Wednesday 4 January 2012

Sleb Mastermind Show 7

We’re winding towards the end of another series of sleb Mastermind now, with only tomorrow night’s show to come if I’m right. First up tonight was Rachel Riley. Rachel as I’m sure you know took over arranging the letters and solving the Maths puzzles on Countdown. Her specialist subject, Manchester United, has been done at least once before on regular Mastermind. To be fair she was only answering on Man Utd. since 1990, but that period has been eventful enough certainly. I fancied I’d get a few, and I had 4. Rachel was very composed in the chair, though. Alright, she didn’t get all of them, but her 9 was a pretty decent return on her 90 seconds’ investment. Rachel had two charities – The Angus Lawson Memorial Trust, and the Celia Hammond Animal Trust

Wayne Hemingway is the well-known fashion designer, creator of the label Red or Dead. He is also the answer to a well-I-never quiz question – which fashion designer is the son of 60s wrestler Billy Two Rivers ? Still, that’s irrelevant to tonight’s show. Wayne’s subject was Disco music of the 1970s. A so-so subject for me, I predicted, , but I was rather pleased with my 7. Not as good as Wayne’s 11, mind you. Altogether now – anything in double figures is good going off a 90 second round. Wayen represented Oxfam tonight.

I’m afraid I have to admit that I was not previously familiar with Miles Jupp’s work. Since he’s an actor and comedian this needn’t cause him any anguish at all. His subject was the cricketer Michael Atherton. Now, when I saw this I though – oh oh, cricket. That’s a kryptonite subject. But as it was I needn’t have worried. I read Mike Atherton’s interesting autobiog a few years ago, and I guess that some of what I read stuck. I scored 8 , while Miles . . . well, Miles put up a perfect round of 13 from 13.A fine display which will have doubtless pleased the members of the Lords Taverners, which is his chosen cause.

Last to go was Gary O’Donoghue Gary was tonight’s broadcast journalist, currently working for the BBC. Gary’s specialist subject was Winston Churchill. Hmm, thought I. Could be an OK subject for me – you never know. Since I’d been scoring freely enough on specialists I went into the round optimistic – with good reason. I whacked in 8 , and was very happy with that. Gary did better, of course. He scored ten, a little way behind Miles, but enough to give him a chance going into the GKs. Gary’s chosen charity is the Clearvision project.

It had been a high scoring first half. I had my highest aggregate of the series with 25, for one thing. All of our contenders had the opportunity to break the 20 point barrier. Rachel Riley, who knows a thing or two about number herself returned to the chair, and I have to say that she looked most convincing in doing so. Her 15 , which gave her a final score of 24 and 1 pass was enough to have won her last night’s show. And there were still 3 contenders to go. Gary came next. He was not quite so impressive at the start of the round as Rachel had been, but you have to say that he did pick up an impressive turn of speed which saw him to a praiseworthy 14. 2 passes put him behind Rachel by the narrowest of margins.

Wayne was not as impressive as his two predecessors, I think it’s probably fair to say. Having said that he was still better than many we’ve seen this series. He passed on 5, but he did manage 11 correct answers, which put him on 22. At this stage it looked likely that he would end in 4th place, which he did. As an aside, the highest score any 4th placed contender had so far had in this series was Jenny Meadows’ 16 in show 2. So he deserves a certain amount of sympathy for that. No time for such sentiments at the moment though , for the time had come for Miles to make his run for the line. Once again, it wasn’t a perfect start, but all 4 of the contenders were admirably level headed tonight, and Miles kept on answering what he knew. He passed the 24 mark with a few questions to spare, and went on to a fine 27. For the record his 14, though good, wasn’t as good as Rachel’s 15. So well played all contenders tonight. Good show.

The Details

Rachel Riley Manchester United FC since 19999 - 015 - 124 – 1
Wayne HemingwayDisco Music of the 1970s11 - 111 - 622 – 7
Miles JuppLife and Career of Mike Atherton13 - 014 - 127 – 1
Gary O’DonoghueWinston Churchill10 - 014 - 224 – 2

1 comment:

DanielFullard said...

Correct me if I am wrong but I think its a ten episode run with the final show on Sunday