2016/17, Episode 18 - Birmingham vs St Andrews

If you haven't already you can watch the episode here before reading this post:

Last week we saw Edinburgh crush the Open University by ten whole points to claim the first of the eight spaces in the legendarily epic quarter final stage of the Challenge. Returning tonight to stake their claim to join them in the final 12.5%, and in a repeat of Friday nights Scotland-England football match, were Birmingham and St Andrews Universities. And talking of football, I think Birmingham might be more used to playing in St Andrews than against them.

The Brummies dispatched the broccoli-mascotted vegetarians of Queen’s, Belfast in their first match, with captain George Greenlees  and his nine starters the highest scoring player of the entire round. Could he continue his brainy blitz from Northern Ireland into Scotland and lead his University to the quarter-finals for the first time since 1995?

St Andrews last reached that stage in 2010, and, having sidestepped the onrushing Worcester College, Oxford earlier in the competition, will be looking to join their Caledonian counterparts, Edinburgh, there, perhaps with hopes to be part of the first ever Scot-Scot derby of the Paxman Era.

Speaking of Jez, I don’t know when the last time he genuinely went through the rules at the start of a match was, yet he still insists on opening with ‘Lets not bother with the rules this time’. Not to be snarky, except absolutely to be snarky, but maybe he should open with ‘Lets not bother with not bothering about the rules this time’. I don’t know whether the double negative would entail a return to actually reciting the rules, but either way I’d be excited for the change.

Anyway, we do all know the rules, and St Andrew’s Green takes the first starter after a uncharacteristic blunder from Greenlees. They devour the bonuses and before you can blink, Birmingham are thirty points behind. Obviously fired up following his answer on the previous question Green buzzes in again on the second starter, this time after only three words. This has potential to be another ‘Hapax Legomenon’ moment, but alas, he’d made that fatal quizzing mistake of giving as an answer part of the question he hadn’t heard yet. It looks spectacular when you pull it off. When you don’t, you want to hide within your own soul. Poor guy.

He and his team never really recovered.

Greenlees dusted himself off and Birmingham set about systematically, and without mercy, destroying the very spirits of their four opponents, who by the end looked like they would very much welcome the ‘sad, cold minibus home’ which Paxo had warned of the losers.

At one point Gee Gee, as I think I’ll refer to him from now on, answered James Johnson completely out of nowhere for a bonus question he and his team had no clue on. It was wrong of course, but I’ve got a lot of time for this kind of guesswork, the kind of outrageous ‘hit and hope’ that is akin to blindly swinging the bat and hitting a home run, having all the while been playing tennis. I live for the day that a totally random combination of two names turns out to be correct, and the look of euphoria on the face of the person who spoke them.

An area where estimation was certainly not necessary was the bonus set on cell biology. When something is a meme based on the fact that literally everyone who’s ever taken a bio class remembers it I don’t think you’ve reached the bar of a UC question. Gee Gee, a medical student, bats these, and another set of bio-bonuses, so far out of the park you’d think he was playing against blind people who thought they were playing tennis.

In total he hoovers up seven starter questions, which gives him sixteen for the tournament, and its refreshing to see the kind of non-arrogant arrogance that comes from total intellectual dominance over your peers emanating from a non-Oxbridge contestant. Rather than looking like the heir to several Dukedoms, a Pacific island and a Dodo (to make a sweeping generalisation for the purposes of attempted humour) he looks more like that guy who’s mates with a dude you know. You’re not entirely sure what he does, but you see him at the pub sometimes and he seems like a sound fellow – he almost certainly is drinking lager at any given time. Its easier to empathise with a guy you might have gone to school with.

And my mate Gee Gee gave St Andrews no chance to get back into the game after the first question, though they did offer some potent amusement at one point by suggesting (I think) that Carlo Ancelotti was at one point the Prime Minister of Italy.

Final Score: Birmingham 195 – 115 St Andrews

Well done to Birmingham, who have shown they really do like to play at home (that’s a reference to the opening paragraph if you didn’t get it, I hope you appreciate the circularity). I’m not entirely sure who’s playing next week, but there will be a match, and I hope to see you then. Thanks for reading