Double Stuffed Peanut Butter
About a year ago, we started painting the walls of our living room orange. You can read about it here:
Joe
Last week we finally got around to finishing the job. To be fair to us, we have had a heat pump installed, which effectively erected a new wall, so it's not been a year of us sitting around with a half-painted living room. But it has been about 10 months.
When we painted the room previously, there were a number of problems. We didn't treat the walls properly, and they were full of marks and dents and bobbles. Meaning that many coats were required, and even with loads of coats, some bits of the wall remained dodgy. And we had used the wrong kind of tape to cover the bits that we didn't want to paint, meaning that we ripped some of the white paint off door frames and cornicing, etc.
In summary, we would not receive a very high rating on a tradesperson rating site. We wouldn't be allowed on, of course, but if we tricked our way on with a fake painting and decorating company and then managed to get a client, we wouldn't be getting a second client.
For the painting of this bonus wall, we decided to get the proper kind of tape, so I went out this morning and bought some, getting sidetracked by a discussion around the village parking situation. But that's by the by.
When I got back to the house, I put the tape down, and we had breakfast. After which, I was completely unable to find the tape. I checked under the sofa, in the bathroom (I'd also bought shampoo at the shop, and had put that in the correct place), the fridge (I've been known to put random things in the fridge before)...
The tape was nowhere to be found. Our house is pretty small. Where the heck could the tape have gone? After about half an hour of increasingly enraged/deranged searching, I lifted a tub of peanut butter on the kitchen table and there it was. Mocking me with an unturned mouth. The peanut butter tub was also on top of another peanut butter tub. Meaning that I had lifted up a tub of peanut butter, put the tape on top of the bottom one, and then replaced the top one, perfectly hiding the tape from myself. A better crime couldn't have been planned.
All of this is to say that whatever home improvement plans you have will take longer than you thought. Unforeseen nonsense abounds at every turn. You might accidentally hide a key piece of equipment from yourself, for example.
I had another 600 words on DIY, but I've cut them for your sanity. If you'd like to read them, you can find them on my other blog iambic kilometres.
Anyway, the first of today's two episodes featured another new entrant - Green Templeton of Oxford - taking on Darwin, Cambridge. Green Templeton was formed by merging two colleges, Green and Templeton, neither of which ever appeared on the show in their previous incarnations. Darwin have been on a few times in recent years, making it to the semis on two occasions.
Here's your first starter for ten.
Darwin's Strachan kicks things off with Frankenstein, and Captain Cameron extends their lead with Freud on the next starter. They are then denied one of the bonuses with some of the most needlessly strict pedantry ever seen on this program.
The Treaty of Lisbon saw Portugal cede which city on the north coast of Africa to Spain?
White knows that there are two which still belong to Spain - Ceuta and Merilla - but he's not sure which will be the right answer. He goes with Ceuta but Rajan prompts him on the spelling, which he gives as C-U-E-T-A. Rajan says it's actually C-E-U-T-A, so he's not going to allow it. There are no places called Cueta! Why did he have to spell it? Two weeks later, and I'm actually still mad at this - let me know in the comments if there is a reasonable explanation for this.
Another for Cameron means that Darwin don't have to fume about the Cueta/Ceuta misstep for too long.
Roberts then takes Green Templeton's first-ever UC points with thiamine, but a third starter for Cameron quickly stops them in their tracks.
A non-musical starter on Aphex Twin gives Owens ten points, before he blunders with a guess of Bob Dylan on the music starter itself. The answer being Leonard Cohen, which Ni Mhuircheartaigh takes, though Darwin manage a blunder of their own on the bonuses, giving The Kinks in place of David Bowie.
Green Templeton haven't waited seventeen years (they were founded in 2008) to go home without a fight, and three starters in a row brought them level. They are unable to take the lead, however, with another starter from Cameron getting Darwin going again. He is denied consecutive starters by a harsh penalty for hesitation on the second picture starter. He did give an 'umm', but it was short.
Roberts takes the replacement starter for GT, and when she gives Clarissa Dalloway on the following ten-pointer, her side are in front for the first time in their history. Sahin extends the lead with corn, but they can't hold onto it for long.
Strachan keeps Darwin in it with residue, and they squeaked into the lead with a bonus on Charles X, just in time for the gong.
Green Templeton 130 - 135 Darwin
Phew, what a thrilling finish. The game was low-scoring, but it didn't feel like it. Darwin never took a full house on the five-pointers, robbing me of the opportunity to tell you that they have formed a band called The Perfect Bonuses. So I've had to tell you in the outro. It would have been more fun in the main body of the review, I'm sure. Commiserations to Green Templeton, who left it too late to get going, leaving them open to that last-minute sucker punch.
Onto the next. Which saw LSE take on Trinity Hall, Cam.
Here's your second first starter for ten.
Gilbert kicks things off with St Sebastien, and Trinity Hall take a set of perfect bonuses, because of course they do.
Huff hits back for LSE with the non-aligned movement, and naturally they take a hat-trick on the bonuses too. These teams are mocking me, for sure.
Another for Huff gives LSE the lead, before, blessedly, a bonus is finally missed. Sharpe extends the margin with coup d'état on the picture starter, then a second for Gilbert cuts the gap for Trinity Hall.
Taj grabs the lead back, but they commit one of UC's cardinal sins by giving a term mentioned in the question (hunter-gatherer) as their answer. Oops.
The music starter is on opera, but no one has a clue. Huff wins the bonuses with a replacement starter on carnations, but they miss them all as well.
Bransgrove guesses Sardinia as a region of Italy with no coastline, which is a bold guess, given that Sardinia is pretty much entirely coastline. He picks up ten with Frantz Fanon soon after, somewhat making up for this. The scores are tied at 95.
Beirne breaks the tie in LSE's favour, and Huff remembers enough remedial biology to take the next starter with the Golgi Body. Sharpe and Tan get in on the act, and LSE are steaming ahead. It is only a few negs from Huff and Beirne which leave the door open for Trinity Hall, but they can't make it past the vestibule, and the game ends with a flattering 80-point gap.
Trinity Hall 135 - 215 LSE
Trinity Hall scored as many as last week's winners Darwin, but unfortunately that's not enough to make it into round 2. A solid if unspectacular showing from LSE, who will need to cut back on the incorrect interruptions in their next match.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully, I don't fall behind again, but there is still some painting to be done, and I need to put up some more shelves. So you never know.
If you want to hedge against the risk of missing posts, you can subscribe to my Patreon, where I have a back-catalogue of exclusive reviews dating back to 2012. Well, dating back to 1999, actually, but that's only one post.
Anyway... See you next time.
Joe
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