I’m afraid that I hadn’t previously heard of Christopher van Tulleken. I’m guessing that he may have done a show or two for CBBC in his time, although I don’t know. From his chat with John I think he’s a medical chap who accompanies expeditions to various inhospitable places . This makes sense of his chosen subject of Sir Ranulph Fiennes. For the second round in a row I scored 5, and I was pleased to know that in his younger days Sir Ranulph had used explosives to try to blow up part of the location sets built for the film Doctor Doolittle. Christopher achieved his double score with 10, which put him in the shake up at the halfway stage.
Agony Aunt Denise Robertson offered a true Mastermind subject in the shape of John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham. I guessed one answer, and that was it. This actually felt like a proper Mastermind subject – there certainly weren’t any gimmes which the average person in the street could guess. Denise had a perfect clear round of 12 correct answers, no errors, and no passes. I couldn’t help thinking to myself that if there was any justice she would go on and win, simply because her subject seemed relatively quite a bit more difficult than the others. I haven’t even got on to Milton Jones’ specialist round yet.
Even if the name Milton Jones doesn’t mean a great deal to him, you’d probably recognize him by sight if you’ve ever caught him on a panel game such as “Mock the Week”. Milton’s specialist round was potatoes. The set of questions he was asked, even allowing for the fact that this is the celebrity series, is by far the most tenuous I think I can ever remember hearing. Let me give you an example. I can’t remember the exact wording of the question , but it went something like – which American TV series set in the Korean War had the same name as a way of serving potatoes ? – I think that the rather ridiculous nature of this round was highlighted by the fact that it came straight after Denise’s. I had my best specialist round of the night with 10, which matched Milton’s score.
In the GK round each of the slebs did a very competent job. Adele Silva who went first actually put on the best round of the night with a very good 16, which in fact earned a little squeal of delight from her. Good job. I took a clear round .Adele was representing the Alzheimer’s Society. Chris van Tulleken’s chosen charity was Merlin. He didn’t do quite as well as Adele, but could still be pleased with a round of 15, which was enough to put him into the lead.
Milton Jones, answering for Club Capernaum, started answering his round brilliantly, and I think he had something like the first 10 in a row correct. Then it was almost as if he ran out of juice, or even just decided that he didn’t want to win, since he started passing and getting questions wrong, and only added another 3 to take his score to 23, incidentally the lowest score of the night. Denise, answering on behalf of the Bubble Foundation UK, needed 14 to win outright, and I have to admit that I wasn’t certain that she’d get there. She took a few passes along the way, and did pass on several questions. she kept her calm, though, and kept answering what she did know, which proved to be enough. In the end she added another 15 to take her score to 27, and bring a win which I thought she deserved for her specialist subject.
The Details
| Adele Silva | The Alzheimer’s Society | The Children’s Stories of Roald Dahl | 8 - 3 | 16 - 1 | 24 – 4 |
| Christopher van Tulleken | Merlin | Sir Ranulph Fiennes | 10 - 0 | 15 - 2 | 25 – 2 |
| Denise Robertson | Bubble Foundation UK | John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham | 12 - 0 | 15 - 4 | 27 - 4 |
| Milton Jones | Club Capernaum | Potatoes | 10 - 0 | 13 - 3 | 23 – 3 |
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