It’s a cruel mockery of a Cambridge supervision. Two teams of four giddy undergrads pant to impress the über-supervisor that is Jeremy Paxman. They slather at the chops, baring the whites of their eyes, contending for a modicum of acknowledgement. Sweating in the silence of not knowing, contestants confer with the jerky terror of a gang of hunted voles.

Paxman is Cambridge’s knightly alumnus. He’s sexy and mostly courteous. He belongs to the court of the BBC. He quests for truth through the obnoxious questions printed on his inexhaustible cards, jousting through youth’s ignorance of obscure and useless facts. Forget the cosy knitwear of your dithering Medieval English supervisor, The Pax’s suits are chainmail grey and he would not make you a cup of tea in the event of a dissertation-related panic attack.

Logically, The Pax cannot know all of the answers to all of his questions. Yet his white quiff gusto as he tears through the rounds on Patagonian acrostics and weird national flags certainly suggests that the question cards aren’t remotely necessary. He is a supreme giver of information, like a supercilious and underfed Buddha, his sharp nose and deeply furrowed brow imbuing topical information with gravity and a weird fatherly sex appeal.

The teams always recognise the lingering reputations of Oxbridge Colleges. King’s had that guy with the flaming Mohican just to make sure everyone knows that King’s students are socialists from state schools. They open their arms to exciting and anachronistic hair-dos. This week’s episode featured a fellow from Jesus, Oxford, sweatily strung up in a too-big tux and bow-tie like a limpid nerd undertaker. I can’t not mention last year’s Oxford swotbox, Gail Trimble, best described as “an intellectual blitzkrieg”. She won The Pax’s mighty heart with machine gun buzzer fire and her no-make-up-unstraightened-hair-and-glasses UL dweller thing.

The show’s not as much a quest for truth as a quest for smug luxuriating in obscure factoids. The Pax is from our own cold stone. It’s all he knows.