Greetings friends, and welcome back to University Challenge. This was evidently the first one back after a recording break, as Paxo had his smart haircut from the Xmas specials back! Tonight, a fixture I've blogged about twice before, both those matches ending up pretty one sided; on paper, this shouldn't have been, but paper isn't all that reliable when it comes to UC...
Strathclyde came through two close matches to get here, firstly beating fellow quarter-finalists Imperial 190-155 in the first round, and then Manchester 135-100 in a lower scoring second match. They were the same four as before:
Cameron Welsh, from Glasgow, graduated in Applied Statistics
David Curran, from Glasgow, studying Civil Engineering
Captain: James Whittle, from Glasgow, studying Power Systems Engineering
Tom Starr-Marshall, from Colindale in London, studying Speech and Language Therapy
Durham comfortably won their first match against Leicester 180-125, before a strong second match against Edinburgh saw them just win out 165-145. They were also unchanged from those two prior matches:
Harry Regan, from Sevenoaks, studying Liberal Arts
Tom Banbury, from Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire, studying History
Captain: Holly Parkinson, from Brighton, studying Physics
Thomas Wilkening, from Ramsgate, studying Biology
So off we set once again, and Mr Banbury opened the scoring for the night with 'Stonehenge', and the Wearsiders secured a full set of bonuses on French words used in English. Mr Wilkening took the second starter which was, appropriately for Burns Night, 'Macbeth' (ARGH! Hot potato, Oxford shores, Puck will make amends!); their luck on the bonuses changed though, as they missed all three, Ms Parkinson mishearing 'the Jarrow march' and 'the January march'. Another starter and dropped bonus set was followed by Mr Welsh taking Strathclyde off the mark, and they took two from their first set. The first picture round, on American cities with just one major sports team, went to Durham; one correct bonus gave them a lead of 65-20.
That lead shrunk when Mr Starr-Marshall correctly answered a starter I'll certainly be using in my next lockdown quiz for my relatives! The Scots side, again, took two bonuses, another on pairs of similar surnames. Back came Durham with a starter and sole bonus on corvine birds, before Ms Parkinson made sure all three Durhamites had contributed a correct starter; a full set of bonuses took them into three figures. Neither side identified Schumann for the music starter (I did, though it was an educated guess!); the bonuses, on pieces for piano and string quartet, gave Durham two correct answers and their lead to 125-40
Another starter and pair of bonuses took the Wearsiders' lead into three figures, but only briefly as Mr Whittle finally got his side moving again, though they got nothing from a bonus set on the city of Ripon. And when Mr Banbury restored Durham's three figure lead with the next starter, that was game over; just one bonus on novels with alliterative names followed, though they were unfortunate to dredge up Nicholas Nickleby a split second too late. The second picture round, on paintings depicting card games, went to Strathclyde; one bonus took the scores to 160-65.
Strathclyde pulled back to respectability in the final straight, Mr Starr-Marshall giving them a second starter in a row, and one bonus on organic chemistry followed. Mr Whittle gave them a third in a row, and one correct bonus put them within one starter of three figures. Another starter to the Strathclyde captain did just that, and two bonuses on Pluto were taken. And that was the gong, Durham won 155-115.
A good contest between two good and pleasant teams, good on both for clapping each other at the gong. Durham were worthy winners, but Strathclyde deserved to recover in the final minutes; well done both, and best of luck in your next matches!
The stats: Mr Banbury was the best buzzer of the night with four starters, while Mr Whittle was best for Strathclyde with three. On the bonuses, Strathclyde managed 9 out of 21 and Durham 14 out of 27 (with the night's one penalty).
Next week's match: Imperial vs Warwick, presumably
Only Connect continued with its penultimate
play-off match, between the Barons and the Colleagues. The former led 4-3 after
the first round and 8-7 after the second. A better wall allowed the Barons to
open up an 18-14 lead, and they maintained it in Missing Vowels to win 25-20.
Mastermind, meanwhile, was won by
Alison Lyndon-Parker, who just pipped second place Sam Stalkartt-Yarwood by a
single point. Ti Maja-Roebuck, who was on OC last series, and Stephen Fuller,
who I believe has been on other shows before, also took part.
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