Mastermind Round One: Heat 17

Once Mastermind has its claws into you, it can be very difficult to turn your back on her. Yeah, you might leave it for several years, but it can be like a persistent itch, and sooner or later you're going to be back to scratch it. I’ll say a little bit more about that anon.

We start, though, with Barry Devine. He was offering us “The Life and Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson”. The life? I think you could fairly say that I knew not so much about that, as in nothing worthy of any points. I had a good half dozen on the fairy tales though, and this would prove to be my best specialist round of the night. A good round, and with the way the specialists tend to be now this was one which looked guaranteed to leave Barry in contention by half time.

I don’t recall meeting Nathan Jones from Llanelli, despite being a fellow South Wales quizzer, but then I never did play in either the Llanelli or Ammanford quiz leagues. He was answering question on “The Russian Civil War”. Thanks to Mr. Wheeler-Robinson’s A Level Russian History lessons I scraped 3 of these . Nathan, though, well Nathan was going for accuracy, and this he managed with a perfect round. A couple of the questions had made him seemingly drag answers up from his boots, and so he got through fewer questions than Barry had, finishing also on 12, but nonetheless a perfect round is a terrific achievement. Very well done.

Phil Boor was answering on Ipswich Town FC, the Tractor Boys. Sadly the question about the nickname didn’t come up, otherwise I might have doubled my score and got two. For the first 30 seconds or so Phil was going great guns, then something happened, he had one wrong and this seemed to sap the confidence out of him. A late rally saw him pull up to 8, but this left him 4 points adrift of contention, and promised a grim old slog in the general round.

Coming back to my opening paragraph, our final contender, Isabelle Heward, has made, I believe, 4 previous appearances, reaching the semi final on the last three. Her career goes back to 1983, and of course back in those days you were only allowed to play in one series. So it was 13 years before she could reappear, and did so in 1996, making her first semi. She took part in Andy’s first revived BBC TV series in 2003, reaching the semi and did the same again in Pat’s 2005 series. So, unless I’ve missed an appearance – which is not impossible – it’s been over a decade since her last appearance. There was no noticeable ring rust in her performance on her round on Rita Hayworth. There were about 4 I had from general knowledge, but Isabelle’s crisp, quick answering style meant that even though she had a couple wrong, she still managed to post 12 and 0 passes.

So to the GK round. Phil Boor put in a solid 9, which took him up to 17. With the best will in the world that was never going to stay the top score for very long on this particular show. Barry Devine , although having the same number of correct answers had actually been lying third on pass countback at the turn, and so it was down to him to post an outright winning score. To be fair he managed double figures, which is what you’re really looking for in a 2 and a half minute round with the somewhat gentler questions of this series. For me setting the target at 11 for an outright win is just enough to put the opposition into the corridor of doubt. If you’re a good general knowledge quizzer it’s a total you should be capable of with a little bit to spare, but it’s a total you’re going to have to work for too.

Nathan Jones – who’d been gone too long (sorry) – certainly worked for it. What he’d done in his specialist round, taken care and not panicked when he didn’t know an answer straightaway, he repeated in this round. Unlike the specialist round sometimes the right answers didn’t come, but it didn’t rob him of forward momentum. With the last question he took his total to 22, but he was in front by virtue of passes. Here’s a question – who did they have in the audience for this show? I ask because there was a clearly audible ‘ooohhh!’ when Nathan’s score was announced. Have a little decorum chaps, please. This is Mastermind, not The Generation Game.

Well, you had to take into account the fact that Isabelle has 3 times before made it to the semis, and so my thought was that bearing this in mind, she’d have the technique and the knowledge to be able to negotiate her passage safely again. Which is a pretty accurate assessment of what she did. Isabelle’s was the round of an experienced Mastermind hand who has worked out that incorrect answers don’t matter – chances are you’re going to give some, so do it as quickly as you can, forget about it and move on to the next question. I wouldn’t say that her 14 was the best display of GK we’ve seen so far this series, but it was pretty good, and gave her a clear win, and a passage into her 4^th semi. Best of luck Isabelle – hope that you make the final. Well played.

The Details

Barry Devine	The Life and Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson	12	1	10	2	22	3
Nathan Jones	The Russian Civil War	12	0	10	1	22	1
Phil Boor	History of Ipswich Town FC	8	2	9	3	17	5
Isabelle Heward	The Life and Films of Rita Hayworth	12	0	14	0	26	0