Local Month of Writing a Novel
For possibly the fourth time in the nine years I've been doing this blog I have decided to add to my writing workload by participating in NaNoWriMo. Except this year I'm not calling it NaNoWriMo because the official NaNoWriMo organisation has been involved in a number of recent controversies including one whereby it reckons you'd have written a novel if you asked an AI to spit out 50,000 words for you with little to no human input.
Instead, I'm calling it LoMoWriNo.
Local Month of Writing a Novel.
LoMoWriNo works in much the same way as NaNoWriMo, with the aim being to complete a 50,000-word draft of a novel in November. This means you have to write 1667 words a day, which is pretty easy when you're waffling on in University Challenge Review intros, but pretty difficult when you have to hang more than one thing together in a coherent narrative.
Not that I've ever really got the knack of the whole coherent narrative business. I'm trying though, and that's all that matters. And I'm going to try and avoid doing what I did when I was seventeen which was to fill entire pages with the word 'really' if I ran out of ideas or was too tired to get my words out. A tactic which is still more noble than getting AI to write it for you.
If I were a clever blogger, I would have prepared some intros like a Blue Peter host, here's some I made earlier and all that jazz. But I am not a clever blogger - if I were I'd have a few more subscribers, I'm sure.
The good thing about my hopes of completing LoMoWriNo this month is that, unlike my previous attempts, I don't have the pesky spectre of a job or a university degree to distract me. So I might just get it done.
However, there is also a chance I might launch another newsletter this month, about moving to Scotland and going for walks, so I have artificially increased my level of busyness by a considerable level.
Anyway, this year's novel is about a big mine - if you subscribe to this blog I'll probably chuck you a few snippets if I get it done on time.
For now, though, I'm going to get on with the episode, because unlike previous years I'm not going to count this introduction as part of my word requirement. It would have been useful, a quick 400 to get me started, but there is no need to cheat like that this year.
Tonight's match was between Leicester and LSE.
LSE finished second in the second series of the BBC era, losing a tight final to Imperial in 1996.
Leicester finished first in the first series of the ITV era, winning the first ever Grand Final trophy against Balliol in 1963.
At Christmas in 1998 there was a special episode which saw the Leicester 1963 team face off against the 1998 winners Magdalen, Ox.
I won't spoil who won because this would be a good match to review in my Patreon series of old shows, which features a match which was broadcast a week after this Champion of Champions contest (link below).
Joe
Here's your first starter for ten.
First to recognise King as the surname which links a list of people is LSE's Dalton, and they took a triple (A) from a bonus set on batteries. Commonwealth gives Dalton a second consecutive starter, and they took another hat-trick on economics (nothing more than to be expected, given the university they represent, and the fact that three of them are studying economics in one way or another).
Gowland gets Leicester off the mark with Ariel, with Beeden giving the answer at the same time. Rajan lets them off, and tells them to wait for their names to be announced before 'barking their answer', which I found to be more patronising than pretty much anything Paxman ever did.
They took one bonus before Lister won them the picture bonuses by recognising an close up of the flag of Malta. Two bonuses closed the gap to ten points before Gowland tied the game with Futurama.
Dalton is the only member of LSE with a starter so far, and he makes it three with Oman. Bramley gets in on the act with Vivien Westwood, and LSE begin to pull away thanks to an excellent buzz of ceteris paribus by Nyang. Another economics question though. If one were minded to create conspiracy theories one would have a good place to start. But of course, I'm not minded to do that.
Get On With It!
Nyang is on a roll now and adds another with Triassic, but the music starter goes to Leicester's Lister, keeping them in it. Gowland takes his second of the evening with Marriage of Figaro, and they dawdle on the bonuses, prompting Rajan to tell them to hurry up and give themselves a chance at a high score.
At this point they are only 35 points behind with more than ten minutes left, so I think Rajan is getting ahead of himself.
Either that or he knew what was going to happen next because LSE ended the match with a 125-25 run, blowing Leicester away and stranding them 25 points below the high-scoring loser spots.
Pole Position
On the rare occasion that they managed to get a starter, Leicester struggled with the bonuses. A set of flags in Formula 1 sees them leave with nothing. Two are relatively easy (yellow and blue) for people who have a passing understanding of F1, and they don't have a clue about those.
But they almost managed the hardest one, giving 'black flag with an orange square' rather than 'black flag with an orange circle'. I have no idea how they guessed their way so close to the correct answer on that one. I've been watching F1 for 25 years and I don't remember ever having seen that flag.
Beeden brings Leicester into triple figures with four, as in the regnal number shared by the consecutive monarchs George IV and William IV. Before the show was broadcast he told the BBC:
“It’s always something I have wanted to do. It’s quite surreal actually because I got the chance to see how it all worked behind-the-scenes"
“I have a very rare form of dwarfism, and you do not see people with visible disabilities on the show,"
“It really inspires people who do not fit the stereotypical mould to really try and achieve these things. That’s really inspirational.”
With the match sewn up, LSE are commanding on the buzzer, racking up an impressive score that will mark them a dangerous side going into Round 2.
LSE 235 - 100 Leicester
With only one game left in the first round, St Andrews and UCL are confirmed in the high-scoring loser play-offs. At least one, possibly 2, of Liverpool, UEA and Leeds will be joining them.
SOAS or St Edmund Hall will make it in even if they lose so long as they score 130 or more. See you next week for that match.
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