Mastermind 2022: Round One: Heat 12

Yes, a lot better, thanks for asking. Isolation ends in a day , all things being equal. So let’s get on with this review of a remarkable edition of Mastermind, shall we?

First up was Andrew Fanko. Yes, Andrew Fanko, who won Series 15 of Only Connect with the 007s. Frankie reached the final when she appeared on Mastermind recently, so it’s fair to say that I expected fireworks from Andrew as well. Well, dearly beloved, I certainly got them. Andrew was answering on Great Britain at the Winter Olympics, and this was always most likely to be my banker subject for the night. Our Winter Olympians’ exploits always tend to be overshadowed by those of their summer counterparts, but the fact is we have had some notable successes over the years. Me, I was delighted to get half a dozen of these right, but this paled into insignificance when compared with Andrew’s magnificent 13. Specialist scores in the teens in the current series with the length of the questions being the way that it is, are like jockey’s legs – few and far between. Well, that was it – game over after the first specialist round. Wasn’t it?

Well it looked that way after Emma Harris’ round on the radio and TV comedy series “Good ness Gracious Me”. I really enjoyed the show, but this didn’t translate into points for me, and, sadly, it didn’t really translate into points for Emma either. We can speculate what went wrong with her round – maybe nerves, maybe inadequate or inappropriate preparation, maybe just sheer bad luck, but whatever the case she scored 3.

Next then was Patrick Buckingham. That, like Andrew Fanko, seemed to me to be a quiz name to conjure with. A very quick google revealed that Patrick, like Andrew, is a regular Quiz League of London player, and has also played in Only Connect. It made me feel even more sympathy for Emma Harris. Not only does it work out that you have a bit of a ‘mare on your specialist, it also turns out that in your heat you have two of the most experienced and knowledgeable quizzers in the whole first round. Which Patrick went on to show by whacking in his own 13 on Francis I of France. With his and Andrew’s respective pedigree, it was shaping up to be a very interesting GK round.

However, there was still Dan Sheehy to go. Dan came up clear on my very rudimentary search, but that often means absolutely nothing. Poor Emma must have felt that Pelion was being piled on top of Ossa as Dan too racked up a massive 13 on the High School Musical Trilogy. Since coming back to the blog this Autumn I have mentioned the risk-reward ratio in Mastermind, and sadly this show amply demonstrates this for me. I do hope that no ignorant sods take it into their heads to make insulting assumptions about Emma based on this performance. As far as I know we’ve never met, but I have no doubt that she’s a perfectly intelligent person.

It can’t have been pleasant for her having to return to the chair under these circumstances, and bearing that in mind she actually made a pretty good start to the round. She picked off the first few questions and was moving steadily forward. Sadly, as the round continued the wheels came off a little bit. You couldn’t blame her if her confidence was a little shot after the first round, and when you’re confidence is at a low ebb, and you come up against a question you can’t guess, then your round can ground to a halt, and you find yourself having to fight for answers. In the end Emma managed 7 to take her total to 10.

After Andrew completed his specialist round, I wonder if he had any idea he’d end up going second in the GK round. Well, he was still joint leader, whichever way you looked at it, and I reckoned he was going to set a total which would demand a hell of a round from the remaining two contenders. He did too. Andrew’s round was a fine GK round – as we’ve said many and oft a time in the last year, anything in the teens is a bloody good score. He seemed a little rueful at missing the last question, which was one of those you could take a stab at if you didn’t know the answer – in Roman numerals, a horizonal line above a numeral indicates it should be multiplied by a factor of what? In my 30+ years of quizzing I only recall being asked that once before, and it was the other way around – what number does an M with a horizontal line above it indicate? Andrew zigged with 10, and so stayed on 26.

At least he didn’t have long to wait before he would find out if it was going to be enough. In fact, the way things worked out Patrick too threw in an excellent GK round of his own. I couldn’t call whether he was going to beat the target or not for almost the whole round, but he’d reached 26 before the line of death had completely worked its way around his score, and Clive was asking the last question. Whereas Andrew was given an unusual question which you could have a guess at, I’d say that Patrick was asked a rather more common question, which you were unlikely to guess if you didn’t know. Patrick knew it, and that gave him 14 for 27.

It wasn’t all over yet, of course, since we still had Dan to go. And he gave it a lash, no doubt about that. Still, by the halfway mark I had him a question or two off the pace. By the end of the round he’d scored 100 to finish with 23, which is a very good score in its own right.

I’ve little doubt that Andrew’s score will reignite the debate over allocating places in the semi final to highest scoring runners up, and it’s certainly right that this should be debated. I terms of mere statistics, Andrew’s score would have won all of the heats prior to this one in this series. It is harsh to be excluded from the semis in these circumstances. As far as I know they may well be using the same criteria for deciding who plays who in the first round as they did in my day, when it all boiled down to making interesting combinations of specialist subjects in each heat. This can have the effect of making for the odd ‘top-heavy’ heat like this one. It’s not much consolation, Andrew, if you ever read this, but at least if you apply to Mastermind again, the chances of this happening to you twice are minuscule.

Congratulations, though, to Patrick. Apart from being a brilliant all-round performance, it was even more impressive when you consider that the GK round came immediately after watching Andrew whack in his own round. It was a fine display of cool-headed quizzing. I have no wish to jinx your chances, but I’m moved to say that heat was as good as a semi-final, and it’s quite possible that you might not even face opposition as tough as Andrew in your upcoming semi. Whatever the case, I wish you well.

The Details

Andrew Fanko	Great Britain at the Winter Olympics	13	0	13	0	26	0
Emma Harris	Goodness Gracious Me	3	3	7	5	10	8
Patrick Buckingham	Francis I of France	13	0	14	0	27	0
Dan Sheehy	The High School Musical Trilogy	13	0	10	0	23	0