Yeah, late again. Sorry about that. I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes you’re just so tired in an evening that you’re best to admit defeat, not force it, and come to it with a fresh mind the next day. Enough of such things.
The first into the chair last night was Bob Teasdale. Bob
was answering on the folk musician Richard Thompson. I can’t claim any
familiarity with him but I did recognise he names of a lot of people he’d
worked with and a lot of tracks he played on. Only a despairing guess on the
last question concerning Britney Spears did I scrape a point. Bob did better –
we can all be grateful for that. He scored 8 and no passes. It’s a strange
score, is 8, in as much as it’s still an achievement which displays your knowledge,
but it’s likely to be beaten, and by a couple of points at least.
Lisa Wallace was the first to try to beat it. She was
answering on the TV show Ted Lasso. Somehow this show has managed to fly
beneath my radar and other than a vague recollection of having heard the name
before I knew nothing about it, as proven by my pathetic nul points. Lisa, by
contrast, delivered a wonderful round, hardly faltering at all, never passing
and accruing an excellent 12 points in the process. Beat that!
Well, Jane Hill certainly had a go. Jane joins a select
band of hardy masterminders who appeared in the original Magnus era, and have
now appeared in the revived show. She was answering on the life and works of
Joan Didion. No, I’m not very familiar with Joan Didion and her work at all. I
scraped a couple with guesses. Right up until the last question it looked very
much as if Jane could match Lisa’s score. The last answer let her down though,
and she finished with a fine 11 points.
Krishna Jada closed the first round with my ‘banker’
subject, the early life of Gandhi. I call it my banker subject, but that’s only
because I though I might scrape a couple of points – which I did – whereas I
didn’t fancy my chances of getting any on the other three subjects. This was
another fine round. Krishna was thoroughly prepared for anything that Clive
threw at him, answering quickly, precisely and above all correctly. He too
scored 12 and no passes.
General knowledge then. Bob Teasdale had found himself in
last place at half time despite having had a pretty good specialist. This
didn’t seem to both him. He accrued 10 points and had 3 or 4 questions left,
and these were what might have raised a good round to the status of a great
round. Sadly he passed on most and ended with the 10. A good performance, but
surely one of the others would be able to beat his 18 bearing in mind that they
each had several points head start.
Thinking about it, Jane Hill’s GK round was like Bob’s in
reverse. He start wasn’t quite as good as she would have liked, but once she
got into her stride there was no stopping her. Her momentum built, encouraging
Clive to ask more and more quickly. In the end she’d accrued a brilliant 14, to
raise the target to 25. Not a 100% guaranteed winning score, but a score that
would prove a considerable challenge to everyone.
It was a score that Lisa Wallace couldn’t match. Maybe it
was nerves in the chair, or maybe the questions just didn’t fall her way but it
was pretty clear from quite early n that she was not going to get there. It
happens – as we often say SIJNYR (Sometimes it’s just not your night). Lisa
finished with a total of 17.
Which just left Krishna. Much the same as with Lisa’s
round, it became clear as the tound went on that he was going to fall short.
Oh, he gave it a fair old lash, alright, passing quickly to try to move the
round along, but for him too it was a case of SIJNYR. It happens. Take a bit of
time to reflect, enjoy that you’ve been part of the experience and, if you
want, decide if you want to try again in the future.
Well done to Jane. Last time out in the Magnus era she was
a semi finalist. She’d like to go one better this time. Well, Jane, if you can
produce GK like that you’ll always be in with a shout. I wish you the best of
luck.
|
Bob Teasdale |
The Folk musician
Richard Thompson |
8 |
0 |
10 |
4 |
18 |
4 |
|
Lisa Wallace |
Ted Lasso |
12 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
|
Jane Hill |
The Life and Works of
Joan Didion |
11 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
|
Krishna Jada |
The early life of
Gandhi |
12 |
0 |
7 |
4 |
19 |
4 |
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