Margaret likes ten-pin bowling; she would not say (as Richard suggests) that she is pretty good, but she does have flashes of brilliance. Occasional strikes, and once she managed to get four of them in a row.
Tonight's challenger is Louise Broadbent, a personal care assistant. In her case, this involves working with people who have had spinal injuries and enabling them to stay in their own home after the accident. So she aids them in physical tasks that are now difficult or impossible, and helps around the home also.
It's a very close game tonight, with the only difference being two letters rounds (one going each way). Their three numbers answers are identical, in fact, and so it comes down to the conundrum with Margaret a single point ahead. It is a tough one, but Louise finds the answer and takes the win, 61 to 52.
I could not hit the high notes tonight, only getting the best letters round once; additionally, I ended up deeply confused on one of the numbers rounds and ended up further away than the contestants. The net result was that I could have been caught by Margaret on the conundrum. I was relieved to get to the solution first and scrape home the win, although since Louise was the one to solve it I would have won in any case.
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
Ep 413: Margaret Zimmer, Vishal Gandhi (March 28, 2012)
Margaret likes train travel, but somewhat longer than normal commuting journeys. She recently took the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin with a friend. They had a fantastic time; it took two and a half days to make the trip, and since they were in economy class the cabin was just big enough for them to put the bunks down in order to sleep at night. Margaret calls it an "interesting time", adding that it was really great and they met lots of interesting people.
Tonight's challenger is civil engineer Vishal Gandhi. Apparently he has quite a good memory; at work there are monthly meetings, and he is able to recall the contents of them from a couple of years back. That could be very helpful on occasion, for sure.
Margaret got off to an early lead, and kept extending it in the ensuing rounds. Vishal scored only twice overall, once with a just-barely-in-range answer in the last numbers round, and even though the conundrum proved to be too difficult for them both Margaret cruised to a 37 to 10 victory.
I had another pretty good game, including finding a full monty at last. The rounds I missed were difficult finds, and although I also missed the conundrum that full monty kept me happy. Another comfortable win, and a pretty decent week so far.
Tonight's challenger is civil engineer Vishal Gandhi. Apparently he has quite a good memory; at work there are monthly meetings, and he is able to recall the contents of them from a couple of years back. That could be very helpful on occasion, for sure.
Margaret got off to an early lead, and kept extending it in the ensuing rounds. Vishal scored only twice overall, once with a just-barely-in-range answer in the last numbers round, and even though the conundrum proved to be too difficult for them both Margaret cruised to a 37 to 10 victory.
I had another pretty good game, including finding a full monty at last. The rounds I missed were difficult finds, and although I also missed the conundrum that full monty kept me happy. Another comfortable win, and a pretty decent week so far.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Ep 412: Donald Piggott-McKellar, Margaret Zimmer (March 27, 2012)
It took a day and a half, but they finally allowed access to this episode from the website. Hopefully there will not be a repetition of these difficulties for a while.
Since Ann successfully retired last game, we have two new contestants tonight. Taking the champion's seat is Donald Piggott-McKellar, a civil engineer. That's a pretty familiar surname, and indeed it turns out that Donald is the brother of Christopher Piggott-McKellar, who was on the show late last series and only just missed out on making the finals. Viewers with decent memories may recall that Christopher expressed a loathing of skinny black ties; it should come as little surprise that Donald has chosen to wear one on the show. (Donald admits that he does not like them much either, but circumstances warranted wearing one.)
Taking the challenger's seat is primary school teacher Margaret Zimmer. She has been teaching really young children for the past nine years; Richard asks what it is she likes about that. Margaret responds that she likes how they come in knowing nothing, and then when she looks at what they know at the end of the year she can say that she taught them all of that. That she has made a significant impact and set them up for the rest of their education.
It's fairly close tonight; Margaret gets an early lead in the second letters round, but invalid words in the next two let Donald overtake her. He then has an invalid word of his own in the last letters round to drop behind again, but takes the lead once more in the numbers round. It all comes down to the conundrum, and Margaret solves it first to take the win, 38 to 34.
I had a good game this time; maybe the delay helped somehow. Only two rounds offered improvements, and I'd not heard of the word for one of those. The other round I was floundering and perhaps fortunate, as there is a tempting but invalid longer word which I did not even see. I had a rare quick solve of the conundrum for a nice change, and finished just two points behind David and Lily.
Since Ann successfully retired last game, we have two new contestants tonight. Taking the champion's seat is Donald Piggott-McKellar, a civil engineer. That's a pretty familiar surname, and indeed it turns out that Donald is the brother of Christopher Piggott-McKellar, who was on the show late last series and only just missed out on making the finals. Viewers with decent memories may recall that Christopher expressed a loathing of skinny black ties; it should come as little surprise that Donald has chosen to wear one on the show. (Donald admits that he does not like them much either, but circumstances warranted wearing one.)
Taking the challenger's seat is primary school teacher Margaret Zimmer. She has been teaching really young children for the past nine years; Richard asks what it is she likes about that. Margaret responds that she likes how they come in knowing nothing, and then when she looks at what they know at the end of the year she can say that she taught them all of that. That she has made a significant impact and set them up for the rest of their education.
It's fairly close tonight; Margaret gets an early lead in the second letters round, but invalid words in the next two let Donald overtake her. He then has an invalid word of his own in the last letters round to drop behind again, but takes the lead once more in the numbers round. It all comes down to the conundrum, and Margaret solves it first to take the win, 38 to 34.
I had a good game this time; maybe the delay helped somehow. Only two rounds offered improvements, and I'd not heard of the word for one of those. The other round I was floundering and perhaps fortunate, as there is a tempting but invalid longer word which I did not even see. I had a rare quick solve of the conundrum for a nice change, and finished just two points behind David and Lily.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Delays
Looks like there's something not-qite-right with the SBS setup at the moment; as of a bit after 9:30PM Sydney time (so after the show would have finished airing in Western Australia, not that that is usually an issue) the website video is simply stating that the content is unavailable.
I'll be out tomorrow night, so even if the SBS issues are fixed by then there will be a probable two day delay in the updates.
I'll be out tomorrow night, so even if the SBS issues are fixed by then there will be a probable two day delay in the updates.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Ep 411: Ann Russell, John Morris (March 26, 2012)
Richard asks Ann for particular memories of her performance so far. Ann has enjoyed it, of course, and mentions that she has discovered something about herself: Her ability to recover from blunders so that she can treat each game separately and not dwell on what she has done in the past. She did not know that about herself, so it has been a good learning experience.
Tonight's challenger is John Morris, an economist and geologist. John has been on several trips -- partly tied in with his geological interests -- that have tended to have a theme about them; generally, dinosaurs and volcanos. He mentions one trip to Boulia, near the Queensland/Northern Territory border; he says that area used to be an ocean and had pliosaurs swimming around there. So the trips were about finding fossils or evidence of volcanic activity along the way; Richard compares it to a game of I Spy.
For the first four letters rounds Ann managed to outdo John by a letter each round. He turned the tables in the final letters round but he had already conceded far too much ground to hope to catch up. Ann solved two of the numbers rounds also (with the third proving too difficult for both contestants), which put it beyond any doubt. The conundrum went unsolved and Ann gained her sixth victory with a 47 to 16 scoreline, becoming the series' second retiring champion. She'll be back for the finals, presumably, unless we keep getting retiring champions at this rate!
I was slow on the conundrum, but I got there. I did as well as possible on the numbers, and almost so on the letters. I actually had every best answer written down (one of them outdoing David) but talked myself out of two of them, including the full monty. Ouch. A comfortable win and a good game, but it hurts to have the perfect game within grasp and throw it away like that.
Tonight's challenger is John Morris, an economist and geologist. John has been on several trips -- partly tied in with his geological interests -- that have tended to have a theme about them; generally, dinosaurs and volcanos. He mentions one trip to Boulia, near the Queensland/Northern Territory border; he says that area used to be an ocean and had pliosaurs swimming around there. So the trips were about finding fossils or evidence of volcanic activity along the way; Richard compares it to a game of I Spy.
For the first four letters rounds Ann managed to outdo John by a letter each round. He turned the tables in the final letters round but he had already conceded far too much ground to hope to catch up. Ann solved two of the numbers rounds also (with the third proving too difficult for both contestants), which put it beyond any doubt. The conundrum went unsolved and Ann gained her sixth victory with a 47 to 16 scoreline, becoming the series' second retiring champion. She'll be back for the finals, presumably, unless we keep getting retiring champions at this rate!
I was slow on the conundrum, but I got there. I did as well as possible on the numbers, and almost so on the letters. I actually had every best answer written down (one of them outdoing David) but talked myself out of two of them, including the full monty. Ouch. A comfortable win and a good game, but it hurts to have the perfect game within grasp and throw it away like that.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 406 to 410
I've had a tough time with the conundrums this week, but mostly managed to keep up with David and Lily aside from that. The exception being Thursday's effort where I missed two easy extensions, including the only full monty for some time.
Ann looks extremely likely to make the finals at this point; will we get a full roster of retiring champions in the finals this series?
It has been another tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available again; this time it was findable enough that everyone did... except for me. Hopefully next week will provide more opportunities than we've had so far!
My numbers performance improved this week; however, my letters and conundrum performance was down a touch. A possibly interesting point is how the similar statistics for Monday and Thursday translate into greatly different solo point differences as compared to David and Lily (even after taking the conundrum into consideration).
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 62 | 65 | 63 | 51 | 65 |
| Champion | 20 | 38 | 27 | 43 | 31 |
| Challenger | 16 | 23 | 14 | 28 | 17 |
| David + Lily | 69 | 78 | 75 | 89 | 77 |
| Me (solo) | 68 | 72 | 63 | 66 | 65 |
Ann looks extremely likely to make the finals at this point; will we get a full roster of retiring champions in the finals this series?
| Norm Do | 67 | 62 | 58 | 61 | 59 | 62 | 369 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ann Russell | 40 | 48 | 46 | 62 | 49 | 245 |
It has been another tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available again; this time it was findable enough that everyone did... except for me. Hopefully next week will provide more opportunities than we've had so far!
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Impossible Numbers | 1 | 1 | 2 |
My numbers performance improved this week; however, my letters and conundrum performance was down a touch. A possibly interesting point is how the similar statistics for Monday and Thursday translate into greatly different solo point differences as compared to David and Lily (even after taking the conundrum into consideration).
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| N | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| C | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norm Do | 369 | 6 | 61.50 |
| Ann Russell* | 245 | 5 | 49.00 |
| Diana Greenslade | 43 | 1 | 43.00 |
| Gavin Griffith | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| James Cooper | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Philip Scambler | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Peter Ghalayini | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Marc Lissner | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Cassie Palmer | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Casey Duggan | 13 | 1 | 13.00 |
| Patrick Johns | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Hans Pieterse | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
Ep 410: Ann Russell, Philip Scambler (March 23, 2012)
Ann has been learning Spanish in preparation for doing some travel in South America. No mention of what she hopes to visit there, though.
Tonight's challenger is Philip Scambler, a retired school principal. Now that he is retired, at sheep-shearing time he helps out at the shearing sheds of a friend who owns a large property. He does not shear the sheep, but does do a variety of other tasks, "particularly the ones which are not too strenuous".
The contestants are reasonably close on the letters, but Ann twice managed to do better. That gave her a crucial fourteen point lead, and the numbers rounds provided no difference. Neither managed to get close in the last one which was a little odd, and it could have put Philip back into contention if he'd just done so. (There's a suggestion that he saw something a little too late.) Ann buzzed in with an incorrect conundrum answer, and then rather strangely Philip apparently wrote his answer down instead of buzzing in; if he had been in contention, that would have been a bizarre way to avoid winning. Ann gets her fifth win, 49 to 35.
I was in reasonable form, but just a few seconds slow on the first letters round. I also cunningly avoided finding the better answer in another round (but nothing nearly as bad as the ETHANOL / METHANOL slip from yesterday), and blanked on the conundrum. But my numbers work continues to be good this series, and I had a comfortable win.
Tonight's challenger is Philip Scambler, a retired school principal. Now that he is retired, at sheep-shearing time he helps out at the shearing sheds of a friend who owns a large property. He does not shear the sheep, but does do a variety of other tasks, "particularly the ones which are not too strenuous".
The contestants are reasonably close on the letters, but Ann twice managed to do better. That gave her a crucial fourteen point lead, and the numbers rounds provided no difference. Neither managed to get close in the last one which was a little odd, and it could have put Philip back into contention if he'd just done so. (There's a suggestion that he saw something a little too late.) Ann buzzed in with an incorrect conundrum answer, and then rather strangely Philip apparently wrote his answer down instead of buzzing in; if he had been in contention, that would have been a bizarre way to avoid winning. Ann gets her fifth win, 49 to 35.
I was in reasonable form, but just a few seconds slow on the first letters round. I also cunningly avoided finding the better answer in another round (but nothing nearly as bad as the ETHANOL / METHANOL slip from yesterday), and blanked on the conundrum. But my numbers work continues to be good this series, and I had a comfortable win.
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