Ep 115: Jayden Spudvilas-Powell, Jack Dell (May 31, 2016; originally aired January 7, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


There are two new contestants tonight, after Matthew Thomason successfully retired in the previous episode.  Occupying the champion's seat is Jayden Spudvilas-Powell, who is currently doing a bachelor of arts and plans to teach English in Japan.  Richard asks why Jayden is specifically interested in Japan; Jayden responds that he visited Japan earlier this year and was fascinated by the culture.  He adds that he found Japanese people to be very helpful, and relates how he and a friend got lost on their first night in Japan; at one point they had three Japanese people looking at a map, trying to work out how to get them back to their hotel.

Taking up the challenger's position is Jack Dell, who is currently juggling three part-time jobs: school groundsman, computer technician, and teacher.  But Richard is more interested in another tale: Jack is a member of a book club that ended up on TV.  Richard asks how that came about, and Jack provides some details.  He belongs to an all-male book club (it is not made clear if this is policy or circumstance), which is very unusual; at the time, about ten years ago, there were only two such in Victoria.  They formed because they wanted to prove to their wives that they could be in a book club, because their wives had one.  He jokes that the difference is that the host of the woman's book club has a bottle of wine, whereas they have one each.


Jack started off with a good word in round one to take the points, and the same again in round two.  This pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the game, with Jack winning every letters round while the numbers were shared.  Jayden did end up solving the conundrum at the last possible moment, but Jack was the victor, 59 to 34.

I made a careless mental error in round three that cost me points, and then did not risk a full monty in round four.  After that I was never going to catch up with David and Lily, and Jack was playing well enough that I was not able to get clear of him.  Fortunately for me, he stumbled on the last numbers round and I was safe at last going into the conundrum.  I hope I can do better next game.