Good evening again my friends, and welcome to the ante-antepenultimate Quizzy Monday of the season! Only three more after tonight, though we await with baited breath to see if we'll be getting finals day for both shows on Mayday in three weeks' time or whether, as I strongly suspect, snooker will delay it for a week. Anyway, on with tonight's procedings; the fourth Mastermind semi-final to come, but we start, as ever, with UC and the tenth and last QF...
Queen's University Belfast easily defeated Liverpool and Cardiff in the first two rounds, were comfortably beaten themselves by Warwick in their first QF, but pulled off the upset of the series in their second as they defeated the fancied Imperial on a tie-breaker. They were unchanged from all those previous games:
Sarah Carlisle, from Ballynahinch in County Down, studying English with Creative Writing
Jason McKillen, from Belfast, studying Artifical Intelligence
Captain: Daniel Rankin, from County Down, studying PPE
Sam Thompson, from Limavady, studying Physics
Bristol were similarly comfortable in their first two matches, against Gonville & Caius of Cambridge and Exeter, then more narrowly defeated Open in their first QF, before their second against Darwin also ended in a tie-breaker, which they were on the wrong end of. They were also the same quartet as all those prior occasions:
Ted Warner, from Wiltshire, studying Biology
Bridie Rogers, from Brighton, studying Medicine
Captain: Kevin Flanagan, from Dublin, studying AI
Olivia Watts, from York, studying Organic Chemistry
Mr Rankin, very much his side's MVP in these QFs, took the first starter, which was followed by one bonus, but Bristol took the remaining starters of the first phase of play and, after the first picture round, they led 50-10. Another starter pushed the Avonsiders further ahead, but Queen's fought back as their captain took two starters in a row; they only took one bonus though, from a set where AR briefly turned into Vernon Kay and sang the answer! The chairman also gave a somewhat Vernon-esque reaction when neither side got the music starter right! The music bonuses eventually went to Bristol, and they took one, increasing their lead to 80-35.
A very quick buzz from Mr Warner increased that lead, but a penalty allowed Queen's back into the game; again, though, just one bonus followed. Bristol duly broke into triple figures and, after the second picture round, they led 130-50. Another starter to the Avonsiders, another pair of bonuses, and their lead suddenly stood at 100 points. And when Mr Flanagan took the next starter, that was game over. Queen's did take one final starter, and one of the obligatory Shakespeare bonuses, but had been well beaten again this time, as the last starter of the game took Bristol to their double century. At the gong, Bristol won 200-65.
A solid end to the QFs that wasn't totally one-sided until Bristol ran away in the final third. Well done them, worthy winners and semi-finalists; best of luck to them there! Hard lines to Queen's, but they've had a great run and have been a very pleasant and watchable team; thanks very much to them for playing!
The stats: Mr Warner was, once again, the best buzzer of the night, with six starters, while Mr Rankin was, also once again, best for Queen's, with five, as he finishes his team's run easily their best buzzer of the series with 26 over five matches. On the bonuses, Queen's managed 5 out of 15 and Bristol 18 out of 35 and both sides incurred two penalties each.
Next week's match: the first semi-final! Don't know the draw yet, but I would expect to see Christ's vs Bristol and Darwin vs Warwick.
Mastermind’s fourth semi-final was
opened by Dom Tait, who was answering on wildcats of the domestic world;
another good round with just one mistake that I noticed, he scored 12 points.
He was followed into the chair by Aine McMenamin, who was answering on the tragedies
of Euripides; she didn’t fare as well as Dom, a few mistakes, but still a
respectable score of 8. Next up was James Waller, who was answering on the
Battle of Gettysburg; he ended up going straight down the middle of Dom and
Aine, scoring a decent 10. Finally, Dan Shoesmith was answering on West Ham
United since 1992 (ie the Premier League era); it looked like he would beat Dan’s
score, but mistakes on his last two questions meant he ended up tying it,
another very good 12.
Aine returned for GK first needing
a strong performance to stand a realistic chance; she started well, but then hit
a run of questions not to her liking and then incurred a pass as well; she scored
6 for a total of 14. James started well at first, then he also hit a rough
patch, before recovering to double his score, another 10 for a total of 20;
good score, but you fancied at least one of the remaining two would likely beat
it.
Dom overtook the score in fairly
short order, then he too hit a brief sticky patch, but not for long and he soon
motored away with another excellent GK run; a great score of 15 for a superb
total of 27 left Dan needing to be pretty much perfect to beat it. He was off
the pace pretty quickly however sadly, and a couple of passes pretty much
finished off his chances; he nonetheless rallied and scored 7 for a respectable
total of 19. Which means Dom is our fourth semi-finalist! Well done him, and
thanks to the others for taking part!
And that's it for this week! As I said before, not long to go now before we can finally rest easy for a bit! I've pretty much decided already to go back to just a single paragraph (if that) on Mastermind next season, so enjoy the longer write-ups while they last. Anyway, thanks as ever for watching, and see yous again next week, same time same place...
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