Mary's game today.

Noel says that in over 1,300 shows they have created their own language and now have a new one 'Stay in the room'. He talks about Brendan's game and how he brought along a picture of his daughter and it affected him in the first part of the game as he kept looking at the picture and thinking of her at home, but when he put the picture down in the second part it transformed his game and he became focused, so Noel tells everyone to 'Stay in the room' while playing their game and not get distracted by outside things...

Had the £35k yesterday. Hopefully a good game today.

A new week and we need something really big to get the week off to an amazing start

Mary has box 11 today.

Mary has her husband in the audience and they have been married for 53 years, and he tells how they met. Mary shows a picture of her and her husband when they were younger, and also a picture of them with their son in Australia, and she hopes to win enough money to go back to Australia, she would also like a new shower for her bathroom

Mary doesn't have any system.

Here we go...

Round 1

7 - £10,000 Kelly

22 - £1 Lee

Noel says that Mary lied as she said she wasn't going to use a system and then just chose her wedding anniversary!

12 - £10 Cookie

13 - £250 Natalie

4 - £20,000 Josephine

Banker time

An okay start

The Banker says they have never really seen Mary before on the show as she normally disappears behind the box when she opens it

Banker's offer:

SWAP

Mary says that her husband likes number 11 so they will stick with that.

Mary says

NO SWAP

Round 2

1 - 1p Craig

19 - £35,000 Lisa

Mary asks Noel if she has to say her little piece to camera now, and Noel is impressed that she is so prepared, Mary then gives her little poem she prepared for the break...

The catchphrase creation is getting increasingly laboured. Let's move on.

Seems to be a possible targetist; good opening round will help her reach whatever goal she has in mind. The Banker opts not to make an opening offer, which is sometimes good play on his part as it keeps his element of surprise. With current offer trends, it also removes the prospect of chasing a £10k opener as we've seen happen a few times lately.

Lowest of each Power 5, fairly well cancel each other out I'd say. Still a good board at the end of Act I.

By the way, for those who have criticised my over-interpretation of the comments in the game, I will defend myself by saying that I do indeed go looking for them, because I do worry about the hidden meanings, and I would rather dig out a false positive than miss a manipulative statement. The show has made it clear that the host's turn of phrase is not entirely irrelevant, and there is history of using it to encourage risk-taking, so it would be remiss of me not to analyse new turns of phrase in this context.

I will accept that I will see something that isn't there at times, though.

First of the power five gone...

.....but the lowest one.

Good start for Mary - hopefully she can keep it up through the next part of the game

We're back
Last box before the Banker

8 - £3,000 De

Banker time

Noel reveals that Mary has a passion for knitting, and Noel hopes that she is going to stitch up the Banker Mary says she might knit him a hat. The Banker says he is XXL, and Noel tells him Mary said she would knit a 'WOOLY WARMER'!

Banker's offer:

£11,500

Mary says she still has some nice blues to hit.

Mary says

NO DEAL

Round 3

9 - 50p Liam

5 - £500 Gem

This is turning out to be rather good says Noel.

15 - £75,000 Safina

Banker time

Sting in the tail for that one

The Banker agrees with Noel that Gem and Natalie are the only ones putting in an effort with their appearance on the West wing.

Banker's offer:

£11,500

Mary asks her husband for a little bit of advice, and he says the board is still looking good, and Mary's daughter thought the offer should be a little bit more.

Mary says

NO DEAL

The board is still looking good, and the offers aren't. Not much more to say really.