Ep 264: Rachel Furness, Ajanthan Jegatheeswaran (February 19, 2015; originally aired September 1, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I watched this episode when it first aired, and although I did not recall any of it I cannot rule out memory being a factor.


Rachel is back for her second night, and it is revealed that she has a young daughter called Lily; also a son named Noah, but that name lacks the obvious connection to the show.  Both children are huge fans of Lily Serna, and (young) Lily told Rachel to be sure to let (older) Lily know that Rachel had her own little Lily at home.  Phew, that's too many uses of "Lily" in the sentence, but there's only so much I can do.

Tonight's challenger is Ajanthan Jegatheeswaran, an architect whose ambition is to own his own company providing disaster relief housing.  Richard notes the specificity of that ambition, and asks why that is so.  Ajanthan explains that his family left a war-torn country to come to Australia, so wants to be able to give something back to people less fortunate than they were.


Ajanthan was the first to score, finding a nice word in the first round while Rachel lagged behind.  She took the second round, though, reducing his lead to just a single point.  Two shared rounds followed, but then Rachel really hit her stride, finding a good word and an exceptional numbers solution.  Ajanthan's choice in the final letters round was invalid, and that guaranteed Rachel the win.  Both solved the final numbers round, and the conundrum was too difficult for everyone, so the margin remained large in Rachel's favour: 54 points to 32.

I had an excellent game, hitting maximums in all of the main rounds.  One of those was that same numbers round that Rachel did so well on, and as Lily faltered there I was actually ahead on the solo total going into the conundrum.  All I needed to do was solve it to have that great rarity of the win against David and Lily... but for the fourth game in a row the conundrum was too difficult for me.  Frustrating!


As usual, details after the jump.