Delay Replay

I've just started a new job, and it would be easy to blame this for the delay in publishing the past two weeks' posts. So that's what I'm going to do. Why should I take the hard way on this one? There'd be nothing for me to gain in explaining my daily schedule in any more detail than this - adding in stuff about how my bus from Glasgow had to get diverted over a small bridge because the usual bridge was closed, resulting in a delay of more than an hour - and there'd be nothing extra in it for you. So I'm going to take the easy way out and say it's purely because I've started a new job. I could go into more detail about the new job, too, of course I could. But that would just make this harder for everyone, so we're going to crack right on with the episode to save me getting even further behind.

First, though, I'll have to watch it.

Manchester are four-time champions, but have only been a real contender once since they won the last of these in 2013. New College, Oxford (which, despite the name, is not the newest college - there are thirty newer ones. Old College would have been a more acceptable name, given that it was founded in 1379 and the fact that there are only eight older colleges) have only been on three times in the BBC Era, but have two semi-finals to their name, with a best result of runner-up in 1995.

They lost that match 390-180, which is the highest scoring match since 1994.

They also won the second-ever series of The Challenge, back in 1965, and their mascot appears to be a chicken wearing a tie, the kind of sartorial excellence one would associate with someone from the '60s.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Madgwick comes in with a very early buzz - a move that would become his trademark throughout the match - and Manchester managed one bonus on Abi Morgan.

Stimpson hits back for New with Nina Simone, but his guess of cloud on the next starter is wrong, allowing Madgwick to steal the points. The Manchester skipper completes his personal hat-trick (this being a sneaky bit of wordplay as well as a factual statement in regards to his three starters in a row. I'm clever like that) with the picture starter, on a proposed new flag for New Zealand.

Even if you have never seen the flag before, it is very guessable - a silver fern superimposed onto the existing New Zealand flag - but Madgwick might have known it from the podcast Hello Internet, on which the New Zealand flag referendum featured heavily about ten years ago. Podcasts are a strange medium because we never seem to know what podcasts other people listen to, or if indeed anyone else listens to the same ones as us. A flatmate was once playing the Football Ramble in the kitchen, and my first thought was that I had left my phone downstairs, blaring audio. So maybe he's never heard of Hello Internet.

The most annoying thing about the New Zealand flag referendum was that they voted to keep the same, boring flag when there were some far better options.

Dickson and Poulard swap negs before Madgwick takes his fourth starter with tamales. This wins them bonuses on physics, which suits him and teammate Faulkner, who are both studying the subject.

Crawley stops the rot for New, and they came very close to a hat-trick on the 1954 World Cup final (another piece of subtle word play for you), missing the third because they could only manage 'Bobby Charlton and his brother', forgetting Jack's first name (which is Jack). This is Incredible, because Madgwick grabs the next starter with Jacques.

No one recognises the Bach trach on the music starter, before Poulard, who is, like his mascot, wearing a tie, wins the bonuses for New. Timmers narrowly beats Madgwick to the buzzer with Pair Production, but the Manchester captain won't be defeated two times in a row, winning the race to Morgan Le Fay next time out.

The bonuses are on protein shapes, not, as I initially thought when I heard the question, protein shakes. They are tricked by the memory of the word from the picture round into giving endemic rather than native for the first of these, but they took the others - denaturation and ionic.

Manchester are 110 points clear at this stage, so New really need to get going, and Stimpson duly obliges, pipping Madgwick to the post on the picture starter - 12 Angry Men. This annoys Madgwick (making him the thirteenth angry man), and he goes super early on the next starter to make up for it, but his guess is wrong, and Crawley creeps in to take the points. She beats him on the buzzer on the next starter, and New are on the charge. Poulard stumbles a bit over the phrase 'electron microscopy', and Rajan tells him he can always nominate if he can't pronounce an answer, which is meant in a nice way but comes off as a bit patronising.

Madgwick is now playing on full tilt and negs another early buzz with Medieval Warming Period. Fortunately for him, New aren't able to identify the correct words to fit MWP (its Medieval Warm Period, so it feels a bit harsh to have denied Madgwick).

Buzzing after only a few words, Madgwick is unlucky to neg for a third time here, giving Atlas Mountains rather than Morocco, because he buzzed before the question specified what it was asking for. Poulard sweeps up the points and New have closed the gap to five points.

They take the lead through Crawley, and Stimpson tells his teammates to take their time on the bonuses, but Rajan rightly hurries them along.

Finally, with another incredibly brave early buzz, Madgwick gets a starter right, and then it is Poulard's turn to be handed an unfortunate neg - giving colloseum instead of amphitheatre and allowing Madgwick to seal the game for Manchester.

Manchester 170 - 150 New

Phew! We've had some crackers already this series, but I think this is the pick of the bunch. Madgwick must have buzzed on nearly every starter, with nine correct answers, three negs, and countless times where he was a microsecond too slow. Hats off to him for not giving up after getting three wrong in a row.

New might make it back as high-scoring losers, but there's a decent chance they'll be beaten out given that there are already two teams who lost with 170 points. See you next week for Cardiff vs Bristol.