Freestyling

When I was younger I used to swim four or five times a week, often in the mornings before school. Relative to my peers, I was never particularly good, but when you do something that often it would be difficult not to pick up at least some skill. This all ended about a decade ago though, so when I went swimming yesterday, for the first time in years, I found that I could no longer go more than a length at full pelt without floundering in a soup of lactic acid.

I went all out for 50m freestyle and was slower than my slowest competitive time on record, which I set when I was ten years old. How odd, to be so eclipsed by such a small version of myself. There aren't many occasions in life where you can look back at your past self and know with absolute certainty that they were better than you. There are plenty of things we can guess at - was I more excited, more creative, more enraptured by the wonder of the world? Probably. Would I recognise myself in myself, and vice-versa?

All I know for sure is that I would have been beaten by Baby Me at 50 free yesterday, and that Baby Me definitely wouldn't have been better at writing this blog (I hope).

Anyway, that went in a direction I wasn't expecting (backwards in time), so lets come back to the present and get on with things. Here's your first starter for ten.

Last week, I mistook University College, Oxford for University College London, and said that UCL were one of the strongest teams in the second round. This week, UCL are back, so I don't need to go over all of that, because I've already done it. Past me strikes again.

UCL are playing Newcastle, who scored a decent 195 points in their opening match, which makes this one a lot harder to call than last week's. So, for that reason, I'm not going to try.

The first starter goes to UCL, who feature the mother-son duo of R and L. Collier. They take two bonuses, and then Salmon catches the second starter to extend their lead. An incorrect guess of 1720s from Newcastle allowed L. Collier to pick up another starter for the Londoners with 1730s. Its always a bit unfortunate when a team is one decade out in a 'which decade did all of the following events happen' question, but Newcastle couldn't allow self-pity to take hold - after the picture round, which went to Fleetwood-Walker, UCL were ninety points clear. Four of four on the buzzer. Ten of twelve on the bonuses.

Preventing the triple digit headstart, Newcastle skipper Keay gets their first points on the board. He gets another with gravitational lensing, and Ingham takes a third to get them well and truly rolling. A perfect set of bonuses closed them to within thirty points.

Putting a stop to the comeback, R. Collier tied her son on one starter with Kurt Weill on the music question. Salmon knows that Ash trees have feather shaped leaves to put UCL sixty ahead again, but Keay knows that Ceres is in the orbit of Neptune on the next starter. Newcastle won't lie down.

Strangely, it seems as though Salmon is swimming downstream, such is the speed of his buzzer on the next starter - lactic acid is clearly not something he suffers from. UCL seem to have a comfortable buffer, but the Tynesiders keep fighting back. First of all Speller, who defnitely hasn't brought a lemon to a knife fight, gets wombats. This is followed by starters from Ingham and Keay, and all of a sudden they are a mere ten points adrift.

This too, vanishes.

Tied game, Keay.

They take no bonuses, but Ingham grabs the next starter and Newcastle lead for the first time in the contest. One bonus. Fifteen clear.

A huge buzz from L Collier. Five points back. Perfect set of bonuses. Ten points the other way.

GONG.

UCL 180 - 170 Newcastle

What a bloody game that was! Amazingly, UCL win with the exact same score from their opening match. Gutted for Newcastle, who staged a remarkable comeback, which seemed to be perfectly timed, but like me, in my race against the ghost of my ten year old self, they ran out of beans when it mattered most.

27yo Me 39.58 - 38.98 10yo Me