For me the big question as I sat down to watch last night’s show was this – was this going to be another show where I ended up praising the contenders’ effort – which I am quite happy to do – or would there be some real quality on display? Well, see what you think.
Ian Walmsley was offering us Post War Great Britain Rugby
League Tours. I always feel that with this sort of sport subject there’s a
chance that you’re going to get a couple of pieces of low hanging fruit, and
questions on Billy Boston and Martin Offiah were examples of this, kicking me
off with two points. Neil knew his stuff and was just stopped short of the
psychologically important double figure total, ending his round with 9.
Next up was Diane Howe, answering of Henry VIII’s last
queen, Katherine Parr. Now, you can work really hard and prepare your subject
really well and still fall just short of a perfect total. When someone does
achieve a perfect total it very often looks as if they know their subject so
well that they could go on for another two minutes without dropping a point.
Such a round was Diane’s. She brilliantly reeled off 12 points, immediately
putting herself in the driving seat for the rest of the show. I had 2 of these.
Jonnie Walker, the youngest of last night’s line up, gave
us the Pierce Brosnan Years of James Bond. Never my favourite Bond, his films
were all watchable enough, but remembering the kind of details that were likely
to be asked was going to be a tall order and I was grateful to get 2 of these
again. Jonnie knew his stuff, but just missed out on a couple. He nonetheless
earned himself a double figure round of 10.
Bringing the round to a close was Maurizio Giacometto. He
was answering on possibly the most ‘out there’ of the subjects last night – LL Zamenhof
and the early history of Esperanto. My prediction that there might be a
question about him being an ophthalmologist did not come to pass. However I had
wikied him on Sunday and remembered that he’d been born in Bialystok and that
the previous attempt at a universal language was Volapuk. That brought me two
for a specialist round aggregate of 8, pretty decent though I say it myself.
Maurizio himself scored 9, bringing to an end a high quality set of
specialists.
Ian, then, had the dubious honour of setting the target for
the rest in the GK round. He did it pretty well, too, scoring 11 to take his
total to 20. In the previous 4 shows we have only seen 1 winning score higher
than this. Just an observation.
20 is a high enough score to put any contender in the
corridor of doubt. Yet Maurizio frankly didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. He
seemed confident that his GK would be up to the task and he was right to be so.
He produced an excellent 14, one of the best rounds we’ve seen in the series so
far. It took him to 23 and it meant that both of the two remaining contenders
had their own mountains to climb.
Jonnie Walker gave it a lash and what’s more it was a
pretty good lash. Like both of the contenders thus far he achieved a double
figure GK round. In his case it was a score of 10 which brought him level with
Ian, but behind Maurizio. Nevertheless it was a good round, and suggests that
if he decides to pass this way again sometime in the future he should not be
found wanting.
Only Diane was left, then. I reflected that we had not had
anything other than good rounds so far in this episode and it would be cruel
indeed if we got a bad one now. Thankfully we didn’t. Instead what we got was
another high quality display of general knowledge quizzing. Diane never lost
her composure and kept calmly racking up the points until she got the 12 she
needed to overhaul Maurizio and added another 2 for good measure, finishing
with 14 for 26. When we come to look back on the heats I dare say that this
will put her in the top 5. Best of luck in the semi finals.
This was a terrific heat. This is the sort of thing I
always hope we’ll see. The three runners up leave with the bittersweet feeling
that on the one hand they each produced a fine performance, but on the other
hand they each produced a performance that could have won some of the other
heats we’ve already seen. That’s knock out tournament play, folks. That’s
Mastermind.
The Details
|
Ian Walmsley |
Post War Great
Britain Rugby League Tours |
9 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Diane Howe |
Katherine Parr |
12 |
0 |
14 |
1 |
26 |
1 |
|
Jonnie Walker |
James Bond:The Pierce
Brosnan Years |
10 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Maurizio Giacometto |
LL Zamenhof and the
early history of Esperanto. |
9 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
