Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 15 Specialist Subjects

Okay folks, tomorrow’s Mastermind specialists are:-

The Swallows and Amazons novels of Arthur Ransome

The American Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat

The TV series Succession

SAS Commander Blair Mayne

Now I am aware of just how often I play the pessimism card but I am honestly finding great difficulty seeing where I might scrape a point. I’ve never read any of the novels nor watched Succession. I know next to nothing about Basquiat or Mayne. I only know that Blair Mayne’s nickname was Paddy because he was Stuart Macdonald’s specialist subject in his semi final in 2009. We’ve also had Swallows and Amazons as a specialist before I’m pretty sure.

Let's abolish the thing and have done with it

I was having a good day at work on Wednesday. Basically I accomplished a few quite difficult tasks quite quickly which impressed my line manager, who remarked, “Fair play, you’re having a good day.” To which I replied,

“Hey, it’s always a good day when I don’t have to teach children how you’re supposed to use an apostrophe.” It’s something of a standard response of mine – I also use it in this way whenever something isn’t going quite right – “Well, look on the bright side. I might still have been trying to teach 13 year olds how to use the apostrophe.” Yes, okay, there’s a little exaggeration there, but maybe not as much as you think.

Putting my retired English specialist hat on, I have no hesitation in saying that apostrophes are little sods. Much like some of the kids to whom I was trying to teach them. When I was at university and then when I was training we were confidently told – “Oh, the apostrophe will fall out of use and disappear within about 50 years.” That was back in 1986. It’s been 40 years and they’re still like stinking fish.

Before I retired I discussed this on a number of occasions with colleagues and we all tended to agree. One of the things you might not be aware of is that when you teach English, you start to catch bad spelling and apostrophitis off the children. I doubt that it’s an officially recognised condition but my take on it is that over the years you read so much badly written rubbish (look, I’m not being deliberately rude. The majority of what kids write is rubbish – your job is to make it less rubbishy over a period of time) that it becomes subconsciously learned behaviour. Without even realising you’re doing it you start automatically putting an apostrophe between the penultimate consonant and the s at the end of perfectly innocent words that don’t have an apostrophe. Or between the d and the n in a word like couldn’t. You have no excuse – you know the rules and the correct way to do it. But you have apostrophitis and from now on you’re going to have to check every one that you use is in the right place.

I used to find that , by and large, you could carry some of the kids with you with the idea that the apostrophe is where the missing letters would have been. But once you start talking about possessives, then you can forget it. – Yes, I do know that the possessive apostrophe is actually still an omission mark – in archaic English we would have said David his blog – thus in modern English David’s blog the possessive apostrophe denotes missing letters as well. Well, good luck explaining that to kids and not making them more confused than they were to begin with.

The stupidest thing about it is that when you get right down to it, we dont really need apostrophes to make sense of a sentences meaning because its all in the context. In the vast majority of cases the meaning even without an apostrophe is still clear. Case in point- I deliberately left out three of them in the first sentence of this paragraph. But you still understood it perfectly.

Don’t get me started on colons and semi colons.

The Verdigris Colossus

You know I’ve been lucky enough to see many of the great landmarks of Europe with my own eyes and even sketch them. However I’ve only ever been to New York City outside of Europe. I did manage to sketch quite a few of the city’s landmarks, one of which was the Statue of Liberty. Did you know that it was first opened on 28^th October, 1886 – exactly 140 years ago today? Did you also know that it was originally a coppery colour, supposedly inspired by the semi legendary Colossus of Rhodes. (Been there an'all.) The familiar verdigris patina had completely covered the statue by its 40^th anniversary, 100 years ago. Yes, I know, I’ve been captured by another little bit of clickbait on my home feed. And now, back to regular programming . . .

University Challenge 2027 Repechage 2 - Bristol v. Queen's University, Belfast

The Teams

Bristol

Jake Wingfield

Francesca O’Connor

Freddie Burns (Capt.)

Artem Borisov

Queen’s University, Belfast

Owen Carter

Thomas Dean

Isa Arellano (Capt.)

Noah Calhoun

The first starter twisted and turned like a twisty, turny thing, losing 5 for Queen’s before the mention of George Gerschwin, Liszt and Rachmaninov made it clear to Jake Wingfield that we wanted the term Rhapsody. Who I believe was one of the Angels in Captain Scarlet. You can have that one for free. Questions on a video game, Clair Obscur got Bristol off to the best possible start with a full house. “Portrait” and “prominent piece of jewellery” had to be driving at Girl With A Pearl Earring and it gave Jake Wingfield his double. A slightly macabre UC special set on the graves of mathematicians saw Amol give a rather snappy response to the suggestion of Euler for the first. I hoped we weren’t going to see a repeat of last week’s display from him. Both of us took just one for the obvious answer of Euclid. Look, I didn’t have a clue what the next starter was all about – still don’t – but Thomas Dean gave the correct answer of the Lorentz Factor. Christians in the Mongol Empire brought two bonuses but Queen’s were let down by their dates of English kings. Something really tickled Noah Calhoun about the second bonus, but whatever it was I couldn’t make it out. Come on Noah, share the joke with the whole class, please. What is represented by the formula for the SI derived unit in the picture starter? This was actually the answer as well as the question. It works better if you say it out loud – watt, you see. Jake Wingfield took his third, knowing that the second Hunger Games book is Catching Fire. Three more SI unit formulae provided us both with just the one correct answer for lux. Surprisingly the mention of neighbouring Rawalpindi was not enough to give either team Islamabad for the next starter. So at the 10 minute mark Bristol led by 55 – 10.

Glass and navigation tool pointed to the sextant for the next starter which was taken in an early buzz by Noah Calhoun. Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan (yes, alright, Tavares Who?) yielded 2 correct answers, but they missed on Jack Johnson, the man of whom Nat Fleischer once said he was the only boxer who might have beaten Muhammad Ali in his prime (before his 3 year ban for refusing to fight in Vietnam) You can have that for free too. Poor Owen Carter had been just a little buzzer happy in this first half of the contest and lost five for the third time with a bit of a wild guess. Livonia was enough for me to guess Latvia while Artem Borisov answered Estonia, both of which answers were acceptable. The science of colours brought two bonuses. I guessed, along with Thomas Dean, that the sect referred to in the next question were the Shakers. (I didn’t immediately launch into a chorus of Shake yer booty – but it was s struggle). Lakes that have vanished or greatly diminished in size brought a timely full house to take us up to the music starter. Very quickly Jake Wingfield identified The Marriage of Figaro. “Of Course!” exclaimed Amol. Yeah, well, we don’t all have the answers in front of us like you do, mate. Three more pieces of music whose titles reference Zephir/Zephyr brought two bonuses. Walled city – and – game – were enough to give Freddie Burns Carcasonne. Baroque architecture saw Bristol get one bonus – but a single letter robbed them of two. Amol ruled out Trompe d’oeil for trompe l’oeil and was right to do so. For the next starter the mention of a book title with the latin for logarithm gave Freddie Burns John Napier. Literature set in LA in the 1970s brought a full house to Bristol. Thomas Dean knew the Overton Window for the next starter. We had some blinds put up by our Overton window last year. Physicists in the RNA tie club – don’t ask – brought both of us two bonuses and I made my lap of honour around the sofa while the going was good. This meant that Bristol led 130 – 70 as we approached 20. Just a few minutes earlier the gap had narrowed to 25 points, but it was widening ominously now.

A beautifully constructed UC special on flags saw Jake Wingfield first in with Italy. The inaugural Best Album Cover Grammy brought two bonuses. Fair enough. Noah Calhoun guessed we were seeing a photo of a golden eagle for the next starter. More birds that are shared as national symbols by multiple countries brought 1 bonus, although they were nearly there with the first but said swallowtail rather than swallow. Artem Borisov knew the word for eggs in Korean cuisine. Phonetics saw Bristol take a full house leaving them just one full set away from their double century. They didn’t get it with the next starter for Noah Calhoun correctly buzzed in with algae. A couple of bonuses on Linus Pauling put Queen’s into triple figures. Freddie Burns knew that Joseph Wright of Derby painted Vesuvius a lot. Had he never heard of Etna or Stromboli? Mountain bike challenge races promised but little but we both got the gimme by knowing the capital of Costa Rica. Thomas Dean knew that Japan has been governed by the 1955 system. The late Catherine O’Hara brought just one bonus, but the answer of Schitt’s Creek set my grandson giggling for the rest of the show. He’s a chip off the old block, that boy. Francesca O’Connor knew that the first word of ‘Daffodils’ is I. Off the point, Stan Tottman, one of the best teachers I ever knew, once explained that the first line of Daffodils encapsulates the romantic movement “I wandered lonely as a cloud” – and he was right. It really is all there. Innominate parts of the body (Innominate – de do de do do, Innominate do do do do. etc) brought 1 bonus. Thomas Dean knew that SG was sublimation. Fair enough. There was time for just one bonus on islands. Bristol won by 205 – 135.

Bristol deserved their win and achieved a healthy 60.6% bonus conversion rate. Queen’s BCR was even slightly better, with 63.6%. But you know the old saying – it’s bonuses for show, but starters for dough.

Amol Watch

We saw an unusually snarky Amol last week. Thankfully that Amol seems to have put back in his box. Don’t be in a hurry to let hm out again any time soon, please.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

The swallow is the national bird of both Austria and Estonia.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

There were just a couple of times when the internal orchestra was about to strike up with the familiar dumdums but on these occasions an early answer put a stop to it, I’m happy to report.

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 14

Well, I know what you’ve been worrying about, dearly beloved. Did I manage to get any points on the specialists at all? In the words of the Duke of Wellington himself, it was a damn close run thing. No points on the three subjects offered by our first three contenders, but . . . well, a general knowledge of Hollywood and a guess or two brought me three points on Gene Tierney – I’m perfectly happy to take the money and run with that for tonight.

As for the contenders, well, the contest kicked off with Gordon Rogers’ round on Creation Records. Now, I think I mentioned this in last week’s review. You have to know your subject to get as many as 7 points which is what Gordon managed to do. So nothing to be ashamed of there. But as a score it does leave you with quite a lot to do and you are vulnerable to other contenders who don’t just know their subjects, but know them inside out, up and down and any which way you want to put it.

It looked as if Naomi Liddle might well turn out to be just such a contender – certainly for the first minute of her round on the X Files. A couple of questions in the second minute just robbed her of a little momentum and in the end she just fell a tiny bit short of double figures. Nonetheless, in the current era a score of 9 is going to leave you well in contention when the half time oranges are brought out.

Lewis Sinclair’s round was like a mirror image of Naomi’s. Answering on the Waterloo Campaign, it was his first minute that was less impressive while a storming comeback in the 2^nd minute brought him right up to his own 9 points. Again, his fate in the show would be in his own hands in the GK round.

Finishing the round of specialists was retired civil servant Matin Whitelegge, who thankfully had opted to answer on Gene Tierney. No, they didn’t ask about the song “24 Hours from Tulsa” since that was Gene Pitney. Like Naomi and Lewis before him, Martin impressed with his knowledge of the subject without quite managing to nail down a double figure score. Like the two aforementioned contenders he too took just the one pass. Were we, perchance, on the road to another tiebreak?

You have to feel a little sorry for Gordon Rogers. It’s quite a lonely place when you’re returning to the chair 2 points adrift of 3^rd place, especially when GK is not necessarily your strongest round. He struggled manfully picking off what he could and in the end he finished with a total of 13.

Naomi Liddle, on the other hand, did very well on her return to the chair. We’d been close to a double figure score in three of the specialists and now Naomi supplied one, then adding another GK point for 11 and a total of 20. Whatever happened in the rest of the show, she’d earned a score which would have won several of the other heats. Is that a comfort ? Well, I didn’t think so in 2006 when I was on the wrong end of it, but enough of such things for now.

I have to say that I really enjoyed Lewis Sinclair’s General Knowledge round. You watch these rounds, and you see a contender start to build up a good score, and you’re always a little worried that they’re going to run out of steam and tail off a bit. Lewis didn’t. After a minute he looked likely to beat the target and after two minutes he almost had. After two and a half minutes he’d scored a very fine 13 to set the target at 22.

It would have been tempting fate to suggest that Martin might have given us a third consecutive double figure round. Whether he had been affected by the two preceding rounds I don’t know, but he never really got into his stride and added 7 to finish with 16.

Well done Lewis! Scores in the teens on a single round have been pretty sparse in the series so far. So thank you very much for that. I do wish you every success in the semi-finals – with GK like that you’re always going to be in with a shout. Very hard lines to Naomi. Take heart from a good performance and the knowledge that you were good enough to have won quite a few of the other heats.

The Details

Gordon Rogers	Creation Records	7	1	6	1	13	2
Naomi Liddle	The X Files	9	1	11	2	20	3
Lewis Sinclair	The Waterloo Campaign	9	1	13	0	22	1
Martin Whitelegge	Gene Tierney	9	1	7	3	16	4

Mastermind Heat 14 Specialist Subjects

 Sorry that I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday, peeps. So, tonight’s Mastermind specialist subjects will be:-

Creation Records

The X Files

The Waterloo Campaign

Gene Tierney

Once again I feel nothing but gloom about my prospects of a decent aggregate. I know nothing about Creation Records. I know hardly much more about Gene Tierney – although I do like 24 Hours from Tulsa. (I know.) Maybe there’s a point or two on Waterloo, though I know more about the station and much more about the bridge. Again, I used to watch the X-Files but not as more than a casual viewer from time to time. I’d like to think I won’t get zero, but it’s nothing I’d want to put money on.

Good Quiz at the Club

You may well have noticed that I am not exactly complimentary about the other question setters/masters at the rugby club who aren’t in my  team. I will concede that it’s mean – none of us pretend to be professional question setters/quiz hosts (although I have accepted payment for setting questions in the past and could probably be persuaded to do so again.) All we get for doing so is a few free drinks. But, I don’t know. It’s not exactly rocket science, putting together a decent quiz. Yet the other setters at the quiz with the exception of Dan, Jess and Adam just fall into such easily avoidable traps – asking too many guess a number questions – not checking the answer they have is correct – not taking enough care over the phrasing of the questions – asking things which are just not interesting. I will give some credit to Dai – and not just because he has been known to read the blog – but I like his quizzes more than the others. Damning with faint praise, I know.

So, having said all of that, it’s a pleasure to say that we had a quiz at the club on Thursday night which I enjoyed every bit as much as the quizzes set by Jess, Dan and Adam. Our new question master was Claire. I’ve known Claire for a long time – she used to come to the quiz with my pal Robert Merrill and play for the Lemurs – the team who used to beat us more often than we beat them. I don’t recall her writing the quiz before. But it was just such a pleasure to play in a quiz which seemed to have been written by someone who has a clear idea what a good question sounds like, and what makes a good quiz. I don’t think I once responded to any of the questions with words to the effect of – what the ‘ell’s she asking that for? - . It was a very good quiz and I hope she’ll take her place on the regular setters’ roster. And maybe give a few tips to some of the other setters. . . Just saying.