There’s no point me moaning about the Autumn hiatus we Mastermind fans have to endure so often. I’ve been moaning about it for years– I even wrote an Angry of Mayfair style letter about it to Points of View once. Rather sportingly they offered me the chance to be videoed making said complaint. In the interests of posterity I declined. It didn’t seem to make the slightest difference then, so it probably wouldn’t do now.
Still, at least Mastermind is back with us now. On paper I
reckoned I had chances to score in three of the four specialists. The first of
these was offered to us by bank manager James Waller, and was the Films of
Martin Scorsese. The thing is, though, Martin Scorsese has directed a lot of
films. I reckon I’ve only seen about four of them. I absolutely love Raging
Bull and Goodfellas, but got wrong the questions about them. Bearing all this in
mind it helped me appreciate James’ round of 7 points a lot more. I don’t know how
many hours it would take to watch all the movies again for preparation, but it
could easily be over 60. And that’s before you start the actual revision.
Well, I didn’t know that I knew so little about Scorsese’s
films. At least I knew that I knew nothing about Phil Ochs. Sometimes you can
have a round where you know nothing about the titular subject, and general knowledge
and guesswork will still bring you a point or two. This wasn’t one of those
rounds. Schoolteacher Tom Clarke (no relation. I spell my name without an E at
the end because my ancestors were Scottish presbyterians who looked on silent
letters as a sinful extravagance) had the dubious honour of support from the
Clark sofa – both for the name and for being a teacher. I’m no longer a
teacher, but old habits die hard. He too scored 7.
Possibly, I thought, my interest in the golden age of
Hollywood might bring me a point or two during Michelle Miller’s round on multiple
Oscar winning costume designer Edith Head. Well, it did bring me a single point
– ‘actress’ and ‘sarong’ had to be Dorothy Lamour. ‘sarong answer’ was the
description of all of my other guesses, though. Michelle seemed to be answering
pretty accurately. She didn’t have many wrong but pauses cost her dearly. Her
knowledge deserved to be rewarded with more than a 6 point round, but that’s
what she got.
If indeed there was such a thing as a baker round for me in
this show, then Lizzie Hancock’s round on Mary Tudor would be it. Give me an
English or British monarch and I can usually manage a few points. A few is what
I managed here, four to be precise. And after all that had gone before I was
grateful for every single one of them. Lizzie was more than equal to the task.
Precious little passed her by and she treated us to the only double figure performance
of the round, giving her a decent cushion of thee points going into the GK.
You know, I always like it when a contender bounces back
from the disappointment of a relatively modest score in the specialist to have
a good GK round. That’s exactly what Michelle Miller did. She scored 12 to take
her score to a highly respectable 18. What impressed though wasn’t just the
score, it was the breadth of knowledge she displayed in doing so. I always feel
that if you can have a round like that, then regardless of your finishing position
you’ve got something to show for your time.
James Waller, I have to say, did even better. In the
current era of the show, if you can score in the teens in any round then you’ve
done well. James scored 13 and this took his combined total, and the target to
20. I hadn’t felt that Michelle’s 18 was going to be enough to win. However
there’s a world of difference between a score of 18 and a score of 20. I’ve
said before that in some shows there just seems to be something in the air, and
I had a sneaking feeling that this might just be enough.
I don’t know if Tom Clarke felt daunted by the fact that he
had to score 13 on his round just to tie with James but whatever the case, he
had one of those rounds where the questions don’t really fall for you, and the
guesses just don’t come off. He finished with 13.
So to Lizzie. Lizzie as I said earlier had a three point
lead at half time. However, she still needed 10 and no passes to take the contest
into a tie break. Yes, a score of 10 and no points needs to be within your
capabilities if you’re going to go far in the competition, but it’s certainly
enough to put you into the corridor of doubt. And Lizzie came close. She was on
19 as Clive began to ask the last question, although getting it right wouldn’t
have been quite enough as she had incurred a pass during the round.
Well done James. Best of luck in the semi final. With the
right specialist subject, and that general knowledge, you are certainly looking
like a dark horse, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.
The Details
|
James Waller |
The Films of Martin
Scorsese |
7 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Tom Clarke |
Phil Ochs |
7 |
0 |
6 |
3 |
13 |
3 |
|
Michelle Miller |
Edith Head |
6 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Lizzie Hancock |
Mary Tudor |
10 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
2 comments:
I didn't realize that Phil Ochs was a well-known enough guy to be a specialist subject. I used to live across the street from the building that had the apartment where Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan wrote a bunch of songs in Dylan's early career.
The production team must have felt it was an interesting subject - the Dylan connection alone makes it so probably.
Post a Comment