“I have the memory for remembering interesting but useless facts”, says Alex Guttenplan, Emmanuel College’s University Challenge wunderkind. “That, and a lot of time procrastinating on Wikipedia”. Many students won’t even be able to count how many hours of their lives have been legitimised by that comment.

A second-year NatSci, he’s been marked as the ‘one to watch’ of the current series of the long-running quiz show. In his first round, he got six starters, which – people say - is impressive. In the second round, he took eight, unleashing a virtuoso performance on the bonus rounds for which he was credited with saving the team effort.

He’s been compared – favourably – to Gail Trimble, the ‘human Google’ of last year, who was ultimately disqualified. He brushes it off, saying that he “didn’t see much of the last series”.

Rather, he claims that his motivation was borne of seeing the success of his friend, Alex Kaufman, captain of 2008’s winning team. Whilst he insists that there’s no competitive edge, he readily admits that his inclination to take part only burgeoned after seeing his mate succeed.

Alex’s performance has won him admiration, veering on the creepy, from within college and without. One Facebook group, the oddly appreciative ‘alex guttenplan; very clever. very nice’ was established by two women who have, ostensibly, no connection to him whatsoever. When I mention them (there are many more) he chuckles nervously, commenting that “they’re a bit odd”, and he gives the impression of having been completely unprepared for the fame that some UC panellists garner.