Ep 370: John O'Connor, Colin Shnier (January 27, 2012)

Richard asks John what he finds so satisfying about teaching really young children.  (There's more behind this question than is apparent at this point, but we'll get to that soon.)  John responds that the big satisfaction as a primary school teacher is to see massive changes in children over the course of a single year.  His example is that if you can get a child reading well then it affects not only their English performance, but they are able to use it in maths and everything else.

Tonight's challenger is Colin Shnier, a secondary school mathematics teacher.  Richard follows on from his question to John by asking Colin what he finds appealing about teaching to older children.  Colin starts with some minor trash-talk about the first requirement being to fix what John (and his colleagues) have done; fortunately he is not serious, nor does anyone take him as such.  Actually answering the question, Colin says that the continuation of that growth that John talked about is quite beautiful; Colin adds that he really loves working with teenagers because you get such an honesty of the feedback -- you can see immediately how they are thinking and feeling.


It's another close game tonight, with the letters rounds being a little parsimonious and the numbers serving up some difficult targets.  Colin takes the lead in the first round, John gets some back and then loses that ground again in the middle rounds, and finally in the last letters round John finds a good word to hit the lead for the first time, by a single point.  But Colin retakes the lead in the ensuing numbers round, and with neither solving the conundrum that makes Colin the winner by 44 points to 35.

I did as well as possible on the letters tonight (I believe) but once again missed a number solution that I should have found.  I solved the conundrum relatively quickly, and overall it was a good game that was just short of being excellent.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 369: John O'Connor, Nick Mann (January 26, 2012)

Richard tries to draw a parallel between John's old job (chief purser on a cruise ship) and his current one (primary school teacher); John remarks that the antics of some of the six- and seven-year olds are similar to those he has experienced with passengers in the past.  Nonetheless, John is very happy with his late career shift to teaching.

Challenging John is Nick Mann, a personal injury lawyer.  He says that there's a lot of medicine in the area of law that he deals with, so he has gone back to university for further study; he has just started a masters degree in health and medical law.


John finds a couple of excellent words tonight, but gives back most of that ground in other letters rounds.  The first numbers round proves difficult for both but Nick has just the better of it, while the others do not distinguish between the contestants; the net result is a slender two-point lead for Nick going into the conundrum.  John solves it reasonably quickly, and gets his second win with a score of 49 points to 41.

I was slightly behind where I would have liked to be on both types of game, but still managed to forge a decent lead.  I solved the conundrum very quickly for a change, for a workmanlike win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 368: Angie Pearce, John O'Connor (January 25, 2012)

The talk with Angie is about how exciting the previous game was; we learn nothing new about her, alas.

Tonight's challenger is primary school teacher John O'Connor, but it's a previous job of his that Richard wants to talk about.  John used to be the chief purser on a cruise ship whose typical occupancy was nearly four thousand guests and over a thousand crew.  It's not necessarily the "fantasy world" that Richard suggests, but John concedes that it was like living in a village of its own.  Apparently John was often mistaken for the captain as his uniform had quite a few bars on the sleeves.


There's some excellent letter play today, including an absolutely beautiful find from Angie.  The net result is even on those, but John does slightly better in the numbers to take a slender lead into the conundrum.  He solves the conundrum very quickly, and takes the win 41 to 28.

I had a good round today but with a careless blunder that rather took the shine off it.  For the second time (when playing at home) I was just pipped to the conundrum, hearing the buzzer start to sound as I paused.  Good work from John to get that, but I still had enough leeway for a comfortable win.

As usual, details after the jump.