We’re getting close to the finish line of the first round now, peeps, and to be honest it won’t be before time. The extra long Christmas break this year seems to have robbed the series of a bit of momentum, and it could do with an incredible, sock blowing off performance from a contender to get it back moving with purpose again.
Still, for the moment let’s be grateful for what we have.
Which in this case was James Barrow answering on the Isles of Scilly. General knowledge
brought me a couple of points from this round. I’ve never visited the Isles of
Scilly but I knew about Samson and the splendidly named Sir Cloudsley Shovell.
James had obviously prepared diligently and although he didn’t quite win the
ultimate prize of a double figure round he did the next best thing and scored
9.
Alex Grindley followed with their round on the complex and
always interesting films of Derek Jarman. I wouldn’t say that he was totally responsible
for my interest in and love of the works of Caravaggio, but his film certainly
played its part in introducing me to them. 3 points meant that I was ahead of
the clock in terms of the specialist aggregate this week. Alex, who seemed to
be really enjoying their first time in the chair, just missed out on equalling
James’ 8, but earned a pretty good 8 to stay just on the leader’s shoulder.
GP Sunder Gopaul offered us Wham!. I was hoping the round
would be more of a case of I’m your man rather than wake me up before you
go-go. In the end it was somewhere between them as I added four to take my
aggregate to the brink of double figures. Sunder managed a respectable six,
which just about kept him in the hunt, but I did feel that this was a set where
he might have been expected to do a little bit better with the very fair set he
was given. Just my opinion and feel free to disagree.
Well, I didn’t get the point that I needed from Annabel
Lloyd’s round on Bernini to take my aggregate to double figures. Here’s a coincidence. In 2019, when I was in
Vienna, I visited the Kunsthistorisches (Art/Cultural History) Museum which had
a special exhibition about Caravaggio and Bernini on at the time. Interesting,
eh? Well, please yourselves. Annabel’s round just failed to ignite, and she
knew it too, as she replied, “Oh dear.” when Clive informed her that she had
scored four.
It isn’t easy preparing for a specialist round. I worked
extremely hard on all (alright, most) of mine, and yet I never quite achieved a
perfect round. Things can go wrong, and all you can do is sympathise when contenders
have one of those rounds. We’ve talked about this before, but there’s a number
of things which can affect your performance in a specialist round. It certainly
isn’t always due to a lack of preparation.
Annabel was first to return to the chair. She seemed to set
her stall out to take each question on its own merits and as a result although
she wasn’t going quickly she continued to rack up her score throughout the
round. 8 in a GK round in his day and age is a perfectly respectable score and
she finished with 12.
Sunder did not have a very good round. I’m afraid. Once he’d
had a wrong’un or two it seemed to affect his concentration and the round
seemed to be a bit of a grim old struggle from start to finish. He ended with a
total score of 9.
In a way last night’s show was a bit similar to the
previous week’s, where the specialist scores meant that it would boil down to a
two horse race. First rider out of the starting gate was Alex. I’ve been in the
position of having to set a target and I’ve been in the position of having to
chase one. And frankly, there’s no real difference to the way you approach
them. Quite simply you go like billy-o and answer as many correctly as you can.
You can’t count as you go along. Let me modify that. I can’t count as I go
along. Alex gave it a good old lash, answering 9 and just missing out on 10
when Exxon Valdez refused to leap off the tip of the tongue.
James Barrow’s task was clear. 9 would bring an outright
win, and 8 and up to two passes would do the job just as well. 8 and 3 would
mean a tie break, while anything less would mean no cigar. Well, it was surprisingly
close. As the round was warbled to a close he sat on 17, and didn’t look like
he had an answer. He seemed surprised when his answer of rhododendron was
correct. As it was he was already in the winner’s enclosure having 17 and no
passes as the question was being asked, and finished with 18.
Well done, sir. I wish you the best of luck in the semi-finals.
3 more heats to go, and then the semis will be upon us.
The Details
|
James Barrow |
The Isles of Scilly |
9 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Alex Grindley |
The films of Derek
Jarman |
8 |
0 |
9 |
3 |
17 |
3 |
|
Sunder Gopaul |
Wham! |
6 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
9 |
4 |
|
Annabel Lloyd |
Gian Lorenzo Bernini |
4 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
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