The impossibly tense atmosphere in the studio was so heady and enervating as to be almost overwhelming, however as your unbiased and even-handed reporter, I was determined to stay sharp, so after a small sip from my hipflask I settled down to observe. After a couple of false starts -both get starter questions wrong- the teams each get a starter right and get a couple of follow-ups right. The scores are almost even (25-30) Now, Magdalen get a question and all the supplementaries right, and another, and another, and now Birkbeck interrupt, but they are wrong and lose 5 points, and Magdalen get more points.  Your -by this time- biased correspondent takes some more sustenance from his hipflask before reporting the sad news that at the halfway stage Birkbeck trail by 25-160. This tale continues to deepen in gloom, so that at one point they are losing by 35-175, but suddenly with 10 minutes to go they seem to shake off the torpor that has enfolded them and awake as to a new days glorious dawn, (Get on with it. - Ed.) and they start to score. Slowly at first, as they feel their way but then more confidently. The score creeps up, 100-185, and yet better still 150-195, and suddenly they scores are almost level, one more starter and bonuses and we can do it!  The Fateful Knell tells it's own story, it was not to be. The Bell has sounded for the end of the contest, Birkbeck finish Runners-Up to Magdalen, the score 225-195.  With a couple more minutes, who knows what might have happened, but -in racing terms- they left too much to do in the final furlong.  Talking to Jeremy Paxman afterwards, even he said that he thought at first Birkbeck were going to lose by a dreadful margin, but then thought they were -astonishingly- about to pull off the greatest comeback since Napoleon! After a few consoling pulls at my hipflask, I went off to enjoy the party with the contestants and was pleasantly surprised by most of them, with only a few being boors -taking two bottles of wine at a time for one person- and generally enjoyed a celebration in which it was felt that all had done well, and gave hearty congratulations to the winners, Magdalen.  You never know, I may be back, to misquote 'The Styrian Oak' -Arnold Schwarzneggar- but I have enjoyed myself.
 

From your special correspondent at University Challenge
LittleBlueRhino

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