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Monday’s Mastermind Specialists are

Madness

Scottish Geologist James Hutton

The Films of Wes Anderson

The History of the Paris Metro

My banker? Well you can rule out Wes Anderson for a start. I just checked out his filmography and I haven’t seen any of them. But at least I’ve heard of Wes Anderson. I can’t say that the name of James Hutton meant anything at all to me until I just googled it.

Now, I do actually love underground railways, metros and subways. I’ve ridden on 20 or so across Europe and in New York. But . . . I can’t say that I know a huge amount about the history of the Metro. If I get time I will read the Wikipedia entry. But it maybe safer to go for Madness, even though that’s more a banker in the sense that I have a chance of 1 or 2, than I’ll get a hatful. Fun fact about Madness. For their Camden Town record cover they were actually photographed outside Chalk Farm underground station because Camden Town station was too busy. If that one comes up, you’re welcome.

The Chase Across The World - Episode 2

Well, I did tell you that I was going to watch The Chase Across (a very small part of )The World again this week and I did. This second show, centred in Barcelona, answered a couple of questions I’d been wondering about since last week’s first episode.

The first question was this – will the couple who comes first one week get any advantage in the next week, or is it just a case of making sure that you don’t come last? Well, yes, there was an advantage. Sisters Amy and Kati who were the first to find Bradders last week not only got to start the show without having to answer a question correctly, they also got to pick the order in which the others would be asked a question. This was important. For if you answered correctly you could go and get on the cable car to start your quest. If not you had to go to the back of the queue, wait until the others had a go, then try another question. This was important because it could mean a 9 minute delay to wait for another cable car. Which is what happened to Dilan and Emily, even though they were not the last to be selected to answer.

So the first challenge was similar t last week’s first challenge. Asked which of these three artists – Pablo Picasso – Salvador ‘Hallo’ Dali and Joan Miro was born in Barcelona, they then had to go and find where that artist was represented in a piece of street art. First of all Dilan and Emily couldn’t find the one they wanted, then it was wrong anyway. Basically, they used up so much time that their goose was cooked from this point.

Which brings me to the next question – after seeing the way that the beat the Chasers finale went last week, I was wondering whether we were going to see anyone going home. Unfortunately, Dilan and Emily just did not have anything like the kind of General Knowledge to give the Chasers, Jenny and Darragh, a realistic time target, and they proved that yes, we definitely are going to see some of these couples going home. Which raises another question. – If a couple is sent home in episode 1, then another in episode 2 and so on, doesn’t it mean that you would be left just 1 couple for the final? What would happen in that eventuality? We know it can’t happen in this series now, but if it is all kosher and above board, and I have no doubt that it is, then it could have happened.

Well, I enjoyed the show again this week. It’s like Destination X without the intriguing and clique-forming which got on my nerves a bit anyway. I’m still on board.

Frabjous Day.

It has been a very long time since I enjoyed a quiz at the rugby club quite as much as I did tonight’s. Now, don’t get me wrong, the quiz itself was pretty good – although there was just one slightly contentious question – in which sea would you find Corsica? The answer given was the Mediterranean – not wrong, but it’s where the waters of the Tyrrhenian and Ligurian Seas meet and it would have been nice to see some acknowledgement of this in the answer. Well, anyway, as I said, the quiz was good, but it wasn’t just that.

No, it was that Dai, the organiser, has decided that teams will no longer mark their own papers. If you have followed the blog much since Covid you’ll know that this has long been a bone of contention for me. I did understand why it was very important to have each team mark their own in the couple of years after Covid. But you know, after Covid, one particular team suddenly went from being one of the weakest teams in the quiz, to being the second strongest – not just close to our team each week, but so much better than any of the others. To this day I cannot be certain that their scores were not kosher, but come on! Only a few months ago I caught them out giving themselves 15 points on a 14 point round, for example. Now, we all have to swap with a nearby team.

They weren’t there tonight. Well fair enough. We weren’t there last week. It happens. But I am quiz master next week, and if they are there I shall be watching them like a hawk to see if they are using any other kind of skulduggery. And if they can still post a really good performance without cheating that I can see, then bloody good luck to them.

If.

University Challenge 2027 First Round Durham v. Manchester

Durham v. Manchester

The Teams

Durham

Robert Morris

Bella Thomas

Dominic Challis (Capt.)

Andreas Ktori

Manchester 

Maciej Wojdyla

Ethan Lehane

Argyro Olympitis (Capt.)

Caroline Ball

Durham lost five on the first starter. It was one of those where you have to wait, and at the end it becomes very obvious. The word the question was looking for was ‘absolute’ Maciej Wojdyla took first blood for Manchester with this. Bonuses on the cuckoo family (I met a few of them in my 40 odd years as a teacher) brought Manchester a full house. Andreas struck back for Durham recognising references to the 20^th century history of Mongolia. Durham picked up two bonuses on dyes but missed out on woad. Thankfully Argyro Olympitis came in early to halt an unfathomable stream of applied gibberish for the next starter with the answer of alpha helix. Nope, me neither, although it sounds like it may have been defeated by Tom Baker in a Doctor Who serial from the late 70s. Bonuses on regulations for road cycling competitions brought two more bonuses for Manchester. The picture starter showed a diagram of a railway line starting at Worksop, heading south through Mansfield and ending at a mystery location. I reckoned it should be Nottingham. So did Ethan Lehane, earning the bonuses. None of us added to our score with this set. This meant that the score on 10 minutes was 55-15 to Manchester.

Maciej Wojdyla knew that the highest point of Spain, Mount Teide is in the Canaries. A nice UC special set on pairs of words where you add a g to the start of one to make the other was the reward. I particularly enjoyed Gruffalo – Ruffalo. Manchester took a full house. Andres Ktori knew that Tiresias and other mythological figures were blind for the next starter. The intriguing subject of artworks and winter holidays proved relatively benign and Durham took 2. Neither team could take advantage of the fact that the clues were there in the wording of the question to lead us to the answer of coinage metals for the next starter. “Which German philosopher . . . “ invited us to pick one out of the half dozen or so that came to mind. Bella Thomas knew it was Hegel, whose chief attribute that he was outconsumed by David Hume. Human-animal transformations in myth brought Durham another full house. For the music starter I didn’t recognise The Jam – shame on me – but Ethan Lehane did. For the bonuses I again had to applaud Amol’s adherence to the correct answer being the only thing acceptable as the correct answer. Manchester offered Diana Ross and the Supremes, which Amol would not accept because it was recorded by the Supremes after Diana Ross left. Harsh? No – if you are a serious quiz competition, which UC is, then it is imperative if you want to keep credibility. Close enough is just not close enough. Both of us managed just the one bonus with The Specials. Bella Thomas knew that it was Arsenal (language!) that signed Olivia Smith from Liverpool. Works of Gothic fiction did Manchester few favours as they only took 1. Now, link these three things – writer – state of Maine – Horror award? I did and so did Andreas Ktoni and we both came up with Stephen King. Rightly so. The philosophical other minds problem – no, me neither – brought nowt. Still, in the last few minutes Durham had staged an effective comeback and only trailed by 85-95 as we closed in on 20 minutes.

Gawd alone knows what the next starter was about, but after a paragraph of pure gobbledygook Andreas Ktori answered with phase. This put the teams at level pegging. Opposites in Science saw me claim a lap of honour for anabolic and centrifugal. We’ve moved the furniture around so for the time being the lap of honour circumnavigates the Clark coffee table, rather than the sofa. 2 bonuses meant Durham were the first team to reach triple figures. A Gillray political cartoon showing Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte carving up the world between them for the second picture starter passed by both teams. With the next starter I was pleased at guessing Maltese correctly at the same time as Ethan Lehane. This brought Manchester the picture bonuses, three more political cartoons by 19^th century British artists. It was lovely to see two by my favourite, John Tenniel, but Manchester did not add to their score. For the next starter Maciej Wojdyla knew about Ken Burns’ documentary on the North American Bison – which is great and you should watch if you haven’t, like all Ken Burns’ work. Manchester drew a blank on Welsh rivers. With the scores at 125 – 105 and only 3 and a half minutes to go it suddenly struck me that one of these teams would not be going any further in this year’s competition. Mathematical meanings of the word complete saw Ethan Lehane doing his best to make sure that it wouldn’t be Manchester. A full house on John of Gaunt’s daughter , Phillipa of Lancaster helped too. Gondoliers and Yeomen of the Guard helped Caroline Ball work out Gilbert and Sullivan for the next starter. Two bonuses on scientific terms that begin with tor took Manchester to 165, which was beyond the event horizon. Maciej Wojdyla added a little more gilding to their score, knowing a biographer of Charlemagne. A very quick full house on unconventional films about the lives of musicians followed allowing Andreas Ktori in with Crown dependency for the next starter. Mudras, the hand gestures in traditional Indian dance had just enough time for Durham to answer the first question correctly. The final score was 190 – 120 for Manchester.

Statistically Durham achieved a BCR of 58% while Manchester achieved 60%. So it was Manchester’s superior buzzing particularly in the last 5 minutes that made all the difference. Hard lines to Durham – it’s early days but they surely won’t make the repechage, I’m afraid.

Amol Watch

Again, I applaud Amol for being consistent in his refusal to accept anything other than a first answer – as it was this worked in Manchester’s favour with gens.

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

John of Gaunt was the grandfather of Henry the Navigator.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In Physics what five letter word follows “Pancharatnam-Berry” or “geometric” in the name of a property acquired by a quantum system when its Hamiiltonian is adiabatically varied around a circuit? More generally this word denotes the position of a wave relative to a reference point in its oscillation cycle.

Need I even say dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2027 First round Heat 2

I know that you’ll have been worrying about this, so I’ll put you out of your misery now. My prediction came true and I did not achieve a double figure aggregate on tonight’s specialist rounds. I got 8, or 3+3+2+0.

Just as importantly though, how did our contenders get on? First up with probably the most unusual subject of the night was Farrar Hornby answering on British and Irish Cheeses. Farrar certainly started brightly enough but pretty soon the round became hard going. Was it nerves? Was it the question setter having a wider conception of the extent of the subject than Farrar did? To me it looked like several answers were on the tip of his tongue but could not be cajoled to venture any further. He finished with 6.

Elsie Clark – no relation that I’m aware of – was answering a set of questions on the Roman general and dictator, Sulla. Despite a slight stumble mid round Elsie kept her head and kept on picking up the points throughout the round, earning herself the estimable prize of a double figure score.

I don’t remember ever watching Jonathan Creek on TV. Mind you, I never watched Sulla on TV either so I can’t really use that as an excuse. I managed two very easy ones. Emily Ryan did well to get a round of 8, I thought. There were 5 series and 32 episodes in total, Wikipedia tells me – which is an awful lot of details to try to commit to memory. Decent round.

As for Adam Royston’s subject, Johannes Brahms, I would have done better if the subject had been Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served. Adam’s round was a little reminiscent of Farrar’s. It started well, but he lost momentum. Did this mean that he missed out on answers he would have had if he had been on a roll and built up some momentum? It could well be, we’ve seen this happen in the past. Whatever the case, he scored 6.

In contrast to last week’s heat, the GK round would turn out to be a bit better than the specialist round had been. First to return was Farrar, and I dare say he might well have a bit of a quiz background, or at the very least be a regular quiz player. His 12 equalled the best GK score so far this series and took him to 18. No, that looked unlikely to be a winning total, but it showed what might have been.

Adam Royston couldn’t manage 12. However he did manage a double figure score, which turned his night’s Mastermind work into a far more respectable performance. His and Farrar’s rounds were a timely demonstration that when it comes to Mastermind, you have to have both, the specialist and the GK. Preparation, thorough preparation does not guarantee success, but it is one way of taking as much control as you can over your own destiny in the show.

Sadly, Emily Ryan’s round also demonstrated the same thing, albeit in the opposite way. The questions just refused to fall her way, leaving her stranded on a GK score of 6 for a total of 14.

So it was all down to Elsie. The interesting thing was that despite having led Farrar by a full 4 points at the half time interval, his GK heroics meant that she was going to need a GK round of 9 in order to win, and that’s a very decent GK score in Mastermind these days. Well, the key to doing that was to do what she’d done in the specialist round, keep calm, pick off what you know, give the best guess you can about what you don’t know and above all else, don’t panic. It carried Elsie to her own double figure round of 10, and the win.

Well done! Best of luck in the semi final.

The Details

Farrar Hornby	British and Irish Cheeses	6	1	12	0	18	0
Elsie Clark	The Roman General Sulla	10	0	10	0	20	0
Emily Ryan	Jonathan Creek	8	0	6	1	14	1
Adam Royston	Brahms	6	1	10	2	16	3

Tonight's Specialist Rounds

Well, the BBC have not taken the show off for a week or two yet to make way for pro-celebrity gurning or end-of-July Watch or any other pretext so let’s be thankful for small mercies. In tonight’s show the specialist subjects are:-

British and Irish Cheeses

The Roman general Sulla

Jonathan Creek

Johannes Brahms

I’ll be honest, I don’t see me getting a double figure aggregate this week, and won’t be in a position for fill my boots. It’s case of my banker subject – Sulla – being just as likely to be a nul points round for me.

A Bit of a Downer

Wednesday was a wee bit of a downer to be honest. I believe that there was a football match involving England somewhere that didn’t quite turn out as we might have wished. More importantly thought, we lost the film quiz in the Gwyn Hall.

Well, alright, maybe not quite so much of a downer. The subject was Epic Movies. It turns out that this is a genre I rather like, for I had a better night on a personal level than I usually do in the film quiz. Maybe it is just my imagination but it seemed to me there were more questions about older movies than is usual. Mind you, I'd question by which definition some of the movies referenced were epics. Casablanca, for example, is a rather intimate movie, and surely the very opposite of what would be defined as epic.

But we still lost by a point. Now in some ways this is actually better than tying for the win and losing on a numerical tie break. What put the slight downer on it is that I was kicking myself for not knowing the answer to the last question. Of course the film starring Christian Bale and Miranda Richardson was Empire of the Sun! Oh well.

I’m glad that we had the Wednesday quiz this week though, because in all honesty I could not bring myself to go to the rugby club on Thursday. If you read my post from April - Life After Mastermind: Principles be damned

Well, question master who set that quiz was doing it again last Thursday and I could not face it. I wrote the post when I was in a bit of a mood, but even having had time to reflect I honestly think giving it a miss was the kindest thing for both of us. I find that I cringe with embarrassment for him when he is trying and failing to read out his own questions. I would not put it past myself to make some unkind comment if he resuses the same questions in two rounds because he just can’t be arsed to check it. I don’t like myself very much for doing it, but at least if it didn’t work out on Thursday I won’t have ended up making it worse.

None of which helps me to decide what I am going to say if he asks me why I wasn’t there. . .