Monday, 1 September 2025

Mastermind 2026 - First Round Heat 7

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

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