Standing Orders

My plan to write the intros for this year's quarter-finals using the bones of old reviews has failed. I wanted to find all of Paxman's convoluted descriptions of the single-stage double-elimination double-qualification format, but it seems that I hardly ever referenced them.

I was convinced it had been a thing I talked about every year, but in 2021 the only mention is in the review of the first quarter-final when I talk about historical instances of it.

The format is more complicated than a standard knockout, admittedly, but I’m looking forward to seeing which analogy [Paxman] uses to describe its apparently absurd complexity - my money is on something to do with minotaurs and labyrinths (I don’t think he’s used that one before).

Lesser bloggers would see this as a sign and give up on the whole affair, but I'm going to instead just use it as an excuse to resurface any kind of old extract. I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of years to mine, because I'm currently using 2021 for QF5, meaning that I won't have any left to reference by the time QF5 comes around, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

In January 2021, we were heading into another lockdown, which I had completely memory-holed. The best thing to happen during this lockdown (perhaps the only good thing) was the Handforth Parish Council Meeting of 10th December 2020, which I wrote a review in the style of for the 5th quarter-final of that series.

The first question of the evening was ‘what is the difference between a Clerk and a Proper Officer?’, which Magdalene’s Davies correctly identified as a trick question - there is no difference between a Clerk and a Proper Officer. At this point the recording had to be stopped to settle a dispute, as someone pretending to be the Warwick captain believed this not to be the case, and claimed that Paxman was breaking the law by accepting the answer. 

This imposter suggested angrily that Paxman should read the standing orders, and another of his sidekicks yelled out that he should not only read the standing orders but understand them also. These gentlemen went onto claim that the quarter-final was being staged illegally, but this was not the case, and Paxman was forced to remove the false captain from the recording, though they claimed that he did not have the authority to do this (you have no authority Jeremy Paxman! No authority at all). But he did have the authority, and the false captain was removed from the meeting.

Does everyone remember this cultural moment, or does it sound to you like I'm talking even more nonsense than usual?

Either way, that's enough looking back, let's look forward.

Christ's won a close match against Imperial in their opening QF, while Warwick smashed Queen's, Belfast.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Siddle kicks things off for Warwick with Benjamin Franklin and they took two bonuses on films set in Wyoming. Hart added to their lead with gallium, earning a leather-hardened bonus set on linguistics, taking only metaphor.

Christ's Bethlehem (the best name in the game) got his side off the mark with a trio of countries, recited with immense concentration as he visualised their locations on a map in his head. Rajan lets him off for saying Macedonia instead of North Macedonia. I wonder what the statute of limitations for giving an old name for a country is - how long after becoming Sri Lanka was Ceylon an acceptable quiz answer, for example.

Despard keeps Christ's going with attic, and they took the lead with the picture starter, Vesuvius, courtesy of Bethlehem. Luu then wins a bonus set on Scottish royalty, on which they took a smart hat-trick.

Another starter for Siddle keeps them in the game, but they miss all of their bonuses so can't close the gap very much. Hart takes a starter too, but again they drop all three bonuses, and when Christ's follow a third Bethlehem starter with another hat-trick the gap was even larger than before.

Despard takes the music starter by guessing Elgar (I was planning on looking this meme up anyway, but found it in QF3 from 2021. Happy coincidence), and Christ's didn't look back from there, zooming up to a score of two hundred points before Warwick managed another starter.

At this point they could probably have sat back and relaxed for the rest of the episode, because it is very rare that a team has been beaten with such a high score, and they did sit back for a while, allowing Warwick to mount at least half of an unlikely comeback before Bethlehem sat forward and took another starter.

To be fair to Warwick they never acted like they were out of it, hurrying themselves along on the bonuses even when the gap was still in triple figures. In the end, though, it proved too much to surmount.

Christ's 205 - 155 Warwick

The score makes it seem closer than it was, but Warwick can take heart from their second half performance when they play their elimination match.

Next week sees Imperial face Queen's in a loser-goes-home game - don't miss it. (Turns out that match has already happened because I have inexplicably failed to post this review on time even though it was written days ago. Subscribe here.)