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.

University Challenge 2027 Repechage Round - ST. John's Cambridge v. London School of Economics

The Teams

St. John’s Cambridge

Callum Thomas

Jonathan Watts

Liam Plimmer (Capt)

Aurelia Walker

London School of Economics

David Worley

Diya Khatri

Henry Jameson (Capt)

Daniel Yang

What, repechage round already? Yes indeed. On paper these were two very evenly matched teams – St. John’s scoring 170 in round 1, while LSE scored 160. However the BCRs of the teams suggested a different story. St. John’s was 70.6% while the LSE had a BCR of 46%. All of which suggested that if St. John’s could achieve parity on the buzzer, then they looked the most likely winners.

Skipper Liam Plimmer got St. John’s going, knowing that Goethe and Schiller in the same question suggested Weimar. Wei not? Representation and democracy did not seem to be doing anyone favours until the quotation from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address brought us both one bonus. Both teams sat on their buzzer for the next starter, until the mention on Van Dyke (Anthony, not Dick) made it clear that the royal collector had to be Charles I. Henry Jameson opened the LSE account with this. Bonuses on cakes and pastries in Victorian novels - they missed a trick by not asking about Kipling here, I would have thought - were not actually about the cakes or pastries at all in the first two questions. They were just a different way of asking – in which novels do Mrs. Tulliver and Esther Summerson appear? LSE didn’t know, although they did get the third which was the only one really about cakes and pastries. A literary starter followed, with various Daisys (Renton, Miller and Buchanan) giving Liam Plimmer the answer. Birds with names linked to war was a lovely and really rather informative set, from which St. John’s took a full house. I had never linked sniper with snipe before, even though it sounds obvious once you know. For the first picture starter Henry Jameson recognised a printed recipe for a Singapore sling. More cocktails featuring the names of nationalities or countries in their official names brought just one bonus. Callun Thomas recognised references to indigo dye for the next starter. English towns and cities beginning with B and ending with Ford brought two bonuses. This meant that on ten minutes St. John’s led by 60 -30 and were having the better of the buzzer races.

Having said that it was a very good early buzz that saw Daniel Yang identifying that Japan left the League of Nations in 1933. Notable goals at the 2025 Women’s European Football Championships saw a welcome name check for Hanwell’s Chloe Kelly, the only answer either of us got. Nobody got Robert ‘Who?’ Merton for the next starter. You had to wait and wait with the next starter – LSE didn’t and so lost five – but eventually ‘a walled city on the Black Sea’ was enough to suggest Baku. Callum Thomas took that. Recent recipients of the Charlemagne Prize yielded a good full house. A lap of honour came my way for immediately guessing that the K in KIE stood for Kinetic in the next starter. Aurelia Walker had that one. James Prescott Joule (nicknamed ‘Uncut’ by his mates, I believe) refused to yield any bonus points. For the music starter Diya Khatri recognised the dulcet tones of the La’s singing There she Goes. There you go. More songs used in The Gilmore Girls didn’t bring any points, but it did bring a hell of a lot of frustration for Daniel Yang who just couldn’t dredge up the name of the Bangles. All of which was compounded by a rather snarky remark from Amol. A long winded description of tooth decay fell to Callum Thomas. Greek mythology is often a fruitful subject on UC and so it was for St. John’s, providing a full house. Liam Plimmer knew that Sonia Knips was painted by Klimt (2 coats of whitewash and then rubbed down with a copy of the Sporting Life, I believe) Fish and ways of cooking it brought just the one bonus. Liam Plimmer knew that the next starter was talking about badminton but couldn’t quite dredge up shuttlecock for the next starter which allowed Diya Khatri to take the points. Bob Dylan’s The Girl from the North Country (an ode to Elsie Tanner, by any chance?) brought a couple of bonuses, but St. John’s led by 130-60 on 20 minutes.

For the second picture starter Callum Thomas identified politician Lula da Silva. Other recipients of the Grand Collar Order of Camoes for services to Portuguese took them to 145, and they looked about to cross the event horizon. Aurelia Walker worked out that the various clues in the next starter pointed to the colour red. I believe that the next bonus set may have been linked by the theme of chemical gobbledygook. I didn’t get any, while St. John’s got two. Moving swiftly on Henry Jameson recognised a reference to Twain (I think it was Mark, but might have been Shania) and the phrase Gilded Age. Terms for Church windows brought two bonus in short order. Henry Jameson also knew two rivers in Bangladesh for the next starter. Things in the natural world whose common names are used poetically as synonyms for black saw them take just the one from a pretty gettable set. Jonathan Watts knew several species of gibbons, although ‘funky’ and Stanley’ were not among those mentioned. Works in philosophy and the social sciences from the first decade of the 20^th century brought two bonuses and the double century looked on the cards for St. John’s. I understood the next starter relating author’s names to chemical elements but I didn’t know who wrote the Neapolitan Quartet (the Neapolitan trilogy of course being vanilla, chocolate and strawberry). Callum Thomas worked it all out and gave the correct answer of Iron. SI base units are hardy perennials on UC and St. John’s gathered a full harvest. Henry Jameson got his fourth and fifth French Republics mixed up and this allowed Liam Plimmer in for another starter. Events of 1924 in the USA didn’t add any gloss to their score, but it was all academic by this stage. David Worley won the buzzer race to answer Charleston for the next starter. There was no time left for bonuses, thpugh. St. John’s won by 220 – 100.

St. John’s were the better of these two teams on the night. They achieved a BCR of 58.3% this time to LSE’s 33.3%.

Amol Watch

“I don’t think I’d have forgiven you if you got that one wrong” said Amol to St. John’s about the Gettysburg address question. This was just an early example of the rather bumptious mood he seemed to be in for this show. Maybe it was filmed just after he was first to be kicked out of The Traitors. He then rather condescendingly told LSE he would accept Alice in Wonderland even though the official title is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. When Daniel Yang couldn’t dredge up The Bangles he rubbed it in with “Never mind. We enjoyed watching you struggle.” What had rubbed Amol up the wrong way before the show, one can only ask. Even at the end he had another little dig – “you gave us such wonderful entertainment in the bonuses, having these feverish discussions then getting them wrong.” Oh, come on, Amol. This is not big and it’s not clever.

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

The bird on the flag of Kiribati is a frigate bird. I don’t know how I’ve never known that before, but I’m glad to know it now.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Smooth surface, pit and fissure, and root are three main types of what condition caused by exposure to acidic substances produced by bacteria? The last of these types is more common in older people, because the area exposed is more . . . (incorrect interruption) vulnerable lacking the hard protective surface known as enamel. – Yeah, it wasn’t the most difficult to understand, but surely didn’t need to be so long winded. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 13

Well, dearly beloved, I did predict that I wasn’t going to get many points in the specialists in tonight’s show and I was certainly right about that. 1 from Peep Show and 1 from the Lake District as it happens.

First up was Matt Malin. He offered us Peep Show. I was always more of a casual viewer than a regular but I did catch one or two of them at times. It didn’t help me. Matt scored 7. We’ve seen a lot of contenders during the series who all knew their subject, and I’d put Matt in this category, but not quite in enough depth to be able to reach a really commanding total. It takes a hell of a lot of focussed preparation and revision, I can tell you.

Emily Freeman was answering on the subject about which I knew least, probably because I’d never even heard of Aemilia Lanyer before the subjects for this show were announced. Again, Emily knew her stuff, but again, not quite in the depth needed to give yourself a realistic chance. Sh too scored 7 and I was beginning to wonder whether we had another of those heats where there is something in the air that limits the scoring.

Maria Nagle made a good start with Joni Mitchell and she scored quite well throughout the round. As it was, only an unlucky close but no cigar answer to the last question prevented her from a good 9. Nonetheless, 8 was enough to put her into the lead with one contender still to go.

This contender was Tony Barnes. Tony was answering on The Lake District. I often feel that such a wide subject as this should carry a government health warning. Once again, Tony obviously knew his stuff, but it seems such a catch all subject that there were aspects of it he maybe hadn’t considered which is probably why he too scored 8.

Would the ‘something in the air’ I’ve speculated about continue to affect the scores as we headed into the General Knowledge rounds? Time would tell. Matt Malin came back and he delivered the highest scoring round of the night so far with 9. This boosted him to 16. If you’d asked before the start of the show whether I thought that 16 could be a winning total I would have said it was unlikely. After the specialists though, it looked more possible.

Poor Emily Freeman never really managed to get to grips with her GK round. She gave it a lash, but in the end she could only take her total up to 12.

Maria Nagle only needed to match Matt’s 9 points to take he lead. She too gave it a lash, but in the same way you often see track athletes tightening up as they enter the home straight, so Maria just couldn’t quite maintain the momentum to get herself over the line before time was up. She scored 7 to finish with 15. No cigar I’m afraid.

So it was all down to Tony. He too scored 7 for 15, although I would say that he didn’t run out of steam so much as never quite had the momentum he needed throughout the whole round.

So Matt Malin achieved the rare feat of going first in the last round, and hanging on to win the show. Best of luck in the semis.

Right, please do not take this comment as an intended criticism of any of tonight’s contenders – it is not meant that way. But last week, all 4 contenders scored more highly than any of tonight’s. I’m not saying that Matt does not deserve his place in the semi final. Of course he does! It always has been you win a heat and you go through and it always should be. But surely, surely it’s time to go back to recognising exceptional performance by runners up by awarding a couple of wild cards through to the semis.

It’s a lot fairer on the viewers, if you want my opinion.

The Details

Matt Malin	Peep Show	7	2	9	2	16	4
Emily Freeman	Aemilia Lanyer	7	2	5	6	12	8
Maria Nagle	Joni Mitchell	8	0	7	3	15	3
Tony Barnes	The Lake DIstrict	8	1	7	1	15	2

Mastermind 2027 first Round Heat 13 Preview

Tomorrow night’s specialist subjects are:-

The TV comedy series Peep Show

English poet Aemilia Lanyer

The singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell

The Lake District.

A quick search on LAM reveals that since LAM started Peep Show has been a semi final subject in both 2023 and 2018 and a first round subject in 2013. I doubt I got many on any of those rounds and I doubt I’ll get many tomorrow night. That goes for the other subjects too. Aemilia Lanyer was a contemporary of Shakespeare (there is no evidence that she was the ‘Dark Lady’ of his sonnets) but I only know that because I just googled her name. I know what everyone knows about Joni Mitchell but that really isn’t a lot. I think that the Lake District has been a subject a couple of times in the last 10 years – again, I don’t expect many points.

More Thoughts on 1977

Received wisdom tells us that Mastermind was better in Magnus’ day, doesn’t it? I’ll be honest, I did think that BBC were playing with fire a bit by showing the 1977 series on BBC4 just a couple of hours after the current series on BBC2. I’ve watched every episode of the 77 series as each has been shown. So the question we should ask is – is the classic series REALLY that much better than the current version?

Well, first of all, let’s leave behind fripperies like the odd fashions and hairstyles. Those in 1977 weren’t much better either. Boom boom. But joking aside, let’s try to concentrate on the show itself.

One clear difference is the 2x2 format of the rounds in the old series. I always preferred this even split of two rounds of two minutes’ duration each. 1-0 to the classic series. Now, you’d think that the 1970s questions are a clear advantage over the modern day questions. Well, they were certainly less long winded than the questions that get asked nowadays, yes. The lengthy questions are a major gripe with the show in the current era. But at least . . . at least the questions in the current era are for the huge majority, written with precision. They make you either give a wrong answer or a right answer – they don’t allow for much grey area and I personally feel that this is how it should be. I have been struck by how vague some of the questions in 1977 were. In fact I have gone so far as to call some of them quite poorly written – speaking as a question setter of pretty long standing myself. In every show, it seems, Magnus was called upon to exercise judgement over whether a contender had got the gist of the answer. Well, getting the gist is not good enough. So what the old series wins on the volume of questions, it loses on the imprecise nature of so many of them. Score draw.

What about the contenders? On this very blog, I’ve made the point that the talent pool  in the current era is shallow, and too thinly spread. Well, judging by what I’ve seen in the 1977 series so far, the average contender was no better in 77 than they are today. Yes, they score more points, but only it would seem because they get asked more questions. The 1977 series was considerably shorter than the 31 show series of the modern programme, so maybe the talent appeared a little more thickly spread because it didn’t have to be spread quite so far. I can only speculate on the difference in quiz culture 49 years ago. I don’t know how many quiz leagues there were back in the day and I don’t know if pub quizzes – if indeed they existed – were anything like as popular and plentiful as they are today. I was around in 77 but I was only 13. Even back in the 70s, pub going at that age was frowned upon. However, quiz shows were surely as much a staple on TV back in those days as they are today.

An obvious point of comparison is in the kinds of subjects being offered for specialist round. The 1977 subjects seem more consciously highbrow for want of a better term. In many cases they seem a lot wider as well. I have found that this can make it a little harder to really get a feeling for just how well a contender really knows their subject and how well they seem to have prepared. I have no intention of accusing any contender of skimping on their preparation in my reviews, but I do feel you can usually tell who hasn’t put the work in– and this isn’t just a matter of seeing who had the lowest scores either.

For many of those of us of a certain age, Mastermind WAS Magnus Magnusson. I loved him as a question master and in the years since the original series came to an end it was gratifying to see just how many people who met him and who knew him paid tribute to what a warm, funny, good guy he was. ‘nice’ is a word that loses a lot of currency when you apply it to people but personally I think it’s one of the best things you can say about someone. I spoke in my mum’s funeral last week, and I unashamedly made the point that she was a really, genuinely nice person. She was too. However – and I’m feeling a little bit of a heel for saying this- I have been surprised on the number of fluffs Magnus made in certain shows.

Of course, in my own experience the production teams have been quite zealous about reshooting and ironing out the bumps in the modern series. As for the presenters, well, I always felt with John Humphrys that taking part in 6 shows with him never really constituted an introduction. I knew him no better the last time I met him than I did the first time. But, when he got in the studio, he was a thorough professional, I have to give him that. Likewise, today’s Clive Myrie does a thoroughly professional job as well. More than that I can’t say, never having met him.

If we move to more intangible things, the atmosphere in both shows is more different than I would have expected. For all the formality – in 1977 the contenders were all dressed very formally and each was either ‘Mr.’, ‘Mrs.’ or ‘Miss’, the show seemed somehow a little more intimate than the current series. Contenders’ Row was closer to the black chair. The lighting was a little more natural, without so much of the bright spotlit interrogation of the modern series. Magnus did not try to oversell the drama or artificially build the tension like poor old Clive does – Why are they here? I hear you ask? What is it that persuades ordinary upstanding members of the public to volunteer to face the ordeal of the black chair. Is it masochism? Is it hubris? Is it a combination of both? Do any of you give a rat’s doodah? Etc. etc by which time I’m yelling ‘get on with it, Clive! On the other hand Clive doesn’t have to tell us “We come to you tonight from the Great Hall of St. Angreevsey’s Academy for the sons of smarmy gentlefolk in Shrewsbury, founded in 1562 by the grandfather of Guy Fawkes, Sir Arbuthnot ‘Tuning’ Fawkes. The school’s motto is taken from the family motto of the Fawkes family, which is “Lawks a Lordy, my bottom’s on fire.”

I think that the most honest assessment I can make is to say that despite being essentially the same show, they are pretty different and it’s actually more hard to make a compelling case that one version is much better than the other.  What the audience of 1977 would make if suddenly taken by TARDIS and brought to the recording of the modern show – well, that really would be interesting.