The Belcher Show

As the writer of a University Challenge blog, you'd think that I would watch the episodes live, or at the very least in the same week in which they were aired. But seven days have passed since Christ's played Southampton and I am only just settling down for a viewing. Does this make me a fraud, or a failure? I'll give my excuses and then you can decide.

On Monday I was out watching Weyes Blood, and then Tuesday was Valentine's Day, so obviously I was watching Along Came Polly. On Wednesday I was supposed to be seeing Caroline Polachek, but she cancelled a few hours before, seemingly because she'd had a big one the night before. You'd think that this would have left that evening open for blogging, but alas, I had to watch Arsenal lose at home to Man City (had I known the result beforehand I may well have chosen to blog).

So far so reasonable, but the rest of week was spent drumming up replies to my decennial colour survey, in which I ask every one I know what their top five colours are. In may seem like a frivolous project to prioritise over this blog, and in doing so I failed one of the core tenets of online content creation - ABP (always be posting) - but sometimes a man's just gotta try and figure out what the best colour is (sneak preview of the results - 10% of respondents had teal ranked number one).

Anyway, that's enough about #GodfreysWeekOfColour2, let's get down to business with last week's match. Going into the second round, Southampton were my pick to win the whole thing, so lets see if my prediction falls at the first hurdle.

Christ's kick things off with a neg on a question about The Last Supper (something they really should be more well-versed on...). This is picked up by Belcher, who looks a bit like the guy who used to live in the room I currently stay in. Lyon then absolutely smashes a bonus set on the Teddy Award, relaying all three answers very calmly.

Talbot hits bac with B-A-C on the next starter, but they can only manage a single bonus. They buzz in incorrectly and again Belcher steals the points. Wright takes the first picture starter for Christ's to close within ten points, but Belcher and Steele stretched this back out for the south coasters.

Its Belcher's turn for a neg next time out, with the Southampton skipper's guess of cricket ball allowing Gowda to swoop in with tennis ball. He quickly makes up for his mistake with acetylcholine (or acetal coline as I'd initially spelled it) and Southampton lead by thirty five going into the music round, which no one gets.

A couple more starters for Belcher, who is cementing his status as one of the series' best buzzers, consolidate their lead, but Wright keeps Christ's in it with her second of the night. A starter question about marbles sees both me and Talbot guess tiddlywinks, but unfortunately we are wrong. One of those where you feel vindicated just to have had the same guess as a contestant, though.

Miles grabs the second picture starter with Bragg, the surname shared by the father and son duo William and Lawrence, who also shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915. A pair of quickfire buzzes from that man Belcher puts Southampton out of reach, going 65-0 to close out the game.

Christ's 90 - 175 Southampton

Southampton were quite poor on the bonuses, which could hurt them in coming matches, but with a skipper like Belcher, who rattled out nine starters, they'll always be in with a chance - Christ's simply couldn't compete with him.

Given how irregularly I have started posting these, the best way to make sure you don't miss them is to subscribe, which you can do so by clicking the big subscribe button somewhere on this page. And yes, I am aware of the irony in a self-promotion by weaponised-incompetence tactic, but what can you do?

Drop your top five colours in the comments, and I'll see you later for tonight's episode.