Well, well. What a difference a week can make. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll explain that shortly.
Let’s start with Rob Jones then. It only seems fair given
that he was first to go. Rob was offering a man Clive described as one of the best selling recording artists of
all time. I make no bones about it, I like Billy Joel. Which is probably why I
managed to get the first three questions right because they were all about
songs I know pretty well. I got one more by the end of the round. Which all
pales into insignificance alongside Rob’s excellent 12. Game on.
Martin Hoskins was answering questions on my four times
great grandfather’s mate, the artist JMW Turner. Much as I love Turner, who is
my favourite British artist, I wasn’t expecting to get many points on this and
was delighted to get two, even if one of them was the gimme about The Fighting
Temeraire. Martin had a bit of a stumbling star which meat he was playing catch
up for the rest of the round. He rallied well to score 8, but at four points
behind it was looking like a tall order.
Amy Roberts was answering on the BBC sitcom, known amongst
some members of my family as Large Lady Falling Over A Lot. You may know it as Miranda.
You may know it but I don’t, never having watched it. A pure guess at Waitrose
won me an unexpected point to just about keep the pot boiling. Amy scored
double figures, 10 points that put her two in front of Martin and 2 behind Rob.
Finally teacher Steve Barnes came to the chair. Talk about
feeling conflicted! Yes, being a teacher of course he had the right to expect
my support. On the other hand he was the captain of the Southampton team that
thrashed Goldsmiths, my alma mater, in 2018 University Challenge. I forgive him
for that. Not the least because his subject, Antoine Lavoisier, earned me three
unexpected points to take me to a double figure aggregate of 10. What a difference a week makes. Steve took 11
on these on a subject he’d obviously prepared really well.
So it was Martin who returned first to the chair. And in
his own quiet, unshowy way, he really started to rack up the points. By the end
of the round he’d put on an extremely good fourteen points. Suddenly all bets
were off. Even Rob would need to score double figures to beat him. In such a
way was the door to the corridor of doubt opened for the three contenders still
to come.
Amy couldn’t quite find her way through it. She amassed 8
points, which I’d say is a decent score for a member of the general public who
doesn’t have a huge background in quizzing. Well, that was the impression I
formed judging by the questions she answered and those she didn’t.
Steve Barnes has a quiz background, judging by his appearances
on University Challenge. I think he must have misheard his first question about
lugs and lugholes, since he seemed completely flummoxed for a couple of
seconds. Nonetheless he managed to put it behind him and he powered on to 11
points. This meant that he too had 22, but no passes, putting him in pole
position, and meaning that Rob needed 11 to win outright.
Well, to cut a long story short, Rob scored 12. What was
impressive about this was that although it wasn’t as impressive a GK round as
Martin’s, he never let a wrong answer rob him of all of his momentum. I found
myself that you have to ignore your wrong answers and trust that you will get
there if you just keep answering. That’s what Rob did.
Well done sir. A good all round performance. Best of luck
in the semi finals.
The Details
|
Rob Jones |
Billy Jones |
12 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
|
Martin Hoskins |
JMW Turner |
8 |
1 |
14 |
1 |
22 |
2 |
|
Amy Roberts |
The BBC sitcom Miranda |
10 |
2 |
8 |
3 |
18 |
5 |
|
Steve Barnes |
Antoine Lavoisier |
11 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
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