Spoilers for Wednesday 26th June 2024 (Series 89, 1st Semi-final)

[Philip A]

Arthur and Jessica battle it out for a place in the Grand Final.

[Philip A]

R2: SAUROPOD (dinosaur)

Dramatic twists and turns. Very unlucky, Jessica, but a sweet gesture of Colin to offer you the duck jumper.

Well done, Arthur; your hard to work on the conundrums paid dividends at the end.

[Toby McDonald]

R3 LNAFP: (9+7-1)*2*7 = 210

Great game, very well done Arthur on reaching the grand final, and commiserations Jessica.

[Ryan Lam]

I’m not sure if Colin’s format by now is to keep the Intros short for the Finals so that more of what he has to say at the end of each of them can be aired, but it’s quite noticeable in the past few episodes now. Arthur who definitely was watching yesterday’s episode behind-the-scenes when Jessica was playing should have a rough idea of what he might expect and he's nervous due to how well she performed, while Jessica’s ready to give it her all 24 hours later (but certainly not in real-life as some of you will know all too well) and she wants to avoid a crucial conundrum as we prepare for 35 minutes of intense action! Also, maybe I should pay more attention to OOW, I didn’t realise LOLLYGAG in the first Teatime Teaser was covered recently. Oh well, maybe that’s just me when catching up with episodes instead of watching it live...

Letters: GWEILOS by Arthur in R1 (although I didn’t like him butchering the pronunciation as an Asian myself) and then the more known PODURAS in R2 (not sure why Colin demanded him to spell it out even though it can be easily inferred the spelling is as such and I would say almost loosely similar to MADUROS which Jessica herself had yesterday!) allows him to steer clear of his opponent going into the first teatime teaser, but he CHARTs a path into some trouble and as Jessica had HURRAH in R5 afterwards. Arthur cheered during the letters selection because the first six letters spelt out his name , yay, but sorry, it's not a valid word, tough luck. Unlucky to both with overgilt after the anecdote in R7 but it’s definitely the other way round with BOTANISED come R10 . Arthur unfortunately hit a stumbling block with the invalid rankage thereafter in R11, but comes back with CONDUIT to beat Jessica in R12 despite the threat of the crucial conundrum probably looming over him!

Numbers: Well, Arthur’s first pick surprised me with 1 Large given such fierce competition, and CECIL says “No” yet again to hard targets, ugh I hate this by now. Next, Jessica chooses her usual 4 Large but the method is simple if you think hard enough, well done to both and sometimes, it’s seconds that makes the difference here as per Colin’s quip. With the margin still at eight points going into R9, Arthur chooses a much more worthy choice of 3 Large, but again, too easy. A crucial conundrum awaits them if they can’t separate in R14. Arthur’s got the target, or does he? Ah!!! The pressure got to him and he doesn’t have the exact solution, allowing Jessica to catch up to close the gap to just two points now!! That was stunning not least to say as we prepare for the last round!

Conundrum: For the first time since Series 85 between Dan Byrom and Ryan Carlsen, we are in a situation where anyone can win albeit the #1 Seed is in the lead. Strangely enough, one of my “touchdown” words in R10 was OBEDIENT, and that lead me to the answer. Arthur buzzes in with confidence and with that, he’s done it and he breathed with a huge sigh of relief. He goes through to the Grand Final under such immense pressure!

I always thought this game was going to be close given the skillfulness of both players and I was right. I predicted Arthur to prevail on a crucial conundrum and it did happen although my margin prediction of him winning by less than ten points was a bit off. Just like Isabelle last week, Jessica was humble in defeat and she admitted she could only dream of some words Arthur came up with. She was so cheeky to ask whether she could be invited back for Championship of Champions XVII ; while of course that will depend on how many more stellar contestants we’ll get in the next few Series, she definitely deserves a spot and we’ll wait to find out then!

Very unlucky, Jessica, but a sweet gesture of Colin to offer you the duck jumper.

However, that’s not all, knowing how Jessica likes ducks, Colin gave her his sweater with ducks on it to wrap up what probably has been an emotional rollercoaster for her (I really like the idea of having some consolation presents to the Semi-Finalists) and that was extremely thoughtful. Perhaps in the future, who knows, her run will encourage her younger sister Natasha to have another go and if she does, we’ll see if she can get as far as her! What a fantastic run and she has been no doubt a joy to watch on television!

Arthur's off to catch his breath first and going back behind-the-scenes to observe who will take him on the day after. Two more episodes to go, and the other Semi-Final, as I mentioned before is the battle of the nations (and some middle-aged men ). Will it be the Irishman Mark or the Scotsman Michael that has the final say and spot in the Grand Final? Will another crucial conundrum happen and make us go dizzy again? We shall see in a few hours from now!

Progress:
QF1 (20 June 2024): Arthur Page (#1) vs Isabelle Heward (#8) (123 - 51)
QF2 (21 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (#2) vs Jack Harvey (#7) (104 - 100)
QF3 (24 June 2024): Toby Byfield (#3) vs Michael Calder (#6) (82 - 84)
QF4 (25 June 2024): Jessica Pratesi (#4) vs Mark Goodliffe (#5) (102 - 99)
SF1 (26 June 2024): Arthur Page (QF1 Winner) vs Jessica Pratesi (QF4 Winner) (102 - 90)
SF2 (27 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (QF2 Winner) vs Michael Calder (QF3 Winner)
GF (28 June 2024): Arthur Page (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)