Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 21

There’s a lot to talk about from tonight’s show, dearly beloved, so let’s get cracking, otherwise I might find myself giving away too many spoilers in the opening paragraph.

So Matt Carter kicked off with U2. 80s survivors, not unlike my good self, when you get right down to it. I’ll be honest, while I like U2, I can’t in all honesty describe myself as any kind of fan, so I was resigned to slim pickings, or more likely no pickings at all from this round. In the end I was lucky to get 1. Matt, at one point, looked as if he was knowledgeable enough to go clear through the round. Well, it didn’t quite work out like that, but he still managed a double figure score. Well done!

Wendy Knipe was answering on toy dog breeds. Well, I used to watch Crufts on the telly every year, but that’s about the length of my knowledge on this topic. Which makes it all the more remarkable that I still managed to pick up a couple. Paled into insignificance when compared with Wendy’s own performance. She went one better than Matt had done, scoring 11. Again, very well done.

Now, as little as I know about toy dogs, I know even less about toy Mitfords. Or so I thought. As it turned out though, I do know at least a bit about the times, and the literature of the times of the Mitfords, and this brought me a surprising four points. Suddenly I was on 7 overall, and with my ‘banker’ round yet to come I reckoned that a second consecutive double figure aggregate might be on the cards. A double figure score was exactly what James Beeby, whose round it was, scored. He too gained 11 points to share the lead with one contender left to go.

Hannah Loxton was answering on “Guest Stars in “Friends”. That’s the kind of round that is always a lot harder than it looks on paper. So having said that, I did managed five of my own points, for another good specialist aggregate of 12. As it worked out, most of those points I took were also taken by Hannah, and she did a little better with 6 points. Still, it does illustrate the difficulty of the round.

Moving on then to the GK round, I wasn’t counting any result out after what we saw last week. Just as well too, for Hannah, undaunted by the stress of her Specialist round, returned to the chair and pretty much smashed her GK. Anything, and I repeat anything in the teens in the current era is good going, and Hannah kept her composure, played the percentage answers where she was guessing and took 13 points to set the target at 19. Even though all three of her fellow contenders had posted double figures in GK, I murmured to myself – well, she won’t finish in fourth with that total.

Nor would she. Matt returned next, and he started brightly enough, taking the first two. After the first half dozen though he seemed to lose all momentum. There were more correct answers, but these were sporadic, and time was against him. Even so he was inching closer to the total until the last few questions stopped him completely in his tracks. Look, it happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it when it does. Matt scored 7 to end with 17.

It’s funny how lightning can strike twice in quick succession. Wendy’s round bore a strange resemblance to Matt’s. Neither of them answered particularly quickly, and both of them started off comfortably and looked as if they would get there with some time to spare. In Wendy’s case the answers began to refuse to jump off the tip of her tongue, and I dare say that even some of her correct answers ended up costing her the chance of an extra couple of questions. She too scored 7, and ended one short of the total.

Surely, I mused, surely we weren’t going to have the winner of the show come from being well behind at half time for the second show in a row? Well, not quite, no. However it was remarkable to see how James Beeby had a bit of a wobble after scoring 7 to take him to 18 - it seemed like ages before he had another correct answer. However, once he’d surmounted that obstacle he went on to put daylight between himself and the chasing pack, finishing with 11 to take him to 21.

Another exciting show. Well done to all, and James, best of luck to you in the semi final.

The Details

Matt Carter	U2	10	1	7	3	16	4
Wendy Knipe	Toy Dog Breeds	11	0	7	4	18	4
James Beeby	The Mitford Sisters	11	0	10	2	21	2
Hannah Loxton	Guest Stars in Friends	6	3	13	1	19	4

 

Mastermindy Stuff

Just in case you were thinking of taking the wiki challenge, tomorrow night’s subjects on Mastermind will be U2, toy dog breeds, the Mitford Sisters and guest stars in Friends. I doubt very much that I will wiki. Still, if I did, the last one looks the least wikiable, but then it would probably prove to give me my best chance of success unwikied.

In the SOBM (Season of Blessed Memory) of 2007, one of the contenders in my first round heat, Stacey Mitchell, answered on the life of Jennifer Aniston – you can see the Friends connection I’m sure. Ironically, I only much later found out that Stacey is in the same Amateur Dramatic group as my best friend from University. Small world. Stacey received some very unfair online comment along the lines of being allowed to take Jennifer Aniston as a specialist subject was proof positive that the show was dumbing down. Never mind that as well as Jennifer Aniston, the other subjects on the same show were The Life and Career of Henry Ford, German Wines and Frida Kahlo. I don’t know, I just enjoy the irony.

Now, I’ll be honest, my TV and radio quiz career has been on hiatus since my 2014 tilt at Fifteen to One. I can’t see myself applying for another TV quiz, at least not while I’m still dragging out my career as a teacher to the bitter end, but I certainly wouldn’t say that I’ll never apply again. Last Monday’s Mastermind winner, Anna Milford Goldstein made her previous appearance on the show as long ago as 1976, as Anna Goldstein. Now, I can’t say whether Anna has appeared on any other quiz shows during the 47 year gap between appearances, but even if she has I find it a little bit wonderful that you can appear on a TV show, maybe not do as well as you hoped (I think Anna said that she’d come third in her first show) then, the best part of half a century later come back and have another go on the same show and win your heat. There are many things that make Mastermind special to me, and this is another of them. I’d love to hear just how things have changed on the show since 1976 (series won by the great Roger Pritchard, first person to have won both Brain of Britain and Mastermind). So Anna, while I doubt you might ever read this, if by any chance you ever did, I’d love it for you to drop me a line and let us have your views.

I’ve lent my DVD showing my appearances in the 2007 SOBM to my teammate Adam. No worries, he’ll give it back. I was interesting talking to him about it on Thursday night when he said that watching it has made him decide that he is not going to apply to go on the show. He gave the impression that he’d only ever said he would as a bit of a joke anyway, but if he had ever meant it, then my DVD has put him off. I’m not sure entirely how I feel about that. I really wouldn’t like to feel that I’m responsible for putting people off from applying for the show. After all Mastermind relies on having contenders willing to do their best to learn at least one specialist subject and to put themselves through what can be a rather stressful experience. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to think about just what you’re putting yourself up for if you do apply.

Let me state my current way of thinking about this. If you appear on Mastermind, and you have a low score on Specialist or General Knowledge it signifies one thing, and one thing alone. It signifies that you probably didn’t know many answers to that particular set of questions. Honestly, that’s all. I learned over 1000 questions for one of my specialist subjects, but you can bet your life there were at least a dozen questions I didn’t cover which could have theoretically been asked. I’d have been scuppered then. Likewise, General Knowledge, everyone on this planet has more than a dozen things they don’t know. You see where I’m coming from.

Unfortunately it’s easy to make hurtful comments and hurtful assumptions when contenders don’t score very highly. I would love to hear from any of the contenders in this series whose scores have been modest, about their experiences on the show, yes, but also about reactions after the show, although I quite understand any contenders who found themselves in this position not really wanting to discuss it again. I always hope that everyone who is brave enough to appear on the show enjoys their time and takes comfort from knowing that they’ve done something that only a few people ever get to do, whatever the scoreboard might say. But I don’t know. I can only hope.

University Challenge 2023 Second Round UCL v. Newcastle

The Teams

UCL

Rachel Collier

Michael Fleetwood-Walker

James Salmon (capt)

Louis Collier

Newcastle

John Ingham

Tom Speller

Sam Keay (capt)

Elizabeth Lamb

The Tale of the Tape

1^st Round

UCL 180 – Sheffield 170 – 70.3

Newcastle 195 – Open University 115 Bonus conversion 63.3

Yes, that makes interesting reading doesn’t it, dearly beloved. Two teams with excellent bonus conversion rates, and one of them would be home before the postcards. Hardly seems fair, but that’s tournament play for you.

Rachel Collier (mother of Louis Collier of the same team) was first in to identify Ovis Aries as a ram. This earned bonuses for UCL on the poetry of WB Yeats. Now you’re talking, says I – yum yum, yes please. UCL took two, but possibly should have known gyre from “The Second Coming” – it’s a pretty well-known poem. Skipper James Salmon knew transaction costs for the next starter, and then a good full set on Mount Semeru. Tom Speller earned his ‘one decade out’ T shirt for the next starter (Oh, come on, you must know Popmasters on radio 2) allowing Louis Collier (son of Rachel on the same team) to identify 1730s as the decade that saw Robert Walpole move into 10, Downing Street. Bonuses on George ‘Who’ Gamow saw the first one earn me my lap of honour around the living room. Lemaitre ?– oh well, said I, gotta be the Big Bang Theory. And it was. Paled into insignificance next to the full house that UCL earned, though. So to the picture starter. A map of the counties of England as they were following the 1972 reorganisation saw Michael Fleetwood – Walker identify Hereford and Worcester, although he did get a telling off for saying Hereford and Worcestershire. Three more counties created at the same time which have since been abolished brought a couple of bonuses. We were some way short of the 10 minute mark, and UCL already led by 90 – 0. At this point they did falter a little, though. A chemistry starter saw captain Jamie Salmon in with a wrong answer allowing Sam Keay, his Newcastle counterpart in with the correct – or at least acceptable – answer of hydrogen oxide. Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci brought two bonuses and it meant that the scores were 90 – 20 to UCL as we approached the ten-minute mark.

I don’t claim to have understood the next question but Sam Keay, who now seemed set on hauling his team back into contention said it was gravitational lensing. Hey, that works for me. It worked for him too as it earned Newcastle bonuses on three word alliterative expressions. ‘Veni, vidi, vici !’ I shouted to nobody in particular. This is why they won’t watch UC with me. That one didn’t come up and like Newcastle the only one I knew from the others was Wee Willie Winkie. John Ingham knew the prefix meta for the next starter, and Newcastle were eating up the gap. Zoology questions brought them a timely full house which did even more damage to the UCL lead. Now, I don’t often get music starters, so when a lady came on singing in German, sounding suspiciously like Lotte Lenya, I bit the bullet with Kurt Weill as the composer. So did Rachel Collier, and we were right to do so. More songs from the Threepenny Opera recorded at a later date by other artists brought one correct answer with Marianne Faithfull, while I took one for Bobby Darin. I can’t claim to know a great deal about philosophy, but I knew who wrote The Subjection of Women. Neither team could dredge up John Stuart Mill (who, incidentally, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill). James Salmon knew that the ash is one of the species of British tree with pinnate leaves, the rowan being the other. Places associated with Mary Wollstonecraft brought just the one bonus. The only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Neptune was a bit of a naughty question. I mean it was obviously Ceres which is always within the orbit of Neptune, but then Pluto does cross inside Neptune’s orbit for part of its own orbit too. Sam Keay was in like lightning for that. The financial crisis of 2008 provided a full house. James Salmon, having a good evening on the buzzer, came in early to supply the word gaucho for the next starter. White blood cells could only bring them a single bonus. Again, James Salmon struck on the next starter with Public Lending Right. Bonuses on Susannah Clarke were enough to bring the score to 155 – 85 in favour of UCL as we approached the 20 minute mark. Looking pretty clear cut, you think?

Sam Keay stuck early to identify 1974 as one of the 20^th centuries years of 2 elections – 1910 being the other. British rivers sharing their names with animals did none of us much of a favour though. So to the picture starter. In all honesty I don’t recall having heard of a Barcelona chair before, neither, I think, had either team. So the pix rolled over while Tom Speller worked out that a Queensland hairy nosed could only realistically be a wombat. This earned the poisoned chalice of the picture bonuses. I answered Eames for all three and was right with the last. John Ingham knew that Queen Vic’s youngest lad was called Leopold for the next starter. Irish history saw them miss one of the set, but what they did get put them just one full house behind. Again the Newcastle skipper went early to identify the city of Persepolis. London Prisons left them just 10 points adrift, with all of the momentum. What a great buzz from inspiational captain Sam Keay to identify Meitnerium as the only element named solely after a female scientist. European history failed to supply the bonus that would have given Newcastle the lead. A Thomas Hardy quote looked to be hinting at Shakespeare. Louis Collier zigged with John Donne allowing John Ingham to zag with Shakespeare. A full set would leave UCL needing more than one visit to the table. Novelists yielded just one, but even so a fifteen point lead with hardly any time left looked good. If they could just take the next starter . . . It fell to Louis Collier who knew that Tom Daley and Mattie Lee won gold from the 10m platform. Borneo brought a full house, and the lead. If Newcastle could take the next starter – ah, but it was gonged before JP had finished asking it.

Newcastle, I’m very sorry that you didn’t quite do it. You would, I dare say, have won several of the other 2^nd round heats. All I can offer is the cold comfort of having made a wonderful fightback. As for UCL – congratulations – it was won, for my money, through achieving a 66.66 percent bonus conversion rate. Newcastle’s was slightly less than 50 percent. A really good show, that frankly deserved to have happened in the quarter finals, semi finals or final.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Meitnerium is the only element named SOLELY after a female scientist.

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 20

Look, I know what you’re asking yourself. Just how well did Dave do on the specialists this week when he only told us yesterday that he hasn’t wikied any of them. Well, all will be revealed, but there are other issues to discuss first.

Like Molly Quinn-Leitch and her round on Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s Tragedies. There’s always a thing when you’re discussing Shakespeare’s Tragedies – which plays do you actually count as tragedies? This round took the pragmatic view which includes more than just the five great tragedies, and why not? Well, I said yesterday that I thought I might nick a couple of points on each of tonight’s rounds, and my familiarity with Baz Lurman’s R and J from teaching it so many times brought me one point and I took another 2 for 3. Sadly this was all Molly managed as well. She even apologised at the end of the round and thankfully Clive reassured her that there was no need to do so. Sometimes it just ain’t your night.

Anna Milford Goldstein last passed this way in 1976, 47 (Yes, 47!) years ago. She came third then. I don’t know if there’s a record for the greatest time elapsed between consecutive appearances in the same quiz show, but surely this has to be right up there. Tonight Anna was answering on the Great Fire of London. She knew her stuff too, although she did fall into a rather obvious trap when one of the questions quoted Evelyn’s rather than Pepys’ diary. She stumbled badly and wasted a lot of time on one question which meant that she finished with 6 on a round which had promised more. Me? Four (count 'em, four!). So far so good.

Perfect rounds are difficult to achieve. I know, I never quite managed it myself, my best performance still saw me getting 1 wrong. So Zahir Kazi’s round on John Barnes was extremely impressive. Sometimes when you watch a perfect round you get the feeling that the contender has such a command over their subject that you could keep asking them questions on it for half an hour and they still wouldn’t get any wrong. This is how I felt about Zahir’s round. I didn’t do quite as well on this round, but still got a brace for Graham Taylor and the Maracana. 9 points from 3 rounds. Double figures beckoned.

It can’t be easy having to face the chair for the first time after you’ve just watched the previous contestant deliver a perfect round. So, let’s give full credit to Voirrey Blount for composing herself well, and delivering her own very good round on The Lord of the Rings. Yes, okay, not quite perfect, but 11 on this round was impressive. I’ve read the books several times, and I still only managed 2. Which, if you’re more mathematically gifted than I am, will tell you that yes, I did managed an unwikied double figure aggregate of 11 which is probably my best unwikied performance of the season so far.

Well, it all looked fairly predictable didn’t it from this point? Quinn and Anna would take their rounds, and then the real contest would begin. Poor Quinn had the difficult experience of working very hard on her GK round to produce a respectable score of 7, to find that this hadn’t been enough to move her more than one place up the leader board. As I said, when it’s not your night, it’s just not your night.

Anna Milford Goldstein by way of comparison produced a fantastic performance in her own GK round. I want to stress that I did not think that she had any real chance of winning at this stage. Nonetheless her round of 14 points was superb, and as her score continued to climb I started to think that just maybe she was giving some decent opposition to the top 2. Even so, with 20 points it meant that leader Zahir would still only need a respectable score to win.

Before that, though, it was Voirrey’s turn to have a go. She needed 10 points to go into the outright lead. Well, as we’ve seen, any double figure target requires a contender to negotiate the corridor of doubt, and although she started brightly enough, Voirrey began treading water as she inched towards the target. It was close, but her 8 points left her 1 adrift of Anna on 19.

Putting the task ahead of Zahir into perspective, he needed 6 and no passes to force a tie break. 7 and it would be all over. Judging by his best answers, under normal circumstances I’m petty sure that this is well within his capabilities. But sitting in a Mastermind chair is not a normal circumstance. He wasn’t going very quickly, and the wrong answers were accumulating. He’d scored 5 as the white line of death encircled said score. Could he do it? Well, no, because he’d already passed once, so even a correct answer wouldn’t have been enough. As it was, he couldn’t find the answer, and was left to ponder on what might have been with a score of 19.

This really was quite a show and Anna’s performance was a serious contender for the best comeback since Lazarus. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and I wish you the very best of luck in the semis, ma’am.

The Details

Molly Quinn-Leitch	Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies	3	0	7	0	10	0
Anna Milford Goldstein	The Great Fire of London	6	0	14	0	20	0
Zahir Kazi	The Career of John Barnes	14	0	5	1	18	1
Voirrey Blount	The Lord of the Rings Novels of JRR Tolkein	11	0	8	0	19	0

 

Mastermind 2023: Let's have a look at the scores on the doors

It’s been a while since I did any number crunching on Mastermind. Tomorrow’s subjects are

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein

The Great Fire of London

Film adaptations of Shakespeare Tragedies

The Career of John Barnes

I want to stress that I am nowhere near an expert at all on any one of those subjects. However I do feel that it is possible that I might get one or two on each of them, which just gives me an opportunity for my a shot at a half decent unwikied aggregate. So I haven’t wikied, and that’s left me just a little bit of time to start doing just a little statistical analysis on the series so far, as far as my frankly unimpressive arithmetical skills have allowed.

 So, there’s been 19 shows. The aggregates and average scores are in the table below:-

Aggregate Specialist round score	Aggregate specialist round passes	Aggregate GK round score	Aggregate GK round passes	Aggregate Total score	Aggregate total passes
688	45	758	102	1446	145
Average Specialist round score	Average Specialist round passes	Average GK Round Score	Average GK round passes	Average Total score	Average total passes
9.052632	0.592105	9.973684	1.342105	19.02632	1.907895

I don’t reckon that’s too bad when you get right down to it. Let’s look at just the heat winners now. Just the heat winners’ aggregates and averages are in the next table:- 

Aggregate Specialist round score	Aggregate specialist round passes	Aggregate GK round score	Aggregate GK round passes	Aggregate Total score	Aggregate total passes
214	3	227	11	441	13
Average Specialist round score	Average Specialist round passes	Average GK Round Score	Average GK round passes	Average Total score	Average total passes
11.889	0.1667	12.611	0.6111	24.5	0.7222

 It makes for an interesting comparison. 5 points is a significant margin, and the average winner scores five points more than the average contender  (and remember, the winners are also included within the overall contender averages.) How typical this is I have no idea since I haven’t done this with a previous series.

Of course, you have to remember especially when looking at the winners’ averages that we’re only dealing with a small number of winners – 19 to be precise. Not only that, but there is frankly a massive range within that small field – from 31, the current top score of the series, down to 17, the current lowest winning score of the series. Speaking of which there are currently 4 runners up who scored more highly than the average winner, and another 2 who are only half a point below the average. Yes, I know, that’s the vicissitudes of tournament play, but I’m still allowed to sympathise when someone can score one of the top 10 scores in the whole of the first round (so far) but they still don’t get to the semi-final. 

Let’s take a little look at the perennial old question – are popular entertainment rounds easier than other rounds? Here’s the figures for TV – Films – Music – and also for sport 

Subject	No of rounds	Aggregate	Average	Passes	Average
TV	14	119	8.5	10	0.7143
Film	9	80	8.8889	7	0.7778
Music	9	78	8.6667	7	0.7778
TV/FilmMusic Total	32	277	8.6563	24	0.75
Sport	4	37	9.25	0	0

 Look how close each of those averages are. Yes, the entertainment rounds average less than the average for all specialist rounds, but there really is very little in it. TV is only a smidgen more than half a point less, while the highest, sport is only a quarter of a point higher than the average for all specialist rounds.

 Alright, we are only dealing with very small numbers. Nevertheless, isn’t it reassuring that what we’ve always said, these subjects are perfectly valid in their own right and do not confer any advantage on those who opt for them seems to be borne out by the figures? Which seems to point to what I would have thought was obvious – the only way to give yourself an advantage on specialist is to work as hard and as effectively as you can to learn your subject.

I was a Pointless Answer!

Well, sort of, anyway. It was on Wednesday Evening's Pointless. In the final, one of the categories was Mastermind champions. Now the chance of any of my family or friends having been among the 100 people asked were minuscule. I did hope that, being early in the alphabet I might just make i onto the board of pointless answers, but sadly I didn't get a mention. I was really surprised to see Fred Housego only got 1. Sadly I was relegated to being an 'other answer' among he 'All of the other answers were pointless". That's the way it goes. You gotta take it where you can get it, I say.