I’m tipping Manchester to win. I know a lot has been written about about Corpus Christi’s captain, Gail Trimble, and she’s certainly very bright, but I think Manchester has a better team overall. Trimble has dragged her team through the previous four rounds – without her, I doubt they’d have made the second round – whereas all four of Manchester’s team members contribute a great deal (also, the Manchester captain is doing a PhD on “the history of the book” – awesome).

Team Durham, two years ago, did rather well (if I say so myself) because we were able to rely on each other, rather than having one person answering all the questions. Kudos to Trimble, though – she’s a general knowledge machine. I’d love to see her on Mastermind. Heck, she could easily have been the sixth Egghead. I really can’t work out what angle this article in the Sun is going for – are they suggesting that she’s out of touch, elitist, or that it’s good that she doesn’t bother with such trivia? Knowing the Sun, I’d say the latter, but the tone of the article suggests the former. Curiouser and curiouser…

Also found this sketch on YouTube the other day. Scumbag College, still as funny as ever…

Be there, or be square.

Mind you, we’ve not heard from Granada or the BBC that it’s actually us playing that week… but I seem to remember us being the second quarter final, so it makes sense.

Angry viewers have accused Jeremy Paxman of showing favouritism towards Oxbridge teams on BBC2 quiz University Challenge.

Fans of the show have complained that Paxman, who himself went to St Catherine’s College at Cambridge, has been giving the Oxbridge teams an easy ride and openly giving them more encouragement that their less lofty rivals.

This week’s show sparked controversy after the Newsnight presenter was accused off letting off Oxford’s Somerville College for a seemingly incorrect answer.

But when University of Durham also got an answer slightly wrong there was no such leeway.

The Somerville question was about digital radio. They gave the answer “dabs”, when the answer should have been “DAB” (pronounced “dab”). Fine – it’s close enough, and I don’t have any complaints.

Our question was about Romeo and Juliet – we were asked to name the girl with who he was infatuated at the beginning of the play. Rosaline was on the tip of my tongue, but we couldn’t think of it. So we answered, through Caroline, “Rosalind”. Which is wrong. There is a different character in a different play (As You Like It) called Rosalind. He was perfectly right to mark us down.

We won with twice their score. If it was close, or if we thought we were being treated unfairly, we could have asked for them to check the answers. But it was fine with us.

I think – and this is clearly just my opinion – that any bias is so subtle that it is practically non-existant. In fact, I’d have said it was almost the contrary. When certain universities that one might not expect to do terribly well (that is, they’re not Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Durham, Edinburgh, OU) actually do, he’s very supportive. There’s one I can think of from this series, certainly, but I can’t really say which. We found him to be scrupulously fair – if the answer was wrong, it was wrong.

Incidentally, this is series 13 of the Paxman era. So far, six series have been won by Oxbridge colleges, six by other unis (says Sean Blanchflower). Can’t say fairer than that.

And I’ve hunted down the “BBC Message Board” that started the whole thing (the Mail journo obviously has far too much time on his hands if he reads the Point of View message boards…): Uni Challenge – *is* JP biased after all? (BBC Points of View).

In case you didn’t already know…

This date is, of course, subject to the BBC not changing its mind again.

Fear not, for I shall remind you again nearer the date. Probably in every conversation.

Don’t miss it!

But I don’t know what happened next. Either the BBC was running late or our PVR was running fast (most likely the latter, piece of rubbish that it is). It stopped recording. Two minutes from the end. Aargh.

So… did anyone else happen to watch it? Could you provide a question-by-question account of the last couple of questions? Even better, did you record it? Anyone?

And a date for your diary: Monday 25th September, 8.30pm. Durham University may or may not be on University Challenge. I couldn’t really say…

Monday evening we toddled into Newcastle to watch a recording of Just a Minute. Again, I shan’t spoil it – it won’t be broadcast until ISIHAC has finished – but it was damn good. Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Tony Hawks and Brian from the Archers really had great fun.

Of course, on Sunday I was at Granada Studios in Manchester, where we were filming our first round match for University Challenge 2006-7. I’m afraid I can tell you very little about it, including who we played and how we did. It won’t be broadcast until the new academic year in September, so you’ll have to wait. I do want to write more about the whole experience – when we film the second round the weekend after next (a ha – can you work out how we did?), I’ll try and take some photos and write about what happens. Jeremy Paxman is a legend.

We’ve only got four more days of this term left. We’re moving out of the house next Monday, after registering for next year (well, technically the year after next, ish) on Thursday or Friday. And then there’s the whole summer to look forward to, until resits at the end of August and starting in Alexandria at the beginning of September.

Honest.

Just not doing anything particularly blog-worthy.

Since we last spoke, I’ve finished my exams. Woohoo. I’m fairly certain I’ve failed Arabic (oops), but we’ll wait and see.

Been home for a few days – spent most of the time outside (sooo hot).

I miss having a garden here in Durham – there’s no easy place to sit outside and work/read/play/do nothing.

Today, I have been called, in order, “a legend”, “awesome”, “absolutely smashing”, “incredible”, and “fab”. So I’m happy. Why? This little number.

Friday is more nothing.

Saturday is Castle Day – like a Village Fete in Castle, but not. (I’ve got some photos from last year).

Can’t drink too much, though, because Sunday we’re off to Granada Studios for some filming. Should be fun. Alas, I won’t be able to update you on how we get on until the programme is actually aired (sometime in the autumn).

And then there’s more nothing until the end of term.

I’m still trying to work out whether I want to work over the summer – Waterstone’s will have me back if I ask them, but I really, really need a proper break. If I start back at Waterstone’s, I’ll end up working five or six days a week until I leave for Alexandria, but I really need to revise Arabic (even if I don’t have resits to take) and just generally unwind. For six weeks. I dunno – I’ve got three weeks to let them know, really, so I’ll think about it.