Good evening my friends, and welcome to Quizzy... Tuesdays? Yep, better get used to that, as coverage of the various Rugby WCs means its gonna be Tuesday for the next three weeks as well. Next week's UC is on at the even later time of 8:45, with OC and Mastermind immediately before it, which means it'll almost certainly be a short review next week as that's a really bad time for me to be writing long things; either that or I'll wait and do it the next day for only the second time in this blog's history. Tonight is fair enough though, so let's do this...
Oriel College Oxford won the third ever series of UC way back in 1966; it has appeared four previous times in the BBC series, twice finishing runners-up in 98-99 and 99-2000 (the former team featuring serial quizzers David Stainer and David Brewis), but its two appearances since, the more recent six series ago, have amounted to just one victory between them. Hoping to do something about that were this year's foursome of:
Benjamin Thomson, from Kent, studying Medicine
Jerric Chong, from Malaysia, studying Physics and Philosophy
Tanmayee Deshprabhu, from South Oxfordshire, studying Engineering
Katy Marchant, from Leeds, studying Ancient and Modern History
Christ's College Cambridge has appeared on five previous BBC series, of which its best performance was a narrow semi-final defeat to eventual winners Somerville of Oxford in 2001-02; its most recent team, seven series ago, were a decent team who were unlucky to draw and lose to eventual semi-finalists York in the second round. This year's quartet were:
Isaac Jackson, from Oxford, studying English
Holly Wright, from Swansea, studying Intellectual History
Captain: Chris Talbot, from Blackburn, studying Metallurgy
Abhimanyu Gowda, from Warwick, studying Natural Sciences
So off we set once agan, and Mr Chong sent the Oxford side off to a solid start by taking the first two starters; the resulting bonuses, on trees and cities whose summits are higher than Ben Nevis, provided just one correct from both sets. Mr Talbot got Christ's going with the third starter of the night, giving his side bonuses on the Hundred cricket tournament, which they also got one from, unluckily missing another. The first picture round, on components of a neuron, also went to the Cambridge side; two bonuses gave them a lead of 35-30.
The Cambridge captain then took a third starter in a row; two bonuses on the Cold War followed, but a penalty then allowed Oriel back into the game. Two bonuses put the Oxford side level, before Mr Chong gave them back the lead, as did two further bonuses on the music of Lil Nas X (chalk that up under things you never thought you'd hear Paxo talking about!). Another starter and bonus to Oriel brought us to the music round, on tracks from albums orchestrated by Peter Knight; the Oxonians took that as well, but no bonuses meant their lead nonetheless stood at 95-50.
A second starter in a row from Ms Marchant produced two bonuses, and another from Mr Thomson plus a single bonus took the Oxford side's lead to 80 points and a good bet for the win. But Christ's now reawoke as Ms Wright took the next starter; just one bonus was taken, but Mr Talbot took the next, and that was followed by two bonuses. The second picture round, on films that hint at, but don't actually depict, adultery, also went to the Cambridge side; no bonuses were taken, but they had now cut the gap to 130-95.
And another starter to Mr Talbot took them into three figures, and the first full bonus set of the night meant they were suddenly just 10 behind. And when Mr Jackson won the race to identify The Tale of Peter Rabbit as the book that Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail appear in, and two bonuses on Scottish firths/inlets were taken, they had completed the comeback to take the lead. Mr Gowda looked to have confirmed this when he took the next starter; bonuses on Latin expressions saw them only just get the first two wrongs, and the gong went before they could answer the third. Christ's won 150-130.
Another good enjoyable contest between two decent and well matched teams, well played both. Well done Christ's, an excellent recovery there, and best of luck in the second round! Hard lines to Oriel, but hopefully their score will get them into the play-offs, though it'll probably be pretty close; thanks for playing for now though.
The stats: Mr Talbot was the best buzzer of the night with five, while Messrs Thomson and Chong got three each for Oriel. On the bonuses, Oriel managed 10 out of 24 and Christ's 13 out of 27 (with the night's one penalty).
Next week's match, at 8:45 next Tuesday: Jesus Cambridge vs St Catherine's Oxford
Only Connect began its elimination round with the returns of the Statisticals and the Road Runners. The latter led 6-4 after the first round, and 10-8 after the second. But a better wall allowed the Statisticals to eke into a 15-14 lead, and they just about maintained this in Missing Vowels to win 22-20.
Yesterday's Brain of Britain was the first semi-final; high scoring runners-up Isabelle Heward made the most of her recall, leading from the off and winning with 17 points, five clear of second place Dan Afshar. Gill Taylor and Ian Wilkinson completed the line-up with 3 and 6 respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment