Gail Trimble: Who's Clever Now? Fails to Spot Imposter

The Observer reckon there's been a demand for a re-match from University of Manchester - it's in their standfirst. They found and quoted one of the Manchester team who admitted to being keen on a rematch. However captain Matthew Yeo didn't tell the Observer that, perhaps he said the opposite. He was certainly on R5L today, recognising that they'd been involved, and finally been thumped, in one of the most exciting finals in the history of UC brain-grading.

There are comments suggesting that Manchester should simply be awarded the title. But there's certainly more logic in chucking Corpus Christi out and letting their defeated quarter and semi-final opponents play off. With the winner thereafter getting mashed by Manchester University who gave Corpus by far and away their closest run thing. Rather than in letting Corpus play again without their ringer. That would be preposterous.

Sam Kay (left) actually worked for PwC in Reading throughout the last three rounds. One can only assume that the fourth member of the team also had a dark secret day job. But they had the sense to stay away from the photo shoot with Brainy Trimble. It's not rocket science Gail. When it says "University" Challenge it, er, refers to various Higher Education Institutions. It does not refer to major Professional Services firms.

WHEN I WERE A LAD: Manchester were still in purdah over the infamous Aaronovitch crew and their clever and life-changing protests, as described in the UC Wiki:

The fact that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge can each enter up to five of their colleges as separate teams despite these colleges not being universities in the conventional sense was the ostensible inspiration for an unusual 1975 protest. A team from the University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) who were appearing on the show answered every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", possibly in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable. It did, however, get broadcast, although only portions of the episode still exist in the archives of Granada TV.

Towards the end of the undergraduate end of my sojourn, 1979 I'd guess - with the future Scumbag College "Drama Society" crew often in the same corner of the Coffee Bar as the true intellectuals as we clustered round the driving game and the pinball, later updated with Invaders and Tank Battle and Asteroids and finally the acme that is Pacman - we did have some half-hearted auditions/trials in the MDH (Main Debating Hall). Now often known as Academy 2. Still the scene of (occasional, rather than weekly) General Meeting Stand Offs. The quality of which - on recent visits - has appeared piss poor. When the dodgy geezer from the BNP speaking, rather bravely I'd say, against the No Platform policy, makes the most coherent contribution you can sense the trouble they're in.

Anyways, the whole thing seemed rigged in advance for certain scumbag union hacks to be picked. It appeared they'd already been picked in fact. Presumably because half of them already had their PMH Desmonds and Douglases in the bag, proving their distinguished calibre? One of these days names will be named. The wages of sin are of of course crashing and burning in round one. That'll teach 'em. Now they're mostly MPs, bankers, civil servants, journalists.