Luke The Nuke

Middlesex won the Christmas series of University Challenge, which once again highlighted how good the student contestants are. The alumni know a bunch of stuff, sure, but they clearly haven't practiced buzzer quizzing in the same way that the student teams have. You might be able to hit a football into a bin from 40 yards every time (strange analogy, but its something Paul Scholes was reportedly able to do), but if you've never practiced on a football pitch you won't be very good.

You might be able to hit 180 after 180 in your basement, but if you've never done it on a stage with thousands of drunk people shouting at you then you'll probably lose your nerve.

Like the rest of the nation, I became very invested in the Darts World Championship campaign of sixteen year old Luke Littler. It was very similar to the feeling I had watching Emma Raducanu win the US Open a few years ago - they both seemed unbeatable, like they would be carried through to victory on a wave of youthful exuberance. Unfortunately for Luke it didn't quite happen, but it was still amazing to watch someone who has reached the pinnacle of their chosen endeavor at such a young age.

In the lead up to the final, videos came out of him at four years old, hitting 180s on a magnetic dart board. I wonder how long it will be before a quizzing prodigy emerges like this. Videos of a baby hitting a buzzer while being asked questions about nursery rhymes, or listening to animal noises.

Which egg-shaped character couldn't be reconstructed by all of the king's horses and all of the king's men?

When row, row, rowing a boat, down which body of water would you typically be travelling?

I'm sure the Sheffield and Aberdeen teams will have been training for a while in the build up to this second round match, but I don't know if they've been doing it since before they could read. Here's your first starter for ten.

McCough buzzes early on the opening question, but he hesitates for a micro-second and Rajan penalises him before he can get his guess out. Aberdeen can't capitalise on this mistake, but Eisler takes the next starter to give them the lead. They're looking to make the quarter-finals for the first time since 1995 (Paxman's debut series).

Another for Eisler kept up their momentum, but McClements came in far too early and negged a question about the Olympics, letting Sheffield in. Colclough had the chance to level the game with the first picture starter, but didn't recognise a diagram of distillation, allowing Eisler to complete his hat-trick. Osbourne mishears chromatography as chrogatography on one of the bonuses, and Rajan, incredibly patronisingly, says that she is free to nominate other members of the team if she doesn't know how to pronounce something.

A fourth for Eisler with the Barnett formula puts them 40 points clear, but he negs the next starter, and Sheffield started their comeback with crater, courtesy of Rujak. She takes the next with Ghost World (not Ghost Town as I said), and a third too, to give them the lead for the first time in the match.

Two in a row for Aberdeen reversed this, and Colclough continued the back and forth nature of this middle period with the Planck constant to steal it for Sheffield again. Broomfield and Eisler brought Aberdeen back to tie the game at 95 each, before a brilliant buzz from Nail (Sigur Ros from the clue Hopelandic) put Sheffield in front for the final time.

An inspired guess of penguin from Eisler brought Aberdeen within 10 points, but Nail, very clutch on the buzzer at the end of the match, came in early with completing the square to seal the win for Sheffield.

Sheffield 130 - 105 Aberdeen

A very low-scoring match that, mainly due to poor bonuswork from both teams. Sheffield will need to up their game in that respect if they are to progress beyond the quarter-finals. They'll also need to up their starter game, because Aberdeen beat them on the buzzer, and only lost because they were particularly hopeless on the bonuses.

See you next week for the last of the second round matches - Lincoln vs Imperial (I failed to publish this in time, so Lincoln vs Imp has already happened, though I've not seen it. Oops).

We also already have the first QF lineup, with Manchester taking on Birkbeck in a few weeks (tonight, actually, by the time I got this out).