#a lot of good questions remain unanswered but looking forward to the next batch

[1000sunnygo]

Shirai and Posuka's answers to fan questions are here!

Here's the first batch! Part 2 will be released next week.

(the missing question asked which character Shirai sensei sees himself resembling to)

("colored door" implied the colored chapter cover pages. In japanese they're called "tobirae"/扉絵 which literally reads door art)

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 49.7-49.10

Every so often I manifest an incoherent plan to stop watching YouTube, borne out of some inchoate idea to do with productivity, but then I’ll watch a video so mundanely profound and inspiring that gives me more of a creative boost than any amount of time I would save by not watching 20-minute explainers on Game of Thrones lore. On this occasion that video was this, on the toolbox fallacy.

Simply, as the Passion of the Nerd puts it in his video, its the idea that one can’t do (x), until one has (y) - or, the lie one tells oneself in order to put off doing something, whatever that something may be. In my case, as is so often the case, the (y) is time. I haven’t written a blog for early two months, and in that period I told myself repeatedly that I was just waiting for that big long stretch of time where I could sit down and get everything done at once. 

But that never happens, and the longer you go without starting, the bigger the pile gets, so eventually it becomes impossible to get through everything at once without a parcel of time so monstrously huge it is terrifiyng in its own right. 

And thats where the fallacy comes in - you don’t need everything to be perfect in order to get started, and once you’ve started, you don’t need everything to go perfectly either. You just need to start. So lets get started.

Episode 7 - Jesus, Oxford vs Manchester

I live in Manchester now (aside: before I got my job here I applied for a PhD at ManUni with a guy called Dr Kiss, a sliding doors moment which could have resulted in my failing to qualify for a University Challenge team for a record eight times in a row, assuming it was a three year doctorate), which should make them my second team, but to be honest they’ve probably held that title for a while anyway. Like Michael Schumacher in his glory days, or Roger Federer in his prime, the University of Manchester produced consistent levels of supreme performance in the Challenge between 2005 and 2014 that gained them many fans, myself included. 

They reached nine out of ten semi finals in that time, and brought the fight to the Oxbridge duopoly with four series victories. Jesus haven’t had anywhere near as much success in the Paxman Era, but won the penultimate Bamber series against Imperial in 1986.

Manchester are mascotted by a bee, the buzzy symbol of the city; and Jesus are sponsored by a jumper? Thats what it looks like anyway, it might just be a bit of draping with the college logo on it. A lot of the Oxbridge teams do this, but there may as well be nothing there because its pretty half assed. 

Its the Jumpersquad who unravel the night’s first clue, with Cashman taking the ten points for the Cashmere Collective. Manchester equalised with the next Starter, and moved into the lead with a full set on the third. A delightful picture round on Premier League football team finishing positions followed, but Manchester could only manage one (I took the hat-trick, naturally). I always enjoy it when the setters put the sports questions into inventive UC formats.

The Mancunians would get into triple figures before Jesus could build on their opening points, but two Starters in a row got them out of the quagmire, and a third, the music round, brought them within thirty points again. However, they were helped out a little bit by Paxman allowing ‘They Must Be Giants’ in place of ‘They Might Be Giants’. I guess accuracy doesn’t matter as much when its merely pop culture.

This would prove the end of Oxford’s comeback though, as Manchester surged ahead with eighty five of the next hundred points to seal the victory with plenty of time to go. They must have known they had it in the bag as well, because at this point they sat back and let Jesus race for a high scoring loser spot, which they may well get.

Final Score: Jesus, Oxford 145 - 185 Manchester

Episode 8 - Durham vs Trinity, Cam

Durham reached the semi finals last series, the third time they have done so since they won their only title of the Paxman Era in 2000, having also claimed a Bamber Trophy in 1977. Trinity won under Jeremy’s stewardship in 1995 and 2014, along with a victory in 1974, making this a match-up between two of only three teams (the other being The Open University) to have won the Challenge in both of its iterations. 

Adding further weight to the not-so-mythical myth that Durham is a surrogate for Oxbridge, the Northern team have also got a jumper-y object as their mascot (at this point I have realised that there is a proper word for what those things are, but I’m in too deep with this jumper thing. Is it just a banner? A sigil?). I’m glad to see that Trinity have tried though, and are proudly displaying what looks to be a hand-knitted bear (possibly Sooty from Sooty and Sweep?).

Durham charged out of the blocks with four of the first five Starters and ten of their first twelve bonuses. Trinity would have to wake up soon if they didn’t want to get blown completely away. Fortunately they heard their alarm clock when it next went off and in the blink of an eye they were ahead. 

Wait, surely not... *checks notes* No, I was right first time round, following a 90-20 opening stint, Trinity went 80-0 to turn the game on its head. Now it was Durham’s turn to feel shell-shocked, but they took the next Starter and we were level again. A hundred each. The game was being played like rugby, with one team smashing forward until the momentum could be stopped, at which point the tide would flo the other way. Scintillating quizzing.

The turnovers started coming faster, with a frenetic back and forth developing. It was Trinity who finally managed to stamp their authority on proceedings, opening up a significant lead with only a few minutes remaining. Durham would need to work even quicker than in the early stages to add further topsy-turviness to this topsy-turvy match, but they couldn’t manage it. A brief spurt at the death may however be enough to drag them into the play-offs.

Final Score: Durham 145 - 200 Trinity, Cam

Episode 9 - LSE vs Courtauld Institute of Art

Like I said in the introduction, the longer you leave something before starting, the more difficult it is to start because of how much you’ll have to do once you start. Another issue with this blog in particular, is that the more you have to do at once, the more difficult it becomes to not just write the exact same things over and over again. If I do one per week then even if I do repeat myself word for word then I don’t realise because seven days if far too long to remember anything for, and ignorance is bliss etc. With a big batch like this one then it becomes painfully obvious how many times I use the word Starter, even if it is somewhat necessary.

Oh well, lets start with a recap of the two teams previous appearances... LSE made the final in 1996, losing a high-scoring match against local rivals Imperial. They made the semis two years later, and the quarters in 2009, meaning that they’ve been elimiated at every stage of the competition apart from the second round. For Courtauld, it would be a success to be knocked out at that stage, having lost their only two matches, in 2015 and 2018.

Courtauld took the first points of the evening with the amusing fact that the Nobel Peace Prize hasn’t been awarded on a number of occasions due to a lack of deserving recipients (could they do the same with the British Prime Minister?). LSE fumbled a science starter, leaving the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the buzzers) wide open, but Courtauld can’t even guess, which amuses Paxman no end - “they don’t study a lot of that [at an art institute], do they?”.

They know Shakespeare though, and take the picture Starter on one of his ‘lost rhymes’. The match ambles on slowly, at a far more leisurely pace than last weeks (a good thing about this batching is that I can reference the previous games with the confidence that I’ll be understood), and its Courtauld who are ambling slightly faster than their London counterparts.

With a few minutes remaining, LSE decde to give it a go, with Engels cheekily waving Paxman on after another science Starter was left unanswered. I just spent about fifteen minutes trying to make a gif of this, but the websites kept crashing and the one I did make was only loading as a picture here. So if you can just imagine it that would be great.

Final Score: LSE 90 - 145 Courtauld

Episode 10 - Goldsmiths vs Southampton

Goldsmiths lost on their first Challenge appearance, and made it to the second round last year, the only other time they’ve made it to the televised rounds. If they continue their current trajectory they’ll make it to the quarter finals this time out, which is the furthest their first round opponents Southampton have made it in the Paxman Era, in 2014.

The Southampton mascot, a fluffy deer, has fallen off of the table between the middle players and has consequently gained some camoflague so you have to squint to figure out what it is. I don’t know if it was placed there on purpose, or if they simply didn’t notice that their mascot resembled that scene from Bambi. Goldsmiths have a teddy bear who is wearing graduation robes, indicating that they award degrees to cuddly toys - where will the liberal agenda take us next?

Paxman informs us that Goldsmith’s Sibley hails from the same Canadian town as human PA system Eric Monkman, and when he introduces himself you can detect a similar lilt to his accent, but without the sense that you’ve accidentally sat on the volume button. 

It is he who takes the first Starter of the evening, and indeed the second too - perhaps he does bear some more relation to his noisy neighbour. Goldsmiths took two more on the bounce to go 70 points clear. They were unlucky not to be further ahead, having guessed wrongly between both York and Leeds and Southampton and Portsmouth on the picture round (with no other clues its pretty hard to tell the difference between 20 miles on an unannotated map).

Maybe it was the mention of Southampton (and its misidentification) that woke the Southern side up, but they claimed their first points on the next Starter, along with two bonuses on the Lake District that I knew too, but only because I was literally in Windermere at the weekend.

Once they’d figured out that you need to buzz in and answer questions in order to win the game, Southampton were actually pretty good, and their confidence seemed to grow with every point they put on the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the - hang on, I’ve already done this one, haven’t I? See, I told you this whole repeating malarkey was difficult), and they polish up two of three bonuses on haikus which describe chemical elements (I missed the explanation of the question format when I watched this the first time, so was astounded that they had even been discussing anything with any conviction. “Just doing your job holding plants together. No fireworks, no fuss”. I mean, what is that on about?)

In fact, just as Southampton remembered how to play, Goldsmiths forgot, and they only managed to shake themselves of this malaise twice more for the rest of the match, allowing Southampton to canter away, mostly unchallenged. 

Final Score: Goldsmiths 95 - 175 Southampton

Phew! That was a big one - well done if you made it all the way to the end. I still have two more to catch up on, but I haven’t even watched those episodes yet so I’ll just do them as regular posts, hopefully tomorrow. 

I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Tough Soles who are supporting me on Patreon! (sorry for falling so far behind - I’ll catch up soon)