It has been a week of departures from my usual life as a PhD student. On the day the University Challenge final aired, my in-box pinged with good-luck messages from friends, family and anonymous strangers, as well as a small flurry of press articles. In the evening, I joined Thomas Langley, Oscar Powell and Julian Sutcliffe – my fellow students at Peterhouse, Cambridge – in the college theatre to watch ourselves on the programme. The atmosphere was beautifully surreal: 200 students stamping their feet, applauding, groaning and shouting answers at the screen. Afterwards, once everyone knew that we had won, there was an evening of shambolic celebrations with friends at the Peterhouse bar, aided by the bottles of champagne that the Rev Richard Coles (who is apparently a fan) had sent us. What a gentleman!
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