Mastermind 2024 first round heat 17

Well, there it is. The last first round heat before Christmas. I didn’t hold out much hope for a reasonable score on specialist aggregate, as you’ll know if you read my preview.

First off we had my supposed ‘banker’ subject, Meat Loaf, offered to us by Thomas Roebuck. I will be honest, I was surprised to get 3 of these. Oh. Don’t get me wrong, I was delighted as well. I doubt that Thomas would have been delighted if he’d only got three. So it was probably just as well that he got a highly respectable 8. It’s a funny score in this era of the show, is 8. 15 years ago that would have put you out of it at half time in most contests, but now it’s certainly competitive and gives you a springboard for the GK round.

Our second contender last night was recidivist Helen Lippell, who played in the first rounds of both 2016 and 2020. She is also an alumnus of Only Connect. So I had no doubt that the black chair would not affect her nerves at all. This was well founded. Answering on Grinling Gibbons Helen produced a first class specialist round, amassing 12 points. I was delighted to get 4 on this round myself – I wouldn’t claim to know a lot about Gibbons, but I do know quite a bit about that period in London.

Sian Bladon was answering on cricket, specifically England Women’s Cricket in the 21^st century. Now, we saw last week that if you take a subject like this with quite a small subject area, the setters are going to expect you to know it inside out, and they’re going to throw more than a few bouncers and doosras at you. I actually got two of these through pure blind luck in guessing countries correctly. I was glad for Sian that she got the last question on the buzzer correct to take her score up to 5.

Finally Jon Phillipson Brown took to the black chair to answer his round on Gerard Manley Hopkins. Well, gentle reader, if you read my preview I speculated how much I would remember after 40 years. The answer was not a lot. I took two. By contrast Jon did exceptionally well. He didn’t quite get to Helen’s 12, but did himself proud by getting 11. Now, the mathematically gifted among us will have worked out that contrary to my Jeremiah-like prediction, I did get my aggregate into double figures, with 11 points.

Not time for us to dwell on that though since the GK round was starting. You know me, I am always impressed when a contender whose SS round has not maybe gone as well as they would have hoped comes back to the chair and gives it a really good lash in the GK. Welcome back Sian Bladon. In cricketing parlance this was a really good example of building an innings. Sian seemed to have decided on the tactic of pass if you don’t have a Scooby, and this meant that she kept her round moving onwards until the beeps. She scored a good 10 to take her total to 15.

Next up was Thomas Roebuck. You know how sometimes I say that a contender’s GK answers lead me to suspect that they are a quizzer? Well, that was the distinct impression that I formed as Thomas built his round of 13 points. This score took him to a total of 21 points. I’ve often banged on in the past about how you need to put your opposition into the corridor of doubt by making the highest score that you possibly can. Well, this was a fine demonstration of just that.

John Phillipson Brown had a go. He needed 11 to go into the outright lead, and 10 with no passes to force a potential tie break. As I say, he gave it a go, but when he made his first pass it meant 10 would not be good enough. He got as far as 9 but time ran out, leaving him a metre or two short of the tape.

Which meant that Helen Lippell would do it if she scored 10 and any number of passes. If she fell short then she had to score 9 points with no passes to force a tie break. Well, she did fall short of 10. She did score 9. And . . . she did not pass. Tie break! Thomas went first, and knowing the answers to the questions, I knew that he’d only scored one. As Helen returned I knew after the first three questions that she had won. Hard lines for Thomas, but very well done to you both, and Helen, best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Thomas Roebuck	Meat Loaf	8	0	13	0	21	0	22
Helen Lippell	Grinling Gibbons	12	0	9	0	21	0	25
Sian Bladon	England Women’s Cricket since 2000	5	1	10	4	15	5
Jon Phillipson Brown	The Life and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins	11	0	9	2	20	2