Admitting I Was Wrong

Modern sports punditry, as with everything else in the modern news cycle, exists in a 24 cycle where there is a constant need for more content. Often, this is fine because there are enough sporting events to talk about (there is almost always a sporting event happening which someone who likes sporting events will be happy to talk about), but sometimes there is a brief lull which still needs to be filled.

So you have pundits and presenters filling dead days with hours of inane chatter, predicting and repredicting the same things over and over again in an industrial-sized chucking-shit-at-the-wall machine.

If you run that machine for long enough eventually some things are going to stick (that's the whole point of the industrial-sized chucking-shit-at-the-wall machine), but at the same time there is an inordinate amount of stuff which doesn't. However, no one seems to care, because the cycle moves on at such a pace that by the time you've noticed one mistake another one comes along to take its place, and by the time you notice that mistake...

Its why Gary Neville can say Liverpool will win the league one week then flip-flop to Man City the next week. Its why politicians seem to be able to get away with similar flip-flopping on almost every major issue (and of course they are allowed to change their mind, but you get what I mean). There is no accountability for anything that anyone says because the content factory comes along to bury it under another mound of tasty soundbites and out of context ten second clips.

But I am here to change this, and change starts at home.

A few weeks ago, I predicted that Open, Trinity, Manchester and Imperial would make the semi-finals. Open were eliminated last week, but my prediction was already in the mud when UCL qualified a week before that. So I am here to acknowledge my fallibility as a pundit and all round University Challenge dogsbody.

I got it wrong, and that's okay. But you needed to know.

Three out of four is still on the table if Manchester beat Christ Church this week and Trinity beat Birkbeck next time, but if they don't I'll try and remember to point out the extent of my imperfections ahead of the semis.

Before we start, you can watch the episode at this link (I've actually done this so quickly that I've beaten Cosmic Pumpkin to the punch, but you should be able to find the video on that channel, if not at that exact link), and I'm going to double down on my prediction by saying Manchester will take this.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Christ Church's avocado mascot has given birth to a smaller version of itself (which is what generally happens when something gives birth, I suppose), and one of these (probably the small one) influences the Manchester skipper to buzz in incorrectly on the opening starter, allowing Wotton to win the first points of the match.

There is another early buzz from Senehedheera, but this time he is right (no luck for mini avo this time round). A hat-trick of bonuses tied the game, and Grady gave them the lead with King Kong. A second neg from the Manchester captain, with an amusing guess of boogie-woogie (just because its a fun word, not because it was a stupid guess), gave Christ Church the opportunity to level the game, but they couldn't take it, and Senehedheera moved to 2/4 on the following starter to extend the Northerners lead.

The first picture round, a confusing one on Japanese geography, goes to Wotton. He guesses on the next starter too, but his hesitant neg isn't punished by Manchester.

Another from Senehedheera wins Manchester a bonus set on surnames of philosophers which can be found within other words. Agonisingly, they come up with Coelacanth and guess Kant, but the answer is Lacanth. Then on the next one the answer is Kant but they miss it. Mercifully they get the third, with John Locke.

Some more brilliance from Wotton gets Chirst Church going again, and Dean takes the next question too to bring them within 5 points. They would have tied it, but went Ella Fitzgerald rather than Billie Holiday on a question about Strange Fruit.

No matter, the chief avocado wrangler is back, and he gives them the lead after both sides drop the music starter. They don't get any of the music bonuses though, and Grady quickly snatches the lead back with gravitational waves.

I'm losing track of how many starters Wotton has got so shall we just say its five? Actually, its six now (Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, or Mecklenburg Pomdragon, as I frantically typed after hearing him say it once). He can't be stopped.

Lowe takes the second picture starter to put an end to his captain's dominance, not that his skipper will mind - their lead was up to 35 points.

To demonstrate just how fickle we pundits are, I had forgotten that at the start of this very post I predicted a strong Manchester win, but they'll need to pull their finger out if they harbour hopes of the semis. Kullmann and De Los Reyes White duly oblige, with back to back starters which give Manchester the lead.

Their little run has rattled Christ Church, and Dean apologises to her teammates after a premature buzz. A neg from Senehedheera follows hot on its tails, but no one picks it up, allowing him to take the replacement question with Lucien Freud.

Aggression on the buzzer continues with a neg from Wotton, but again no one from Manchester can capitalise and he makes up for it immediately, closing Christ Church to within 5 points.

There's only one question left. Whoever gets it wins.

Buzz, Manchester Grady!

Simone de Beauvoir.

If he's wrong we'll go to deadlock.

He's not wrong.

Manchester 145 - 130 Christ Church

As close a game as you can get, coming down to the last few words of the last starter. Christ Church's Dean says that she was buzzing at the same time as Grady, but he pipped her to the post. Fine margins.

And I guess I can claim some serious credit now, because I knew Manchester were going to win this, didn't I? My faith in them never wavered once, did it?

What a game, though. Well done to both teams, especially Wotton who very nearly dragged his team into the semis. I'll see you next time for the last quarter final (which I predict will be won by Trinity), but for now its goodnight.