Saturday 17 January 2015

Sleb Mastermind - Show 9

OK, I must apologise to all concerned, but I shan’t dwell too much on this show. That’s no reflection on anyone taking part, simply the fact that there’s so much still to catch up with from the last week in quizzing.

First up in this year’s penultimate sleb show was Gemma Cairney. She had my support since she was playing on behalf of Oxfam, which is a charity for which my daughter works and my wife volunteers. Gemma is a BBC Radio 1 presenter, currently on the early early shift so I believe. Answering on the Spice Girls she managed 7. She was followed by Olympic boxing medallist Anthony Agogo. Anthony was answering on a subject which I quite fancied my chances on – British Middleweight boxers of the 1990s. That was quite some era. You had Herol Graham, in many people’s (and mine) opinion the finest British Middleweight of his time not to win a world championship – Nigel Benn, Joe Calzaghe started then, Chris Eubanks, Michael Watson – and they’re just the names at the top of the list. Anthony scored 6 on a round which wasn’t that easy – I had 7. I knew I wasn’t going to get 7 on Tina Malone’s round on Barbra Streisand, and indeed I didn’t. Tina Malone is an actress best known from the TV show Shameless. Maintaining the standard which had already been set, she managed 7 correct answers. These are all decent scores off 90 seconds, but they did leave a little bit of room for the final contender, Dominic Laurie, if he could manage a stellar round. Dominic Laurie is a presenter on BBC Breakfast, and he was answering on a subject which I myself once considered as a Mastermind subject, the History of the London Underground. I managed 8 of these, but Dominic did indeed produce a stellar round, and scored 11, to lead by 4.

In the GK round Anthony was the first to return to the chair, and to be fair to him he took 4 correct answers on the bounce right at the start of the round. He didn’t find the going quite as good for the rest of the round, but he did double that 4 to 8 to finish with 14. It wouldn’t be a winning total, but it was at least respectable. Gemma then returned, and she was denied a higher score by a few tip of the tongue moments. She added 6 more to her total to finish with 13, one behind Anthony. Tina Malone maintained her sense of humour throughout her round, despite only adding 4 to her total. I liked the way that when John told her the answer to one of her passes, after saying – you’ll know this – she replied with – no I didn’t! Right enough, kid. Finally then Dominic returned for his GK round, knowing that a score of 4 would be enough. Well, barring very unforeseen circumstances it was obvious that he was going to do it, and indeed he did, scoring 9 to take the highest score in both rounds and overall.

The Details

Gemma Cairney OxfamThe Spice Girls7 - 16 - 313 - 3
Anthony AgogoRight to PlayBritish Middleweight Boxers of the 1990s6 - 18 – 114 - 2
Tina MaloneBlackburne HouseBarbra Streisand7 - 34 - 511 - 8
Dominic LaurieReverse RettThe History of the London Underground10 - 19 - 320 – 4

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