Mastermind 2024 Round 1: Heat 1

This is one of the things that makes the end of the school holidays slightly more palatable, the return of Mastermind. Thankfully they didn’t keep us waiting until the dog end of September his year.

First up in this show, and this series, was Christine McBurney. Christine offered us The Poirot Novels of Agatha Christie. This was my banker subject for this show because while I know very little about Poirot, I know nothing about the other subjects. I was happy to take the ‘give up and go home if you get it wrong’ first question about ze leetle grey cells, and I also guessed another to give me 2. Christine didn’t get them all, but she settled well to her task, and scored 9.

Chas Bedford was answering on the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes. Again, guessing brought me a point – I don’t think that I knew that Calvin was 6, but that was my guess. Chas didn’t have to guess at all. In fact bearing in mind the way that he answered all of the other questions in the round I was most surprised when he passed on one. Even allowing for the pass, Chas equalled then passed Christine’s total, finishing the round with 12,

Sanjay Nath’s specialist subject was Drake. Neither Francis, nor Charlie, but apparently a popular musician. That’s Drake, not Sanjay Nath, who is a junior doctor. I applaud him for finding the time to apply for Mastermind – it was difficult enough doing this as a teacher all those years ago. Sadly, Sanjay was the first of this season’s contenders to have ‘one of those’ rounds. I’ve no doubt that he knows his stuff, but sadly he only managed to answer four questions correctly. I guessed one, which gave me an aggregate specialist score of five. Five more than I might have had, I might add.

So it fell to Ruth Hart to take us up to half time with Red Clydeside. No, that does not mean Sauchihall Street on a particularly raucous Friday night at chucking out time. I have half a mind that it was a specialist subject in the 2007 SOBM, but I may be mistaken. Ruth wasn’t though. She was more than up to the task of answering about this particular period of Glasgow History, and like Chas she ran up a fine score of 12. I ran up a not so impressive score of zilch on this round.

With all due respect to Sanjay this left us with three contenders in with a shout of a place in the semis. However, it was Sanjay who returned to the chair first. I’m glad that he got the 6 he needed to get to double figures. We’ve discussed this in the past, haven’t we, but the fact is that people who probably should do better can be very quick to make assumptions based on a modest score in Mastermind. Which is nonsense, when you consider that Sanjay is a doctor. Most accurate thing to say? He had one of those nights.

So, sitting behind the two front runners at the halfway stage we had Christine McBurney. With three to make up she needed to go some to set a challenging total, and I’d say she just about managed it. I didn’t think that Christine was answering as quickly as I like to see, but she was getting her fair share of them right. In the end she scored ten, which is good, but if she’d scored one more she would have set the psychologically more dauting total of twenty.

Chances were, then, that at least one of our remaining two contenders would score the 8 that they needed to overtake Christine. I’ve been watching the World Athletics Championships so I can’t resist saying that our next contender, Chas, faced the bell neck and neck with Ruth. Would he have the finishing kick? Well, again, his round wasn’t bad. The first minute and a half or so it was looking very good. However a few questions after this seemed to rob him of half a yard of pace. 11 for 23 set a challenging target, but it was not guaranteed this would be ood enough.

Ruth knew that if she crossed the line in the same time as Chas, then she would get the nod by virtue of not having passed. However, this would prove to be irrelevant to the result, since Ruth went on to provide clearly the best GK round of the show. She put on an extremely good 14, impressive in the breadth of subjects she knew about, and the calm composure she maintained throughout it. Very well done to you. Ruth spoke movingly about her late father, with whom she used to watch the show, and how proud he would have been. Well, on this performance, Ruth, it’s quite possible you may give him even more to be proud of. Best of luck to you.

Christine McBurney	The Poirot Novels of Agatha Christie	9	0	10	0	19	0
Chas Bedford	Calvin and Hobbes	12	1	11	3	23	4
Sanjay Nath	Drake	4	1	6	2	10	3
Ruth Hart	Red Clydeside	12	0	14	0	26	0