Good evening again my friends, and welcome to a very eventful Quizzy Monday indeed! Coming up, Only Connect concludes its 'first round', a very close Mastermind and an unexpected line-up for the first Brain of Britain semi-final. But first, a quick cryptic clue for you: Rainbow Six 1998 Mission 6. Look that up and you'll see what I mean. I won't be there often, but I am there nonetheless if you want to look me up. Anyway, on with tonight's business, beginning with UC as ever, and the second repechage play-off.
Durham lost a very good close first round match against Oriel 200-165, and were represented by the same foursome as before:
Joe Ancell, from South Gloucestershire, studying History
Emelia Brookfield-Pertusini, from Balham in South London, studying English Literature
Captain: Jake Roberts, from Goostrey in Cheshire, studying Physics
Luke Nash, from Hindolveston in Norfolk, studying Biology
SOAS were beaten by St Edmund Hall in their first round contest only two weeks ago, and were also represented by the same quartet as that occasion:
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
The match started very evenly, with the two sides swapping starters, but also penalties, both incurring one each. After the first picture round, Durham led 30-25. Another starter and a full bonus set pushed the Wearsiders into a stronger lead, but the Londoners bit back with two starters in a row, which allowed them to retake the lead. Durham retook it with the music round though; after that, they led 70-60.
Another starter and two bonuses pushed Durham further ahead, but a penalty pulled them back and allowed SOAS to pull level with a starter and full house, and then take the lead and reach 100 first. Durham bounced back with the second picture round though, which cut the gap to 105-100. Another penalty dropped them back however, and allowed SOAS to pull away again. A further two starters to the London side meant they now had a 55-point lead and were within sight of victory. But back came Durham, two starters and all of the bonuses bar one meant they'd pulled back to within ten! A third in a row put Durham level, they got the first bonus wrong, and that was the gong! A 150-each tie!
So, the third tie of the AR era! A tie-breaker was asked. Mr Ancell buzzed once it was done, but was wrong; SOAS didn't offer a buzz. So another was asked. Mr Lambert interrupted it... but was wrong! Minus five, and Durham had the win!
A very good close contest, and what a dramatic ending; kudos to the teams for going to shake hands at the end as well as AR doing so like he usually does. Well done Durham and best of luck in the second round! Very hard lines to SOAS, who didn't deserve to lose like that, but they gave a fair account of themselves over their two games; thanks for playing!
The stats: Mr Roberts was the best buzzer of the night with four starters, while Ms Dorn and Mr Hasler were joint best for SOAS with three each. On the bonuses, Durham managed a good 15 out of 25 (with three penalties) and SOAS 13 out of 27 (with one normal time penalty).
Next week's match: the first second round match. Don't know who's playing yet, but we'll find out soon enough.
Only Connect concluded its
qualifier matches with the returns of the Introverts, who defeated the Third
Agers in their first match, and the Crunchers, who were victorious against the
Uisge Beathas in theirs.
I claim the same point as the
Introverts in the first round on the ‘throwing shells’ question (OK, I actually
said ‘throwing tortoises’, but I like to think that’s close enough that they’d
have let me have another go!) and the same two as the Crunchers on the
backwards names question. The Crunchers led 4-2 at the end of that round. I was
in the process of working out an answer for the ‘Jacobite’ question in the
second round when the Introverts got it right, and I’m afraid I went the same
wrong way on the Traitors question as them; nonetheless, they now led 8-7 after
that round.
The Crunchers took their turn to
go first on the Walls, and took their time with it, but scored a full ten in
the end. The Introverts were considerably quicker, but same result, a full ten,
so as you were, 18-17 going into Missing Vowels. And they maintained their lead
in a closely fought round to win 24-21! Well done them, and best of luck in the
QFs, and best of luck Crunchers in the play-offs!
Next week’s match: the first
play-off, a classic OC avoidable rematch between the Harmonics and the Cat Cows
Mastermind was opened by Arnav
Umranikar, who was answering on the wartime premiership of Winston Churchill;
he started strongly, but hit the skids about halfway through, recovering to a score
of 6. Tim Kew followed him into the chair, answering on Mariah Carey; he fared
rather better, 11 points an excellent score that put a benchmark down to the
remaining contenders.
Alice Perkins was next up,
answering on seals; she fared similarly to Arnav, a run of questions she didn’t
know about halfway in derailing the round a bit, but she recovered to score 7. Elina
Kharmats ended the round, answering on Vassily Kandinsky; she ended up equalling
Arnav’s score, another 6, meaning Tim went into GK very much as the favourite.
Arnav returned for GK first, and offered
up a very good round indeed; 12 for a total of 18 is a very good return. Elina was
next, and gave it a go, but never looked like doing as well as Arnav, with two
passes pretty much ending her chances; still, 8 for a total of 14 was a
respectable effort. Alice went next, but she too was quickly off the pace and
didn’t look like catching Arnav; still, she doubled her score, another 7 for
another total of 14.
It did leave Tim needing ‘just’ 8 to
win outright; he looked like he’d do it easily at first, but after a straight
run of four correct to start with, he hit a bad run of questions, and then
incurred a pass as well, meaning he really did need eight now. As the round
timed out, he’d managed seven and was level with Arnav, meaning if he got the
question Clive was asking right, he’d win; he got it wrong, meaning Arnav won
the show on passes! Kudos to Tim for offering Arnav a handshake at the end; thanks
to him and the two ladies for playing, and best of luck Arnav in the semis!
Brain of Britain began its
semi-finals with a rather curious affair, in terms of the line-up at least.
Andrew Fanko was revealed to have won the final HSNW place, and was listed as
competing on the BBC website alongside Paula Dempsey, David Edwards and Heather
Smith. On the show itself, however, we had Farrar Hornby in the line-up instead
of David; I’m guessing he had to withdraw and so he and Farrar swapped their
original SF berths (Farrar is listed as being in the fourth SF). The fact Farrar
and Andrew were taking their turns out of the show’s usual alphabetical surname
order confirms this for me. (I did miss a small bit of chat at the beginning
when I listened earlier, so Russell D may have mentioned this then)
Whatever the case, Andrew made the
most of his play-off win and won the game, beating Farrar by a single point, 14
to his 13; Paula and Heather scored 9 and 6 respectively. So Andrew takes the
first place in the final, which is currently slated for just before Christmas
on December 22nd. Looking through the line-ups for the remaining SFs, I notice
that the line-up for all four, and the SFs as a whole, is entirely 50-50 split
men and women, which is pleasing to see.
And that's another week in the bag! And a very dramatic one as well! Thanks as ever for reading, and we'll see you again same time same place next week...
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