Good evening again my friends and welcome back to Quizzy Mondays! And, for the first time this year, we have a full line-up again as regular Mastermind is finally back! It won't be for long though, as OC only has four shows left after tonight, though, they may decide to show specials for the rest of UC's run at least like they did last year. Or maybe not, for reasons I'll deal with nearer the time. Anyway, on with tonight's festivities, beginning, as usual, with UC, and the last second round match...
Warwick were convincing winners over UEA in their first match, though didn't lead totally comfortably until they ran away in the final quarter, 275-125 the final score. They were unchanged from that game:
Ananya Govindarajan, from Edgware in London, studying Engineering
Thomas Hart, from Miskin in South Wales, studying Maths
Captain: Oscar Siddle, from Islington, studying Maths
Benjamin Watson, from Amersham, studying PPE
Oriel College Oxford were much closer winners over Durham in a very good match indeed, probably the second best of the round, 200-165 the scores there. They too were the same quartet as before:
Samin Taseen, from East London, studying Biomedical Science
Theo Sharkey, from Wargrave in Berkshire, studying History
Captain: Danann Kilburn, from South Oxfordshire, studying English
Tom Armstrong, from the Wirral, studying History and Politics
Warwick picked up where they left off last time, taking the first three starters, though it took them until the third bonus set to get more than one correct; in fact they got all three. Oriel got off the mark with the first picture round, after which they trailed 55-10. Warwick quickly regrouped though and, two starters later, had already reached three figures. Oriel did just about keep their score ticking over though, and also took the music round, after which the scores stood at 120-40.
Another starter ensured the Oxonians wouldn't be joining the Sub-50 Club, but Warwick reawoke and took two starters and full bonus houses, one of which must be must be surely the best interrupted answering of a bonus ever! Oriel did take the second picture round, but now trailed 195-75 and the game was pretty much done as a contest. Oriel did take a few more starters to deservedly reach three figures, but Warwick, despite their bonus rate drying up a bit, ticked over past 200. At the gong, Warwick won 215-110.
Another enjoyable contest, despite again being one-sided. Well done Warwick, another good showing as they complete a very strong QF line-up; best of luck to them there! Hard lines to Oriel, who I suspect could've beaten another opponent, but they did respectably well; thanks for playing!
The stats: Mr Hart was the best buzzer of the night with six, while Messrs Sharkey and Armstrong were joint best for Oriel with three each. On the bonuses, Warwick managed a pretty good 23 out of 33 (with two penalties) and Oriel 9 out of 22 (with three penalties).
Next week's match: the first quarter-final! Don't know who's playing yet, but I would guess two of the four teams from the latter four second round matches.
Only Connect concluded its QFs
with the returns of the Introverts, who got here undefeated by beating the Third
Agers and the Crunchers, and the Tea Totallers, who were defeated by the Bloomsbury
Group in their first match, but themselves defeated the Pipe-Dreamers and Too
Many Cookes to make it through (and one of whom, Eleanor Ayres, appeared on, and convincingly won, yesterday's Counterpoint).
I claim the same point as the
Totallers on the music question in the first round; the teams were tied on
3-each at the end of it. My Dad claims (a generous) two points on the Beatles
question in the second round; the Introverts failed to score here (albeit unluckily,
they came very close twice), allowing the Totallers to pull away into a 10-3 lead.
The Totallers went first on the
Walls, and got all four groups, but only three connections, so seven points.
The Introverts thus had a chance to catch up, but struggled badly and failed to
find any groups; they did get two connection points though, so two points, leaving
the scores at 17-5 going into Missing Vowels. As we saw last week, that can be
recovered, and they did indeed recover to respectability, but the Totallers
maintained their advantage to win 24-11. Well done them, and best of luck in
the semis, and thanks to the Introverts for playing!
Next week's match: the first semi-final! Again, don't know who's playing yet, but precedence of the last few series suggests it'll be the Cat Cows vs the Four Opinions again, followed by the Crunchers vs the Totallers in two weeks' time.
Mastermind’s first regular heat of
2025 was opened by Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, formerly of OC, who was answering
on Harold Pinter, and gave us a very good round indeed, just one wrong answer
(that I noticed) and 10 points. Rosie Fletcher followed him into the chair,
answering on the music of Rufus Wainwright; after a good start, a pass derailed
her somewhat, but she recovered to a decent 8, which kept her in contention
thus far.
Next up was Ivan Milatovic, who
was answering on the artist Velazquez; he bettered both his opponents thus far,
a perfect round and a fab score of 12 points! Finally, Mickie Wynne-Davies, who
I’m pretty sure was on Brain of Britain in the recent past, was answering on
the Savoy operas of Gilbert and Sullivan; again, she started well, but then a
run of wrong answers put her off the pace and she never really recovered; 5 her
score.
You fancied it was probably a
two-horse race going into GK. Mickie went straight back to the chair, probably
playing for pride, but gave us a very decent round, scoring 12 for a
respectable score of 17; you fancied it’d be bettered at least once, but a fine
recovery nonetheless. Rosie was next, but couldn’t match Mickie’s performance;
nonetheless, she matched her SS score and doubled her total to a solid 16.
Fergus was next, but his round
sadly never got going for him; maybe just an unlucky set of questions, but,
whatever the case, he could only score 3, for a total of 13, and looked pretty
disappointed with himself when he returned to his seat. Bad luck to him; I’m
sure he would’ve done better with different questions. It did leave Ivan
needing just six points to win the show, and he passed it fairly quickly; he
did slow down a bit having done so, but it mattered not, 10 for a total of 22
made him the winner! Well done him, and thanks to the others for playing!
And that's it for another week! Good to finally have the full line-up back, and, again, we should enjoy it while we can as it won't be for much longer. I may be back before next week's usual blog to expand a bit more on UC and how Oxford has now been wiped out in the second round for the third time in four series; we'll see if I find the time. Otherwise, see yous again same time same place next week...
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