Ep 63: Veronica Corrigan, Jonathan Campbell (October 3, 2012; originally aired October 27, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


This is the crucial fourth night for Veronica Corrigan: Even a loss will get her into the finals rankings if she can score 12 points, but she'll need over 60 points or a win (the more likely option) in order to move up to seventh position.  Richard asks where her word-finding background comes from, and Veronica says that her family plays lots of word games at home; her strengths are Take Two and particularly Boggle, where she has a ten year unbeaten streak in her family.

Taking up the challenge tonight is Jonathan Campbell, a schoolteacher who enjoys writing and recording music.  Jonathan played in a band called Foregone Conclusion (I have to wonder if the name was chosen as a reference to The Office's David Brent, who used to be in a band of that name) that covered 80's love songs.  Richard asks if Jonathan sang in it, but Jonathan responds that he has a shocking singing voice and he played guitar.


Jonathan found a rather nice word in the first round to get an early lead, but Veronica overtook him in the second round with the top spot.  An error from her in the numbers round saw him get in front again; a little later two good results from Veronica saw her get more than a conundrum's worth ahead.  That could have been game to her, but she chose an unfortunately invalid word in the final letters round and that was enough to allow Jonathan back within striking distance going into the conundrum.  Veronica buzzed in early with an invalid answer and had a nervous wait to see if Jonathan would find the solution in the remaining time.  He did not, so Veronica survived with a slightly fortunate win, 35 to 29.

I had a decent game on the whole.  I dropped two maxima on the letters in the middle of the game, but I would not have found the longer options in any case.  An impossible numbers target livened things up toward the end, and I was comfortably ahead at the conundrum.  Just as well, as I also buzzed in with the same invalid answer that Veronica tried later; I could not recover in time, taking probably another five seconds to find the right answer.