Monday, 17 August 2026

Mastermind Round One Heat 5

Welcome back Mastermind. First in the chair was Fernanda Partridge. She was answering on the band Iron Maiden. I wasn’t really expecting any points but I managed to sneak one. Fernanda looked pretty good value for her 9 points and based on what we’ve seen so far in this series it was going to leave her in contention going into the GK round.

Emily Medhurst was offering us what seems to be the most eclectic subject choice for a few year, Transport for London Moquette. You might have seen that I put together a set of questions on the subject in yesterday’s points. None of which came up, or that is, not quite as asked. But researching them had at least given me enough information to answer 6 f these, while a good guess brought me another for 7. Putting that into perspective this is my best specialist score for the series so far. Go figure. Emily did well to finish just a point behind Fernanda.

Without wishing to be the least bit perjorative about the siblinghood of the quizface, if you’d had to have picked out the quizzer from an identity parade of tonight’s contenders you would probably have picked Donald Campbell. He was a bit older apart from anything else, and the quick clipped authority with which he answered 10 questions on the films of Paul Newman certainly seemed to confirm this. I picked up 3 to take me to an aggregate of 11 which was as far as I was going to get with this particular set of specialists.

James Clayton as an English teacher had my support from the start, for all the good that this would do him. He was answering on the Tintin books of Hergé. None of the questions were about the GAF stereo Viewmaster version of Destination Moon and so I didn’t get any. Always more of an Asterix the Gaul man myself. James stuck to his task and managed 7 by the end of the round. Not out of it, no, but with a bit of a hill to climb in the GK round.

He’d barely had enough time to get his climbing boots on before hre returned to the chair, but let’s be fair, he didn’t make a bad fist of it, scoring 8 for a total of fifteen. Had he been a little quicker with his answer he might have got close to double figures.

I thought James was given a relatively tough GK round and I felt that the same happened to Emly Medhurst. With a similar result as it happened. Emily too scored 8, which gave her a one point lead due to her higher score in Specialist.

Fernanda looked to have decided upon the tactic of passing to keep the round moving and I’d say she did a pretty good job with it. Double figure scores are proving to be dearly bought in this year’s series so getting a double figure GK round when you’re only a point behind at half time will always give you a chance.

It was worth noting, though, that Fernanda had accrued 4 passes in total. Which meant that 9 and no more than 3 passes would be enough for Donald Campbell. He had 9 and no passes by the time that the last question was being asked, so in fact even had he passed this last question he would still have won. However, he got it right to make the result beyond doubt.

Well, that was more like it. Well done all, and especially Donald. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Fernanda Partridge

Iron Maiden

9

1

10

3

19

4

Emily Medhurst

Transport for London Moquette

8

1

8

0

16

0

Donald Campbell

The Films of Paul Newman

10

0

10

0

20

0

James Clayton

The Tintin Books of Hergé

7

0

8

0

15

0

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