As far as I know none of my colleagues at work are quizzers. However this doesn’t mean that none of them ever play in pub quizzes on the odd occasion, and from time to time they’ll tell me about playing in a quiz, and how they got on. Such an occasion happened this week, when a colleague and friend of mine told me how she and a couple of friends had played in a quiz in their local this week just for the hell of it. This was a quiz where the evening’s entertainment consists of a main quiz, and then a seperate short set of questions for a seperate jackpot. My friend told me that they had all of the jackpot questions right until they were faced with this last one for the prize,
“Rattus Norvegicus was the title of which group’s first album in 1977 ? “
They had written down the correct answer, which was “The Stranglers”, then in a crisis of confidence had scrubbed it out and written “The Damned” instead. To which I replied with the sage observation that you should never change your first answer. She favoured me with an old fashioned look , and said ,
“Are you trying to tell me that you actually have tactics for playing in a quiz ? !”
This set me thinking, and this is what I really want to discuss today. On serious reflection I’m not sure that you can make out a watertight case that tactical thinking plays any serious part in playing in a quiz. However there is a whole arcane lore about quizzing which I think that we all learn by a form of osmosis in our first couple of years of campaigning, which I suppose might amount to tactical thinking. Lets have a look at what I mean.
1) Always stick with your first answer.
This is an almost universal truth which most quizzers hold to be self evident. Except that there is actually no proof that first answers are more often correct in cases of doubt. I think that it works like this. If you’re asked a question you don’t know the answer to, and you haven’t got a clue, well that’s just the way it is. You can accept that and move on. If you come up with half a dozen options, and don’t write the correct one down, well, that’s just bad luck, and again you can get over it quickly enough. But if you have actually written the correct answer down, and then rubbed it out and changed it, then the mental anguish of knowing you should have just left well enough alone is killing.
Of course, this doesn’t take into account the number of times that you will change an incorrect answer for a correct one. When that happens you just tend to take it in your stride . Personally I would imagine that the half the time you change an answer it will be for the better, and half for the worst.
2) Play the man and not the ball
If you’ve been with me since last year you’ll maybe remember a set of posts I wrote called “The Question Master is Always Right. “ In the preamble to this I stated that there is a sizeable body of questions out there where the answer a question master will ususally give is actually incorrect. This is because the question has a very difficult correct answer, and a more widely held answer which is actually wrong. After a while you come to recognise these questions, and when they come up , to weigh up whether the question master is the sort of person to actually know the correct answer. If in any doubt whatsoever, then put the popular answer down. Nine times out of ten this will bring you the points ( and the pints. )
3) The Question Master is always right
I throw this one in since I mentioned it in the previous question. Its not exactly anything to do with tactical thinking, but it is a time honoured piece of quizzing lore ( and law for that matter ) . Most of the time there is absolutely no point in arguing with a question master, since he is not going to change the answer he has written down in front of him just because you say so. Which really begs the question why so many of us, and I include myself in this, bother to do so.
4) If in any doubt, play the percentages
Even if you reach an exalted station in the firmament of quizdom, sooner or later you are going to be asked questions you don’t know the answers to. In some case, you won’t have a Scooby Doo, and will just have to guess off the top of your head. However in others there will be a stock answer which will be right more often than its wrong, and so you put it down, even though you have no idea whether its right or wrong. You write it down, because you’ll look stupid if it is the correct answer, and you haven’t put it. This is called playing the percentages. For example : -
If its a question about a TV chef/cook, and a book – then Delia Smith is a decent shout. She’ll be right far more often than she’s wrong – and unless you KNOW its not her, then you should put the answer down.
If its a question about which actor played a particular part in a British drama TV series, then put down James Nesbitt. He seems to be in everything these days. This may sound flippant, but its a tactic I use a lot myself, and to be fair to Mr. Yellow Pages, he hardly ever lets me down. –
And so on.
5) Its first names for show, but surnames for dough
Yes, its all very well knowing that Faraday’s name was Michael when you’re asked to name the British inventor of the electric motor – but is it necessary ? Its a general rule in quizzing that unless the question master specifically asks you for first and surnames, then the surname alone is sufficient. Putting down the first name as well may even lead to you getting marked wrong if you’re mistaken about the first name, even if you have the surname right.
6) If its a multiple choice question, and you don’t know the answer, then its B –
Unless you’re given 4 choices in which case its C. Alright, this won’t always be true, but it does actually hold water as a theory. For more causal, and less experienced quiz setters its very common to fight shy of giving the correct option as the first or last option. If you only have 3 options, then this helpfully narrows it down to the second option for you.
7) The first time in a quiz the question master asks if something is true or false – unless you KNOW differently, its true.
This is similar to the last point, and is a matter of psychology. As such it does apply more to casual or novice question masters. There’s always the question - where would the question master have found this snippet of information, and why would he be asking about it if it wasn’t true ?
8) If you’re playing in a quiz league with a matched pairs format – always take the B questions.
Well, that’s what the teams I played with used to say. However I have heard other teams who consistently opt for the A questions. The thinking behind taking the Bs is that gettin ggood evenly matched pairs of questions is not easy. More often than not the second question will either be easier than the first, or at the very least the answer to the A question will eliminate one of the possiblilities for the B question. That’s the theory. However since normally the questions swap around at half time, I can’t see that it holds much water.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
"Teachers make good quizzers - Discuss . "
After the always hectic build up to, and start of the new school year, I’ve found myself with enough breathing space to read back my most recent posts since returning from Spain. One of the things which strikes me is that almost all of the posts are reviews of TV quizzes. Now, providing this valuable public service is something that we take very seriously at LAM , so I make no apologies about this. However I would hate for you to think that my love for the Great British Pub Quiz has in any way diminished following my Spanish drought. Far from becoming a quiz hermit, I have actually played in 8 quizzes in the three weeks since returning from Alicante. That’s not including the CIU National final, which you can read all about in last week’s post.
For the record, 2 of those have been in Pill Harriers in Newport, 3 in Aberavon Rugby club, 2 in The Duke of Wellington in Cowbridge, and 1 in the Dyffryn Arms in Bryncoch. I have written about all of the first three quizzes in the past. However the Dyffryn Arms is a new one for me. Well, newish. I knew that the pub did its own Sunday evening quiz, and so, on the last Sunday before going on holiday I took my son down there to check it out. We enjoyed it so much that I persuaded John to head west last Sunday, and join me there.
Viewed by any standards I’d say that this was a good quiz. However when you think that its a Sunday evening quiz, and its for the general public, if you have to view it in this light, then its a great quiz. If you’ve been a regular reader for any great length of time you’ll know some of my pets hates in a pub quiz . If you haven’t, then here’s a few of them : -
Rounds of ‘Family Fortunes’ type questions
More than 10% of the whole quiz being made up of pop music questions
More than 20% of the whole quiz being made up of entertainment questions
More than 20% of the whole quiz being made up of questions on any one subject
Rounds where a huge amount of marks are available where in depth knowledge of only one subject is required.
Quizzes where the question master has got more than 2 or 3 answers wrong.
and so on. I'm sure that you get the drift.
Please accept that this is not directed at any one particular question master, quiz compiler or quiz, and its merely my opinion, based on over 2 decades of pub quizzing. I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of people out there who could say that everything on my list is something that they themselves like about a pub quiz. Fair enough, and that’s a valid opinion too. Doubtless there are people out there who would say to me that I have benefitted often in the past from quizzes with a bias towards entertainment questions, or rounds which require in depth knowledge of one subject, and I’m not arguing with that. The only point I’m trying to make is that I just don’t enjoy these things so much. Variety is the spice of life, I think, but you must by all means please feel free to disagree. Quizzing is a broad church. Still, as far as I am concerned, if a quiz doesn’t feature any of these pet hates of mine, then chances are I’m going to think its a good quiz, and I’m going to enoy it. Which is where the Dyffryn Arms comes in.
To give you a little flavour of it, here’s a multiple question from the last round : -
Name the two destinations each of these famous trains link : -
a)The Orient Express – original version
b)The Flying Scotsman
c)The Chattanooga Choo Choo
Now you may very well be sitting in your chair rattling off the answers – well done if you are. But you’ve got to give credit, that’s a more absorbing question than a lot of Sunday night pub quiz fare. For the record , the answers are : -
a)Paris to Istanbul
b)London to Edinburgh
c)Cincinatti to New Orleans ( alright, this one is a little bit dodgy, IMHO . In the SONG the train went from New York to Chattanooga )
As it happens the only prize for the quiz, which featured about 10 teams on Sunday, being extremely well attended, was a bottle of wine. The prize doesn’t come into it though. Consistently the best quiz I go to regularly is possibly the Aberavon Rugby Club . . . which never has a prize.
One final point. The Dyffryn's quiz is one of two halves - 30 questions in the first, and another 20 in the second. Papers are marked twice, in between the first and second halves, and then again at the end of the quiz. After I picked up our paper from the team who marked it, one of them faced me with an accusing eye, and said,
"That's a very high score. I know your secret !"
Oh gawd - I thought. He's either going to accuse us of cheating, or even worse, of taking it all too seriously. I said nothing. He went on -
" You must all be teachers !"
All I could think was that he has obviously never been in my staff room when I'm road testing a set of questions for the rugby club, if he thinks that all teachers are automatically brilliant quizzers.
For the record, 2 of those have been in Pill Harriers in Newport, 3 in Aberavon Rugby club, 2 in The Duke of Wellington in Cowbridge, and 1 in the Dyffryn Arms in Bryncoch. I have written about all of the first three quizzes in the past. However the Dyffryn Arms is a new one for me. Well, newish. I knew that the pub did its own Sunday evening quiz, and so, on the last Sunday before going on holiday I took my son down there to check it out. We enjoyed it so much that I persuaded John to head west last Sunday, and join me there.
Viewed by any standards I’d say that this was a good quiz. However when you think that its a Sunday evening quiz, and its for the general public, if you have to view it in this light, then its a great quiz. If you’ve been a regular reader for any great length of time you’ll know some of my pets hates in a pub quiz . If you haven’t, then here’s a few of them : -
Rounds of ‘Family Fortunes’ type questions
More than 10% of the whole quiz being made up of pop music questions
More than 20% of the whole quiz being made up of entertainment questions
More than 20% of the whole quiz being made up of questions on any one subject
Rounds where a huge amount of marks are available where in depth knowledge of only one subject is required.
Quizzes where the question master has got more than 2 or 3 answers wrong.
and so on. I'm sure that you get the drift.
Please accept that this is not directed at any one particular question master, quiz compiler or quiz, and its merely my opinion, based on over 2 decades of pub quizzing. I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of people out there who could say that everything on my list is something that they themselves like about a pub quiz. Fair enough, and that’s a valid opinion too. Doubtless there are people out there who would say to me that I have benefitted often in the past from quizzes with a bias towards entertainment questions, or rounds which require in depth knowledge of one subject, and I’m not arguing with that. The only point I’m trying to make is that I just don’t enjoy these things so much. Variety is the spice of life, I think, but you must by all means please feel free to disagree. Quizzing is a broad church. Still, as far as I am concerned, if a quiz doesn’t feature any of these pet hates of mine, then chances are I’m going to think its a good quiz, and I’m going to enoy it. Which is where the Dyffryn Arms comes in.
To give you a little flavour of it, here’s a multiple question from the last round : -
Name the two destinations each of these famous trains link : -
a)The Orient Express – original version
b)The Flying Scotsman
c)The Chattanooga Choo Choo
Now you may very well be sitting in your chair rattling off the answers – well done if you are. But you’ve got to give credit, that’s a more absorbing question than a lot of Sunday night pub quiz fare. For the record , the answers are : -
a)Paris to Istanbul
b)London to Edinburgh
c)Cincinatti to New Orleans ( alright, this one is a little bit dodgy, IMHO . In the SONG the train went from New York to Chattanooga )
As it happens the only prize for the quiz, which featured about 10 teams on Sunday, being extremely well attended, was a bottle of wine. The prize doesn’t come into it though. Consistently the best quiz I go to regularly is possibly the Aberavon Rugby Club . . . which never has a prize.
One final point. The Dyffryn's quiz is one of two halves - 30 questions in the first, and another 20 in the second. Papers are marked twice, in between the first and second halves, and then again at the end of the quiz. After I picked up our paper from the team who marked it, one of them faced me with an accusing eye, and said,
"That's a very high score. I know your secret !"
Oh gawd - I thought. He's either going to accuse us of cheating, or even worse, of taking it all too seriously. I said nothing. He went on -
" You must all be teachers !"
All I could think was that he has obviously never been in my staff room when I'm road testing a set of questions for the rugby club, if he thinks that all teachers are automatically brilliant quizzers.
TV Watch - University Challenge
University Challenge - First Round Heat 10 - St. John's College Oxford v. Durham University
One of the endearing idiosyncrasies of University Challenge is that not all collegiate universities compete as individual colleges. Durham take part as one team from the university, and while you can applaud this in many ways, you can't help wondering if perhaps they are putting all their eggs in one basket. Well, time would tell.
I'm pleased to report that this week all the competitors favoured us with both their first name and their surname. So off we went. St. John's claimed first blood, snatching up the first starter and bonuses. And the next. And the next. I was particularly tickled by the set of bonuses on 19th century novels with a political flavour. Alas, St. John's failed to correctly answer the question about who wrote the Palisser novels, thus proving they don't know a good Trollope when they see one. 6 minutes into the show and I rather think that our Jeremy was beginning to fear that a rout was starting to take shape, so when James Link buzzed in with a correct answer to the next starter he responded with "At last !" Which was a little premature if I might say so.
However, even allowing for this, Durham were finding it extremely difficult to get a look in. Poor James Link kept on buzzing more in hope then expectation with the starters, until captain Nolan managed to answer one, which was followed by a period of greater success for Durham. It didn't phase St. John's though, who continued to pile on the agony. During this period I particularly enjoyed the set of bonuses based on Monty Python's Philosopher's Song ( Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar etc ).
Last week you may recall that I outlined the three most enjoyable types of UC contest, and this, while always watchable wasn't one of those. As a contest it was over before half way really, and while St. John's were very good, they didn't for me quite match the heights of some of the teams we saw last year. I'm a fussy devil I know. Full marks to St. John's though to have the confidence to answer "We just don't know " twice to bonuses on sculpture, an admission which drew an approving "That's commendably frank of you . " from our Jeremy.
In the end St. John's ran out very comfortable winners by 270 points to 90. Jeremy Paxman hailed them as "fearsome opposition" in the same breath as he pointed out to Durham that their own performance was "not terribly good. " Well, no, it wasn't really. Still, at the halfway stage it looked as if they might have difficulty struggling past 50, and so they deserve credit for clawing their was back towards 100 in the second half.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
He opened his account this week with a sharp admonition to James Link, who hesitated too long over a starter ," You buzz, you answer ! " However the finest Paxman moment of the week came when Mr. Chen answered a starter concerning a Virginia Woolf novel with the word "Middlemarch". His eyebrows nearly shot off his face as he delivered the most withering of old fashioned looks I've seen in quite a while, before he delivered the coup de grace by muttering that he bet Mr. Chen wished that he could take it back.
I can't say that I really noticed anything extremely interesting in any of the many facts I didn't already know on tonight's show, so I'll hold this back for next week.
One of the endearing idiosyncrasies of University Challenge is that not all collegiate universities compete as individual colleges. Durham take part as one team from the university, and while you can applaud this in many ways, you can't help wondering if perhaps they are putting all their eggs in one basket. Well, time would tell.
I'm pleased to report that this week all the competitors favoured us with both their first name and their surname. So off we went. St. John's claimed first blood, snatching up the first starter and bonuses. And the next. And the next. I was particularly tickled by the set of bonuses on 19th century novels with a political flavour. Alas, St. John's failed to correctly answer the question about who wrote the Palisser novels, thus proving they don't know a good Trollope when they see one. 6 minutes into the show and I rather think that our Jeremy was beginning to fear that a rout was starting to take shape, so when James Link buzzed in with a correct answer to the next starter he responded with "At last !" Which was a little premature if I might say so.
However, even allowing for this, Durham were finding it extremely difficult to get a look in. Poor James Link kept on buzzing more in hope then expectation with the starters, until captain Nolan managed to answer one, which was followed by a period of greater success for Durham. It didn't phase St. John's though, who continued to pile on the agony. During this period I particularly enjoyed the set of bonuses based on Monty Python's Philosopher's Song ( Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar etc ).
Last week you may recall that I outlined the three most enjoyable types of UC contest, and this, while always watchable wasn't one of those. As a contest it was over before half way really, and while St. John's were very good, they didn't for me quite match the heights of some of the teams we saw last year. I'm a fussy devil I know. Full marks to St. John's though to have the confidence to answer "We just don't know " twice to bonuses on sculpture, an admission which drew an approving "That's commendably frank of you . " from our Jeremy.
In the end St. John's ran out very comfortable winners by 270 points to 90. Jeremy Paxman hailed them as "fearsome opposition" in the same breath as he pointed out to Durham that their own performance was "not terribly good. " Well, no, it wasn't really. Still, at the halfway stage it looked as if they might have difficulty struggling past 50, and so they deserve credit for clawing their was back towards 100 in the second half.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
He opened his account this week with a sharp admonition to James Link, who hesitated too long over a starter ," You buzz, you answer ! " However the finest Paxman moment of the week came when Mr. Chen answered a starter concerning a Virginia Woolf novel with the word "Middlemarch". His eyebrows nearly shot off his face as he delivered the most withering of old fashioned looks I've seen in quite a while, before he delivered the coup de grace by muttering that he bet Mr. Chen wished that he could take it back.
I can't say that I really noticed anything extremely interesting in any of the many facts I didn't already know on tonight's show, so I'll hold this back for next week.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Mastermind- First Round - Heat 3/24
You wait three weeks for a contender you know to appear - then . . .
In the first two heats of this year's series we saw 8 contenders making their first ever visit to the black chair. Tonight, for the first time this series we saw the return of two familiar faces. Well, familiar to me, anyway. For that matter, remarkably, I actually know three of tonight's contenders.
The first of these was Lisa Hermann. Lisa is new to Mastermind, but not new to quizzing. We played on the same buzzer quiz team in the Cardiff Grand Prix earlier this year in the Rhwbina Club. I later found out that Lisa was coming on the show, and one of the things which I did tell her was to try to make sure that whatever happened she enjoyed the experience, since it honestly does go by so quickly once the recording of your first show begins. Lisa was answering on The History of the George Cross for her specialist round, and by crikey she did it well ! We've seen a very high standard of scoring on Specialist in all of the heats so far shown in this series, with nobody yet failing to get into double figures, if I recall correctly. Lisa maintained the standard of excellence with 14 and 1 pass.
Our second contender was David Porch. David and I have played against each other in a number of locations across Bridgend and Cowbridge over the last few years, although curiously I don't believe that I've seen him anywhere since his last appearence on the show. David tonight joined a select band of contenders who have appeared in two consecutive series of Mastermind. Don't expect me to say anything bad about that either, since I'm one of them myself. We last saw David on the 13th March this year, in the 21st heat of the 2008 series, where he was most unfortunate to lose by a single pass to Paul Moorhouse. Then he scored 14 and 1 pass on the films of Sidney Poitier. Tonight he exchanged the silver screen for the small screen, answering on the TV series, The Ascent of Man. And man ! the questions were wide ranging considering that they related to just one, admittedly epoch making, TV series. David scored 10 points. Mindful of last year's experience, he made sure that he didn't pass.
Ian Orriss, who was the third of tonight's contenders, is not someone I know personally. In a notably highbrow group of specialist subjects tonight, his was "The first latin kingdom of Jerusalem". You have to say he really knew his stuff too, with a magnificent score of 16 and 1 pass. I have to say it, with the length of questions that are being asked in this series, to get through more than a maximum of possibly 18 questions looks like something of a really tall order.
Completing the Specialist round was Les Morrell. Les was a semi-finalist in his previous appearence in, yes, you've guessed it, the 2007 SoBM ( Series of Blessed Memory) . Although we never played in the same show, we did actually meet at the studios, on the day we both recorded our first round matches. Les arrived very early for his show, which was to be recorded after mine, and we spent a little time having a chat. Les told me about his experiences on University Challenge. While we were talking I had the same feeling that I'd had when I talked to Kath Drury, who beat me in the previous series in 2006, ie - that here was someone to take very seriously, and so I was delighted when I saw that he wasn't in my heat ! Well, in 2007 Les ended up in the same semi as Stewart Cross, who had the highest score of the semis with 32. Could Les emulate his feats of 2007, I asked myself. Well he certainly did all he possibly could have done with his specialist round, on Clement Attlee. He literally rattled the answers off, limiting himself to just surnames to save precious fractions of seconds, and it was only one slight hesitation which probably cost him another question. Never mind, 16 and 0 passes was a performance to be reckoned with.
David Porch returned to the chair, 6 points behind the leaders and probably knowing in his heart of hearts that this was going to be a tall order. Still he retained his good humour throughout, taking great delight in answering with Bobby Jones' full name when asked for the golfer who retired at the age of 28 etc. He finished with 16 points. Lisa, handily placed on 14, overtook him for the lead, pushing on to 20 points. This has been enough to win a heat on a few occasions during the Humphrys era, but it never looked like it was going to be enough tonight. However I have it on first hand authority that Lisa greatly enjoyed the experience, and her splendid performance in the specialist round alone shows that she thoroughly deserved her place.
So, who out of the 2 remaining contenders would win ? Les, I knew, had the experience, bottle and knowledge to produce a good round on GK. Ian, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. However the unknown quantity only needed two minutes to prove his quality, adding 11 to take his score to 27 and 4 passes. I was impressed with the way he kept plugging on through the round - dropping a couple, passing a couple, but always keeping the score ticking over. As Mr. Punch once said - well more than once, actually - that's the way to do it.
11 and 3 passes would be enough to put Les through as the winner of the heat. This is a score he managed to better on both of his previous GK rounds in 2007. However, that was then, and this was now. A few questions didn't quite fall his way, and although he was answering quickly he never quite built up the head of steam he would need to push on through the target. He came mightily close though, but even answering the last question correctly only brought him 10 points for 26.
John Humphrys was quick to point out that 26 gives Les a very good chance of taking one of the 6 runners up spots in the semis, and he's quite right too. Having said that, we're only three shows into the series and already we've seen runners up score two 25s and a 26, so who knows ? What we do know is that Ian Orris produced a fine performance to earn his place in the semis by winning the show. Even more , he can take it from me that the three contenders in his heat were no mugs, either. So very well done , sir !
The Details
Current Highest Scoring Runners Up
In the first two heats of this year's series we saw 8 contenders making their first ever visit to the black chair. Tonight, for the first time this series we saw the return of two familiar faces. Well, familiar to me, anyway. For that matter, remarkably, I actually know three of tonight's contenders.
The first of these was Lisa Hermann. Lisa is new to Mastermind, but not new to quizzing. We played on the same buzzer quiz team in the Cardiff Grand Prix earlier this year in the Rhwbina Club. I later found out that Lisa was coming on the show, and one of the things which I did tell her was to try to make sure that whatever happened she enjoyed the experience, since it honestly does go by so quickly once the recording of your first show begins. Lisa was answering on The History of the George Cross for her specialist round, and by crikey she did it well ! We've seen a very high standard of scoring on Specialist in all of the heats so far shown in this series, with nobody yet failing to get into double figures, if I recall correctly. Lisa maintained the standard of excellence with 14 and 1 pass.
Our second contender was David Porch. David and I have played against each other in a number of locations across Bridgend and Cowbridge over the last few years, although curiously I don't believe that I've seen him anywhere since his last appearence on the show. David tonight joined a select band of contenders who have appeared in two consecutive series of Mastermind. Don't expect me to say anything bad about that either, since I'm one of them myself. We last saw David on the 13th March this year, in the 21st heat of the 2008 series, where he was most unfortunate to lose by a single pass to Paul Moorhouse. Then he scored 14 and 1 pass on the films of Sidney Poitier. Tonight he exchanged the silver screen for the small screen, answering on the TV series, The Ascent of Man. And man ! the questions were wide ranging considering that they related to just one, admittedly epoch making, TV series. David scored 10 points. Mindful of last year's experience, he made sure that he didn't pass.
Ian Orriss, who was the third of tonight's contenders, is not someone I know personally. In a notably highbrow group of specialist subjects tonight, his was "The first latin kingdom of Jerusalem". You have to say he really knew his stuff too, with a magnificent score of 16 and 1 pass. I have to say it, with the length of questions that are being asked in this series, to get through more than a maximum of possibly 18 questions looks like something of a really tall order.
Completing the Specialist round was Les Morrell. Les was a semi-finalist in his previous appearence in, yes, you've guessed it, the 2007 SoBM ( Series of Blessed Memory) . Although we never played in the same show, we did actually meet at the studios, on the day we both recorded our first round matches. Les arrived very early for his show, which was to be recorded after mine, and we spent a little time having a chat. Les told me about his experiences on University Challenge. While we were talking I had the same feeling that I'd had when I talked to Kath Drury, who beat me in the previous series in 2006, ie - that here was someone to take very seriously, and so I was delighted when I saw that he wasn't in my heat ! Well, in 2007 Les ended up in the same semi as Stewart Cross, who had the highest score of the semis with 32. Could Les emulate his feats of 2007, I asked myself. Well he certainly did all he possibly could have done with his specialist round, on Clement Attlee. He literally rattled the answers off, limiting himself to just surnames to save precious fractions of seconds, and it was only one slight hesitation which probably cost him another question. Never mind, 16 and 0 passes was a performance to be reckoned with.
David Porch returned to the chair, 6 points behind the leaders and probably knowing in his heart of hearts that this was going to be a tall order. Still he retained his good humour throughout, taking great delight in answering with Bobby Jones' full name when asked for the golfer who retired at the age of 28 etc. He finished with 16 points. Lisa, handily placed on 14, overtook him for the lead, pushing on to 20 points. This has been enough to win a heat on a few occasions during the Humphrys era, but it never looked like it was going to be enough tonight. However I have it on first hand authority that Lisa greatly enjoyed the experience, and her splendid performance in the specialist round alone shows that she thoroughly deserved her place.
So, who out of the 2 remaining contenders would win ? Les, I knew, had the experience, bottle and knowledge to produce a good round on GK. Ian, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. However the unknown quantity only needed two minutes to prove his quality, adding 11 to take his score to 27 and 4 passes. I was impressed with the way he kept plugging on through the round - dropping a couple, passing a couple, but always keeping the score ticking over. As Mr. Punch once said - well more than once, actually - that's the way to do it.
11 and 3 passes would be enough to put Les through as the winner of the heat. This is a score he managed to better on both of his previous GK rounds in 2007. However, that was then, and this was now. A few questions didn't quite fall his way, and although he was answering quickly he never quite built up the head of steam he would need to push on through the target. He came mightily close though, but even answering the last question correctly only brought him 10 points for 26.
John Humphrys was quick to point out that 26 gives Les a very good chance of taking one of the 6 runners up spots in the semis, and he's quite right too. Having said that, we're only three shows into the series and already we've seen runners up score two 25s and a 26, so who knows ? What we do know is that Ian Orris produced a fine performance to earn his place in the semis by winning the show. Even more , he can take it from me that the three contenders in his heat were no mugs, either. So very well done , sir !
The Details
| Lisa Hermann | The History of the George Cross | 14 - 1 | 6 - 2 | 20 - 3 |
| David Porch | The TV series "The Ascent of Man" | 10 - 0 | 6 - 1 | 16 - 1 |
| Ian Orriss | The first latin kingdom of Jerusalem | 16 - 1 | 11 - 3 | 27 - 4 |
| Les Morrell | Clement Attlee | 16 - 0 | 10 - 3 | 26 - 3 |
Current Highest Scoring Runners Up
| Les Morrell | 26 - 3 |
| Colin Wilson | 25 - 0 |
| William de'Ath | 25 - 4 |
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
TV Watch - University Challenge
University Challenge - First Round Heat 9 - Imperial College , London v. University of Southampton
Shall I tell you something I really like in an edition of University Challenge ? Oh, don't misunderstand me, I enjoy every edition of University Challenge, but there's three types of contest that I enjoy above all others. Firstly , I love a close tussle which is in doubt up until the last minute and then is only settled by the last starter and bonuses. At the other end of the scale I also enjoy one team amassing a huge total through a virtuoso performance on the buzzer. The third, and to my mind rarest of the three, is the type of contest in which one team spends much of the contest comfortably beating the other to the buzzer, only for the other team to come roaring back in the latter stages, turning what looked like a mismatch into a nailbiter. If you haven't seen last night's show, I'll bet you're wondering into which category it fitted. Allow me to elucidate.
Another London University College took their place in the first round last night, in the shape of Imperial College. Unless I was mistaken, the last of the Imperial team introduced himself just by his christian name alone - "Hello, I'm Ben. " While I found this rather amusing, I can't help admitting that I'm worried that this informality may be the thin end of the wedge. Whatever next ?
"Hi, I'm Charlie, but you can call me Nutjob . " Oh well, lets leave that to one side for the time being.
Is it me, or has my dear old University been particularly well represented in the first round this year ? Their opponents were Southampton University, whose distinguished alumni include , amongst others, John Inverdale. I'm afraid that I have no affiliation to Southampton or its university, so had no choice but to lumber poor old Imperial with the kiss of death that usually comes with being supported from the Clark sofa.
Not that this seemed much of a burden to Imperial last night. They took an early lead, and for the first two thirds of the contest they steadily increased their lead. There were a few particular points of interest within the contest. Once again, a music bonus came in the form of a Gary Numan track, in a round of bonuses about 1980s synth music. When the intro of "I just can't get enough" was played my daughter yelled out "The Saturdays", which allowed me to put the young whippersnapper in her place by telling her that Depeche Mode got there first.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
Not a lot to report this week. The maestro was in mellow mood, and even this barb directed at Southampton - "You really DON'T know anything about ships, do you ?!" was said with a smile.
Interesting fact I Didn't Already Know of The Week
I liked the fact that if A = 1, B=2 etc. , then 2 - 21 - 26 - 26 means BUZZ, even though I would eventually have worked it out for myself given ten minutes and access to my lap top. However the Most interesting fact for me actually came out of the introduction. Apparently Sir Tim Berners Lee, pioneer of the World Wide Web currently works in Southampton University.
So, until getting on for the 20 minute mark it was a pretty predictable match. Then Stuart Wynn, captain of Southampton , embarked upon a fine run which saw him answer 6 starters correctly. This was all the better considering he had incorrectly answered a few earlier in the show. Imperial remained stuck on 175 as he edged his team towards the 100 barrier, then through it, and what had seemed quite a predictable match became quite exciting. Time was against Southampton, but they were making great headway. Time, though, is a most difficult adversary to get the better of, and as the gong sounded Southampton still trailed by 135 points to 175. Its a shame we won't be seeing them again.
We will be seeing Imperial again, though. Up until the last ten minutes it looked as if they were going to break impressively and comfortably through the 200 points barrier. I can only think that it was the support they received from the Clark sofa which reduced them to crawling pace for the last few minutes.
Shall I tell you something I really like in an edition of University Challenge ? Oh, don't misunderstand me, I enjoy every edition of University Challenge, but there's three types of contest that I enjoy above all others. Firstly , I love a close tussle which is in doubt up until the last minute and then is only settled by the last starter and bonuses. At the other end of the scale I also enjoy one team amassing a huge total through a virtuoso performance on the buzzer. The third, and to my mind rarest of the three, is the type of contest in which one team spends much of the contest comfortably beating the other to the buzzer, only for the other team to come roaring back in the latter stages, turning what looked like a mismatch into a nailbiter. If you haven't seen last night's show, I'll bet you're wondering into which category it fitted. Allow me to elucidate.
Another London University College took their place in the first round last night, in the shape of Imperial College. Unless I was mistaken, the last of the Imperial team introduced himself just by his christian name alone - "Hello, I'm Ben. " While I found this rather amusing, I can't help admitting that I'm worried that this informality may be the thin end of the wedge. Whatever next ?
"Hi, I'm Charlie, but you can call me Nutjob . " Oh well, lets leave that to one side for the time being.
Is it me, or has my dear old University been particularly well represented in the first round this year ? Their opponents were Southampton University, whose distinguished alumni include , amongst others, John Inverdale. I'm afraid that I have no affiliation to Southampton or its university, so had no choice but to lumber poor old Imperial with the kiss of death that usually comes with being supported from the Clark sofa.
Not that this seemed much of a burden to Imperial last night. They took an early lead, and for the first two thirds of the contest they steadily increased their lead. There were a few particular points of interest within the contest. Once again, a music bonus came in the form of a Gary Numan track, in a round of bonuses about 1980s synth music. When the intro of "I just can't get enough" was played my daughter yelled out "The Saturdays", which allowed me to put the young whippersnapper in her place by telling her that Depeche Mode got there first.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
Not a lot to report this week. The maestro was in mellow mood, and even this barb directed at Southampton - "You really DON'T know anything about ships, do you ?!" was said with a smile.
Interesting fact I Didn't Already Know of The Week
I liked the fact that if A = 1, B=2 etc. , then 2 - 21 - 26 - 26 means BUZZ, even though I would eventually have worked it out for myself given ten minutes and access to my lap top. However the Most interesting fact for me actually came out of the introduction. Apparently Sir Tim Berners Lee, pioneer of the World Wide Web currently works in Southampton University.
So, until getting on for the 20 minute mark it was a pretty predictable match. Then Stuart Wynn, captain of Southampton , embarked upon a fine run which saw him answer 6 starters correctly. This was all the better considering he had incorrectly answered a few earlier in the show. Imperial remained stuck on 175 as he edged his team towards the 100 barrier, then through it, and what had seemed quite a predictable match became quite exciting. Time was against Southampton, but they were making great headway. Time, though, is a most difficult adversary to get the better of, and as the gong sounded Southampton still trailed by 135 points to 175. Its a shame we won't be seeing them again.
We will be seeing Imperial again, though. Up until the last ten minutes it looked as if they were going to break impressively and comfortably through the 200 points barrier. I can only think that it was the support they received from the Clark sofa which reduced them to crawling pace for the last few minutes.
The CIU Nationals
The CIU National Final - Alvaston, Derby - Sunday 6th September
If you've been with me for a while now you may remember that a few months ago I posted about the CIU Wales and West of England regional quiz final. That event was a source of much satisfaction at the time, since our team, representing the Trefelin Club of Port Talbot, scraped home to win by a point from the nationally respected Maesglas 'A' team of Newport. I predicted at the time that Maesglas would still, in all probability beat us in the National final. Well, I am now in a position to reveal to you whether Mystic Dave's prognostications have been any more accurate than usual, since the National Final took place on Sunday.
There's something special about the CIU Final, something that really gets the juices flowing. For one thing we didn't quite manage to qualify for it last year, which made us even more determined to do well than usual. For the uninitiated, CIU stands for Club and Institute Union. Every year hundreds of workingmen's clubs and institutes throughout England and Wales, affiliated to the CIU, are invited to join in the competition. Not all clubs affiliated to the CIU ever take part in the regional finals, but a large number do. For example, I've played in at least the last 5 Wales and West regionals and each one has been very well attended. On Sunday 18 regional heat winners and runners up gathered in Derby to contest the final.
If you're like me, the moment you walk into the hall where the quiz is going to take place, you can't help scanning the room to check out the strength of the opposition. And let me tell you, the opposition is always strong, and that's one of the things which gives you the buzz when you take part in the event. Well, on this Sunday it seemed to me that the opposition was stronger than ever. Without singling out individual players, one glance around the room revealed that Ashford Road from Swindon, who have been champions on more than one occasion, were there.If I remember correctly,they were the defending champions, and had two teams, and both of them were full of stars. My God ! Its full of stars ! Sorry - I had a little attack of the 2001's there. Our nemesis, Maesglas A, double champions in the past, were all present in good order. The clubs from the North East came with justly deserved reputations. Also present were Radford Road, in Coventry, a team who had not contested the final before, I think, but they were a team with some well known players of their own.
The CIU final is a funny old quiz. The majority of the rounds have some kind of twist. Full marks on the first, general knowledge round, led us into a false sense of security. Then came the list round. Basically, a CIU list round asks for a list of ten things. You can write down as many or as few things as you like, up to a maximum of 10. For example, in the regional final we were asked the 10 largest islands , by area, in the Mediterranean Sea. For every correct answer on the list, you gain half a point. However, for every incorrect answer you lose half a point. So while its possible to gain a maximum of 5 points on the round, it is also possible to lose five points. The list we were asked for was the top 10 most common pub names in Britain. Yes, everyone knows the Red Lion and the White Hart, and many now know that the Crown has overtaken both of these to become most popular. But who would have guessed that The Swan would make it to the top 10 ? We didn't. in fact we ended the round in deficit, with 3 on the list, and 5 not, to lose a point. Granted, nobody scored more than 2 points on the round, I think, but even so, from that round on it was always going to be an uphill struggle to make a bid for a podium position.
Good rounds on Film and TV, and Sport helped drag us back up through the peloton, although we never really made any impression on Radford Road, and the Ashford Road B Team. By the last round we needed a miracle to do any better than third. The last round always requires you to identify a mystery personality. There are a list of clues given. If you get it on the first set of clues, you get 5 points, on the second set 4 points, and so on. However if you hand in your answer, and its wrong, then thats it, you get nothing. We were a point ahead of Maesglas A in third place, with Radford Road and Ashford Road B duking it out for the top prize ahead of us. Maesglas got the answer on the second set for 4 points, and we took it on the 3rd set for 3.
Radford Road ran out winners, and I hope that Ashford Road will forgive me for saying this was an extremely popular victory in the hall. No disrespect is intended to Ashford Road, who performed brilliantly all afternoon, but their club's teams have a huge reputation in the competition, and have won the title on more than one occasion. Whereas I think Radford Road are new to the competition, and according to one of their members only just managed to qualify for the final. I did say that I wasn't going to single out individuals, but I have to once again offer my congratulations to Gareth Kingston, Craig Element, Nic Paul and Dave Masters. In a way , it was a little ironic that one of the teams finishing below them was Maesglas A, half of which was made up of Richie Parnell and Mark Labbett of the Rugby Boys, who had actually beaten Gareth and Craig in the recent series of Only Connect. If you're going to get your friendly revenge, then do it in style, I say.
Tying up the loose ends, apparently third place was settled by a tie break. Since there was no specific tie break for the quiz proper - and if I'm honest I think that this must have been due to an oversight - I can only think that the tie break for the sports round was used to seperate us. Our guess was way out, but by a combination of circumstances, Maesglas didn't enter a guess in the sports tie break. Thankfully, although we finished 3rd officially, they didn't go home empty handed either, winning the sports round special prize. On the subject of special prizes too I have to say that I personally benefitted from a little bit of luck. On these occasions they tend to offer 4 individual spot prizes during the afternoon. Now, the first spot prize question was,
"How many bridges of all kinds cross the River Seine in Paris ? "
In 2007,when I was learning my specialist subject "The History of London Bridge" for my Mastermind final, one of the facts that I turned up as a by product of the process was that London has a couple less bridges than Paris, which has 38. Thank you very much, and I was a bottle of scotch to the good. Alright, I don't drink the stuff myself, but thankfully other members of the team were good enough to offer to take it off my hands. There's friendship for you.
Good quiz ? Certainly, and a great quiz occasion too. Very nice to be back on the podium at the Nationals. Its been a long time since that happened. In all truthfulness we never felt we were in it after the list round. That's just the way it works some times. So my great unfulfilled ambition, to win the CIU, remains just that at the moment. Unfulfilled. Oh well, there's always next year.
If you've been with me for a while now you may remember that a few months ago I posted about the CIU Wales and West of England regional quiz final. That event was a source of much satisfaction at the time, since our team, representing the Trefelin Club of Port Talbot, scraped home to win by a point from the nationally respected Maesglas 'A' team of Newport. I predicted at the time that Maesglas would still, in all probability beat us in the National final. Well, I am now in a position to reveal to you whether Mystic Dave's prognostications have been any more accurate than usual, since the National Final took place on Sunday.
There's something special about the CIU Final, something that really gets the juices flowing. For one thing we didn't quite manage to qualify for it last year, which made us even more determined to do well than usual. For the uninitiated, CIU stands for Club and Institute Union. Every year hundreds of workingmen's clubs and institutes throughout England and Wales, affiliated to the CIU, are invited to join in the competition. Not all clubs affiliated to the CIU ever take part in the regional finals, but a large number do. For example, I've played in at least the last 5 Wales and West regionals and each one has been very well attended. On Sunday 18 regional heat winners and runners up gathered in Derby to contest the final.
If you're like me, the moment you walk into the hall where the quiz is going to take place, you can't help scanning the room to check out the strength of the opposition. And let me tell you, the opposition is always strong, and that's one of the things which gives you the buzz when you take part in the event. Well, on this Sunday it seemed to me that the opposition was stronger than ever. Without singling out individual players, one glance around the room revealed that Ashford Road from Swindon, who have been champions on more than one occasion, were there.If I remember correctly,they were the defending champions, and had two teams, and both of them were full of stars. My God ! Its full of stars ! Sorry - I had a little attack of the 2001's there. Our nemesis, Maesglas A, double champions in the past, were all present in good order. The clubs from the North East came with justly deserved reputations. Also present were Radford Road, in Coventry, a team who had not contested the final before, I think, but they were a team with some well known players of their own.
The CIU final is a funny old quiz. The majority of the rounds have some kind of twist. Full marks on the first, general knowledge round, led us into a false sense of security. Then came the list round. Basically, a CIU list round asks for a list of ten things. You can write down as many or as few things as you like, up to a maximum of 10. For example, in the regional final we were asked the 10 largest islands , by area, in the Mediterranean Sea. For every correct answer on the list, you gain half a point. However, for every incorrect answer you lose half a point. So while its possible to gain a maximum of 5 points on the round, it is also possible to lose five points. The list we were asked for was the top 10 most common pub names in Britain. Yes, everyone knows the Red Lion and the White Hart, and many now know that the Crown has overtaken both of these to become most popular. But who would have guessed that The Swan would make it to the top 10 ? We didn't. in fact we ended the round in deficit, with 3 on the list, and 5 not, to lose a point. Granted, nobody scored more than 2 points on the round, I think, but even so, from that round on it was always going to be an uphill struggle to make a bid for a podium position.
Good rounds on Film and TV, and Sport helped drag us back up through the peloton, although we never really made any impression on Radford Road, and the Ashford Road B Team. By the last round we needed a miracle to do any better than third. The last round always requires you to identify a mystery personality. There are a list of clues given. If you get it on the first set of clues, you get 5 points, on the second set 4 points, and so on. However if you hand in your answer, and its wrong, then thats it, you get nothing. We were a point ahead of Maesglas A in third place, with Radford Road and Ashford Road B duking it out for the top prize ahead of us. Maesglas got the answer on the second set for 4 points, and we took it on the 3rd set for 3.
Radford Road ran out winners, and I hope that Ashford Road will forgive me for saying this was an extremely popular victory in the hall. No disrespect is intended to Ashford Road, who performed brilliantly all afternoon, but their club's teams have a huge reputation in the competition, and have won the title on more than one occasion. Whereas I think Radford Road are new to the competition, and according to one of their members only just managed to qualify for the final. I did say that I wasn't going to single out individuals, but I have to once again offer my congratulations to Gareth Kingston, Craig Element, Nic Paul and Dave Masters. In a way , it was a little ironic that one of the teams finishing below them was Maesglas A, half of which was made up of Richie Parnell and Mark Labbett of the Rugby Boys, who had actually beaten Gareth and Craig in the recent series of Only Connect. If you're going to get your friendly revenge, then do it in style, I say.
Tying up the loose ends, apparently third place was settled by a tie break. Since there was no specific tie break for the quiz proper - and if I'm honest I think that this must have been due to an oversight - I can only think that the tie break for the sports round was used to seperate us. Our guess was way out, but by a combination of circumstances, Maesglas didn't enter a guess in the sports tie break. Thankfully, although we finished 3rd officially, they didn't go home empty handed either, winning the sports round special prize. On the subject of special prizes too I have to say that I personally benefitted from a little bit of luck. On these occasions they tend to offer 4 individual spot prizes during the afternoon. Now, the first spot prize question was,
"How many bridges of all kinds cross the River Seine in Paris ? "
In 2007,when I was learning my specialist subject "The History of London Bridge" for my Mastermind final, one of the facts that I turned up as a by product of the process was that London has a couple less bridges than Paris, which has 38. Thank you very much, and I was a bottle of scotch to the good. Alright, I don't drink the stuff myself, but thankfully other members of the team were good enough to offer to take it off my hands. There's friendship for you.
Good quiz ? Certainly, and a great quiz occasion too. Very nice to be back on the podium at the Nationals. Its been a long time since that happened. In all truthfulness we never felt we were in it after the list round. That's just the way it works some times. So my great unfulfilled ambition, to win the CIU, remains just that at the moment. Unfulfilled. Oh well, there's always next year.
Friday, 4 September 2009
Mastermind - First Round Heat 2 / 24
This was our second chance to assess the effect of the slight format changes we saw for the first time last week. Once again I thought that the replacement of the inter-round chats with a short filmed insert at the start of the specialist rounds made for a tighter, faster, and more exciting show. Full marks to the team for having had the courage to make the change.
For the second week in a row 4 Mastermind virgins took to the chair. I did notice that , robbed of the chance to take contestants to task over their choice of subject, John this week was a little more caustic at the start of the show. In the introduction he announced Brian Allerdyce's subject as "The Beatles' Biggest Business Folly ", rather than giving its the official title of "The History of Apple Records". This , tonight's popular culture subject, was a nice little twist on the various permutations of possible Beatles related subjects. Some interesting answers, too. I must admit I have never heard Hot Chocolate's reggae rendition of "Give Peace a Chance", but Mr. Allerdyce certainly knew all about it. 12 seemed a good score, and he was by no means out of it by half time.
Will Salt offered us this week's traditional Mastermind subject, the Life and Times of Maximillian Robespierre. Mr.Salt's film gave him the chance to point out that although Robespierre may be a hero to some, he considers him the villain of the piece. He looked a little nervous in the chair, but he conjured up a very fine round, scoring 15 and 1 pass, and that, mark you, with some notably long questions.
Katie McCorkindale's trip to the chair brought us the first appearence of this series of the ever - popular 'obscure author' round . Alright, for all I know Paul Auster is not at all obscure, and extremely successful and respected. I just haven't heard of him before. According to wikipedia Mr. Auster is an american novelist whose works blend absurdism and crime fiction. Good trick if you can do it, as I guess he can. Katie McCorkindale went through the round confidently, allowing a little smile to cross her lips when she knew the answer before the question was finished, and to be fair, this happened quite a lot, as she finished with 11 and 1 pass. I think she was a little unlucky that John Humphrys had to qualify her answer "boats" with "Yes - ships in bottles". It just might have given her time for an extra question had he not.
Colin Wilson gave us the first sport round of the series, offering "World Heavyweight Boxing Champions 1882 - 1929. This is actually a subject that I think that I know a little bit about. Not as much as Colin Wilson does though. I know enough to be able to say that the scope of the questions was as wide as it could possibly be. He scored a magnificent 16, only dropping one question on the weight of boxing gloves for a particular fight, and led at the halfway stage. So for the second week running all 4 contenders produced good scores in their specialist rounds.
The effect of removing the chats has been to turn the GK rounds into even more of a furious and exciting devil's gallop than they were before. I have to say that I thought Katie McCorkindale's round was a little better than the score suggested, finishing as she did with 18. I wouldn't have been able to name the X-Ray fish either, though its not something I'll forget in a hurry now. Brian Allerdyce put on a very good performance to score thirteen, taking his score to 25 and 7 passes. Anything above 12 in GK is a really good performance. Once again, Will Salt looked terribly nervous as he began his round, but nerves certainly didn't seem to affect his performance as he too scored 13 , to set the target at 28. That's a great score, although at one stage he seemed to be going so well that he might have scored even higher. John Humphrys warned Colin Wilson as he sat down that he had a high score to beat, and indeed he fell a little short, scoring 9 . However at the moment this does leave him in pole position for one of the 6 extra semi final places, since these points were bought at the cost of no passes, and you never know, this might just make all the difference. So congratulations to Will Salt on a very strong all round performance, and special commiserations to Brian Allerdyce, whose 25 and 4 passes is a very fine score to come third with, even though being third means he cannot be in contention for a semi final place.
The Details
Current Highest Scoring Runners-Up
For the second week in a row 4 Mastermind virgins took to the chair. I did notice that , robbed of the chance to take contestants to task over their choice of subject, John this week was a little more caustic at the start of the show. In the introduction he announced Brian Allerdyce's subject as "The Beatles' Biggest Business Folly ", rather than giving its the official title of "The History of Apple Records". This , tonight's popular culture subject, was a nice little twist on the various permutations of possible Beatles related subjects. Some interesting answers, too. I must admit I have never heard Hot Chocolate's reggae rendition of "Give Peace a Chance", but Mr. Allerdyce certainly knew all about it. 12 seemed a good score, and he was by no means out of it by half time.
Will Salt offered us this week's traditional Mastermind subject, the Life and Times of Maximillian Robespierre. Mr.Salt's film gave him the chance to point out that although Robespierre may be a hero to some, he considers him the villain of the piece. He looked a little nervous in the chair, but he conjured up a very fine round, scoring 15 and 1 pass, and that, mark you, with some notably long questions.
Katie McCorkindale's trip to the chair brought us the first appearence of this series of the ever - popular 'obscure author' round . Alright, for all I know Paul Auster is not at all obscure, and extremely successful and respected. I just haven't heard of him before. According to wikipedia Mr. Auster is an american novelist whose works blend absurdism and crime fiction. Good trick if you can do it, as I guess he can. Katie McCorkindale went through the round confidently, allowing a little smile to cross her lips when she knew the answer before the question was finished, and to be fair, this happened quite a lot, as she finished with 11 and 1 pass. I think she was a little unlucky that John Humphrys had to qualify her answer "boats" with "Yes - ships in bottles". It just might have given her time for an extra question had he not.
Colin Wilson gave us the first sport round of the series, offering "World Heavyweight Boxing Champions 1882 - 1929. This is actually a subject that I think that I know a little bit about. Not as much as Colin Wilson does though. I know enough to be able to say that the scope of the questions was as wide as it could possibly be. He scored a magnificent 16, only dropping one question on the weight of boxing gloves for a particular fight, and led at the halfway stage. So for the second week running all 4 contenders produced good scores in their specialist rounds.
The effect of removing the chats has been to turn the GK rounds into even more of a furious and exciting devil's gallop than they were before. I have to say that I thought Katie McCorkindale's round was a little better than the score suggested, finishing as she did with 18. I wouldn't have been able to name the X-Ray fish either, though its not something I'll forget in a hurry now. Brian Allerdyce put on a very good performance to score thirteen, taking his score to 25 and 7 passes. Anything above 12 in GK is a really good performance. Once again, Will Salt looked terribly nervous as he began his round, but nerves certainly didn't seem to affect his performance as he too scored 13 , to set the target at 28. That's a great score, although at one stage he seemed to be going so well that he might have scored even higher. John Humphrys warned Colin Wilson as he sat down that he had a high score to beat, and indeed he fell a little short, scoring 9 . However at the moment this does leave him in pole position for one of the 6 extra semi final places, since these points were bought at the cost of no passes, and you never know, this might just make all the difference. So congratulations to Will Salt on a very strong all round performance, and special commiserations to Brian Allerdyce, whose 25 and 4 passes is a very fine score to come third with, even though being third means he cannot be in contention for a semi final place.
The Details
| Brian Allerdyce | The History of Apple Records | 12 - 3 | 13 - 4 | 25 - 7 |
| Will Salt | The Life and Times of Maximillian Robespierre | 15 - 2 | 13 - 2 | 28 - 4 |
| Katie McCorkindale | The Fictional works of Paul Auster | 11 -1 | 7 - 3 | 18 - 4 |
| Colin Wilson | World Heavyweight Boxing Champions 1882 - 1929 | 16 - 0 | 9 - 0 | 25 - 0 |
Current Highest Scoring Runners-Up
| Colin Wilson | 25 - 0 |
| William de'Ath | 25 - 4 |
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