Yes, I had a lovely holiday, thanks for asking. No time for that, though, since there’s last week’s quizzes to review. Calling a spade a spade we’ve seen much honest toil in the last few weeks, but little to inspire. I sat down this morning to watch last Monday’s Mastermind, with my fingers crossed that we might see just a bit of quality this time. Well, Paul Robinson’s opening round on Roxy Music boded well. I quite liked a bit of Roxy in the 70s but I only had the gimme question at the start of the round correct. Paul had 12. That’s even more impressive when you consider that it was a full house of 12 points from 12 questions.
Elizabeth Howard, our second contender, was answering on
Marc Chagall. You know, old Clive does have a habit of saying the only bit of
information I possess on a subject in his introduction, and this he did giving
Chagall’s country of birth. Surprisingly I did guess one of the answers
correctly, but that was it for me. Judging by Elizabeth’s reactions to some of
the questions I would think she had several questions where she knew that she
knew the answers but just couldn’t dredge them up and force them past the tip
of her tongue. She scored 6. It’s not a disaster, but it’s relatively modest
and meant she was out of contention to all intents and purposes.
Atyab Rashid was answering on George Herbert. Now, that
name may sound like a 20th century Trade Union leader, but he was
actually one of the Metaphysical Poets of the early decades of the 17th
century. Beats working for a living, I suppose. When it comes to the
metaphysicals, if it ain’t John Donne I don’t really know it and I was lucky to
get 1 on this round. Atyab started really well, but found the round to be
tougher and tougher as it developed. By the end of the round he, like
Elizabeth, had scored 6.
I suppose that there might be some grumbling about the
subject offered by Sophie Williamson – the first Tomb Raider video games. Well,
basically, get over it. It’s a perfectly valid subject which actually provided
me with 2 correct answers making it my best specialist performance of the
night. Sophie , like Atyab before her, started very well, but then found the
mistakes creeping in as the round developed. She scored 7. It put her in second
place, but frankly it required a huge stretch of the imagination to see anyone
other than Paul winning.
Bear that in mind, though. For three of the contenders what
remained was the relatively thankless task of a GK round where the challenge
was to deliver rounds with which they could be satisfied. Yes, any of them
could potentially win, but it looked highly unlikely.
Elizabeth was the first. Although memory seemed to fail her
again once or twice she kept on with her task and reached a very respectable
score of 9, to finish with 15. Once again taking his lead from, Elizabeth Atyab
also reached the respectable total of 9 on general knowledge and thus grabbed a
share of the lead as both he and Elizabeth had finished with 15 and 3 passes.
Being realistic Sophie really needed a score in the teens
to give her a chance of holding onto the lead until the end of the contest, and
a GK round in the teens is not easily achieved. As it was her score of 10
points represented a good return.
The plain and simple truth of the matter though is that
Paul needed only 6 correct answers for an outright win, and by the simple
expedient of answering what he knew, guessing what he didn’t and passing when
he couldn’t guess he passed the target early doors and went on to take his
total to 25, one of the best scores we’ve seen for a pretty long time. Paul,
for this I thank you sincerely. I respect all contenders and what they achieve,
but I do like to see someone grab a contest by the scruff of the neck and give
it a darn good seeing to.
In his piece to camera during the end credit Paul thanked
his family for helping him to prepare for the GK rounds. Folks – if you’re
thinking of entering, for your own good pay heed. Nothing guarantees success,
but preparation brings you the best chance that you’re going to get. Well done
sir. I hope that you can keep it up during the semis.
The Details
|
Paul Robinson |
Roxy Music |
12 |
0 |
13 |
3 |
25 |
3 |
|
Elizabeth Howard |
Marc Chagall |
6 |
2 |
9 |
1 |
15 |
3 |
|
Atyab Rashid |
George Herbert |
6 |
0 |
9 |
3 |
15 |
3 |
|
Sophie Williamson |
The original Tomb
Raider video games |
7 |
1 |
10 |
2 |
17 |
2 |
