Good evening once again my friends, and welcome to the final Quizzy Monday of the season! Yep, we're into an unprecedented 38th week of official coverage on this blog, but I'm actually glad tonight's Mastermind final gets a blog of its own as it definitely deserved one in the end. Neither it nor last week's UC final deserved to be overshadowed by the other TBH. Anyway, for the final time this season, here we go...
Mastermind’s fourth Grand Final of
the Clive Myrie era was opened by Nancy Braithwaite, who was answering on the
stage plays of Sir Tom Stoppard; following her filmed intro, including a visit
to the Old Vic and a chat with Mark Lawson, her round started well, then
blipped a bit with two wrong answers in a row, but recovered to a score of 10.
She was followed into the chair by
John Harden, who was answering on the 1953 ascent of Everest, which he chose
because an alumnus of the school he works for was part of a previous, unsuccessful,
expedition to the mountain, with Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund, chatting to
him via a video chat; he matches Nancy’s score, another 10.
Next up was Ivan Milatovic, who
was answering on the music of Led Zeppelin, with his intro taking him to the studio
(now a cinema) where the band recorded some of their most noted songs, with
Robert Plant providing a recorded message of good luck to him; he didn’t get
any answers wrong until right at the end, and ended up edging in front with 12.
Dom Tait was next up, and was
answering on penguins, with his intro featuring him seeing some real life ones
of those for the first time, followed by a recorded message of luck from Liz
Bonnin (a still of him on UC and a clip of him on OC were also shown); also
making just the one error, he matched Ivan’s score of 12.
Our penultimate contender was
Claire Reynolds, who, of course, only made it here due to someone else
withdrawing from the semis, and who was answering on mathematician Emmy Noether,
with her intro taking her to Birmingham University to provide more background
info on her, followed by Rachel Riley offering her some recorded words of
encouragement; she also made no mistakes until very late on, and she too ended
up with 12 points.
Finally, John Robinson was
answering on the Empire State Building; he didn’t get to go and see it (again)
for his intro, but he did have a video chat with a lady from the Skyscraper
Museum and an quick chat with a quizzing teammate of his, former Mastermind
champ David Edwards (a clip of him winning £500,000 on WWTBAM was also shown), before
he too posted a score of 12, setting us up for a very crucial GK round indeed!
Nancy returned first, and gave us
a good round which, despite a few mistakes, kept ticking along very well, and
she scored 13 for an excellent total of 23, though did incur a pass right at
the end.
John H didn’t quite manage as good a round, but did come respectably
close, scoring 11 for a good total of 21.
Ivan was the first of the four
with 12 to return for GK; he started strongly to reach 20, but then hit a run
of wrong answers that knocked him off the pace, but he recovered to finish
neatly in between Nancy and John, 10 for a good total of 22.
Dom was next, and,
after a very good steady run, equalled Nancy’s score, before a slight wobble took
away his momentum; he did, nonetheless, take the lead, scoring 13 for a very
good total of 25.
Claire was next up, and scored
very strongly and steadily, with a nice backwards link to last week’s UC with a
question about Watling Street to boot, and she duly took the lead with a fantastic
score of 17 for a magnificent total of 29!
John R thus faced the daunting
task of scoring 18 or more for the win. He needed to keep a very strong pace
and, despite a few mistakes, did do so, so it was going to be very close. As
the timer began to tick, he was one adrift; he got it right, and there was time
for one more! If he got it right, he’d done it… and get it right he did! 18 for
a total of 30 made him the new Mastermind champion!
Very very well done John, a superb
performance and a most worthy victory indeed! And well done to the other five
as well for an excellent final, Claire especially for congratulating John on
his win afterwards. And many thanks to Clive M and all the contenders involved
for a fine series!
I have now decided not to cover the show
as thoroughly next series though, at least not all the way through; maybe I’ll
only give the heats a fleeting mention and then give fuller coverage to
the semis and final. Whatever the case, I do still very much intend to carry on with this blog format next season; it's worked pretty well I think.
And that's it; we're finished! Thanks very much indeed to everyone who has read and commented on the blog over the past few months; your support is as appreciated as ever. I'll be back when the quizzes return, whenever that is, hopefully earlier than last year; whether I'll have anything else to write on this blog in the meantime, who knows? So, until we next meet, sayonara...
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