Sidetracked by a Gigantic Lasagne

Sidetracked by the cooking of a gigantic lasagne, I forgot to post last week's review, which I wrote on Sunday (I just posted it, actually. Mere minutes before I posted this one). There's a bit at the start of it about how I was lacking in time, so had to rush my way through it, but since its not even been posted come Monday (it now being Thursday) my reasoning may come across as a tad flimsy. However, if you read that (whenever I post it, which will presumably be at some point before I post this one. Ah, I was right), then I can link the two reviews, because I had written 'lasagne?' on my to-do list for Sunday, but never gotten round to it. And if you'll indulge me in a bit of circular thinking, the reason I didn't make the lasagne yesterday was because I was writing the blog, and the reason I failed to post the blog today was because I was making a lasagne. What a rollercoaster of mundanity that was, and I haven't even eaten any of the bloody lasagne yet (I have now).

Anyway, enough talk of lovely Italian food, lets get down to tonight's match, which will be the only Oxbridge derby of the second round. Jesus, Cambridge and University, Oxford come into this as two of the most highly-rated teams of the... wait, sorry. I'd been going to talk about University College, London rather than Oxford. Whoops. That would have been embarassing. Imagine if, before realising my mistake, I'd written out a whole paragraph about how the two Colleges ranked very highly on a peculiar metric I invented for quantifying the relative excellence of first round performances, based on a combination of winning margin, opponents score and total score. Imagine I'd done that, and then delete the bit which, it turns out, was not about University College, Oxford at all.

You can keep the bit about Jesus, Cam, because their score of 225 to St Catherine's 110 certainly put them in the top five of first round teams. UCL would also rank pretty highly, having beaten Sheffield 180-170 on a tiebreak. Unfortunately, Oxford's Univ don't score that well, with their 175 to 115 win over LSE putting them firmly in the lower-middle of the pack.

So, if this had been a tussle between UCL and Jesus, I'd have been hard-pressed to pick a winner, but I think you can guess who I reckon will come out on top in the actual contest. Let's hope I'm right, or I'll have to redo this whole silly intro... Here's your first starter for ten.

The V&A gives Jesus the first points of the night, through Aggarwal. They don't manage any of the bonuses, but MacGregor grabs the next starter as well to keep them rolling. They fared better on a poetry bonus set, taking two, going close on the third with Charlotte rather than Emily Bronte.

Kaye makes it a third different buzzer for Jesus, who go fifty clear ahead of the first picture round. This is a picture of the Lydian scale. No one knows it, though Cunanan and MacGregor are able to have a good guess, with Aolian and Frygian. Its a bloody tough set of questions unless you're a pretty qualified musician, I reckon, and they get none of the bonuses.

Continuing the demolition, Aggarwal gets another for Jesus. And then another. It does feel good to have made a correct prediction, but things are starting to feel a bit mean here, so its very welcome when Cunanan brings Univ off zero with a brilliant buzz of John Brown. They get the next starter too, and perhaps I should start eating my words. They don't know any Scottish counties on the bonuses, but to be far to them, Clackmannanshire is a bit of a deep cut, even for a Scot.

Wallop comes in with an incorrect interruption which is so funny to Paxman (he says adultery instead of nosepainting. I know, lol) that he forgets to verbally dock him five points. Wallop makes up for it on the next starter though, with zwitterion, which wins Univ the music bonuses, though they don't get any right.

The two sides trade starters for a while, before Jesus take control again. A full set of picture bonuses put them one hundred points clear, and with that the game was over as a contest.

Cunanan grabbed couple more starters for Univ, but it wasn't enough to bridge the gap, and Jesus cantered off into the quarter-finals.

University, Ox 85 - 160 Jesus, Cam

Paxman says that Univ never really got a chance to get going, to which Chakraborty quips, 'Yes, that was definitely our downfall'. At least they're taking their defeat in good humour. Jesus, meanwhile, will have to improve on the bonuses if they are to stand a chance in the quarter finals, but a decent performance nonetheless.