Like Riding A Horse Into Battle

This is the story of how I became a knight (for approximately fifteen seconds).

My journey back from a lovely weekend in Oxford visiting a friend (saw some geese, drank some beer, watched a National League football match) necessitated two changes and went via London (via Didcot Parkway) because Sunday train timetables don't make any sense.

I got into Paddington and cycled through to Euston with the commentary of the Man Utd - Liverpool FA Cup match in my ears. So far so smooth.

Not for long. Chockablock at the Euston concourse. A crowd to fill twenty trains packed underneath the schedule screens, staring at page after page of delayeds. Signal failures between two places you've never heard of meaning every single route in and out of the station was in disarray.

Denied entry to the first train which left, I joined another thronging queue. We could see our train on the platform but no one was allowed through for about half an hour.

Twenty minutes into this interminable limbo, an Avanti staffer told us we could also queue in the adjacent concourse (both of which had access to the platform in question, but one of which had been empty). Ever the instruction follower, I moved over into the new zone, but when they opened the gates they only opened the ones for the old zone, prompting guttural groans from a number of men who felt that they (specifically) had been duped into joining the new queue for malicious reasons.

We did get through, eventually. But only after those from the original zone had been allowed to stampede like suitcase-laden wildebeest for about thirty seconds were we permitted to join the charge ourselves.

Spotting my bike, a staffer-cum-commanding officer yelled at me and said I was needed at the front. Or rather, he said I needed to be quick if I wanted to get to the furthest carriage before the train filled up and my bike wouldn't get on. But what I heard was that I was needed at the front.

Swinging a leg, I mounted my steed and did as my General had asked of me, absolutely nailing it past everyone else on the platform like I was riding a horse into battle.

Time stopped and I was King of Euston.

Pulverising these poor pedestrians with the prodigious power of my pedals.

They, lumbering, sluggish, lugging their cumbersome luggage. I, flowing, free, zipping transcendentally past them. So many people in such slow motion.

Time restarted, I dismounted.

A normal human being once more. But a normal human being with early access to the unreserved seats. The battle was over.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fact I will never get the chance to be an elite athlete. This might be as close as I will ever get.

But on to eight people who have already experienced this, competing as they have done at the sharp end of student quizzing all series.

This is the last of the ten quarter-final matches, and sees Trinity take on Birkbeck.

Each have won and lost one of their previous matches at this stage, and its too close to call. If you want to watch the episode before reading the rest of the post you can do so here.

The winner will join UCL, Imperial and Manchester in the last four. If Birkbeck win there will be three London Unis in the semis for what would surely be the first time ever. Let's see if they can do it; here's your first starter for ten.

Jaksina attempts a bit of humour in his intro, saying 'I should be doing a masters in genetics, but instead I'm here', and while I'm not going to slate him too much, I think he should probably stick to the genetics once the tournament is over.

Kicking things off is Birkbeck's McMillan with Matisse. One bonus on Jason and the Argonauts follows before a second McMillan starter on the bounce. This one is on the film Petite Maman, which is one of the most joyous pieces of cinema I've ever seen, about a young girl playing in the woods around her mother's family home. There is a scene in which the girl feeds her mum snacks from the back seat of their car and its unbelievably sweet.

They manage none of the bonuses, and Bannerjee gets Trinity off the mark with Hero on the next starter. Caldera and Mesa gave them two of the three bonuses on geographical terms in Spanish, before Bannerjee gave them the lead with Einstein.

It's McMillan vs Bannerjee on the buzzer so far, and the Birkbeck man picks up his third of the evening with the picture starter, an extract from Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (who had a horse, which was also green, but not a bike). Demonstrating solid knowledge of medieval poetry, they take a hat-trick on the bonuses. The Chronos Quartet gave McMillan a fourth starter, and Strasbourg a fifth (with a neg from Bannerjee in between continuing their control of proceedings).

A single bonus on Edna St Vincent Millay put them 50 points clear before a third Bannerjee starter stopped the rot for Trinity. Three for three on metallic ores halved the deficit going into the music starter, which was dropped by both teams, though we did have our first non McMillan/Bannerjee buzzes, with Henderson and Mariner both having a stab at it.

This must have given Henderson a taste for glory, because she was back at it with a rapid buzz of John Donne on the very next starter, breaking the duopoly. Another hat-trick on the bonuses tied the game.

Chadha continued the bright new post-McJee age with nucleation to grab the lead back for Birkbeck, but it didn't last long, with a superb Jaksina answer of Paraguay equalising for Trinity, and a Henderson bassoon nodding them ahead. The Cambridge side have really hit their stride now, and take a third consecutive 3/3 on the bonuses to take their biggest lead of the game.

Having hibernated for a few minutes, McMillan returns with Edith Cavell on the picture starter. Mixing up Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo leaves them 15 points adrift, but Kang takes charge with beryllium to put Trinity back in control.

He then pulls a magnificent educated guess of Cairo Station from the clue 'Egyptian transport terminus' on their first bonus. This kind of answer is absolute quizzing gold, based on nothing but word association, and Trinity are delighted by it.

An early buzz of Vienna by McMillan is wrong, and when Kang picks it up with Prague you sense that this is the end of the road for Birkbeck. It was the correct tactic to buzz in early, but these things don't always go your way, and his rueful shake of the head tells us he knows it's over too.

Rajan slates Kang for missing a bonus on a South Korean city, but it doesn't matter. Their place in the semis is already assured.

Birkbeck 100 - 165 Trinity

A tight match up until the final few minutes, in which Trinity pulled away. A valiant performance from Birkbeck, especially McMillan, but they weren't quite good enough on the day.

The semi-final lineup is now complete, with my predictions coming 75% true.

Trinity

Manchester

UCL

Imperial

The first matchup is Imperial/Trinity followed by UCL/Manchester. I can't wait, see you there.