OK, so, installment two of my 10th anniversary blog series. Another four episodes this week, then a two week absence while I take a much needed holiday, then we resume with three episodes a week.
Match 5: Queen Mary London vs Jesus Oxford (27th August 2012)
I remember this episode, aired the
day I started my ill-fated single year of college. Queen Mary were represented
by Patrick Woodburn, Alistair Haigh, Luca Cavalli and Michael Hammond, while
Jesus College were Matt Hitchings, Frankie Goodway, Guy Brindley and Johnny
Woodward.
A harsh but fair disallowance on the
first starter, as Mr Hitchings’ offer of just ‘Sherlock’ for ‘Sherlock Holmes’
cost his team five points. His side quickly recovered from this to dominate the
buzzer race, but a poor showing on the bonuses plus a couple more penalties
meant they couldn’t pull away. Queen Mary took the chance to pull level with
two successive starters and pairs of bonuses, including the music round, on
Tony Bennett duets, which included the inevitable Amy Winehouse question, this
being the first series filmed since her death.
Jesus then retook the lead however
and, though their bonus rate remained rather meh, they were never seriously
troubled again. Mr Hitchings provided the highlight of the night when, asked
for a foodstuff whose name derives from the French word for a plate in reference
to its shape, he offered ‘pizza’, which Paxo had a good laugh at! (“I know it
does feature large in your large!”) Queen Mary did manage a late rally into
three figures, but couldn’t quite make up the difference; Jesus won the game
150-120.
Match 6: Magdalen Oxford vs Sidney Sussex Cambridge (3rd September 2012)
Magdalen, appearing for the first
time since their fourth title win two series earlier, and record title holders
at the time, were represented by Will Wright, Rob Mangan, Henry Watson and
Richard Purkiss, while Sidney Sussex, who were appearing for the first time in
a long time, were Lois Overvoorde, Tom Seddon, Nye Redman-White, whose sister
Carys appeared on the Clare Cambridge team the following series, and Calum
Robertson.
The two sides were even at first, with
Sidney Sussex just having the advantage; Magdalen got the best bonus set of the
show though, on Dr Johnson’s Dictionary of Modern Life, which I bought after
hearing about it on the show and was well worth it! The music round was rather
infamous, on brass band performances of hymns; first, Sidney Sussex mistook ‘Cwm
Rhondda’ for ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, which was a lot more forgivable than
Paxo made out! Then, in the bonuses, Magdalen offered ‘Jerusalem’ in lieu of ‘The
Lord is My Shepherd’, which was an obvious joke guess! (“Are you serious?! Tone
deaf over there!”)
The two teams then exchanged
penalties and pickups, and the lead with them, after which Magdalen emerged on
top and began to pull away, despite drawing a blank on the second picture
round, on classic cars. (“One of the rare occasions on which Jeremy Clarkson
would’ve done well on this programme!”) The Oxford side ran away with it in the
final minutes and, while Sidney Sussex did get a couple more starters, they
were for pride only; shame, as they were a decent team who could’ve done better
in different circumstances. Magdalen won 205-125, and looked like they could go
on a decent run; that was until they met the winners of the next game…
Match 7: Lincoln Oxford vs Manchester (10th September 2012)
The match of the first round by a
distance! Lincoln College were represented by Victor Jones, Michael Hopkins, Jackie
Thompson and Hugh Reid, while Manchester were David Brice, Adam Barr, Richard
Gilbert and Debbie Brown. As you’ll remember, the reigning champs lost five on
the very first starter, while their opponents quickly sprinted into the lead
with a run of starters, including one on Tory bigwig David Willetts, whose son
Matthew appeared on the Trinity Cambridge team two series later.
Manchester eventually got some
points on the board (and weren’t penalised for buzzing wrongly just as Paxo was
literally just finishing!), but Lincoln still led comfortably after the music
round and looked fine for the win. Though Manchester had recovered nicely, they
still trailed 175-100 going into the final four minutes.
As they began to pull points back in
those final minutes, I remember thinking “Ah, good, they’ll be coming
back in the play-offs, that seems fair.” Then, suddenly, they were just ten
points behind, and Mr Barr suddenly put them on level pegging! They missed the
first bonus, got the second right to take the lead, and the gong went less than
a second after they did! In fact, the scoreboard ticked over after the gong had
gone! Manchester won 180-175! The rest is history.
Match 8: Imperial vs Jesus Cambridge (17th September 2012)
And our final game of the week is
Imperial, represented by Pietro Aronica, Dominic Cottrell, Martin Evans and
Henry Guille, vs Jesus of Cambridge, who were Alistair Bolger, Thomas Wood,
Alex Kite and Nina Fetherston, who appeared on Mastermind the week after this
aired. Imperial got off to the much better start, running up to 80 while their
opponents fell to -5. Jesus did eventually get two starters in a row, and the
teams matched each other for a while, but Imperial remained well ahead.
It wasn’t until the music round,
where Mr Kite rather unwisely took a flyer on the starter after just a second, that
the London side began to run away again and, after the second picture round,
they led 180-60. Jesus did get two more starters late on which bolstered their
score a bit more respectively, but the game was long over by then. One other
late starter, taken by Imperial, was on how to say ‘I love you’ in different
languages, and I’m fairly sure was reused a few series later.
Imperial’s final winning score was
225-80. Shame, as Jesus were probably a better team than that suggests, but
they were clearly second best there. Imperial, meanwhile, looked like early
favourites, but more on them later, of course.
So, that's it for this week. As I said before, I'm away for the next two weeks; we'll, hopefully, be resuming in three weeks' time with Episodes 9 to 11, so, see you then...
