Well, I know what you’ve been worrying about, dearly beloved. Did I manage to get any points on the specialists at all? In the words of the Duke of Wellington himself, it was a damn close run thing. No points on the three subjects offered by our first three contenders, but . . . well, a general knowledge of Hollywood and a guess or two brought me three points on Gene Tierney – I’m perfectly happy to take the money and run with that for tonight.
As for the contenders, well, the contest kicked off with
Gordon Rogers’ round on Creation Records. Now, I think I mentioned this in last
week’s review. You have to know your subject to get as many as 7 points which
is what Gordon managed to do. So nothing to be ashamed of there. But as a score
it does leave you with quite a lot to do and you are vulnerable to other
contenders who don’t just know their subjects, but know them inside out, up and
down and any which way you want to put it.
It looked as if Naomi Liddle might well turn out to be just
such a contender – certainly for the first minute of her round on the X Files.
A couple of questions in the second minute just robbed her of a little momentum
and in the end she just fell a tiny bit short of double figures. Nonetheless,
in the current era a score of 9 is going to leave you well in contention when
the half time oranges are brought out.
Lewis Sinclair’s round was like a mirror image of Naomi’s.
Answering on the Waterloo Campaign, it was his first minute that was less
impressive while a storming comeback in the 2nd minute brought him
right up to his own 9 points. Again, his fate in the show would be in his own
hands in the GK round.
Finishing the round of specialists was retired civil
servant Matin Whitelegge, who thankfully had opted to answer on Gene Tierney.
No, they didn’t ask about the song “24 Hours from Tulsa” since that was Gene
Pitney. Like Naomi and Lewis before him, Martin impressed with his knowledge of
the subject without quite managing to nail down a double figure score. Like the
two aforementioned contenders he too took just the one pass. Were we,
perchance, on the road to another tiebreak?
You have to feel a little sorry for Gordon Rogers. It’s
quite a lonely place when you’re returning to the chair 2 points adrift of 3rd
place, especially when GK is not necessarily your
strongest round. He struggled manfully picking off what he could and in the end
he finished with a total of 13.
Naomi Liddle, on the other hand, did very well on her
return to the chair. We’d been close to a double figure score in three of the
specialists and now Naomi supplied one, then adding another GK point for 11 and a
total of 20. Whatever happened in the rest of the show, she’d earned a score
which would have won several of the other heats. Is that a comfort ? Well, I
didn’t think so in 2006 when I was on the wrong end of it, but enough of such
things for now.
I have to say that I really enjoyed Lewis Sinclair’s
General Knowledge round. You watch these rounds, and you see a contender start
to build up a good score, and you’re always a little worried that they’re going
to run out of steam and tail off a bit. Lewis didn’t. After a minute he looked
likely to beat the target and after two minutes he almost had. After two and a
half minutes he’d scored a very fine 13 to set the target at 22.
It would have been tempting fate to suggest that Martin
might have given us a third consecutive double figure round. Whether he had
been affected by the two preceding rounds I don’t know, but he never really got
into his stride and added 7 to finish with 16.
Well done Lewis! Scores in the teens on a single round have
been pretty sparse in the series so far. So thank you very much for that. I do
wish you every success in the semi-finals – with GK like that you’re always
going to be in with a shout. Very hard lines to Naomi. Take heart from a good
performance and the knowledge that you were good enough to have won quite a few of the other heats.
The Details
|
Gordon Rogers |
Creation Records |
7 |
1 |
6 |
1 |
13 |
2 |
|
Naomi Liddle |
The X Files |
9 |
1 |
11 |
2 |
20 |
3 |
|
Lewis Sinclair |
The Waterloo Campaign |
9 |
1 |
13 |
0 |
22 |
1 |
|
Martin Whitelegge |
Gene Tierney |
9 |
1 |
7 |
3 |
16 |
4 |
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