Ep 271: Brydon Coverdale, Karen Barber (March 2, 2015; originally aired September 12, 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.


Brydon returns for his fifth night, and he's been getting better with each game.  Can he keep that progression up?  But first, we find out that Brydon's parents owned a dairy farm, and he lived there all through his childhood and then moved to the city.  Richard informs us that somehow, despite that upbringing, Brydon avoided ever milking a cow.  Brydon says that the main reason he was able to do that was that when he was thirteen he got a job off the farm, and that managed to get him out of it.

The first challenger of the week is Karen Barber, a primary school teacher.  She's been very busy lately looking for houses, and Richard asks what the typical weekend is like for her at the moment.  Karen states that it involves lots of research on the Internet on Friday night, picking out the possibilities and then walking through them.  She says they all tend to "blend to one".  Richard asks if she knows what she is looking for, and Karen says that they have a bit of an idea, but they often like each one they look at, so some kind of selection process is needed.


Karen may have been a little nervous, as her opening five-letter words were a bit off the pace.  In particular, her round two answer was easily extendable to a six-letter word (as Brydon showed).  Brydon took the early lead there, and then extended it when Karen missed a numbers option.  Brydon then found a good word in the fourth round to jump out to a thirty point lead, and there was no coming back from that deficit for Karen.  Karen did find better form after that point, matching Brydon in the remaining main rounds, but the damage was done.  Brydon did quite well to solve the conundrum, and cruised home with a 70 to 30 victory.  That sets him up to possibly become a retiring champion tomorrow.

I found maximal answers in most of the main rounds, before stumbling in round 8.  Brydon beat me to the conundrum solution by a good ten seconds or so, and in the end I would have to say I was lucky to scrape by with the win over him.  Still, I did manage it, so my current streak continues.


As usual, details after the jump.