Sunday 9 January 2011

Brain of Britain - heat 11

I made a bit of a booboo last Monday, when I lost track of time and missed Brain of Britain on its first airing. Well, I’ve done this before and its not been a disaster since I’ve always had the iplayer to fall back on. Not so now. As I think I may have mentioned before my laptop has recently given up the ghost, and this poor old PC is no good for it since the sound won’t work. So this necessitated clearing my hectic Saturday evening schedule – ie, not falling asleep – so that I could listen to it.

I’m glad that I did. This penultimate first round heat was a seesawing contest between Nicholas Comfort, Elizabeth Manning, Mark Walton and John Watson. John was the only one who failed to score in the first round, but the early leader was Mark Walton, who was much sharper on the buzzer than the others at this early stage, and led by 3 points with 4. 2 points on the next round saw the lead stretched to 4 points. However there was a seismic shift in the balance of power in the next round when Elizabeth managed the only full set of the whole contest. With a bonus in the round as well this took her score to 8, and with Mark failing to score she leapfrogged him to lead by 2 with 8. John Watson had also announced his intent by this stage, taking his own total to 6. One more round remained before the listener’s questions. No fireworks in this one though, as each contender added one more point to their score.

I knew the answer to the first question, as did the contenders – What did Goethe once describe as frozen music ? The answer is architecture. However I didn’t know that a 20th century swiss architect once described Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” as the greatest piece of 20th century architecture. Live and learn.

On with the second half, and at this stage only Nicholas Comfort is really lagging behind. Elizabeth couldn’t add to her 9, so when John Watson managed 2 he joined her in the lead, with Mark 1 point behind. Just to complicate matters, Nicholas whacked in a set of three at the start of the next round, and only John could score a point after this. So our scores were 7, 8, 9 and 10. Round seven would prove to be decisive. Nicholas couldn’t capitalise on his 6th round surge, and remained on 7. Elizabeth only managed to add one of her own. With 2 of his own points and two bonuses Mark Walton made a spirited late surge, but John Watson took a good set of 4, which when couple with a buzzer bonus brought him to 15.

Nicholas needed to answer all the remaining questions to win. He gave it a go, but managed only 3 to end with 10. Elizabeth added 2 to equal Mark on 12, and this is where he stayed , failing to add any more points. John added another to take his overall score to 16. Well done to all involved. With only one show to go, if they don’t get pushed off the board,how will they decide who out of Elizabeth and Mark goes through to the semis ? Answers to the usual address, please . . .

Current Highest scoring runners-up

John Beynon – 18
Angela Wilson - 15
Ian Cassidy – 13
Elizabeth Manning – 12/ Mark Walton - 12

4 comments:

worldwidemark said...

I'm Mark who finished second and thoroughly enjoyed myself. You commented on how fast I was on the buzzer and this was definitely thanks to some advice you gave to me on this very site a few weeks ago... You said to always give an answer - there aren't any deductions for a wrong one!

With BoB its very much luck of the draw and I was a tad unlucky not to get either of the "big" rounds that Elizabeth or John got... Having said that there was only 1 question i Could have buzzed in on that I didnt actually get the point for (the Evan Davies one) so I cant complain.

I also told you to keep an eye on the highest scoring runners-up spot as I knew it was going to be very close...

I'll reveal more next week - if we're still tied of course ;)

BTW they told us it "was the 1st time in years" they'd had 4 players score double figures in a heat - trust my luck to draw the hardest week possible!

BoB was my first foray into a broadcast quiz - maybe I'll try more in the future - we just applied for next season of Only Connect!

Mark - jet lagged after flying back from seeing the last 2 Test Matches in Australian so a bit giddy still!

Londinius said...

Hi Mark !

Well done on a good performance ! Yes, I know what you mean about the others' sets - sometimes it just works out that way with BoB, you did need a little bit of luck to enable you to reach your best score. If the little bit of advice I gave helped, them I'm delighted.

Re: OC - I hope that you do get on - judging by your BoB performance I'd say that you have a very good chance of doing so. BoB is great fun - and I'm delighted that you found it so as well - but so is OC - I wasn't lying when I said on this site that playing in OC is probably more fun than any other TV quiz. For me this is praise indeed, since I have had some very enjoyable experiences in all of the broadcast quizzes I've been fortunate enough to play in.

I will look forward to hearing how they (would have) sorted out the semi final place between you and Elizabeth.

Best regards

Dave

LisaH said...

They used to sort ties out by who had answered the most bonus questions

worldwidemark said...

They used to use that rule yes but they dropped it a few seasons ago...