Blimey, doesn’t Time fly? We’re already onto the second week of the 2022 Mastermind. Well, last week we were all watching intently to see what kind of job of presenting Clive Myrie could do, and for me he passed the test with flying colours. So this week was a chance to settle down to an absorbing contest.
First into the chair was actress Barbara Cunningham. Barbara
was answering on “The Blandings Stories of PG Wodehouse”. Wodehouse is one of
those more traditional specialist subjects, and when the subject is his oeuvre
in total I can often scrounge 1 or 2 points despite never having read anything
he wrote. But this one focused on a set of books where I have but one fact –
the pig was called the Empress of Blandings. That didn’t get asked, so I didn’t
trouble the scorers. Barbara did considerably better. She dropped the second
question, and then the penultimate, but answered all the other 10 correctly.
Had she been a tiny bit quicker on some of the answers she might have squeezed
in one more question, but I’d say that accuracy does sometimes carry a price.
Barbara was followed by Brian Hyslop, the first teacher of
this series. OK, let’s get this out of the way. I am still the last
schoolteacher (as opposed to college or university lecturer) to win a series.
It’s a record I’ve held since 2008 (or even longer – my final was filmed in
2007, though not shown until the next year.) 14 years is more than long enough.
Could Brian be the man to take the distinction? Well, he couldn’t have done any better on the NFL team, Seattle Seahawks.
He scored a perfect 13 from 13, and kudos to the question setter because
despite only having the one team to ask about this was a pretty wide ranging
set, which made Brian’s achievement all the more impressive. I guessed Paul
Allen to open my account, but halfway through the SS rounds this single
solitary point was looking very sorry for itself.
It didn’t look like it would be getting much company from the
next round, either. Laura Pierce offered us the listed buildings of Liverpool.
Now, I love looking at and drawing listed buildings, and will even go out of my
way to learn about them. However, I’m sorry to say that Liverpool is the
greatest British city that I’ve never visited. Yet. Another wide ranging set of
questions on a narrow subject saw Laura take all bar two of her questions, to
end on 10. My score remained the same.
Our last contender on this second heat was Ian Wang. – 'Ullo,-thought
I as he sat down in the black chair – ‘ I recognise him.’ Well, yes. For this
is none other than the former skipper of the excellent Corpus Christi UC 2020
team. I couldn’t help thinking that if he did well on specialist, the others
could all be playing for 2nd place on GK. So Clive announced his specialist
subject – the Music of Beyonce. Oh dear. Nothing against the oeuvre of Miss
Knowles, or Mrs. Z as I am sure she prefers to be known, but for me, pop music stopped just before the beginning of
1987. Ian just dropped the one point, and while it looked like he had to dredge
two of them up from his boots, his 12 was still an impressive performance.
Which is a lot more than can be said for my 1 point from 4 rounds, which is a
record low for me since I started keeping score of my specialist round aggregate.
What a good first round, though. All contenders in double figures,
and not a pass between them all. Great work.
Barbara was first to go in the GK round. Once again she was
going for accuracy rather than speed and I don’t think she did at all badly
either. There were some limits to her general knowledge, but even when she didn’t
know the answer she offered a sensible suggestion (well, other than the Queen
Mother giving birth in 2021. The smile on Barbara’s face suggested that this
was a ‘yeah, so what? It’s better than a pass’ answer). A double figure GK
round at least presents the other contenders a corridor of doubt through which
they’ll have to walk.
This may be unfair – apologies, but I do try to call it as I
see it – but it always looked like Laura was fighting her own round a little. I’m
glad that she never panicked and lost it, and by the end of the round she’d
added 8 hard fought points to take her total to a totally respectable 18.
So to the contender I’d tagged with the label of favourite,
Ian. Now, by the halfway stage of his round Ian had added 7 points to his total
and looked assured of taking the lead. Which indeed he did, although slowing
slightly in the second half of his round. Ian finished with 24 points, and it has
to be said that the corridor of doubt was looking considerably longer for Brian.
Brian gave it a lash, and you can’t ask a great deal more
than that. Still, having started a point to the good, by the halfway point of
his round he was 3 points behind where Ian had been. Brian did actually pick up
speed in the second half of his round, but even so he still finished 2 points
down with 22.
Well done to Ian. I liked his attitude in the post show
comments. One show at a time and enjoy the journey while it lasts. A good
performance, which certainly marks him out as someone to watch. After all, a
young contender fresh from UC didn’t do too bad last year, did he?
I'm not happy that the show is away until the end of September
now. Presumably it’s Autumnwatch. Apparently this time the BBC have sent a
group of badgers to film Kate Humble 24/7.
The Details
|
Barbara Cunningham |
The Blandings stories of PG Wodehouse |
10 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Brian Hyslop |
Seattle Seahawks |
13 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
Laura Pierce |
Listed Buildings of Liverpool |
10 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Ian Wang |
The Music of Beyonce |
12 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
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