Ep 134: Anna Gunn, Felix Johnson (June 27, 2016; originally aired February 3, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


We have two new contestants tonight, after Barry Harridge successfully retired.  Taking up the champion's position is Anna Gunn, a union organiser who is also studying a Bachelor of Law part-time.  Richard asks what kind of challenges are involved in part-time study of the law; Anna responds that, despite her job title of "organiser", she is rather unorganised in her personal life, and you need organisation if you are studying by correspondence.  And right at the end, when exams are on, she'll be up for a week straight trying to cram everything in that she hasn't been doing during the semester.  I think it's safe to say that a good many students behave similarly.

Occupying the challenger's seat is Felix Johnson, a Media and Communications student who hopes to become an actor eventually.  Richard notes that Felix has a start on that goal, since he is involved in student dramatics.  Felix agrees, adding that he has been at university for three years now, and done three years worth of theatre as well; he has been heavily involved with the Melbourne University Shakespeare Company.  Most recently, he was director of a performance of Much Ado About Nothing, which they did as a 1920's garden party.

(It looks like Felix has continued to work on that goal; he's done mostly theatre work since then, but has a few WAAPA short films in his portfolio, and recently had a minor part in the Foxtel drama Secret City.  More details are here, for those interested.)

Later in the game, after the second break, Richard says that chatting during the break has revealed something that Anna and Felix have in common: They are both lifetime vegetarians.  Anna grew up on a farm, but her parents were both vegetarian.  They gave her and her brother a choice about what to eat, and Anna could not see herself eating any of the animals that she shared her space with, so she's always been vegetarian.  Felix did eat steak recently for a journalism article for the university, but says that he would not be likely to do it again.


It was a close game throughout, tonight.  The contestants started out with equal answers, then Felix got a small lead in the second round.  The first numbers of the night saw both contestants equally far away from the target, a little strangely, then Felix stretched his lead to eleven points.  Anna pegged him back over the next two rounds and took the lead from him, only for Felix to snatch it back on the last letters round.  The final numbers round was too hard for the contestants, as was the conundrum, so Felix rode that slender lead to victory, 31 to 27.

I had a bit of a failure in the last (very tough) numbers round, but other than that only dropped a couple of points against David and Lily.  A mostly good game for me.