Another Monday, and another heat of Mastermind. Not long now until we’re through the heats. Still, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, shall we?
Our first contender was Trevor Abrahams, who was answering
on another Trevor, of the Sir Trevor McDonald variety. Now, if you read my
doom-laden forecast at the weekend, then you’ll know that I really wasn’t
expecting much here. So you can imagine my surprise to find that I knew quite a
bit more about Sir Trevor than I thought. In fact I got I’ve of these through a
combination of a wee bit of knowledge and a lot of decent guesswork, and five
is more than I thought I’d get for all of the specialist rounds put together.
You can almost say the same about Rob Price’s round on
Leeds Utd. I did say in the preview that I knew a wee bit about the Don Revie
era, and indeed this was enough to bring me 4 points. Two rounds down and the
aggregate already stood at 9. Rob was caught by one or two questions that
robbed him of a little momentum at crucial points in the round. Having said
that though he still took enough to overhaul Trevor’s lead and score 8.
This was followed by Sharon Reading’s round. Sharon is the
very best type of teacher . . . (drumroll please) . a former one! I currently
have 115 teaching days left until retirement. You can work out what exactly the
fact that I know the precise number means. I knew little about Myrna Loy,
although what I did know picked me up 2 more points, but somehow judging by
what was asked about her she seems to have been something of an all round good
egg. Sharon took 7, which at this stage of the game was certainly competitive.
Finally Carol Kermode. She gave her occupation as farmer’s
wife, which led to my daughter spluttering that she didn’t think that’s an
occupation. She bet that Carol does as much farming work as her husband and
should have said her occupation is a farmer. Me? I said nowt, I just wanted to
get on with the questions. And let’s be fair, Carol got on very well with the
questions herself. The History of Cattle is one of those subjects where you’re
pretty sure that nobody would have taken it before. Carole took a good nine to
give her the lead as the half time oranges and the cups of Bovril were being
wheeled out.
Two points separated all 4 contenders so it was a pretty
safe bet that whoever whacked in the best GK round was going to be there or
thereabouts. It certainly looked as if Trevor Abrahams was giving himself a
pretty good shout, with a good round of 11. That could do it – I thought to
myself, and I said as much to Pip. It looked an even better shout as Rob Price
returned and could only add 7 to his own total to end up with 15. Perfectly
respectable, but some way behind the leader.
Sharon then returned, and she needed to equal Trevor’s 11
to go into the lead. She didn’t equal Trevor’s 11. She actually outdid it by
scoring a good 12. This was achieved through keeping her head and finding
answers to every question. It meant that she didn’t go exceptionally quickly
but amassed a challenging total without passing any.
So only Carole could now overhaul Sharon. She needed 10 and
no passes to force another tiebreak, and 11 to win outright. She gave it a try,
no doubt about that. For most of the round it really was too close to call.
Then, with only a couple of questions to go, Carole passed. She ended up with
10, but since Sharon had not incurred any passes in her own round, she lost by
the narrowest of margins.
Well done Sharon! Best of luck in the semi finals.
|
Trevor Abrahams |
Sir Trevor McDonald |
7 |
2 |
11 |
1 |
18 |
1 |
|
Rob Price |
Leeds United Football
Club |
8 |
1 |
7 |
2 |
15 |
3 |
|
Sharon Reading |
Myrna Loy |
7 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
Carol Kermode |
The History of Cattle |
9 |
0 |
10 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
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