I shall come clean. This time yesterday I had no idea that Quizzy Mondays were back. In fact, the first I knew of it was when I was checking out the guide at about quarter to seven. You can imagine that joy was unconfined in LAM Towers at this discovery. No Only Connect last night, but don’t worry, it’s back to full strength Quizzy Mondays from next week.
So the honour of kicking off the series fell to Lorna
Frankel. She was answering on The Women’s Institute. I will be honest, I do not
know a great deal about the Women’s Institute, other than the things which
quizzers know. So I was pretty happy to get my single point on this round. My
absurdist streak did half hope Clive would ask – what is the full name of the
town where the first Women’s Institute in the UK was formed – so we could watch
the round being eaten up while the answer was being given (Llanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychwyrndrobylllantysiliogogogoch
– apologies, I’m sure I have parts of that wrong.) We were spared that and Lorna
powered on to provide a fine lesson in preparation and handling a round with
composure. She scored 12 to put herself into serious contention.
Randall Alleyne offered us a subject more to my liking, the
Olympic great, Frederick Carlton Lewis. The ‘Golden Boy’ of the Los Angeles
Olympics – in his time he probably frustrated as many people as he thrilled,
but without doubt one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. I know
enough about the subject to recognise that this was a testing round and only
picked up four. Randall did well to pick up 8, but for all of that it left him
four points behind with two contenders yet to come in the first round.
Brian Williams was answering on the military career of
Ulysses S. Grant. Now, as it happens I have only recently read Bruce Catton’s
two volume military biography of Grant, and remarkably this furnished me with
five more points. This was only the first show of the series and I’d already
scored my first double figure aggregate on specialist. I don’t know if Brian
Williams had read Mr. Catton’s works, but wherever he’d got his information
from it was a good source as he powered through to a double figure score of his
own, with 10.
The moment I saw that Kate Dapré was answering on the films
of the Muppets I thought of my friend and teammate Adam. He loves the Muppets
and he loves films, so I reckon he would have done very well on this. Better
than me. I guessed one and that was my lot. Kate managed 9 which is a highly
respectable return on a specialist round these days, but meant that she was
three behind at the turn around.
So the task for Randall Alleyne was, as it always is for
the first contender in the GK round, to go like billy-o and get as far in the
lead as possible then hope to cling on as others take their turn in the chair.
And credit to Randall he gave it a good old lash. Sometimes he had to think for
half a moment before giving the answer but it paid off because it gave him a
double figure round of 11 to leave him with 19. Probably not a winning score, I
thought, but enough to put others into the corridor of doubt.
Kate Dapré never looked totally comfortable in her own GK
round. Don’t misunderstand me, she achieved a perfectly respectable 8 points
but this was only enough to leave her with 17, some 2 points off the lead.
Well, if you can’t win your heat, the next target is to make sure that you have
done as well as you could and I’m sure Kate can take pride from this.
Being realistic it had looked as if Brian Williams was the best
placed contender to really challenge Lorna for the win. He, like Kate, produced
a decent round of 8, and like Kate fell just sort of the target. At times it
seemed as if this round was a bit of a struggle – there were some long pauses
that probably cost him another question.
So finally Lorna. Lorna required 7 and no passes for the
outright win. Sitting at home I appreciate that this looks like a relatively
modest target. Well, until you’re sitting in the chair and trying it, you don’t
really know. Some contenders seem to come apart in the GK round. Lorna didn’t.
She perfomed really well to score 12 and earned my approval by remembering
Harry Beck, creator of the London Underground tube map for the last question.
If we make a comparison with last series, twenty four and no passes would have
put her comfortably into the top five on my unofficial table – equaling the
performance of the champ, John Robinson. But let’s not tempt fate.
Lorna, congratulations on a fine performance. Best of luck
in the semis.
The Details
|
Lorna Frankel |
The Women’s Institute |
12 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
|
Randall Alleyne |
Carl Lewis |
8 |
1 |
11 |
0 |
19 |
1 |
|
Brian Williams |
The Military Career
of Ulysses S. Grant |
10 |
0 |
8 |
1 |
18 |
1 |
|
Kate Dapré |
The films of The
Muppets |
9 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
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