The Heinous Hegemony of the Straight Potato Peeler

I've just peeled 2kg of potatoes. If I worked in the kitchen of a Victorian manor house and there was a large feast coming up, this would be a tiny amount of potatoes (did they peel potatoes back in the day, or is this a modern thing? More on that later), but for someone who usually doesn't peel potatoes it is quite a lot of potatoes.

Had there been a proper Y-shaped peeler in the kitchen, I wouldn't have had a second thought about it, but I had to accomplish this task using a straight peeler, which is an abomination of the highest order. It is so much slower, less effective, and constantly feels like you are going to peel a piece of your own skin. My question is this - why do they still sell the straight peelers when they are so inferior in every aspect?

If you use a straight peeler, please let me know in the comments why you are such a masochist.

Of course, if I were in the Victorian kitchen, I wouldn't have been using a peeler of any kind, because they weren't yet invented. I'd just be using a knife, which is marginally worse than a straight peeler due to risk of chopped fingers, though it would probably be more effective at actually removing the peel. Later on, the electric potato peeler was invented, so if you ever find yourself in a position where you have to peel a veritable mound of tatties, then you'd probably be able to use a machine.

If I had more time to get this written, I'd go for a huge deep dive into the history of potato peels. Subscribe to my other blog iambic kilometres where that might appear at some point in the future.

For now, let's get on with this episode, which saw Cardiff take on Bristol.

Bristol were famous for a long time, at least in UC Deep Nerd Stats circles, for never making it past the quarter-finals, losing at that stage seven times between 1999 and 2019. Finally, they got that monkey off their back, making it further on their previous two appearances, losing the final in 2023 and the semis in 2025.

Cardiff, meanwhile, remain stuck at the quarter-final stage too, though they've only reached that far twice, most recently in 2014.

Harri Slaughter introduces himself in Welsh, which is pretty cool.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Cardiff's Lancett wins the first points with jackal, earning a bonus set on Betrand Russell (Rajan's hero, apparently). They took two of the three before Connolly got Bristol on the board with Sega, after a ginormous number of clues. A hat-trick on Cats gave them the lead.

Joyce extended the gap with imprinting, and Jenkins won them the picture starter with Richard, based on a map of three King Richards' death locations. Interestingly, the second of the bonuses shows a map where Britain and France are next to each other. Either this is a strange choice that doesn't mean anything, or there has been a lot more tectonic activity than I thought during the past millenium.

Danko eats into Bristol's 50-point lead with Van Gogh, and Lancett cuts it further with Brecht. They aren't able to bridge the gap completely, as Jenkins takes another starter for Bristol with daal.

The music starter on walkout goes to Connolly, winning a bonus set on Premier League teams' walkout songs (The Stone Roses was Man United), and the lead is back to 50. One of the bonuses was on The Dave Clark 5, a band I'd never heard of until they featured on a connecting wall in the episode of Only Connect directly before this UC ep.

Lancett grabs another starter, and Danko invents a film called 11 Swords for a guess on a film bonus. She is wrong, but it's a nice bit of fun.

Jenkins negs a starter, but Cardiff can't pick it up, and he makes up for it on the next starter with Schopenhauer, and it feels like Bristol have pretty much sealed the match at this point. Still, Cardiff make a go of it, and Danko has a laugh with another silly guess of John Information.

Cardiff 115 - 180 Bristol

A fun, if lower-scoring match. Bristol will need to up their game if they are to make it to their favourite quarter finals. This week sees the first Oxbridge derby of the series as Trinity, Cam take on Linacre, Ox. See you then!