Mastermind 2019 - Semi Final 1

So at last we’ve reached the semi finals, dearly beloved. While acknowledging that first round form is not an infallible guide, it’s still quite fun to look over the form book before we get into the show. Here’s the first round performances of our first semi finalists:-

Nicholas Young	John Buchan	14	0	12	4	26	4
Sue Duffy	The Life and Works of Elizabeth Taylor	14	0	13	2	27	2
Roy Smith	Bob Marley	12	1	14	2	26	3
Mark Grant	Keith Douglas	14	0	15	0	29	0
Brian Davis	The Life of Henry VII	12	0	17	0	29	0

 No duffers in there. You’d think that the form guide suggested Mark and Brian were the ones to beat, but there really wasn’t a lot to choose between all five, bearing in mind that Nicholas’s GK was the lowest.

Nicholas it was who kicked us off. You may recall that Nicholas took part in heat 15, and when he returned to the black chair he only needed 5 points to win. Then he was answering on John Buchan, while last night he gave us the Life and Times of Samuel Johnson. 11 in a semi final specialist is a good, competitive total, and that’s what he produced. My score of 6 off a rather basic knowledge of Doctor Johnson suggested that this wasn’t necessarily a rock hard set of questions.

Next to go was Sue Duffy. Answering on Elizabeth Taylor, Sue had won heat 4, with a sterling performance on specialist giving her a lead which she maintained in the GK round. Last night she was answering on Anthony Powell’s 12 novel A Dance to the Music of Time series. Never having read any of them I can’t vouch for their difficulty, but I can vouch for the fact that 11 points and no passes is a very competitive score.

Roy Smith was actually 3^rd in Heat One back in October. That was a contest in which the two contenders who beat him both scored 16 on GK. Roy’s 14 wasn’t bad either. Back then he was answering on perennial favourite Bob Marley. Last night he was answering on Two Tone records. Yes, I was around in the late 70s and early 80s and remember them well. Not well enough to score more than 3 points, mind you. Roy did better than that. However at the end of the round he’d scored 7, and in a semi final, I’m sorry, 4 points behind is almost like half a lap in a 10,000m race. It was quite touching, really, as disappointment came over Roy’s face, and he was still sitting in the chair a little forlornly as the lights dimmed.

Many people have made Mark Grant, our next contender, a favourite for the series. This is totally understandable. It’s not that there aren’t many quizzers of the stature of Mark Grant in the series, although there aren’t, so much as there aren’t many quizzers of the stature of Mark Grant full stop. It would be a brave person who’d bet against Mark completing the Only Connect – Brain of Britain – Mastermind triple crown, like his Crossworders team mate Ian Bayley. He looked even more of a favourite when he put on a flawless 13 points on his specialist subject of The Festival of Britain.

This left Brian Davis. I recently saw Brian doing extremely well on Pointless. Brian took part in that remarkable heat 3, in which he was one of three contenders who posted scores of at least 29. That heat was won by Helen O’Connell, but Brian was runner up having scored a remarkable 17 on GK. Last night Brian was answering on William Wilberforce, and managed an excellent 12 to leave himself a point behind Mark.

Roy returned to the chair for the GK. Incidentally, for the semi finals we seem to have dumped the pointless gimmick of not telling the contenders how much each other has scored in the first round. Well and good. Roy had decided on the tactic of answering quickly and passing quickly. It worked for the first 4 questions, but a pass spiral soon developed and he only found another 4 right answers for the rest of the round. Well, look, Roy, you’re a Mastermind semi finalist and I know quite a few people who’d love to be able to add that to their own CV.

Nicholas Young struggled somewhat on his own GK round, and added 8 to his total. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, but I didn’t feel that any of the GK rounds were particularly strenuous in last night’s show. I had full houses in Nicholas, Mark’s and Brian’s rounds, which is undoubtedly easier to achieve on my sofa than in the black chair. Still, it did suggest that high scores were there for the taking, and sadly Nicholas’ wasn’t high enough.

Sue’s round, on the other hand, well Sue’s round was a very fine round indeed. She missed out on the same question I missed out on, but otherwise produced a perfect score of 14. The only other thing that did strike me about the round, though, was the time she took over several of the answers. This I felt opened the door for both Mark and Brian, who were definitely going to answer more quickly, I felt.

Brian did exactly that, and it’s well that he did, for he missed out on a couple which were gettable. Nonetheless his round had momentum right from the get go, and a fine string of correct answers brought him 13 points, which meant he was level with Sue on 25 and no passes. I still felt that Mark was going to win, but it did raise the mouthwatering prospect of a tie break.

Mark reeled off the first few answers. However his job was made harder after he hesitated over a question about aspic before giving it a guess, and then dropped another of the next couple of questions. After those couple though he powered onwards, and reached 13 for 26 and the win. Congratulations, sir, and best of luck in the final. As for Brian and Sue, well my heart goes out to the pair of you considering you both put in performances which were worthy of a place in the final. But that is the nature of a knockout competition I’m afraid. I hope that you can take consolation from a pair of very fine performances. Good show. I think we’ll be very lucky if all – or indeed any – of the other semi finals are as good as this one.

The Details

Nicholas Young	The Life and Times of Samuel Johnson	11	0	8	1	19	1
Sue Duffy	A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell	11	0	14	0	25	0
Roy Smith	2 Tone Records	7	2	8	5	15	7
Mark Grant	1951 Festival of Britain	13	0	13	0	26	0
Brian Davis	The Life of William Wilberforce	12	0	13	0	25	0

University Challenge - Grand Final 2019

After all the ballyhoo, dearly beloved, it came down to this. 2 teams, Edinburgh and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and 8 players. It’s been an unpredictable series in many ways, and I certainly didn’t predict that Matt Booth, Marco Malusa, Robbie Campbell Hewson, and skipper Max Fitz-James of Edinburgh would find themselves in the Grand Final. However they showed resilience after losing in the quarters to Durham, whom they beat in the semis to earn their place. As for Agastya Pisharody, Marceline Bresson, Lizzie Fry and captain Freddy Leo, unbeaten Teddy Hall had looked good for the final for most of the series. Last time out they took out dangerous Darwin, Cambridge, although that semi final had provided Freddy Leo with the unusual experience of only being the second best buzzer on the night. Having seen Edinburgh’s semi final, I felt that this was one I just couldn’t call. Yes, before the semi finals you’d have said that the superior buzzing of Leo would have given them the edge. However Edinburgh’s death or glory gung ho buzzing in their semi had beaten the highly fancied Durham team, and you just fancied that this would at the very least enable them to make a game of it.

A traditional dance form with some silly names gave Max Fitz-James his first buzz of the final. An incorrect one as it happened, since he offered maypole dancing. Didn’t matter at this stage. This was a statement of intent, that Edinburgh were indeed going to buzz fearlessly as they had against Durham. Allowed the whole question it was Lizzie Fry ho gave the correct answer of morris dancing. A set of questions on paperclips brought a single bonus. Freddy Leo took his first starter of the evening, and his 42^nd of the series, knowing a group of clues all pointed towards the colour yellow. Persistent courtship in 19^th century novels brought a full house. Nobody knew that the hydrostatic pressure reaches one kilobar in the world’s oceans at a depth of 10 km. Marco Malusa recognised a description of Vancouver Island for an early buzz which put his team into a positive points total. “You get set of bonuses on the periodic table “ announced JP, pausing momentarily before adding “ in Chinese”. I promptly stopped putting my shoes on in preparation for the anticipated lap of honour. Then I put them on again as I had carbon and boron for the first answer, as did Edinburgh, and we were both right. Edinburgh built on this to take a full house. This brought us to the picture starter. This was a rather nice Venn Diagram, with names of characters from 2 Shakespeare plays, with a main female character missing from the centre. Well, I knew that Helena was missing from the Dream, and that proved to be the correct answer. (I acted in it in the 6^th form at school, and I think it safe to say that those present will always remember my Bottom). Max Fitz-James was first in for that one. 2 bonuses were enough to make the scores level at 40 apiece as we approached the 10 minute mark.

I considered taking a second lap of honour when I shouted ‘Lagrange’ in answer to the next starter just as Freddy Leo buzzed in with the same answer. Bonuses on the latin phrase noli me tangere brought a fine full house. For the next starter we had a few lines by Ogden Nash about a bird. Max Fitz-James allowed himself to be led astray by a mention of Saint-Saens and offered swans. This allowed Lizzie Fry to come in and give the more obvious answer – in this case cuckoo – for the second time in the contest. Bonuses on Harold Macmillan yielded just the one answer. Nobody could get the next one about gases. A rush of blood to the head saw Agastya Pisharody buzz in for a starter which wanted 2 greek letters and just offer omega. After this Robbie Campbell Hewson did exactly what I would have done and buzzed in with Alpha and Omega. He maybe knew, I certainly didn’t, but when you’ve got a free shot like that you have to have a go. Desperately bad luck to Teddy Hall, but you have to keep your wits about you. Edinburgh didn’t look like they fancied the bonuses on Iron Maiden, and yet we both took a full house. A truly wonderful music starter followed. We were played three pieces of ‘popular’ music. Each piece contained the name of a colour in its title. The three colours, top to bottom, made up a national flag. Little RED corvette – Mr. BLUE Sky and ORANGE crush gave me Armenia. Both teams went for flags with green in them. Asked for one of three consecutive years in which a given sequence of events happened, Freddy Leo was in first, but some way out. This allowed Max Fitz-James in with a correct answer of 1790. This again levelled the teams, and one correct answer on the music bonuses put them in the lead. Max Fitz-James got himself a little in a tizzy when he buzzed in first for the next starter, gave the correct answer of Agrippina, and then tried to correct himself. Off the point, I did think that Tiberius’ first wife – a daughter of Agrippa, yes – was known as Vipsania raher than Agrippina, but there you go. The Millennium Prize Problems brought a couple of bonuses which took Edinburgh into triple figures. You got the sense that Edinburgh’s collective tails were up as Marco Malusa buzzed in early to provide the term metaphysical for the next starter. Elizabeth Catlett – yes, Elizabeth Who in LAM Towers – brought a quickfire full house, which meant that Edinburgh had actually established a lead of 125 – 75 at the 20 minute mark.

No need to panic for Teddy Hall yet, but they did need to get their buzzing fingers going again. Max Fitz-James came in early for the next starter, but lost five. Almost inevitably it was Lizzie Fry who did the sweeper’s job, mopping up the loose pass, and sending it into the opposing goal, giving us the correct answer of the Asian Games. 2 bonuses on astronomy followed. The picture starter showed us the artist Georgia O’Keefe, and it was Max Fitz-James who took that one. Art History’s power couples provided Edinburgh with 2 correct answers, and the rest of us with more evidence of Gilbert and George’s unassailable position as the art world’s finest Morecambe and Wise tribute act. Max Fitz-James again came in too early for the next starter, and this time it was Agastya Pisharody who hoovered up the scraps, providing the correct answer of Geometry. Pairs of place names in which the final three letters of the first name are the first three letters of the name of the second were a lovely UC special set. Teddy Hall took one, and this placed them a full house behind. Freddy Leo finally found his buzzer range and provided the starter they needed recognising that gypsum has a value of two on the Mohs scale. One bonus on computing languages left them 10 points adrift. Marceline Bresson recognised the work of Bell Hooks to bring the teams level and earn the praise of her captain. Islands and their languages saw Teddy Hall take one, but throw away 5 points by giving the name of the country which is part of the island of New Guinea  Papua New Guinea – rather than the name of the island itself. On such small margins . . . In a beautiful UC special starter for the next set, the teams firstly had to work out that a list of people were born in Liverpool. Not too hard that. Then they had to take the first three letters of the city, and translate it into a number in roman numerals. LIV gave 54. Robbie Campbell Hewson was first to work it out, and this gave his team back a 5 point lead. The 6^th century Byzantine Empress Theodora allowed for two correct answer before the contest was gonged.

So Edinburgh, winners by 155 to 140, are the champions. It’s probably not much consolation to Teddy Hall, but it was nip and tuck, and really could have gone either way at the end. For what it’s worth it was slightly better bonus conversion which won the match. I’d also like to pay tribute to Max Fitz-James’ buzzing tactics. He took 4 starters, one more than Freddy Leo and Lizzie Fry – but he also came in too early for several as well. However I think that despite giving away 5 points a throw, this put pressure on Teddy Hall, which may be a reason why Freddy Leo’s buzzing was his least effective of the series. He’s still one of the finest buzzers we’ve seen for a quite a while. However, Edinburgh are the champions, and well deserved too.

Congratulations to the production team. Another thoroughly enjoyable series. Thanks very much everyone.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

JP wrinkled his unlovely nose as Lizzie Fry answered the first starter with morris dancing, and he sniffed , “To think that you had to know that!”

At the end he paid tribute to the fact that both teams were applauding each other – rightly so.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

The name morris dancing is thought to derive from the Moors.

Mastermind 2019 First round heat 24

Well, we got here at last, Dearly Beloved, the 24^th first round heat out of 24. First to go was Jenny Delaney. Jenny was answering questions on Henry VIII. This was, well, not an easy set, no, but certainly a very fair one, as I reeled off 8 of the first 9 answers. I only got one of the next 5, mind you. Leah took the next 4, and only faltered on the last one. 13 is a cracking good score for a 2 minute specialist round these days, and it really lay down the gauntlet for the contenders still to come.

Leah Massey was answering on Britpop, and once again I started the round pretty well, but ran out of steam quite a bit earlier than in the previous round, and levelled out at 5. Leah did better, but sadly not that much better. Missing out on Pulp’s “Common People” and Blur’s “Parklife” – two of the easier questions in the round I would have thought – certainly didn’t help her cause, and with a score of 7 she was to all intents and purposes out of the competition.

My own weakest round of the whole show came with Jack Blenkinsopp’s round on Christopher Isherwood. Let’s put it this way, not only have I not read anything he wrote, I haven’t even seen the film “Cabaret”. So under the circumstances I was lucky that guesswork brought me the three points that it did. Jack managed a fighting ten, which left him 3 points off the lead but at least in with a shout if the GK went well.

Bruce Horton, our final contender, I recognised from a few years’ back. As a former semi finalist I predicted to Mary, who hadn’t managed to get out of the room while the going was good, that Bruce was the person to beat in this show. Well, if he was going to make it to a second semi final he was going to have to do well in the GK, because his round of 9 left him 4 points behind. A decent round of 6 gave me an aggregate of 23.

So to the GK round. Whenever a contender has an underwhelming specialist round like Leah’s, you always hope that they’re going to bounce back and give a rousing GK performance. This sadly she didn’t really manage to do. Her 8 is not a disastrous performance, but it’s a modest one and there’s not a lot more that you can say about it than that.

In his last first round performance, Bruce had an even more modest specialist performance, but he won his heat through a barnstorming GK performance. He didn’t get that in this show, but he did get a pretty decent one. 12 points are not to be sniffed at, and had he only scored a few more in his specialist, or so I thought, he’d have a pretty good chance of going through. However with two contenders to come, I really didn’t think he was going to make it this time.

Well, Jack Blenkinsopp came very close to the target. He needed a minimum of 11 points, which he duly got. He also needed to avoid any passes. 1 pass would give us a potential tie break situation, while more than that would leave Bruce in the lead. He took two passes.

So it only remained for Jenny Delaney to apply the coup de grace. She didn’t even need a double figure score to win, 9 would win outright, and 8 with no passes would win. What happened though, was that Jenny seemed to become almost paralysed with nerves as the round progressed. Sometimes you watch a low scoring round, and you feel it has nothing to do with nerves, and sometimes it clearly seems to be nerves, and this was what I felt about this round. The upshot was that Jenny became unfortunately another contender who failed to score more than 7 on the GK, and ended with just 4.

Well done to Bruce, who would have been forgiven for thinking that he had next to no chance after his own GK round. I certainly felt so. And farewell, then to the first round. I’ve enjoyed it, but I’ll return to the point I’ve been making that there have been just too many contenders who have posted low scores on GK, and hopefully that’s a trend we’ll see reversed when the show’s new production team takes over next series. I’m not trying to be horrible to the people who scored 7 or less on GK, since they absolutely have a right to apply. However, I do think that the production team have a duty of care to ‘save some contenders from themselves’.

The Details

Jenny Delaney	Henry VIII	13	0	5	4	18	4
Leah Massey	Britpop	7	1	8	6	15	7
Jack Blenkinsopp	Christopher Isherwood	10	0	11	2	21	2
Bruce Horton	The Royal Navy In The First World War	9	0	12	1	21	1

University Challenge 2019) Semi Final 2 - St. Edmund Hall, Oxford v. Darwin, Cambridge

University Challenge Semi Final 2 St. Edmund Hall, Oxford v. Darwin, Cambridge

If I was being unkind I would say that this contest was all about the two skippers, Freddy Leo of Teddy Hall, and Jason Golfinos of Darwin. The two have certainly been the most outstandingly good players on the buzzer throughout the whole series, and there’s certainly been a lot of speculation as to who is the faster. So you could be forgiven for thinking that this was going to be all about that contest. And I certainly had little doubt that this was going to be crucial. However, I’m also experienced enough to know that it would be foolish to discount the other 6 players. Since losing on a tie break to Bristol, for example, Darwin have proved to have a fine conversion rate, and that’s not just down to their skipper. So, Teddy Hall once again fielded their team of Agastya Pisharody, Marceline Bresson, Lizzie Fry and the mighty Freddy Leo. Darwin also fielded an unchanged team of Stuart Macpherson, Christopher Davis, Guy Mulley and the brilliant Jason Golfinos.

Marceline Bresson had obviously not received the memo that this was all about the two skippers when she correctly answered the name of economist Friedrich Hayek for the first starter. Her skipper seemed very happy as JP informed us all that the bonuses were on Wagner. He wasn’t so happy when he got the first one wrong. Mind you, so did I. 2 correct answers followed for both of us. For the next starter, Jason Golfinos opened his account recognising several clues leading to the word ‘mercy’. Golfinos 1, Leo 0. Less common English nouns in the To be or not to be soliloquy from Hamlet brought two correct answers to level the scores. Jason Golfinos took a second consecutive starter by recognising a description of the Peace of Westphalia. Golfinos 2 – Leo 0. Lasers promised me but little, but my tactic of answering Einstein for any 20^th century physicist brought me an unexpected lap of honour. Darwin took this and one other bonus. This brought us to the first picture starter. We saw a diagram of the structure of a vitamin, and Freddy Leo opened his personal account by recognising vitamin B12. Golfinos 2 – Leo 1. 3 more discoveries of Dorothy Hodgkin brought the 10 points they needed to level the scores once again. Both Freddy Leo and I said that the second of the Plagues of Egypt in the book of Exodus was frogs, and we were both right. Golfinos 2 – Leo 2. Bonuses on punchcards meant that as we approached the 10 minute mark, Teddy Hall had edged in front with 55 – 40, in a contest that so far was living up to the hype.

I recognised the novel Perfume a little before Freddy Leo came in for the next starter with the correct answer. Golfinos 2 – Leo 3. Bonuses on Thomas Gainsborough saw Teddy Hall take full advantage with a full house, which for the first time opened some daylight between the two teams. For the next starter Jason Golfinos tried to stop the rot, but came in too early and lost 5 for his pains. Golfinos 2 (1miscue) – Leo 3. This allowed Marceline Bresson to give the correct answer of Pietro della Francesca. Bonuses on French Departments brought just one correct answer, but that gap between the teams was starting to look ominous for Darwin. Nobody knew the SI unit the Katal for the next starter. Right, as soon as the next starter linked essay – 1936 – and – Burma I threw Orwell on the table. A moment or two later Guy Mulley beat the Teddy Hall skipper to the buzzer, and won a UC special set on chemical elements. These rather surprisingly defeated them, and indeed moved Jason Golfinos to announce ‘we got nothing’ when asked for the last answer. So to the music starter, and Freddy Leo was first in to recognise the work of Bach. Golfinos 2 (1miscue) – Leo 4. 3 more secular cantatas brought 2 correct answers, and more importantly a 70 point lead. Jason Golfinos came in first for the next starter about a constellation, then shook his head “Actually no, nothing.” Believe it or not, folks, that’s what a good buzzer does. You have to buzz before you’re certain of the answer, in the hope that it will come in the next couple of seconds. Perfectly legitimate tactic. Freddy Leo had a punt with Hermes, but it turned out to be Hercules. A fine buzz from Jason Golfinos this time saw him guess correctly with Charlemagne for the next starter. I’ll be honest, I was still working out what the question meant while he was answering. Golfinos 3 (1 miscue) – Leo 4. Sofia Coppola brought just 5 points but at least Darwin were moving again. It was that man Leo who took the next starter, though, knowing the pleural membrane. Golfinos 3(1) – Leo 5The term agonistes brought a full house. So on the cusp of the 20 minute mark Teddy Hall seemed pretty much in cruise control, as they led by 140 – 60.

Jason Golfinos struck right back being first to recognise a definition of the term imam. Golfinos 4(1) – Leo 5(0). Biochemical compounds linked by the prefix cyto brought two bonuses, and led us into the second picture starter. Jason Golfinos was the first to buzz recognising a photo of Anthony Burgess. Golfinos 5(1) – Leo 5 (0). Other winners of the Benson medal only brought 5 more points. If they were to catch up, they were going to need more than this. Jason Golfinos duly took the next starter, knowing a designation of supernovae 1A. Golfinos 6(1) – Leo 5. England and Scotland in the 12^th century failed to bring Darwin any more points. Agastya Pisharody stopped the Golfinos charge, knowing that calomel is derived from Mercury for the next starter, which earned a Golfinosesque fist bump from skipper Leo. One bonus was enough to reestablish a 50 point lead. Jason Golfinos recognised that the next starter was leading to William F. Buckley. Golfinos 7 (1) – Leo 5 (0). Football clubs with classical names brought an overdue full house. Darwin were now just one full set behind. It had seemed all over by the 20 minute mark, but now. . . Yes, Jason Golfinos did take the next starter, knowing that the Yangtze is the longest river in the world entirely in one country. Golfinos 8 (1) – Leo 5. Aphra Behn seemed unlikely to bring Darwin a full house, but the one bonus they did get narrowed the gap to 10 points. A single starter. After all the shouting, it came down to this , a one question starter shootout. Darwin had to get it, there just wasn’t enough time left for anything else. And yes, Stuart Macpherson had won the race. And yes, he answered ligament, which I felt was the right answer too. We were both wrong, and as the rest of the question revealed we were looking for meniscus. Teddy Hall had done it, and Freddy Leo took his 6^th starter knowing the correct term meniscus. Golfinos 8(1) – Leo 6. There was just time for one bonus, which Teddy Hall failed to get, but it didn’t matter. They had won by 165 to 140.

What a splendid match, worthy of a final, let alone a semi final. For the record, then, Jason Golfinos edged the battle of the skippers, which I’m sure will be scant consolation, but certainly is one of the finest buzzers we’ve seen not to make the final in recent years. With little to choose between the two teams, Teddy Hall had slightly the better bonus conversion rate, which is what won them the match.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

JP had a good old laugh at Jason Golfinos’ admission that he had nothing for the constellation starter. Other than that he did what all god question masters do, and allowed a great contest to play itself out without unnecessary contributions from himself.

Interesting Fact That I didn’t Already Know Of The Week

The Yangtze is the longest river inn the world to flow entirely in one country (I guessed it, but didn’t know it before the question was asked.)

University Challenge 2019 - Semi Final 1

Apologies all. I was away last weekend, and then when I got back I found that my internet was buggered malfunctioning. Still, all sorted now. So let’s try to catch up a bit.

Semi Final 1) Durham v. Edinburgh

Look I don’t know how they decide which teams face each other in the semis, although it always makes sense to keep the two teams who were unbeaten in the quarters apart from each other. Still, the little quirk thrown up this year was that this semi was a repeat of a quarter final match. So you could have forgiven Durham , in the shape of Sian Round, Cameron Yule, Ben Murray and skipper Matthew Toynbee for entering their semi with confidence. Of all the teams this year, they had seemed the most rounded, with buzzing throughout the team, and frankly had been tipped for the top by many people. As for Edinburgh, well, you wouldn’t have blamed Matt Booth, Marco Malusa, Robbie Campbell Hewson and captain Max Fitz-James for entering their semi with a certain amount of trepidation following their defeat by the same team.

You may recall that last time out Durham blitzed Edinburgh with an early buzzing storm which gave them a healthy lead, and although Edinburgh came back towards the end they never really got on terms. Well, Max Fitz-James came in early gambling on a question that was always going to require the answer of Handel’s Water Music or his Royal Fireworks. He zigged with the former, allowing his opposite number to zag with the latter, and earn a set of bonuses on the Kalinga Prize. Durham took two of a pretty gettable set. Max Fitz-James won the buzzer race to identify the noun linking Einstein’s statement about God, and Caesar’s statement on crossing the Rubicon as dice. The Archaeologist Maria Gimbutas – all together now, Maria Who? In LAM Towers – brought their own two bonuses. Matt Booth followed his skipper’s lead and took the next starter recognising a quote pertaining to Shakespeare’s Shylock. Geometry brought me nowt, but a further 10 points and the lead. Already Edinburgh had made a better start than in the previous match between these teams, and there was still a while to go before we hit the 10 minute mark. The picture starter showed us a graph of the USA’s economic performance throughout the 20^th century, with a particular period marked off. You didn’t have to be a genius to see that this was the Great Depression, however you did have to be quick on the buzzer to get a chance to say so. It was Cameron Yule who won that race. More events on the graph brought 10 points and gave Durham back the lead. Matt Booth came in too early for the next one and lost 5. In a way this didn’t matter, since it proved that Edinburgh were determined to stand toe to toe slugging it out with Durham, in a way that they didn’t manage to do early enough in the quarters. Durham were unable to dredge up the term constructivism. Matthew Toynbee recognised a series of victories for the Duke of Marlborough, to earn a set on what is fast becoming a UC hardy perennial, Chinese provinces and their capitals. It didn’t do them a great deal of good, nonetheless they led by 50 – 30 just after the ten minute mark.

The Durham skipper took his second starter in a row, knowing that a variety of nouns can all be preceded by the prefix psycho. This enabled them to take one bonus on a very tricky set on chairs. I’ll be honest, I know nothing about the Scottish mathematician Maclauren, but Robbie Campbell Hewson did, to get his team moving forward again. They took two bonuses on a very gentle set on swans. So to the music round, and very quick buzz from Max Fitz-James identified a wee bit of Tchaikovsky. The bonuses were three other classical works that quoted the works of other well known composers. This brought them back the lead. I don’t blame Cermon Yule for coming in early and chancing his arm with Walt Whitman on the next starter as I did eactly the same, but we were both wrong, and it lost 5. Edinburgh didn’t capitalise. However there was a lovely cameo as Robbie Campbell Hewson squirmed on his seat as he tried to recall the Via Dolorosa. He managed and won the buzzer race. A set on literary criticism brought a very timely full house. Nobody knew the answer to a Sciencey thing for the next starter, and for once my trusted tactic of answering 1 or 0 if the answer required a number let me down. Ben Murray took the next starter, working out that the answer to a biblical question would be Ethiopia. Bonuses on electricity brought them to 85 points. However, Edinburgh already had 95. I may be wrong, but I think that this was the first time that Durham have ever been behind at the 20 minute mark. This was all going to rest on which ever team could manage a grandstand finish.

A great early buzz from Robbie Campbell Hewson for the next starter identified my own surname, and suggested that Edinburgh’s tails were up. Welsh orthography provided me with a full house – well I have been learning it for a little while now – and Edinburgh with two bonuses. Neither team recognised Corazon Aquino for the photo starter – I’m guessing that they’re all too young. Again, Durham came back with a great buzz from Cameron Yule to identify a series of events including the foundation of Rome as all ending in the digits 5 and 3. A lovely set of photograph bonuses showing political leaders whose children went on to hold the same office saw me correctly predict Nehru and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, although I didn’t predict the Trudeaus, who apart from creating the Doonesbury cartoon apparently both ran Canada in their spare time as well. The next starter required the surname Moses, and I thought it was always going to be a buzzer race. Yet both teams sat on their buzzers, and it was with a disbelieving shrug that Max Fitz-James placed the right answer on the table. Playing the prediction game again, when JP announced bonuses on writing on slavery I predicted Beloved, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Roots. Well, the first two were right, but the Sport of Kings was the other. None of us worked out clues to the element Tellurium for the next starter. Now, if you’re asked for a composer who wrote 9 symphonies before his death, it might be Beethoven, but Mahler’s a good shout too, and Cameron Yule zagged with that to win the next starter. None of us knew enough about biochemistry to attempt the bonuses that followed, so captain Matthew Toynbee opted sensibly for speed and passed. Once again it was Edinburgh’s captain Fantastic, Max Fitz-James, who kept his side ahead, winning the buzzer race to identify the latin word incipit for the next starter. 20^th century wars of independence offered them the chance to stretch the gap past one full set again, and with two correct answers, they established a 45 point lead. It was imperative that Durham took the next starter. Ben Murray had a go, but failed, but Edinburgh couldn’t capitalise. Didn’t matter, for the clock was on their side. Robbie Campbell Hewson pretty much sealed the deal knowing that Charles I was born in Dunfermline. Max Fitz-James shook his fists in triumph as JP announced bonuses on Racine. That was almost it. Durham led by 180 – 110, and neither team knew Paul Samuelson as the clock ran down. Indeed we were gonged before a correct answer to the next starter.

Very bad luck to Durham who had looked a favourite for the whole of this year’s series up until this game. But an inspired performance from Edinburgh saw them deservedly win their place in the final.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

I would imagine that there’s nothing you can say to the losing semi finalists which would be of much consolation, but fair play to JP he didn’t really try, choosing to remind them that they’d started well, fallen away, and this was a bit of a reversal of their last meeting. Yeah, thanks for that Jez.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Plenty that I didn’t know in this show, but nothing stood out. Sorry.