University Challenge 2026 - Quarter Final sudden death Merton, Oxford v. Darwin, Cambridge

The Teams

Merton, Oxford

Ciaran Duncan

Eveline Ong

Elliot Cosnett (Capt.)

Verity Fleetwood-Law

Darwin, Cambridge

Lewis Strachan

Ruth Ni Mhuircheartaigh

Louis Cameron (Capt.)

Jonathan White

Here we are, dearly beloved, two teams fighting it out for one last place in the semi-finals. In the quarters so far both teams boasted a record of won one, lost one. Now it was all or nothing.

Eveline Ong came in early to identify Los Tres Grandes as Mexican artists particularly associated with murals. I wonder if they did Hilda Ogden’s Muriel? (Ask your grandparents). Treaties between the USA and Native American Nations – hmm- brought two bonuses. Louis Cameron struck back for Darwin, knowing that TS Eliot described Milton as having done damage to the English language from which it has not yet recovered. And that from a man who gave us The Waste Land and whose name is an anagram of toilets. Linguistic Morphology – not, as I thought, an embarrassing skin disease – provided no points for any of us. Ruth Ni Mhuircheartaigh recognised a reference to the concept of justice for the next starter while Merton lost five for an incorrect interruption. This time bonuses on bacteriophages brought 2 correct answers to Darwin and complete incomprehension to me. I did understand many words in the three questions, but all of these were short words like -the – and – ‘on’. For the first picture starter we were shown chapter headings from a well known work and I was pleased with myself to figure out the missing word from each was dreams. Elliot Cosnett had it as well. More of the same from other works brought one bonus, but could have been two had the skipper not got in with totalitarianism before Ciaran Duncan supplied totalitarian. Eveline Ong supplied the name of Geiger for the next starter. Langston Hughes delivered a welcome full house which meant that Merton led 55 – 30 on the 10 minute mark. All to play for.

Louis Cameron came in early to take the next starter with percolation. Dishes whose names have similar meanings brought Darwin their own full house and the scores were level again. The next starter was one of those where you had to wait and wait until the answer became obvious and it was Jonathan White who won the race to give the answer of lino. Scientists (ugh) who give their names to multiple reactions brought just the one bonus. The next starter was so obviously pointing towards Pembrokeshire as supplied by Lewis Strachan – although don’t try telling people there that it is like ‘little England’. You should go there, it’s stunning. Place names in the UK containing or derived from the names of trees did not, I was sorry to see, include Knotty Ash. It didn’t matter to Darwin as they scored a full house despite plucking birch seemingly out of thin air. For the music starter we heard the sound of a lady in some agony, which turned out to be a piece of music by Haydn. Nobody recognised it. I took my lap of honour for knowing that the lanthanide element starting with G is Gadolinium. Nobody else did. JM Keynes’ liquidity trap fell to Elliot Cosnett and earned the frankly dubious reward of the music round bonuses. More works based on the legend of Ariadne brought one correct answer. I guessed Rupert Davies was the first to portray George Smiley on screen – Ciaran Duncan had that too. Kerry Packer’s Pyjama Party, or World Series Cricket, brought Merton two bonuses. Verity Fleetwood-Law knew the Balkan trilogy of novels to level the scores. Different notations for the derivative of a function – no, me neither – brought one correct answer to Merton, which meant that they led 100 – 95 going into the crucial last part of the match.

More bloody Maths for the next starter. Hoo – ray. Didn’t understand the question at all, but Ruth Ni Mhuircheartaigh gave the correct answer of smooth. The film La Jetee brought a brace of bonuses to put Darwin back in front. The Lotus sutra – which came between the Elan, Esprit and Elite – fell to the Merton skipper. When diarchies were announced I guessed that Andorra would be one, the Bishop of Urgell being a good old quiz chestnut. They took just the one bonus to level the scores. I was pleased to recognise the work of renaissance artist and ninja turtle Donatello for the second picture starter. Louis Cameron took that one. Other artistic depictions of St. George yielded one bonus. Lewis Strachan acted on impulse to answer impulse to the next starter and he was right to do so. Precision in computer science – gimme a break – brought  a couple of bonuses and suddenly Darwin were pulling away from the Oxford team. Nobody got Geoffrey of Anjou (Plantagenet) as Henry II’s son in law for the next starter. Nobody knew pinnate leaves either – leaf shapes are another of those old quiz chestnuts. Louis Cameron recognised titles of stories by DH Lawrence to stretch the Darwin lead further. Mythological names used for features of the Moon brought 1 bonus but it also ran down the clock which was all to Darwin’s advantage. Still Merton weren’t done. Elliot Cosnett came in early to identify Julian the Apostate as a roman emperor with a thing about beards. French architect Viollet le Duc brought bonuses but with hardly any time left even a full house would not have brought the scores level. As it was Merton lost five while Jonathan White supplied the correct answer of Buenos Aires for the next starter. That was effectively it as the gong sounded before any further points were scored. Darwin had won by 175 – 130.

That this was a close match can be seen in the fact that Merton managed a BCR of 54.1% to Darwin’s 53.7%. There was just slightly better buzzing from Darwin and that was enough. Well done!

Amol Watch

I always appreciate Amol’s application of the first answer counts rule. It really is the only fair way, even if it seems a little harsh.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know of the Week

Derry actually means oak grove. It makes sense since derwen is Welsh for oak, I think.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

What cycle is initiated by viruses such as the T4 bacteriophage, which replicate within bacterial cells, eventually causing the bacteria to burst open? In molecular biology it is contrasted with the lysogenic cycle. Do I really need to add dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2026 - Semi Final 4

The Tale of the Tape

=6	Danielle Connolly	11	0	13	0	24	0
9	Roger Easy	10	0	12	2	22	2
14	Richard Carr	11	0	9	6	20	6
=15	Alan Hotchkiss	9	0	10	0	19	0

 

Once again we had a decent enough spread of contenders in this semi final, although none of them had quite made the top five in the heats. Last week we saw the best performance of the semis so far with Ross Taylor’s excellent 27. Were we going to see anything similar in this 4^th semi final?

First to chance his arm was Roger Easy. Roger was a top 10 performer in the heats with double figures in both specialist and GK so he was certainly a contender. Tonight he was answering on George Frederick “Easy Grip” Handel. Despite my misgivings in my preview, this proved to be my own best subject of the round. Which doesn’t mean a lot when you consider that I only scored three. Roger did a lot better with 9 and no passes, but it did leave that little bit of daylight for the remaining three contenders.

Danielle Connelly was the highest scoring of these semi finalists in their first round heats. She had scored 11 in her specialist subject and she managed to repeat this with her round on the films of Christopher Nolan. I have really enjoyed many of his films, but I didn’t get much change out of this round scoring just 1. Danielle looked pretty good value for her score and would surely be either in the lead, or close to the leader at the turnaround.

Richard Carr had also scored 11 on his specialist subject in the heats. Answering on Hannibal he found the going a little bit harder tonight. Oh, don’t get me wrong, in the current era of the show a score of 8 is still a good one but you had the feeling that it might be quite a tight contest tonight and a three point gap might prove to be a substantial deficit to overhaul,

Finally Alan Hotchkiss came to answer on the US Masters golf tournament from 1990 until the present day. As with the two previous specialist rounds this set yielded me the grand total of one more point. I did think at one point that Alan was going to get into double figures, but lengthy questions and a couple of wrong answers restricted him to 9. So it was advantage Danielle as the half time oranges were being passed round.

Right, the GK rounds. You know we’ve observed before, you and I, how in some shows there is just something in the air. This was such a show. The first hint that this might be the case was in Richard’s GK round. When you’re in 4^th place, however narrow the margins, what you hope you can do is to just let rip and set a score which will put the fear of God into the other contenders. I’m afraid it didn’t happen with Richard. He’d scored a good 9 in his heat but really seemed to struggle with this set. He finished with 7 for a total of 15.

Roger started his own GK round pretty steadily, but he just couldn’t seem to really get a head of steam going either. Roger had scored a very good 12 in his heat but he never managed to reach those heights with this set of questions and in the end he, like Richard scored 7 although this gave Roger a total of 16 and the lead.

There was something in the air. Alan had also posted a double figure GK score in his heat but like the two contenders before him he struggled to get close to this in his own GK round tonight. Without wishing to come across as mean I have to make the observation that all of our contenders dropped points on questions that you would have expected Mastermind semi finalists to have been able to answer without too much trouble. Alan scored 6 for fifteen. There was something in the air.

So Danielle returned to the chair needing to score 6 for an outright win and a place in the Grand Final. A relatively modest ask, you might have thought. Normally you’d have been right. Danielle, after all, had scored 13 on GK in the heat. However there was something in the air and this round proved to be something of a grim old struggle. Going into the very last question Danielle was tied with Roger, but, crucially, he would have won on pass countback. Danielle kept her nerve, answered the last question correctly, and won. Many congratulations!

Mastermind is a strange beast sometimes. Last week we saw Pete Simmonds score 25, the second highest score of the semi finals so far and still not get to the Final. These things happen and we can often point to top heavy and bottom heavy semi finals as the reason. Not so much this time. All of the semis so far have had fair spreads of contenders. Well, we have two more to go, and who knows what awaits us ? Looking forward.

 The Details

Roger Easy	George Frederick Handel	9	0	7	0	16	0
Danielle Connolly	The films of Christopher Nolan	11	1	6	2	17	3
Richard Carr	Hannibal	8	0	7	4	15	4
Alan Hotchkiss	US Masters Golf – 1990 to the present day	9	0	6	1	15	1

 

The craft of the connection

Now, you know I’m not one to blow my own trumpet – oops sorry, my nose has just started growing – but though I do say it myself last Thursday night’s quiz which saw me acting as question master seemed to go down quite well in the weekly quiz in the rugby club.

Several times in the last few years I’ve said words to the effect of the only gimmick you need in a quiz is good, interesting questions that you’ve checked the answers of which have been carefully worded to make them as clear as possible, covering a wide spectrum of subjects to provide something for everyone. I stick by that – it’s the best gimmick you can possibly have. But I will admit that I do tend to use a specific gimmick whenever I do a quiz for the club now and that is the connections gimmick. You know how it works I’m sure. You ask, let’s say three questions all seemingly unconnected. Then for the next question, you ask what connects the previous 3 answers. So for example if you asked –

Who duetted with Monserrat Caballe on Barcelona?

What is the name of the trophy awarded to the winner of the ladies’ singles at Wimbledon

Whose real name is Peter Gene Hernandez?

answers of Freddie Mercury, Venus Rosewater Dish and Bruno Mars would give you planets of the solar system or roman deities.

I am happy to claim that I introduced connections to the rugby club 30 years ago. I didn’t come up with the idea independently – I had it from Geoff Evans of the Neath Quiz League of years gone by. It proved popular and up until lockdown when I was a regular setter I would use it once in every three quizzes that I made. Since lockdown I have only set quizzes when I’ve been asked to, and I use it pretty much every time I do.

Why? Well, it would nice to say I do it because people enjoy it and it makes for a good quiz. I think that people do enjoy it and it does make a good quiz if you take time and trouble to get it right. But that’s not the main reason. No, the main reason is that I enjoy the mental challenge of putting them together. It keeps me interested. For every two or three connections I come up with that work and will get asked, there are always a couple that I just can’t quite get to work. You have to be ruthless at such a time. If it doesn’t quite work, it’s no good to you and you have to chuck it out and find something else that does work.

And it is a challenge. Without care and dare I say it a certain level of ability you can end up making connections that are unsatisfying, obscure or downright unsolvable. The guys on my team get it. With a good connection, once you’ve got it, this can give you clues to any part of it you haven’t answered. With a good connection, if you have all parts of it correct then it should be gettable for the vast majority of teams. Sadly, though, not everybody does. I always groan inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) when setters from other teams try to do connections. In particular the very, very nice guy that we think of as Captain Slapdash. This is horrible, but pretty much every way you can think of to butcher a connection, he often does it. He is capable of making a perfectly good connection but he just doesn’t seem to be able to filter out the wheat from the chaff, or more precisely, the decent connections from the utter pigswill. I do wonder why he persists in doing them. When you do the quiz you can get a feel for what’s going down well and what isn’t. Is it stubborn bloody mindedness? I’ve no idea and you’ll appreciate that it’s not the sort of thing I could ever bring myself to ask him.

Mastermind Semi Final 4 - Specialist SUbjects

Tomorrow night’s Mastermind semi final specialist subjects will be:-

George Frederick Handel

The films of Christopher Nolan

Hannibal

The US Masters Tournament from 1990 to the present

I can pretty much guarantee I won’t be getting a hatful on any of these. In fact while I might pick up one on each of the subjects, the only ones I might pick up more than one on are Christopher Nolan and the US Masters and even then it would not surprise me that much if I didn’t get any on those subjects.

University Challenge - Quarter Final sudden death - Manchester v. Sheffield

The Teams

Manchester 

Ray Power

Kirsty Dickson

Kai Madgwick (Capt)

Rob Faulkner

Sheffield

Rhys Lewis

Abdelrahman Elsisi

Jacob Price (Capt)

Isobel Dobbie

The first of two winner takes all matches to round off the quarter final stages pitted two of my favourite teams against each other. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like all teams on UC but there are some I really find myself rooting for and both of these Manchester and Sheffield teams fell into this category. Well, only one of them was walking out of the last chance saloon alive in this match.

A long and involved starter saw Kai Madgwick buzz in first to identify countries and territories whose internet domains all start with H. Regions of Chile would bring me 2 answers with O’Higgins and Punta Arenas. Manchester had the last one I didn’t but not the second which I did. Isobel Dobbie opened the Sheffield account when she answered the late American artist Keith Haring for the next starter. I remembered the Graeae from Greek mythology. Sheffield didn’t but took bonuses two and three anyway. Sadly Sheffield lost five of their points for an incorrect buzz for the next starter, allowing Kai Madgwick to supply the colour black. Had I listened to the whole of the first geometry bonus I would have been stunned into silence, but after the first few words I guessed ellipse and rewarded my correct answer with a lap of honour around the Clark sofa. As for Manchester, well, they took a full house. I will be honest, I didn’t work out that De Woeste Hoegte (a hit for chanteuse Kaatje Boousch ?) was the Dutch title of Wuthering Heights, nor did I get it from any of the other titles for it in other languages for the first picture starter. Kirsty Dickson worked it out. More of the same left me pointless, while Manchester managed the last one, Pride and Prejudice. Jacob Price knew kaons for the next starter. Documentaries by Wim Wenders brought a plethora of passes. Incidentally, I’m sure the Buena Vista Social Club was also name checked in Mastermind earlier. Abdelrahman Elsisi knew that the Zabur in Islam is equivalent to the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. The only 14 mountains recognised as being more than 8,000m above sea level brought us both a timely full house. So at just past ten minutes the match was nicely poised with Manchester leading 60-50.

Kai Madgwick worked out that two cocktails were originally made in Trinidad and Tobago. James Dewar, the vacuum flask man, brought one bonus. Ray Power knew the Act of Killing for the next starter. (That’s the documentary as opposed to the deed itself.) Jacquetta Hawkes (‘Sparrow’ to her mates, I believe) brought us both just one bonus. Jacob Price was first in to recognise The Cure for the music starter. Three bonuses on Bands that Dave Has Never Even Heard Of brought Sheffield a full house. I know little about economics but the computer reference in the question seemed to be screaming input and output to me so I was a bit surprised neither team could take the next starter. But then I didn’t know Sun Wukong for the next starter which Kai Madgwick did. The word moral, its derivatives and their earliest OED citations brought two correct answers and just brought a feeling that Manchester were starting to get the upper hand. Abdelrahman Elsisi struck back with Malmonides. Dutch architect Rem ‘Wie?’ Koolhass enabled me to be smug knowing that Boavista FC play in Porto and take the first bonus. Bonuses narrowed the gap and then Rhys Lewis supplied the musical term acciaccatura which narrowed it down to 10 points. Bonuses on the religious text, The Canticle of the Sun, saw Sheffield surprise me when they missed the first which so clearly pointed to St. Francis of Assisi. They took one to be just a single bonus behind Manchester. Who decided that this was quite enough of that sort of thing as Kai Madgwick buzzed early to answer a starter on Anish Kapoor. Manchester, mainly through Kirsty Dickson took a full house on DNA damage. I was disappointed none of the questions were about the kind of DNA damage that creates superheroes but there you are. On 20, Manchester led by 135 to 105 and both teams were still in it to win it.

None of us knew thioester for the next starter. Crikey moses, polyester is just about my level. Kai Madgwick knew King Frederick II for the next. Royal Succession brought two out of a gettable three bonuses. Didn’t matter though as Manchester were building momentum. Nobody recognised that the two leathery old geezers in stetsons in the photo for the 2^nd picture starter were John Wayne and John Ford. (Permit me a small digression – forgive me if you’ve heard it. John Wayne played the centurion in the biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told. He didn’t have many lines. One of which was something like ‘Surely this man wuz the Son of Gaahhd’. He delivered the line in his trademark drawl, then director George Stephens asked, “Could you say it with a little more awe, John?” Wayne drew a breath, then said ‘Awww, surely this man wuz the Son of Gaahhd.) Rob Faulkner identified Belle Vue as a greyhound racing venue and earned Manchester the picture bonuses, showing more director – actor combinations who had made several films together. The two bonuses gave Manchester a lead which would require several unanswered visits to the table for Sheffield to wipe out and this looked ominous at this stage of the competition. It didn’t help that Kai Madgwick took the next starter on the poem Ulysses. A very, very nice UC special set on football clubs that are the only league clubs based in particular metropolitan or London boroughs brought no joy to Manchester but even then it still ran the clock down a bit. Had I not already had my lap of honour I’d have taken it for knowing sulphur dioxide as a constituent of acid rain for the next starter. Rhys Lewis had that one. Social Science bonuses refused to provide any of us with points. Abdelrahman Elsisi was in very quickly with the Sanskrit word sandhi – which was also the title of a song in Grease. Seaweed in cooking passed the team by. They were in such a rush that they passed on the last question even though Abdelrahman Elsisi had put the correct answer on the table. It wouldn’t affect the outcome of the match – that had already been decided. Nobody knew RK Narayan for the next starter. Jacob Price recognised the ph scale for the next starter. British screenwriters and their stage plays proved another bonus set of which they failed to get any. This would do bad things to their BCR. There was no time to complete the next starter, meaning that Manchester won by 185 to 135.

The stats, then. Manchester’s BCR was 56.6% to Sheffield’s 37%. This wasn’t the only reason why they won – they were generally faster on the buzzer too. That’s the way it goes. Hard lines Sheffield, but I’ve enjoyed watching your progress through the series.

Amol Watch

Enjoying your work, sir. Bamber Gascoigne, God rest his soul, always seemed to be thoroughly enjoying each contest, and so do you, which is an admirable quality.

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

The earliest known use of the word ‘moral’ is in The Clerk’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Look, I like words, okay?

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Three questions for you, Manchester, on a shape. The lack of an algebraic equation for calculating the perimeter of what shape has led to the development of a number of formulae for approximating it, the simplest being pi times the sum of A and B, where A and B are the lengths of the semi-major and the semi-minor axes of the shapes? What didn’t you get it? I did, but still - Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2026 - Semi Final 3

The Tale of the Tape

Pete Simmonds	13	0	14	1	27	1
Eric Davies	12	0	12	0	24	0
Ross Taylor	10	0	9	0	19	0
Tomas Stevenson	8	0	9	3	17	3

 

Before we begin, let me pass on my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Tomas Stevenson. I did not know that he had passed away since the recording of the semi-final until the tribute at the end of the show. Rest in peace.

Well, after that it kind of puts everything into perspective. But it would be unfair to Tomas’ memory and to the other contenders if we did not review the show. So there looked to be a fairly widely spread roster for this third semi final. Pete Simmonds had been number 2 on our official table, Eric Davies joint 6^th, Ross Taylor joint 15^th and Tomas at 16^th.

Ross kicked off answering on the western films of Clint Eastwood. I got one which was one more than I expected. Ross was perfect . . . right up until the last question, where he zigged with sausages when he shoulda zagged with fried eggs. Nonetheless 12 is a serious statement of intent in the specialist round of a semi final.

Pete Simmonds’ specialist subject, Hieronymus Bosch, never made any western films to the best of my knowledge. Incidentally my knowledge of the subject brought me three points so was obviously better than I thought it would be. Pete didn’t get them all right but he managed to go so quickly that he still accrued 11 points which meant that whatever happened in the next two rounds he was going to be in contention at the turn around.

Tomas was next into the chair. He was answering on the studio albums of Bruce Springsteen. The questions proved to be unkind and he finished the round with 4 and 1 pass.

Eric Davies was answering on my ‘banker’ subject, Cyrille Regis. You know, I didn’t know that he was still going when the Premier League started. I did know enough to score 4 and take my aggregate to 9. Eric really knew his stuff and he achieved a specialist score in the teens with 13 – a rara avis indeed in the semi finals.

Tomas achieved his own double figure score in the GK round. It would not bring him the win, but it was a good round, which pretty much set the tone for what was going to follow.

Pete Simmonds had scored an excellent 14 on General Knowledge in the first round heats. If he could repeat this performance then the last two contenders would have to really improve upon their own first round GK scores. Now, it’s all in the eye of the beholder and yes, the ear of the behearer, but I found Pete’s round harder than the other three. Just the way I found it. They’re all easy if you know the answers. Pete did repeat his first round GK score, and I felt that this was an even better performance than his first round bearing in mind the difficulty of the questions. Game over?

Not necessarily. For Ross Taylor, who had scored 9 on GK in the heats had started his round very well. Then he continued his round very well. Then he finished his round very well, and on the way he passed the target before he breasted the tape with a wonderful score of 15 for 27. This was a fine, fine display of general knowledge quizzing. Whether this is his normal level and the score in the heats was an aberration, or a case of the questions falling his way to enable him to outdo himself – well, we’ll have a better idea of that when we see the final in a few weeks.

You have to feel for Eric Davis. The preceding two rounds had been so good that he must have felt as if he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Under the circumstances I give him credit for producing a GK round of 12 that was as good as his GK round in the heats. Only good enough for third place, but he can console himself that he would have been a contender in either of the other semi finals we have seen so far.

Mind you, Pete Simmonds’ 25 would have been good enough to win either of them. He’ll be missed in the final, but I wouldn’t describe it as a travesty of justice by any means. For Ross had come from nowhere and had to produce a brilliant performance to win – which he did. Many congratulations Ross. I thoroughly enjoyed your performance tonight. And following last year’s precedent I will not be scuppering any of our contenders’ chances by predicting who will win, so you’re all 6 of you in with a chance in the final.

The Details

Ross Taylor	Western Films of Clint Eastwood	12	0	15	0	27	0
Pete Simmonds	Hieronymus Bosch	11	0	14	1	25	1
Tomas Stevenson	Studio Albums of Bruce Springsteen	4	1	10	0	14	1
Eric Davies	Cyrille Regis	13	0	10	0	23	0

 

As a small PS, I had my laser eye surgery today and it seemed to go very well. So, hopefully, you’ll be stuck with my old nonsense for a while to come.