Sorry I’m late, dearly beloved. Yesterday was my daughter’s 30th birthday. What’s that? Yes, of course I’m old enough to have a 30-year-old daughter. She’s not even my oldest, either. My son is 34, and my oldest daughter is 35! Enough of that for now. Let’s talk about last night’s show.
When I saw that Kim Humphreys, last night’s first contender, was
answering on the films of Tom Hanks, I thought – yum yum, Dave, fill yer boots,
son. I didn’t even fill one toehole of one sock. Like many of the film rounds
in this series it concentrated almost entirely on the events of the films
rather than production details, and it required a depth of knowledge that I
just don’t possess about these films. I thought Kim did very well with this
set, albeit that he fell just a little way short of a double figure score. I
had two of these.
Second contender, Pam Douglas, was answering on Sir Edward
Elgar. This was one of those rounds where I just had the feeling that the
contender might have done slightly better with what she was given. It’s
difficult to quantify, but I just have times when I watch a specialist round
when a question is asked which, even though I don’t know the answer myself,
sounds as if it is the sort of thing the contender really should have known. I
just had the feeling that Pam’s round, although yielding a respectable 7
points, could have been better. Aright, so I only got the one on Nimrod myself.
Which is one more than I got on Clare Lowe’s round on Bess of
Hardwick. Contrary to popular belief this Tudor lady did really exist and wasn’t
a joke name invented for Carry On Henry. Look, nobody deliberately posts a
modest score on Mastermind. But it does take really focused preparation to guarantee
you’ll do much better. As I may have said once or twice before, if you leave
gaps in your coverage of the subject, the setters will expose them. Was this
what happened to Clare? Only she could answer that, but I did feel for her.
So, with 3 contenders down, and the highest score only 8, if
Paul Risebury-Crisp could manage a double figure round on Icelandic songstress Björk, then he would be very much in the driving seat. I
managed, um, null, which is Icelandic for sod all. Paul, though, certainly
seemed to have prepared his subject thoroughly and seemed to have very little
difficulty scoring 10 to put a little daylight between himself and the chasing
pack as we moved towards the GK round.
We had the frustrating spectacle last week of good GK
contenders throwing in good GK rounds to little effect because of moderate
specialist scores. Welcome back to the chair Clare Lowe. Clare managed to put
in the pick of last night’s GK rounds, but it was to little or no avail. It’s a
shame, but at least being able to point to a double figure round is something.
It was something that Pam Douglas couldn’t boast, sadly, but
at least she wasn’t far away from it. Pam put in another respectable round of
9, for an overall respectable total of 16. To be honest, as the round developed,
while I felt it was likely that she would beat Clare’s total, I didn’t think it
would be by much, and that’s pretty much the way that it went.
Kim Humphreys really needed to whack in the highest round
that he could in order to place Paul within the mythical Corridor of Doubt. He
scored 9, and with Paul having a 2 point head start you had to think that this
was never going to be enough. Once again, a perfectly respectable overall
performance, but not one which was every going to win a heat.
Yes, I know that I’ve spoiled the result now, but that’s the
kind of evening it was, I’m afraid. You’d have been forgiven for thinking that
it was all over by half time, and you’d have been right to draw that
conclusion. All of our contenders scored 9 or 10 on GK, which meant that they
were all decent on GK, but none of them were good enough to blow the others
away.
Well, there it is. Congratulations to Paul, and as always,
best of luck in the semi final. Thanks to all the other three contenders – if we
didn’t have people willing to put themselves in the firing line then we wouldn’t
have a show.
The Details
|
Kim Humphreys |
The films of Tom Hanks |
8 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
|
Pam Douglas |
Sir Edward Elgar |
7 |
1 |
9 |
0 |
16 |
1 |
|
Clare Lowe |
Bess of Hardwick |
5 |
1 |
10 |
0 |
15 |
1 |
|
Paul Risebury-Crisp |
Björk |
10 |
1 |
9 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
3 comments:
Hope your daughter had a nice birthday!
I felt that Paul was relatively lucky with the contestants he was put against, because he's the lowest-scoring winner so far this series, and there have so far been sixteen non-winners who have finished with higher scores than him. To his credit, I felt from his interview that he knew this, and hadn't expected to get to the semi-finals at all. But who knows? They all get to start again with each new heat, maybe he'll pull something amazing out of the bag next time.
Thanks George - she seemed to enjoy it! This does highlight one of the reasons why I'd like to see the highest scoring runners up places in the semis reinstated.
Currently, the people from this series who would still be eligible to take a semi-final place would be Andrew Fanko, Andrew Whiteley, Sam Anderson, Dan Sheehy, Joe Pugh and Brian Hyslop.
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