Oxford student Gail offered lads' mag photoshoot

Brainbox Gail Trimble is being pursued by a lads' magazine for a "tasteful photoshoot", she revealed today.

The star of the Corpus Christi College, Oxford University Challenge team has caught the attention of Nuts magazine.

The 26-year-old told BBC Breakfast: "Would you believe it, my brother received a Facebook message from Nuts yesterday morning saying 'can we have your sister's email address, we want her to do a tasteful shoot'.

"So of course he sent them an answer saying, 'seriously mate, would you give your sister's contact details to Nuts?"'

Corpus Christi triumphed over Manchester University to be crowned winners of the competition, achieving victory by 275 points to 190 in the grand final of the BBC2 show broadcast last night.

Much of the team's success has been down to Ms Trimble, who scored two-thirds of her team's 1,200 points before the final.

Her vast knowledge, likened to an "intellectual blitzkrieg", stunned even host Jeremy Paxman.

However some of the reaction has not been so pleasant, with hostile comments posted on blogs early on in the series.

She said she had not encountered such problems at school or university.

"Suddenly there's this thing that involves being in the public eye, and I find all this reaction to me, and I'm sure this wouldn't be the case if I wasn't a woman."

It did not appear that Latin scholar Ms Trimble would be taking up any offers of photoshoots.

"It is nice when people are saying nice things about my appearance, and not nasty things, but it's sad that they feel it necessary to say things about my appearance at all."

Asked what she would do next, she said she was working on her D. Phil.

"I'm coming towards the end of it, finishing within the next year, then an academic job, hopefully, that's what I want to do."

Ms Trimble was presented with the winners' trophy by the poet Wendy Cope.

It is the second time the Oxford college has won the competition, having also taken the title in 2005.

Founded in the early 16th century, it is one of Oxford's smaller colleges, with fewer than 400 students.

The team played in five matches during the six-month tournament.

Their high winning margins included their victory over Exeter University in the quarter-finals when they scored 350 points and their opponents could manage only 15, the lowest score since 1972.

The drubbing caused Paxman to remark that it was more of a "cull" than a general knowledge show.

Runners-up Manchester University were series champions in 2006.

Starter questions Corpus Christi answered correctly in the grand final included the answer "love" when asked: "What everyday concept did Iris Murdoch describe as 'the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real'?"

The team also knew that Measure for Measure is the only Shakespeare play set in Vienna and concerning the city's Duke adopting a disguise in order to observe the actions of his subjects, including his deputy Angelo.

Here was the route to the final match for Corpus Christi:

* First round - Corpus Christi College, Oxford 330 - Durham University 95

* Second round - Corpus Christi College, Oxford 295 - Edinburgh University 85

* Quarter-final - Corpus Christi College, Oxford 350 - Exeter 15

* Semi-final - Corpus Christi College, Oxford 260 - St John's College, Cambridge 150

* Final - Corpus Christi College, Oxford 275 - Manchester University 190