Well, after last week’s pyrotechnics, this was an altogether more less tense affair. We began with Mohammed Shakir who was answering on villains from the official James Bond film series. While I’d never claim that Bond was one of my own specialist subjects, I’m pretty safe on films from Dr. No to Octopussy, and this was enough to bring me a welcome 6 points towards the aggregate. Mohammed managed to reach double figures, which is always the mark of a good round with the questions being the length that they are – maybe it’s just me, but it seemed that some of the questions in the later rounds were interminable.
I thought that I might have had a chance to add to my
aggregate, bearing in mind that Elizabeth Dawson was answering on Byron.
Perhaps if there had been a few more questions about the poems then I might
have done. However this was specifically the Life of Byron rather than the Life
and Work, and so I achieved the grand total of zilch. I don’t know whether
Elizabeth would also have preferred more questions on the works herself – she
had to have pretty good knowledge of the life to get the 6 that she did, but at
the end of the round when Clive announced the score she did seem just a wee bit
frustrated.
Patrick Wilson’s choice of subject “JRR Tolkien’s Middle
Earth” was an interesting one. After all – surely “The Lord of the Rings “
would have been a daunting enough task as it was, without adding on “the Hobbit”,
“The Silmarillion”, and all the other stuff which was only published after his
death. I was pleased to manage 7 of these, but Patrick did considerably better,
and scored a fine 11 points on a very wide ranging round.
Last but not least came Gill Austen. Her subject, “Castles of
Northumberland” held out little or not prospect of adding to my score, so when
the first question name-checked good old Ranulf Flambard I was very happy to
take the money and run with the Bishops of Durham (and how many of us ever get
a chance to make that bold claim, I wonder?). Gill too steadily accumulated her
points throughout the round until she too finished with 11 and no passes. In
fact, there were no passes at all in the specialist round – so well done to all
4 contenders for that.
When Elizabeth returned to the chair she was always
struggling against the fact that she’d scored 4 points less than any of her
fellow contenders. So although she battled throughout the round, and scored a
decent nine, she still ended with the modest total of 15, which I would have
said was not a corridor of doubt total.
Well, I would have said that, but Mohammed certainly had to
pass through the corridor in order to overhaul it. In fact, he only managed to
do so by one point. I did feel a little sympathetic while the round was winding
to its conclusion – there’s nothing worse than just not finding the answers to
a series of questions coming to you. Mohammed finished with 16.
So there were no prizes for predicting that either Patrick or
Gill was going to win this heat. And within 30 seconds of the start of Patrick’s
round it looked very much like it would be him. This was a good round, a decent
quizzer’s round, and Patrick seemed to be immensely enjoying his Mastermind
experience. That isn’t always the sign of a good round, but it was certainly true
of this one. While his score of 24 would only have put him in 3rd
place in last week’s heat, I reckoned he had one foot in the semi final from
this one.
We still had Gill’s round to go though. To be honest, after
the first 40 seconds or so it did look as if she wasn’t going to be able to
challenge Patrick’s score. It wasn’t a bad round, but there were too many wrong
answers, and apparently too many gaps in Gill’s knowledge. Hard lines, but well
done anyway.
Well done Patrick – certainly the pick of the GK rounds
tonight – a good performance which gives you a chance in the semis. Best of
luck to you.
The Details
|
Mohammed Shakir |
James Bond film villains |
10 |
0 |
6 |
2 |
16 |
2 |
|
Elizabeth Dawson |
The Life of Lord Byron |
6 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
15 |
1 |
|
Patrick Wilson |
JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth |
11 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
|
Gill Austen |
Castles of Northumberland |
11 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
2 comments:
Re length of the questions, there was one from the previous episode that I found quite amusing. The question was 'In the second part of Who Shot Mr Burns?, after Lisa suspects various people of trying to kill the rich businessman, who is revealed as the real culprit?'
I can't help thinking that simply the episode title 'Who shot Mr Burns?' would have conveyed the question just as well.
Hi George,
Yes. It was like the question a few weeks ago which began with words to the effect of What was the name of the mother of Nicholas II - and then went on to supply extraneous details which were frankly unnecessary considering that the contender - and I would suggest the viewers at home either knew it by this stage or didn't. I don't blame the question setters as I believe they are told that they have to write them like this, but please, production team, do credit your audience with some knowledge. I honestly do not believe that overloading the questions with detail makes them any better or clearer for the viewers at home - if anything you sometimes forget the start of he question before you get to the end of it.
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