Ep 41: Ian See, Brian Lynch (September 3, 2012; originally aired September 27, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Disclaimer: While I have not seen this episode before, I did play through the blue book (episodes 1 to 50) around ten months ago when I was scheduled to be a contestant on the show.  Additionally, I did a quick flick through it a few months back to collect words for my posts about word validity.


Ian See gets his first night in the champion's chair.  As we found out yesterday, Ian is a fiction editor; Richard asks him what sort of work he focuses on.  Ian responds that the next project that he will be editing is an anthology of short stories, and he also hopes to edit some novels next year.  Richard checks where Ian would like to be doing that work; Ian says that the big publishing dream is to work in a publishing house in New York, have the big expense account, and all that.  "Maybe one day," he finishes.

Tonight's challenger is Brian Lynch, and I.T. consultant who works in banking during the week, plays soccer on weeknights, and performs in pubs on the weekend.  Brian expands on that last item: He mainly does traditional Irish music at some of the Irish bars around Melbourne.  He plays the guitar and sings, and there is a girl who performs with him who plays the fiddle.


Ian got off to an early lead in the first letters round, but Brian overtook him on the first numbers round.  Ian got ahead again in a later letters round, and then two invalid answers from Brian stopped any comeback he might have mounted.  Ian guaranteed his win by solving the last numbers round, and then capped it off by solving the conundrum to reach the fifty mark, and a final scoreline of 51 to 24.

I was in good shape tonight except for a very careless miss on one letters round, where I ended up with an invalid answer.  There were a couple of reasonably obvious alternatives that I somehow overlooked in time, and that was disappointing.  The rest was reasonable, but that round cost me the chance to equal David and Lily.  Maybe next time...