Good evening again my friends, and welcome back to Quizzy Mondays once again! Coming up, the second OC qualification match, the Mastermind heats reach the two fifths mark and the penultimate Brain of Britain heat. And, unlike the last two weeks, I have no major reason to mention Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz in my intro; just to say it's a good series that you should definitely check out if you have access to BBC Sounds. Anyway, on with the night's main quiz action, beginning with the final first round match of this year's UC, with both teams knowing 130 or more would bring them back win or lose...
The School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS from here on in, appeared five teams in the BBC era, usually putting up a good show in each of then, most successfully reaching the semis in 2013-14; its last team, in 2018-19, were unlucky to draw and lose to the Darwin Cambridge team of the imperious Jason Golfinos in the first round. Playing for them this series were:
Janet Delves, from London (originally Oxenhope in Yorkshire), studying the History of Art and Archaeology
Ella Dorn, from Hertfordshire, studying Chinese and Linguistics
Captain: Tom Hasler, from Taunton, studying Development Economics
Cameron Lambert, from Treflach in Shropshire, studying Global Development
St Edmund Hall Oxford also made its last appearance in that 2018-19, faring somewhat better, making it all the way to the final, beating Mr Golfinos' team in the process, before narrowly losing said final to Edinburgh. It's two other Paxo era showings were second and first round exits respectively. The final team we met this series comprised of:
Jeffrey Liu, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying Politics
Robert Elkington, from Newton Abbot, studying Russian and Linguistics
Captain: Sophia Bursey, from Stroud, studying English
Daisy Pendergast, from Jersey, studying Biochemistry
The teams were very evenly matched at first, sharing the first starters of the game between them and getting the same number of bonuses. The first picture round went to SOAS, with AR harsh but fair to disallow Mr Hasler's answer of 'St Kittis and Nevis'; nonetheless, after the first picture round, the teams were tied on 35-each. To be fair, he was similarly harsh but fair with St Edmund Hall on their subsequent bonus set. The Oxonians pulled ahead with that starter and the next, but SOAS recovered well with the next two and took the lead. They also took the music round, after which they now led 90-75.
St Edmund Hall retook the lead by taking the next two starters, only for SOAS to take the next to pull the teams level again, leaving both teams within touching distance of the magic score. St Edmund Hall reached it first and, after the second picture round, had run into a 145-120 lead. SOAS reached it too with the next starter, so both teams were coming back, but who would go where? St Edmund Hall pulled away again with the next starter, but SOAS closed the gap back to five with the next! The Oxonians took the next though; no bonuses followed, but, when they took the next as well, that was game over. At the gong, St Edmund Hall won 195-155.
An excellent contest to end the round, two decent and watchable teams and I'm pleased both of them are coming back. Well done St Edmund Hall and best of luck in the second round, and best of luck to SOAS in the play-offs!
The stats: Mr Liu was the best buzzer of the night with five starters, while Ms Dorn and Mr Hasler were joint best for SOAS with four each. On the bonuses, SOAS managed 13 out of 27 and St Edmund Hall 17 out of 33.
Next week's match: the first play-off, between two of U.C.L., Durham, SOAS and St Andrews. I would guess U.C.L. vs St Andrews next week, followed by Durham vs SOAS the week after, but we shall see.
Only Connect continued with its
second qualification match and the returns of the Four Opinions, who beat the
Bean Farmers in their first match, and the Cat Cows, who came from behind in
Missing Vowels to defeat the Harmonics in theirs.
My Dad claims three points on the
Stonewall question in the first round, and we jointly claim two points on the
picture question; the Opinions led 3-2 at the end of it. I claim FIVE POINTS on
the Top Gear Reasonably Priced Cars question in the second round, and the same
two as the Opinions on the Hawaii question; they led 8-7 at the end of that
round.
The Cows went first on the Walls,
and took almost all of the time, but did get all four groups, only three
connections, so seven points. A near identical performance and the same score
from the Opinions meant it was as you were, 15-14 going into Missing Vowels.
The Cows literally just edged that by one point; the final score, a 21-each
tie-breaker! And it was Mr Dover who took the tie-breaker to send the Opinions
through to the QFs! Well done then, and best of luck to the Cows in the play-offs.
Next week’s match: Too Many Cookes
vs the Bloomsbury Group
Mastermind’s next heat was opened
by Olivia Woolley, who I namechecked on this blog a few months ago as the
captain of the U.C.L. team who were unlucky to draw and lose to Alex Guttenplan’s
Emmanuel team in the second round of that series of UC; her round on New Order
was a very good one, with only one mistake all round, 11 a good final score.
Alex Thomas, captain of the Corkscrews from S16 of OC, was next up, answering
on the West Indies men’s cricket team from 1974 to present; he didn’t fare as
well, but 7 was still not a bad total in the context of the rest of this
series.
Alan Marlow was next up, answering
on Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels; he was unlucky early on to have a
slight mispronunciation of ‘the Audubon Society’ disallowed, but recovered
well, and ended up going straight down the middle of Olivia and Alex’s scores,
9 his total. Joyce Fullbrook completed the round, answering on Amy Johnson the
aviator; she too split the difference between two other contenders’ scores, 8
her total.
Alex thus returned for GK first needing
a very good round to keep himself realistically in the game; he gave it a good
go, but his score of 9, giving him a respectable total of 16, was probably not
going to be enough, especially with two passes as well. Joyce returned next,
and started well, but hit an unlucky run of questions in the middle of her
round which derailed her somewhat; she recovered a bit late on, but ended up
falling just short of Alex’s score, 15 her total.
Alan came next, and passed both
previous totals with ease; a solid round of 12 gave him an excellent total of
21, leaving Olivia needed 11 to win. She started a bit hit and miss, with a
pass meaning she really did need to better Alan’s total, but then hit a good
run of questions and ended up with the best score of the round; 13 gave her a total
of 24 and the win! Well done her, and thanks to the rest for taking part.
Brain of Britain’s penultimate
heat was won by Farrar Hornby, who eked into a three-point lead in the third round
and maintained it all the way to the end; 13 his final winning score, with
Suzanne Bosman second on 10. Joan Dell and Ryan Lewendon completed the line-up
with 4 and 5 respectively.
So, with just one heat left, Caroline
Latham with 16 and Helen Lippell and Andrew Fisher with 13 are definitely
through to the SFs as the three highest scoring non-winners, while Alan Eeles,
Diane Hallagan and Andrew Fisher remain joint fourth on 12; if none of next
week’s non-winners beat that score, then I’m guessing there’ll either be an
off-screen play-off like on original Fifteen-to-One or they too have some
system for deciding who goes through that we don’t know of. Hopefully, all will
become clear soon enough.
And that's it for this week! Next week, we start seeing teams again on UC, and I'm in two minds whether to carry on with the full team line-ups that have been a staple of this blog since its inception or to just list the team members normally; probably won't decide until I get down to writing next week's blog. So, see you then...
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