Sunday, 19 October 2025

Mastermind 2026 First Round Heat 13

Welcome to Quizzy Tuesday, folks. Yes, blessed be the name  of international football, and even quizzy Monday must make way. Still, at least this week’s Mastermind had probably my biggest banker subject of the whole series so far. I’ll come to that.

First of all though we had Paddy Moore, answering on the films of Billy Wilder. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that Billy Wilder was great and “Some Like It Hot” is still one of my favourite films. But this didn’t bring me many points though. 1 to be precise. I didn’t think they were any easy set at all. Paddy struggled manfully with it, but a relatively modest 6 meant that there was going to be a substantia hill for him to climb in the second half. David Niven told a wonderful story about Billy Wilder. On a trip to Europe his wife had asked him to obtain a bidet. Unable to do so he telegrammed her saying ‘Unable to obtain bidet stop. Suggest handstand in shower stop. “

If you’d suggested to me before the start of the show that I’d earn more points on Neil Diamond than on Billy Wilder then I would have been surprised. But that’s exactly what happened, with me taking 2. Davina Keby-Beck had obviously prepared thoroughly and she sailed through to a double figure score of 10.I took 2 on this and to be honest that’s two more than I had expected. Cracklin’ Rosie, a song apparently about a girl’s unhealthy love of pork scratchings, was one of them.

Yes, my banker for the night – and possibly for the whole of this series, was the Apollo Space Program, which was offered by Anjaneya Bapat. I scored 9 on this round, which incidentally is the same score that Anjaneya achieved. We didn’t get all of the same questions mind you. I had that Ed White, killed in the tragic Apollo 1 capsule fire, was the first American to walk in space – and if I’m honest I thought that was one of the easier questions. But then Anjaneya got a hard one I didn’t so fair’s fair.

Richard Carr brought the round to an end with his specialist set on the Battle of Normandy. Fair play, he knew his stuff. I used to take parties of schoolchildren to Normandy every year, and learned a fair bit about the Normandy campaign during these trips. People think that once D Day had happened the war in Europe was virtually all over bar the shouting, but this wasn’t the case at all, and the Battle of Normandy saw some of the hardest fighting at any time in any theatre of the war. Richard’s knowledge was certainly up to the demands of the task and he top scored with an excellent 11.

So to Paddy Moore fell the daunting task of returning to the chair after seeing the lead set at a score five points higher than what he had achieved in his specialist. And fair play, he really gave it a good old lash. Paddy added 12 to his score for a total of 18. In my heart of hearts I did not think it would quite be enough, but nonetheless it was a great effort.

Anjaneya could not match it. Mind you, he didn’t have to match it exactly. He was three points to the good after the specialists and thus needed 9 and 2 passes for the outright lead. Well, he did only take two passes. Sadly though he only managed a perfectly respectable 8 correct answers.

Davina Kesby-Beck was a further point ahead with 10 on the specialist round, and this meant that if she could match Anjaneya’s GK performance then she would go into the lead. Well, shebettered Anjaneya in one way, managing to answer every question and thus not incur any passes. Sadly though only 7 of these answers were correct. This meant that she too finished with 17, a respectable score but not a winning one.

So, only Richard remained. I think that either he had decided beforehand that passin rather than guessing was his preferred option. Either that or he opted for the tactic on the hoof as the round progressed. It was getting pretty late on and he still hadn’t reached the target. A late rally, though was enough to see him over the line and to put daylight between himself and the trailing pack.

Well, done Richard, best of luck to you in the semi finals. As for Mastermind, well, I’ll see you on Monday, where you belong.

The Details

Paddy Moore

The Films of Billy Wilder

6

2

12

1

18

3

Davina Kesby-Beck

Neil Diamond

10

0

7

0

17

0

Anjaneya Bapat

The Apollo Space Program

9

0

8

2

17

2

Richard Carr

The Battle of Normandy

11

0

9

6

20

6

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