Good evening again my friends, and welcome back to another Quizzy Monday! Coming up, the qualifier round begins on Only Connect, and the eleventh and tenth heats of Mastermind and Brain of Britain respectively. But first, Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz is getting a mention for the second week in a row; not for any tenuous connection to tonight's UC, but for the most welcome mention of Robot Wars champion Panic Attack! Sadly, no such mention on any of the quizzes tonight, but off we go with them anyway!
Beginning, as ever, with UC. The London School of Economics firstly, whose best performance of the Paxo era was in only its second series, where they reached the first of two all-London finals, losing, like U.C.L. last series, to Imperial. Its best performance this century was in the Gail Trimble series of 08-09, where they reached the QFs, losing to eventual (default) champs Manchester; its last appearance was a first round exit two series ago. Playing for them this year were:
Albert Nyang Ying Zhi, from Singapore, studying Maths and Economics
Grant Dalton, from Richmond in Yorkshire, studying Economic Policy for International Development
Captain: Sebastian Bramley, from Esher in Surrey, studying History
Christina Jiang, from Liverpool, studying Philosophy and Economics
Leicester University won the very first series of UC way back in 1963; its best showing of the BBC era thus far has been a QF appearance in 1998-99, the first UC series I ever saw! Its last appearance was also a first round exit, back in the 2020-21 series. They were represented this year by:
Noah Lister, from Southend-on-Sea, studying Economics
Greg Beeden, from Bedford, studying Physics
Captain: George Gowland, from Derby, studying for a PGCE
Edward Owen-Shah, from Leicester, studying History
Mr Dalton gave L.S.E. the best possible start, taking the first two starters, both of which led to a full set of bonuses. A penalty allowed Leicester into the game though, and they took two starters in a row, including the first picture starter; after the first picture round, they'd cut the gap to 45-35. A third starter in a row and a single bonus then gave the Foxes the lead, but L.S.E. quickly took it back, and a run of three further starters saw them pull away into three figures. Leicester did take the music round, but drew a blank on the bonuses, leaving them trailing 110-65.
The two sides swapped starters in the third phase, but Leicester couldn't take any bonuses from either of their resulting sets. L.S.E., on the other hand, picked up points from theirs steadily. They also took the second picture round, after which they led 170-80. It looked game over; just a question of how high a score both teams could get. L.S.E. continued taking starters and accompanying bonuses, very quietly giving us a very solid performance. Leicester just about made it to three figures by taking the final starter of the game, which they definitely deserved. At the gong, L.S.E. won 235-100.
A somewhat one-sided contest, but another enjoyable one; two more very pleasant teams. Well done L.S.E.; as I said, a quietly impressive performance and, with a kind second round draw, they could definitely have a run in this series. Best of luck to them there! Hard lines to Leicester, a decent enough team on the buzzer, but who really struggled with the bonuses; a respectable effort though, thanks for playing!
The stats: Mr Nyang was the best buzzer of the night with five starters, while Mr Lister was best for Leicester with four. On the bonuses, L.S.E. managed an impressive 24 out of 36 (with one penalty) and Leicester just 6 out of 21 (with two penalties).
Next week's match: SOAS vs St Edmund Hall Oxford in the first first round match
Only Connect began its qualifier
matches with the returns of the Al Frescans, who comfortably beat the
Midlanders in their first match, and the Sprouters, who did similarly well
against the Hopsters in theirs.
I claim a rare two points on the Rio
music question in the first round, and one on the Body picture question; the
Sprouters led 7-2 at the end of that. I also claim the same three points as
them on the 2010 Labour leadership question in the second round; at the end of
that, they’d increased their lead to 13-4.
The Frescans thus needed a good
performance on the Walls, and they got one; a well worked out full ten. The
Sprouters did likewise though, so, as you were, they led 23-14 going into
Missing Vowels. The Frescans actually did a bit better in that, but it wasn’t
enough to catch up; the Sprouters won 27-19 to take the first place in the QFs!
Well done them, and best of luck next time Frescans!
Mastermind was opened by Kaushik
Bhattacharya, answering on Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories; 7 was his
score, about average for the series so far. Rachel Clapp followed him into the
chair, answering on Rachmaninoff, and fared better, scoring 9.
Next up, Laura Rutherford was
answering on the TV series The West Wing, and she went better than both, 11 her
very good score. Finally, however, John Harden went and topped it with a
perfect round on Red Rum; 13 his impressive total. Even more impressively, the
SS scores increasing by two with each contender!
Kaushik was probably out of it
already at half time, and so it sadly proved as he struggled with his GK round,
never gaining much momentum, and so he sadly failed to even beat John’s score,
12 his final total. Rachel was next, but also had a bit of a struggle, with a
run of questions in the middle of the round proven costly; she ultimately
scored 7 for a respectable final score of 16, but that didn’t look like it’d be
a winning score.
Laura came next and fared
considerably better, doubling her score with another 11; 22 was certainly going
to give John something challenging to aim for. He scored steadily, but also
picked up some passes, meaning he’d need to score 10 to win outright; it was
tight, but he just about made it, another 11 giving him a winning score of 24!
Well done him, and thanks to the others, Laura especially who’d have won most
of the other heats this series, for an enjoyable contest!
Brain of Britain was won easily by
Jack Bennett, alumnus of UC, OC and many others; three-way tied with two others
at half-time, he ran away with the game in the second half, a lot of his points
coming from pickups from others. He finished with 17 points, nine ahead of
second placed Jamie Mair with 8. Diane Balne and Charmian Griffiths completed
the line-up with 2 and 4 respectively.
And that's it for another week. Some very impressive performance this week, by both teams and individuals; well done all, keep it up! Hopefully more of the same next week; see you then, same time same place.
