Mastermind 2024 First Round Heat 18

Happy New Year to you. I was very happy last night when Quizzy Monday returned last night – it kind of crept up on me, which is why there was no preview from me last Sunday. Excuses, excuses.

The dubious honour of being the first contender of 2024 then fell to Tom Adlam, who was answering on British Garden Birds. You know, about a quarter of a century ago a setter for one of the teams in the much missed Neath Quiz League set some questions once on the latin names of some common British birds. So, after that I set out to learn about 2 dozen of the most well-known. I did think that this might have stood me in good stead for Tom’s round. Nope. I was lucky to get one. Judging by the way he answered his questions there was no luck involved in Tom’s round whatsoever. . . He knew his stuff inside out. In fact, to me it was a better round than 11, and he was unlucky not to get into a dozen. A great round.

Had I made a preview of last night’s show then I would have said that Hayley Rowley’s subject, The Big Bang Theory, was my banker. Indeed, I managed four. I’d say I was in the position of a huge fan of the show, who goes on Mastermind having just maybe watched some of the shows again but not having done any serious revision. I’ve no doubt Hayley had prepared hard in order to get her respectable 7. But the thing is that there was just so much of it to learn. 279 episodes to be precise (I looked it up). Being four behind at half time is not insurmountable, but it really is quite an ask.

I remember Ian Hislop on the very first series of Who the ‘Ell Are You? (which I believe was the working title for the Beeb’s premier celebrity genealogy show). His mum, I think, was on Jersey during the occupation. Third contender Oliver Wilderspoon was offering us the German Occupation of the Channel Islands as his specialist subject. For me this was another of those rounds that should come with a Government health warning printed on the side. In big letters. Basically, anything and everything concerned with the Channel Islands between 1940 and 1945 was fair game, and it seemed to me that they rather threw the kitchen sink at Oliver. After a bit of a stuttering start he rallied well, and finished with his own respectable 7.

Finally then Akin Yilmaz. Akin was answering on the films of Orson Welles, a subject that brought me 2 points to take my aggregate to 7. One of my favourite stories I once heard Welles tell was when he explained that he once met William Randolph Hearst just before the premiere of Citizen Kane, and gave him a ticket. Unsurprisingly Hearst did not attend. Which led Welles to say that this was proof that Kane was not Hearst, because Charles Foster Kane would have come to the premiere. It really was not Akin’s night and he scored 2.

Sadly, it continued not to be Akin’s night in his GK round. To me he looked rather shell shocked in the chair. It’s not surprising since he’d had precious little time to gather himself after his specialist. He finished with a total of 6 points, to prove the old adage that sometimes when it’s not your night, then it’s really not your night.

So to Hayley. She was in the position of needing a big enough score to force the leader to have to traverse the corridor of doubt. I liked the way that she set out her stall to provide answers to every question. If you have the presence of mind to do it then you can end up with a couple of your wild guesses romping home into the winner’s enclosure. I don’t think that this happened with Hayley. She scored a battling seven, and while this was not going to be enough for a win, at least it gave her the satisfaction that she had done the best she could with the set of questions that she’d been given.

In the current era of the show when it comes to first round General Knowledge any double figure score is a good one. So I was delighted for Oliver Wilderspoon that this was exactly what he achieved. You know, you can always improve on your Specialist score, by changing our revision strategy, and picking a subject more conducive to a paid fire round of questions. There are no quick fixes for GK though. So I often feel that someone like Oliver is a decent shout for a return at some time in the future. As it was he set the target at 17.

This meant that a score of 6 and up to three passes was going to be enough for Tom. Well, we have seen a few contenders implode when faced with a similar prospect over the years, but I never thought that this was likely to happen with Tom, bearing in mind the way he handled his specialist round. Indeed, Tom would provide the best GK round of the night, adding 11 and 4 passes to his total, to reach the semi final with a score of 22. Well played there, sir. Happy New Year, and best of luck in the semi finals.

Tom Adlam	British Garden Birds	11	0	11	4	22	6
Hayley Rowley	The Big Bang Theory	7	0	7	0	14	0
Oliver Wilderspoon	The German Occupation of the Channel Islands	7	2	10	2	17	4
Akin Yilmaz	The Films of Orson Welles	2	1	4	4	6	5