) while Callum’s all geared up and ready to go in the other section , but it doesn’t matter now as the two of them battle out here with the remaining six Finalists joining in to watch from behind-the-scenes as revealed by some of them!First Third: Gentle start of the final week of the Series with plenty of spots for both Luke and Callum to tie each other. No surprise from Luke for now as he goes 1 Large with R3 being extremely manageable for the Finals. ”Oh no!!”, I screamed as Callum blanks out and allows Luke to grab the ten points! Turns out he had gone wrong and thought 11 × 25 was 525 per the Daily Chat, bad luck all around for sure!
Second Third: A Teatime Teaser for you to groan with yesterday being the “LON GOUST” day of the year, get it?
Moving on…both contestants still are neck and neck after five rounds even though they missed INDENTION in R4. No surprise from Callun either with 2 Large in R6 in a straightforward round with Rachel smiling at the camera. After being spoiled about an upcoming show in July on Channel 4 in the Anecdote, the breakaway came in R7 with Luke spotting WASPIES (and thankfully, the invalid waspier isn’t sneaking in here!) and Callum kicking himself for failing to spot it, poor him. A WEIGHTY round in R8 leads us to another 1 Large puzzle in R9, where everyone can almost spot the solution in which it has to be 74 × 13, but to be fair, like what Rachel mentioned, it’s difficult to make the “13” here, so both settle for one away instead.Last Third: Another Teatime Teaser to make you groan today with New “Deli”
(imo, someone should ban these sort of Teasers during the Finals to prevent the contestants’ from being thrown off in terms of momentum). On with the game and uncluky to those in the Daily Chat who had graduator but it’s no longer valid, and Luke who spotted rugrat but it’s two separate words, allowing Callum the catch-up he needed! However, that setback spurred him to do better with INCOMERS and LINEMEN and get him over the line by the time both spotted PALPATES in R13! It’s almost exactly what happened with Charlie and Megel last week too! Callum has to concede here but before he goes, 3 Large in R14 as a send-off…oh what is this rubbish? Just jump straight to the conundrum already! Wow, this describes perfectly what NIGEL aNd SAM could be on the railway (just unfortunate timing though in the wake of the Bedford train crash over the weekend). I so happened to get this because I love railways, scrabbled this and coincidentally this was one of the anagrams I got. Time’s up and no one gets it, and as I expected, everyone just chimed in and talked about how LINEMEN was there earlier!I predicted Luke to beat Callum by around 30 points, but the margin was slightly closer at 26 points. At least Callum can take consolation that even if he had gotten R3, the outcome would not have changed and no crucial conundrum would have occurred. As someone who hasn’t had a GCSE in English or Maths (I was shocked when I first learnt this on the News btw), to make it into the Finals and have that level of skill is nothing short of phenomenal and you are definitely an inspiration to those who think that they don’t have a chance just because they’re younger or don’t have as good as an education they think they might have.
Like Charlie, thank you for sharing a photo of yourself and your opponent and it’s great to see the camaderie between the contestants and the host with each passing episode!Luke’s off to take a break before he faces Charlie (and possibly the latter wiping the floor and him out, Gulp), but there’s still two more players on the list yet to compete, and we’ll know who completes the Semi-Final lineup soon! Will it be “The early face (no pun intended) of this Series and a face of journalism perhaps covering Sir Keir's resignation left, right and centre now” Daniel Face or “The Slash and Guitarist whose nickname was cut, not to mention Colin giving a questionable nickname too” Ian Kinsella that will face Patrick?
Progress:
QF1 (18 June 2026): Patrick Thompson (#1) vs Tom Bashford (#8) (118 - 64)
QF2 (19 June 2026): Charlie Harrison (#2) vs Megel Barker (#7) (120 - 86)
QF3 (22 June 2026): Luke Selway (#3) vs Callum Ridley (#6) (102 - 76)
QF4 (23 June 2026): Daniel Face (#4) vs Ian Kinsella (#5)
SF1 (24 June 2026): Patrick Thompson (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (25 June 2026): Charlie Harrison (QF2 Winner) vs Luke Selway (QF3 Winner)
GF (26 June 2026): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)