Variety is the spice of life. I’m not sure I’d want my dose of Mastermind to be administered on a Wednesday evening every week, but just this once it went down a treat. Mind you, it did help that this was a pretty good first round heat.
First into the chair was Simon Durrant. Simon is the type
of English teacher that I sincerely hope to be this time in a couple of years –
namely, a retired one. I’ve never lied about this, I always want to see my
brethren and sistren who’ve undergone trial by chalk (yes, my career did
actually begin in the days of blackboard and chalk) do well. Simon? Well, he
didn’t actually do badly on his subject of Offa’s Dyke Path. Crucially though
he fell just a little short of a really challenging total, finishing with 9 and
3 passes. I enjoyed his round though, picking up 6 correct answers myself. I
love Hay on Wye and the surrounding area – not during the Festival in June,
mind you.
Pippa Smith gave us a round on the Life and Work of John
Cage. As interesting as the man – and he was certainly that – I cannot claim to
be a fan of the work. I was a fan of the way that Pippa went about her round
though, snapping out answers, most of which were correct. In fact I thought
that her round was a little bit better than just the 10 points she achieved. Still,
I always think that if you can manage at least a double figure round on
specialist it will give you sme kind of chance on GK.
Mind you, Pippa’s chances looked slightly less good after
George Scratcherd posted 12 on The Wines of Portugal. Don’t think for one
minute that’s any kind of soft or easy subject either. I remember my own first
round heat in 2007. A vey nice guy called Tim Vick in my heat answered n German
wines. He knew his subject really well, but so wide was the subject that he
only scored 9 – at that time scores of mid teens were really not uncommon. So
George’s round was a very fine performance indeed.
Which left Katie Williams to complete the first half with
her round on perennial sitcom favourite Only Fools and Horses. Okay, shall we
get it out of the way then? The first question asked the name of the actor who
played Grandad, before he passed away. Other than that it seemed to me that all
of the questions were about details of the shows themselves – again. I’ve
stated my views on this already , so if I can pay a backhanded compliment, at
least you can say that the question sets for works of fiction are consistent
with each other if nothing else. I do still wish they’d be a little more wide
ranging though. Katie achieved a respectable total of 9.
Simon kicked off the GK round, and he started rather well.
He wasn’t answering extremely quickly, but he was answering accurately for the
most part. And then, mid round, he wasn’t so much, and was taking a long time
to dredge up the answers, not all of which were correct. He pulled his round
back on track to finish with 11 for a very respectable total of 20. In all
honesty though it really didn’t look like a winning one.
Katie adopted a tactic of – if you know it then answer it,
if you don’t then pass quickly. It is a valid tactic, and meant that she could
match her respectable 9 on specialist with another respectable 9 on GK. But
tonight, as was to become clear, respectability was never going to be good
enough.
Pippa returned to the chair, and produced a fine, fine GK
round. I don’t know her quiz background, but she did extremely well with a wide
ranging set of questions, and was answering as quickly and smoothly at the end
of the round as she had been at the start. Fifteen is a very good GK score in
this day and age. I don’t know if Pippa is a regular quizzer – but she certainly
answered like one.
Now, I don’t care who you are. However calm you may feel
sitting down to your round, when you’re faced with a target of 14 for an
outright win, or 13 and no passes to earn the right to a tie break, you are
going to have to walk through the corridor of doubt before you get there. If
George did feel nervous, though, he certainly didn’t show it. No, he didn’t do
quite as well as Pippa did, accruing 2 passes, and 14 correct answers. It was
still a bloody good round though, and let’s not forget – Mastermind is a game
of 2 rounds, not just one.
So, a deserved win for George. In his filmed insert he concentrated
on talking about his subject and didn’t mention his quiz pedigree. All I can
say though is judging by this performance – which is all I have to go on – he looks
like a contender. Spare a thought for Pippa as well. Her score would have won
both of the two previous heats. Them’s the breaks, but it's hard.
The Details
|
Simon Durrant |
Offa’s Dyke Path |
9 |
3 |
11 |
3 |
20 |
6 |
|
Pippa Smith |
The Life and Work of
John Cage |
10 |
0 |
15 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
|
George Scratcherd |
The Wines of Portugal |
12 |
0 |
14 |
2 |
26 |
2 |
|
Katie Williams |
Only Fools and Horses |
9 |
2 |
9 |
5 |
18 |
7 |
2 comments:
Here's something I'm quite curious about - how exactly do they determine if you're too close to your specialist subject to do it?
You mentioned in a previous post that as an English teacher, you weren't allowed to do authors or books because you were an English teacher. But George was allowed to do the wines of Portugal even though he ran the wine-tasting society at University - I would have thought that was a similar conflict of interest? I had similar thoughts a couple of weeks ago, when Joe Andrew won on Emily Wilding Davison, and in his filmed insert he revealed that his wife's grandmother was a Suffragette who very possibly knew Davison personally. Obviously quite a historical family connection, but still a family connection - I wonder if that caused any conflict of interest?
Maybe they've just changed the rules. I'm not especially keen on strict rules about conflicts of interest because they're difficult to enforce consistently, and choosing something relating to your work or family doesn't provide that much of an advantage if all four contestants are potentially allowed to do that.
I don't think that the rule about being too close to your specialist subject was about people having an advantage. It was much more about preventing professional embarrassment, with a solicitor failing on something to do with English Law being the example.
Are we really saying that someone running a wine-tasting society is too close? I also run a wine-tasting group and have twice answered questions on wine-related subjects. At the end of the day, it is only my hobby and not a career. What about a supporter of a football club answering questions about their team? Unless all specialist subjects are going to need to be learned from scratch, which would be practically unenforceable, the present situation seems to be about right to me.
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