...and the results are in!
This round is a dead heat for three of the players...
1. A cliff is an odd thing to see. Even more so when a man is lying unconscious at the bottom of it. - Stan Cold
2. Bobby Jones teed up his ball, gave a short preliminary waggle, took the club back slowly, then brought it down and through with the rapidity of lightning.
Did the ball fly down the fairway straight and true, rising as it went and soaring over the bunker to land within an easy mashie shot of the fourteenth green?
No, it did not. Badly topped, it scudded along the ground and embedded itself firmly in the bunker! - Why Didn't They Ask Evans, Agatha Christie - correctly guessed by Kitoba
3. Friday. With a sigh of relief, I close the ledgers, pack my papers in to my briefcase, turn out the office lights and head for home. Time to rest up and get ready for work tomorrow. - Kitoba
4. I can't see anything, but the ground is moving below me, shifting and swaying- Wait. No. It didn't start here. It started in the stable. - Stan Cold - guessed by Llefser
5. In a typical year, about two weeks lay between the deadline for filing income taxes and the Kentucky Derby. - Llefser
6. In the summer, the paths along the cliffs at Chepstow were thick with vacationers on day trips to Chepstow Castle and punting expeditions up the River Wye. But by November, the cold winds and fog drove off all but a few romantic or heartbroken locals out for long walks. It was into this desolate scene that Bobby Jones stepped one day in early December. Bobby was neither romantic nor heartbroken, merely seventeen and permanently bored. - Inspiration - guessed by Llefser
7. The Vicar Jones sat at breakfast in his small but agreeable rectory in Llandudno. He had enjoyed his egg and his hot chocolate. Unusually, for he was a creature of habit and rarely varied his breakfast routine, he had asked his wife for a second cup of hot chocolate. While he was awaiting it, he glanced again at the morning's post which lay on his breakfast table. - Llefser - guessed by Inspiration and Stan Cold
8. Thursday, March 17th, I spent the morning in anxiety, the afternoon in ecstasy, and the evening unconscious. - Risk, Dick Francis - correctly guessed by Inspiration and Stan Cold
9. Two days before the Cheltenham Gold Cup, my father unexpectedly dropped by my office.
"It's good to see you, Davy," he said, shaking my hand as I rose from my desk to meet him. His overcoat was damp and his palm was cold and clammy.
"You too, sir." My father had never been a convivial man, so at first it didn't seem strange that he would not meet my eyes. - Inspiration - guessed by Kitoba
10. "Why didn't they ask Evans?" - Kitoba
Points for this round:
Kitoba: Two points for correctly identifying Agatha Christie's work, one point for managing to get more of the authors correct than anyone else. No-one guessed yours; a pity, really, since number 10 is actually a quote from the book (just before the end of chapter one); for a grand total of three.
Stan: Two points for correctly identifying the opening passage of Risk, and one point for fooling Llefser with your opening for the same book; for a grand total, once again, of three.
Llefser: No points for guessing the correct openings, as Stan and Inspiration have pulled the wool well over your eyes. However, you managed to fool both of them in return with your Vicar's breakfast, for two points; and, despite having got neither book correct, you
nonetheless manage to just scrape up a single point for getting half the authors right (
exactly half the authors right), for a grand total of... three, for the third time.
Inspiration: You guessed the same two openings as Stan; coincidence? Telepathy? Either way, it nets you the same two points as he got. Like Stan, you managed to get Llefser to guess one of your openings, for another point; but unlike Stan, you also managed to pull the wool over Kitoba's eyes, for yet another point. And, to top it all off, you correctly guessed enough authors to gain that point as well, for a grand total of
five! (Which makes your total score after this round the same as Stan Cold's. Do you think that all these parallels mean anything, or am I seeing patterns in the random noise here?)
...and as for me, I got nothing; but had Kitoba changed his guess just slightly, I would have got three. I also notice that
no-one except the author correctly guessed the author of number 10; Insp thought it was Stan and Stan thought it was Insp; every other quote had at least one person guess the correct author besides the correct author. Usually Kitoba, despite his protestations of difficulty in this task...
So. Totals.
Official Scoreboard wrote:
Order of Dashers: inspiration, CCC, Llefser, kitoba, Stan Cold
Scoreboard:
Llefser 11
inspiration 5
Stan Cold 5
kitoba 4
CCC 3
Llefser, you're up next...