Ivan has some lame excuse for not turning up this week, something about preparing for a talk which could make or break his PhD. In his place, though, we’ve got Stu, the fifth man on our University Challenge team, who is over from Ireland trying to get jobs as a filthy bloodsucking lawyer. And Pete’s Dad is along as well, looking to prove that we can only win when he’s on the team.

A burst water main in the Tottenham area is my better-than-normal excuse for being late, and I arrive right at the end of the first round. “Do you know any darts commentators?” demands Pete’s Dad. I confessed my ignorance. “Then you can go back home”. I settle down for the usual - a pleasant evening in good company, with undertones of pure aggression. Also present in the pub this evening are a University Challenge quarter-finalist from a few years ago, and someone from ”Eggheads”. If we hadn’t been to the final of UC, we might have been concerned.

After round one, we’re 6 points off the lead, or, to put it another way, 3 points off last place. I suppose my arrival must have provided the morale boost the team needed, though, because the second round goes far better. We score maximum points, and suddenly we’re storming up the rankings, feeling that victory is possible after all. And then, the beer round - always our favourite round. We score the requisite five out of five to be in with a chance of a free round, correctly working out that our answers are all related to Arsenal footballers. We then apply the infallible average techique to get our tie-breaker answer. We have to guess the number of times Bernard Cribben presented Jackanory, and although I arouse fury among my teammates by suggesting 30, our average guess of 85 is closest to the actual 110, and we’re beer round victors yet again.

Our good form continues in round three, and we move from third to second place. The final round stands between us and the first prize, but it looks tough - we have to make up five points on the first place team, ‘Quizlamic Jihad’. Although we know, amongst other things, who owned Animal Farm, and can list five books in the Old Testament which begin with J, so can our opponents and we finish, still five points down, in second. Two pounds each is all the reward for our endeavours. To compound our disappointment, some snotty out-of-towner then wins £650 on the snowball, on an outrageously easy question about the Hanseatic League. I flounce out of the pub in disgust, vowing never to return - well, not for three weeks anyway because I’m going on holiday.

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