Quizzy Mondays 2026-27 Week 7: University Challenge R1M7, Only Connect R1M7, Mastermind Heat 6

Good evening my friends, and welcome to another Quizzy Monday. Coming up, more Mastermind and Brain of Britain and the penultimate pair of new teams are met for the first time on OC. But firstly, as ever, UC, and a change to the match some of you may have been expecting; Birmingham vs Leicester was the initially announced game for tonight, but that match will now be shown next Monday. Instead tonight, we have a classic first round match-up: an Oxbridge college vs an illustrious university...

 

Pembroke College Cambridge has appeared in seven previous BBC era series; its team were the runners-up of the 2011-12 season, but its last three teams, in 2013-14, 14-15 and 18-19, have all very unluckily gone out in the first round (albeit in different circumstances each time). Hoping to make up for that was this year's foursome of:

Hebe Robertson, from Oxfordshire, studying Classics

Arvin Boraghi, from Orpington in London, studying Medicine

Captain: Timothy Ho, from Singapore, studying Maths

Rory Moloney, from Gosfield in Essex, studying Natural Sciences  

 

St Andrews won one of the later series of the ITV era and were runners-up of another IIRC; of its 19 previous appearances in the BBC era, its best was reaching the SFs in 2003-04, and its last before tonight was a repechage exit two series ago. Its 20th BBC era team comprised of:

Barney Young, from London, studying Classics

Rowan Pelfrey, from West Palm Beach, Florida, studying Museum and Heritage Studies

Captain: Harry Howard, from Rayleigh in Essex, studying Animal Behaviour

Hugo Shaw, from Murthly in Perthshire, studying Arabic and Persian  

 

St Andrews lost five straight away, allowing Pembroke to take an early lead with a starter and two bonuses, only to then lose five themselves. St Andrews got back into positive equity and levelled the scores, but Pembroke retook the lead with a starter and full house. After the first picture round, Pembroke led 35-30. The Scots side went in front with the next starter, only for Pembroke to overtake them again with the next. St Andrews then took two correct starters in a row, but only took one of the resulting bonuses. After the music round, they nonetheless led 65-60.

 

Pembroke duly retook the lead with the next starter and, in contrast, took two bonuses, one of which looked to be a total guess. At this stage, St Andrews had the better of the buzzers, but Pembroke were doing much better on the bonuses. Two successive starters and full sets of bonuses allowed the Cambridge side to pull away and, after the second picture round, they now led 140-70. Another starter and two bonuses all but won the game for Pembroke. St Andrews did manage another starter and the bonuses finally went for them, two taken, but they just fell short of three figures. Pembroke took the final starter to see out the win. At the gong, Pembroke won 180-90.

 

A somewhat low scoring affair, but another enjoyable contest between two pleasant teams. Well done Pembroke; if they can keep that bonus rate up they should definitely not be written off in the second round, best of luck to them there! Hard lines to St Andrews, who did well enough on the buzzers but just couldn't follow through on the bonuses; they definitely didn't disgrace themselves though, thanks to them for playing!

 

The stats: Arvin Boraghi and Harry Howard were joint best buzzers of the night with five each for their respective teams. On the bonuses, Pembroke managed a pretty good 20 out of 27 (with two penalties) and St Andrews 7 out of 21 (with three penalties).

 

Next week's match: the postponed from this week Birmingham vs Leicester

 

Only Connect’s penultimate first round heat was contested by the Six Sevens, Henry Tang, Anneka Streule and captain Alice Barrett, and the Meat and Two Veg, Matt Morrison, Heather Badcock and captain Mark Deeks, a semi-finalist on Countdown many years ago.

 

My parents claim two points each on the picture question and the double surnames question in the first round; M&TV led 7-1 at the end of that round. I think we all claim (at least) the same three points as the Sevens on the South African flag question in the second round, and we jointly claim two points on the prize winners question (I said ‘Imperial College London (University Challenge)’!); M&TV led 8-4 after that.

 

On to the Walls, and the Sevens, after getting nothing for almost the entire time, suddenly got two groups right at the end, but couldn’t work out the other two in time; they did get three connections, so five points. M&TV also worked out two connections, but didn’t manage to work out the other two in their three attempts; they did work out two connections, so four points, meaning their lead had been trimmed to 12-9 going into Missing Vowels. They maintained their advantage in that, as I suspected they would as Countdown people are usually quite good at MW, and won 19-14. Well done both teams, and best of luck next time.

 

Next week’s match: Creepy Crawleys vs Risk Takers

 

Mastermind was won by Hugh Nicholl, whose 19 points saw him edge home ahead of Akim Ajayi and Paula Lawford, both of whom scored 17, and Mary Obodo, who completed the line-up with 14.

 

Yesterday’s Brain of Britain was over as a contest after the first round: Michael McPartland, a former OC semi-finalist and Mastermind finalist, took five in a row and a bonus point on his ‘Spotlight’ round, on WWE, and two pick ups of his opponents’ questions, and so already had 8 points while they had 1 between the three of them. He finished with 19 points, 12 ahead of second placed Arun Uttamchandani (UC alumnus) with 7; Jo Hancox and Claire Cooper completed the line-up with 6 and 5 respectively.

 

And that's it for another week! Thanks as ever for reading; join us again next week when the first (and my personal favourite) round of OC concludes, and we get the edition of UC postponed from this week, maybe we'll find out why that was as well. So, see yous then I guess...