Ep 387: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, John Crone (February 21, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


The pre-show banter involves talking about superpowers, which is why Richard asks Christopher what superpower he would choose.  Christopher responds that if he had his way he would erase people's memories after seeing skinny black ties.  He honestly thinks they do ongoing psychological damage and are ruining a generation of Australians.  It's certainly a more interesting answer than I would have been able to give; I've not mentioned this before, but Christopher has shown a certain urbane wittiness on the show that comes across well.

Tonight's challenger is John Crone, a glazier and ballet enthusiast.  He really enjoys the ballet -- the fluid movements are a pleasure to watch.  He likes classical music as well, so it's "a bit of a double treat".  He adds that late last year he was lucky enough to see the Russian Imperial Ballet.

John's mention of Russian ballet prompts Richard to reveal that some thirty years or more ago he danced on stage with the Bolshoi Ballet.  The camera catches Lily's look of amazed disbelief.  Richard explains that it was in the early days of him thinking he might do some acting, and he ended up as an extra with them.  He had to wear a huge polystyrene dog's head and skip across the stage holding it.  Richard admits that it was not done with the grace usually associated with the ballet.


It is an interesting tussle, with only the final two main rounds allocating shared points.  John makes an elementary mistake in the first round to miscount his answer, and is soon 23 points behind.  A full monty gets him back within range, but a mistake in the next numbers round proves decisive.  Christopher ends up winning by 22 points, 53 to 31.

I basically did as well as feasible, except that I wimped out of declaring a full monty that I was quite unsure about.  It did turn out to be valid, alas.  I was also slow on the conundrum but got there in the end.  Still, a very comfortable win, and if I'd gone for the full monty it would have been my personal best solo score.

As usual, details after the jump.