were all pretty well
matched in terms of knowledge. Chris didn’t suffer from lack of knowledge in my
opinion but his technique let him down. So that one point head start Cathryn
held after the first round could prove to be decisive. Indeed it did. Cathryn
too scored 10 points and this meant that she finished with 22. I’m not saying
that I’m glad that Charlotte didn’t quite win. As you know, we are totally
impartial here at LAM apart from when we’re not. But I’m glad that we had a
clearcut win and Clive’s intervention did not affect the outcome of the show.
Well done Cathryn, best of luck in the semis.
The Details
|
Chris Devine |
The Novels of Zadie
Smith |
8 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
|
Cathryn Gahan |
Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Sweeney
Todd’ |
12 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
Charlotte Love |
The History of
Shetland Hand Knitting |
11 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
21 |
0 |
|
Ronny Cheung |
Spaced |
10 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
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