Neighbourhood Watch

UCL and SOAS are eight minutes apart (0.4 miles) on foot. LSE and King's College London are slightly closer - six minutes (0.3 miles).

To continue last week's AI theme, I tried to get ChatGPT to generate a graphic showing all of the universities in the UK, with lines drawn between each institution and its closest neighbour.

It didn't work.

LSE have never played King's, but that doesn't mean that UCL and SOAS are the closest pair to ever quiz each other, because there are loads of colleges in super close proximity at Oxford and Cambridge.

Again, this list is from ChatGPT, so I'm not sure if it's 100% perfect, but I did have a look at a map of the colleges and it seems mostly right in terms of the neighbour pairings.

Cambridge Colleges

Oxford Colleges

St John's and Trinity, Cambridge have played each other, and their 400 feet (0.08 mile) difference is the closest I have found. If anyone knows of any two University Challenge opponents who are closer than those two, please let me know.

For those keeping track, St John's beat Trinity 155-125 in a 2022 QF, though they would also be knocked out at that stage by Reading.

If you want to watch the episode before reading the rest of the review, you can do so here.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Davis-Aladren gets off to a poor start, answering rice in place of soy sauce and losing five points. Campion-Dye is quickest for UCL to steal the starter, and they took two bonuses on architecture.

Doherty is wrong with a guess of Goa on the next starter, and Rajan yells at SOAS to stop them conferring. O'Regan then brings SOAS back into positive figures with a starter on Henry George. They take two bonuses, dropping one on a 50/50 tossup between Shirley Temple and Judy Garland.

Another for Campion-Dye, and a hat-trick on the bonuses, put them thirty clear going into the picture round, which is on Rugby and NFL teams which share a common word. Campion-Dye has a go, but his guess of Rovers indicates a lack of knowledge of American sports, given that there are no major American sports teams with the suffix Rovers (he's guessed based on Bristol Rovers, but that only covers half the question. Perhaps he was the designated sports guesser on the team, making this a decent tactic, now that I think some more about it).

Graham picks this up for SOAS with Bears, as in Chicago as well as Bristol.

Making up for his over-eager guess with a third starter, Campion-Dye reasserts control for UCL. Graham hits back with boxing, then Lakota-Baldwin takes his first starter with Indonesi, and Lee gets in on the act for UCL with Chatham House Rules.

The Chatham House Rule was created in 1927 and is designed to allow frank discussion. It states that anyone is free to use information from a meeting, but not to reveal the person who revealed said information.

Much like Fight Club, the second rule is the same as the first, although it is a bit more wordy.

The music round is on punk music and goes to Graham, who correctly identifies The Damned. He is old enough to have been around at the time their music was being released, but it is his teammates O'Regan and Davis-Aladren who combine to take a quickfire hat-trick on the bonuses.

Another starter from Graham keeps SOAS in touching distance, and Rajan laughs far too hard when they guess Mach for two bonuses in a row.

Lee knows that Mull is off the coast of Oban to keep UCL in front, but Graham buzzes again to stop them pulling too far clear.

Doherty recognises the phrase gunboat diplomacy to ensure that SOAS are unable to draw level, and he follows this up with Saturn on the next starter to pretty much seal the victory for UCL.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself, because SOAS aren't done yet. They go on a breakneck run to close back to within 15 points. If they take the next starter, they'd surely win.

But they aren't able to. Lee buzzes for UCL and gives her answer of Nye at the exact same time as her teammate Campion-Dye, who hadn't buzzed. Rajan lets them off because Lee gave her answer without any encouragement from Campion-Dye, but there is a brief moment where there is the potential for denial in the air.

They take all of the bonuses and end with a healthy gap that belies the late drama.

UCL 210 - 170 SOAS

Two identical results to start the series after Warwick beat Sheffield by the exact same score last week! And this is a score which has only ever occurred once before since 1995.

Manchester 210 -170 St Edmund Hall, R2 2008

You know what they say about 210-170s - you wait 17 years and then two come along at once.

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