The Walrus and The Tortoise

It was raining so hard on my cycle home that my jeans are now more water than denim (it wasn't raining in the morning, so my choice of legwear wasn't so silly then). I've been meaning to buy a pair of waterproof cycling trousers for about two and a half years - or, ever since the first day that I got so wet on the way home from work that my jeans became more water than denim.

Its one of those tasks that absorbs your psyche for so long it takes on a personality of its own. It would be so easy to just click order and buy some, but what if I don't buy the best pair possible, or what if I don't get the best possible deal on them - wouldn't that be tragic? Thus, the desire has transmogrified into a monkey on my back, nagging at me, quietly, for my every waking moment.

There is absolutely no logical reason to not just buy some, but the task grows and grows in its insurmountability the longer it goes uncompleted, and then all of a sudden its summer again and there isn't really any need, so the monkey slinks off to hibernation (this particular species of monkey hibernates in the summer, unusually), before awakening in November to whisper nasty missives into my ears once again.

All of which is to say - I should just buy a pair of waterproof trousers, shouldn't I?

Anyway, I didn't go to Asda on the way home because I was soaked, so I'm going to have to go to the wee Tesco for dinner supplies before the episode is on. See you in a few hours for our first starter for ten...

Balliol won University Challenge in the first series covered by this blog - 2016/17 - with Joey Goldman ousting fan-favourite Eric Monkman in the final (but only after Monkman had ousted another fan-favourite, and his own personal friend, Bobby Seagull, in the semi-final). Wolfson had actually beaten Balliol in the quarter-finals that year, but the Oxford quartet were given a reprieve due to the double-elimination double-qualification format and won the rematch reasonably comfortably.

Southampton, meanwhile, have made it as far as the quarter-finals only once in nine appearances, beating Queen's Belfast before succumbing to Manchester and Somerville College. Since that run in 2014 they've been knocked out in the second round three times.

Hoping to help them reach at least that stage this time round, Lyon, doing a PhD in film, gets them off to a perfect start with the first question, on film. A tricky bonus set on poetry about Newton left them with no points, and Balliol immediately tied the game courtesy of Hewitt.

Bonuses on words differing only in the addition of an X allowed the question setters to sneak in a cheeky reference to Ted Loveday's immortal answer of Hapax Legomenon, something which wasn't missed by the team, who grinned as Hewitt won them the five points.

Nihilist gave Lyon his second starter of the night, and they do one better on the bonuses this time, taking one of the three on novels with American in the title. They take the lead again thanks to Lyon, who wins the race on the first picture question, which shows the list of ingredients needed for a pasta sauce.

As an aside (because olive oil was one of the ingredients), I only realised at the weekend that EVOO meant extra virgin olive oil. I'd previously thought it was a type of vegan cheese... Southampton know their EVOOs better than me and grab two bonuses on the Italian recipes.

Belcher takes his first starter of the night and Miles feeds him a perfect hat-trick on video games. Balliol were in danger of being left behind here, but Loughlin got them back in the action with gout, and they get back to within 25 points.

It would have worked a lot better for me if they had stayed quiet for most of the match and then made a remarkable comeback, because their mascot is a tortoise. Southampton's is a walrus, so the allegory isn't perfect, but I'd have found a way to make it work.

There is then a bonus set on Easter Eggs in films, such as the fact that Nick Fury's headstone in Captain America says 'The Path of the Righteous Man'. This is an especially brilliant question given the fact that the writers had included a University Challenge Easter Egg earlier on in this episode.

The music starter goes to Lyon, who also takes the next one, on Japanese folk tales. This earns them a bonus set on Scottish football - they get Hearts, but miss out on Ayr and Queen of the South, which is definitely one of the best team names in all of football (although I still haven't forgiven them for beating Aberdeen 4-3 in the semis of the Scottish Cup in 2008).

With Southampton more than a hundred points clear, Loughlin again wakes Balliol from their slumber, and Steele keeps them going with the next starter too. Unfortunately Hewitt doesn't hear (or ignores) Loughlin saying Yoruba on a bonus and goes with Falconer's Igbo. Their momentum is further lost when Belcher takes yet another starter for Southampton.

And when your luck's in, it's in. They guess Mornington Crescent as a tube stop on the Northern line referenced by Belle and Sebastian, despite having no clue about the song and knowing only that it is indeed a stop on the Northern Line. Even Miles is amused by this. They then pluck the Kinks out of the air as a guess for the writers of Waterloo Sunset.

If Balliol could scrounge together thirty or so more points then they were in with a chance of making the play-offs, but they'd need to be quick. And given their mascot, that was always unlikely...

Balliol 115 - 210 Southampton

Big props to the question setters for this episode, because I really enjoyed those little references, if indeed that's what they were intended as. And congrats to Southampton, who were unassumingly confident. Balliol, unfortunately, were just unable to match their predecessors.

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