Des' game today.

Noel welcomes us to show 2 of the new season and talks about the great start we had yesterday with Gail's game He thinks Gail's result could help today's contestant.

Only 50p yesterday, I have high hopes for Des

Des has box 19 today. Des is from Bicester and is a police officer, and Noel asks about the tale of a break in where the offender dropped his trousers!! Des tells how he was about the arrest a chap who broke into a property and the offender turned around to Des and dropped his trousers

Des is currently single but hopes that today could change that and then describes his ideal lady. We get to see a photo of Des' friends, and also another of Des' parents on their wedding day.


Here we go...

Yesterday, Gail had the easiest OPW in the show's 1,100-episode history and almost didn't get it. Des is certain to have tougher decisions than that...

Round 1

6 - £500 Paul

1 - £10 Jerry

4 - £75,000 Francis

Groans for that one...

3 - £5 Eileen

The cheers return

13 - £3,000 Milly

Banker time

A hit there, but pretty average start

The £75,000 wasn't ideal but the rest was OK says Noel... The Banker says that Gail made a fool of him yesterday The Banker would like to go double dating with Des

Banker's offer:

£9,000

Des says he came for one thing and he hopes to get that....

Des says

NO DEAL

Is that one thing the £250,000 the producers rarely make a secret of their desperation to give away, or the £20,000 that most contestants aspire to? Already a worrying sign of one-dimensional play either way.

£75k, an orange and three blues is in the average range of starts, a tad better than my famous definition of average (£100k/orange/blues).

Round 2

5 - £50,000 Nic

18 - £5,000 Sean

Noel gets Des to do the break link, and Des says we should come back to him arrest the Banker for not paying a £250,000 fine to him...

Great speech by Des, then Noel goes crazy

Another hit there, though

£50k and another orange means a blue here is very desirable. That said, better to take a joke after a no-blue round now than later if you're a moderate player.

This is the first one of Season 5 I've seen and I'm finding it all a bit bland Maybe it's because of the two weeks of Noel's Hall of Fame when every day had an amazing game (most I'd not seen before) but also I don't recognise any of the 22 despite watching a couple of shows in July. The only one that I can sort of remember is Nic, simply because in the game where his wife fainted there was a big closeup of her looking shocked - didn't remember her name though until just now.

Still, if Des's game turns out to be awesome then I take that all back

BEST BOX OPEN EVER!!!!

Haha! Terrible box opening for the newbie!

We're back
Last box before the Banker

Noel reveals that Des would like to travel around America and also give a holiday to his parents. Noel tries to find a partner for Des in the audience and picks on a lady but she already has a boyfriend.

Des picks newbie Jason next, but when Jason tries to open the box he lifts the whole box!! Noel says that they glued the lid down

17 - £1 Newbie Jason

Banker time

Noel pretends that he can't lift the phone up as it has been glued down The Banker is still laughing at Jason's box opening!

Banker's offer:

£9,000

Des says that £9,000 is a lot of money...

Des says

NO DEAL

Actually thinking about it I'd put that third...at 2nd place is the LTL guy in Anne-Marie's game in April 07 (where Noel said "You stupid man!") and 1st is Mary's in Carrie's game. Still hilarious though

And the bit with Noel going into the audience trying to find a partner for Des reminded me a bit of Alex's game from Battle of the Sexes!

And we have our first best moment of Season 5, already!