Mastermind 2019 - Heat 11

Good morning! How was Christmas for you? Mine? – lovely thanks. Enough of such chaff, and let’s cast an eye over yesterday evening’s 11^th heat of Mastermind 2019.

Last week we had an all-female heat. This week an even mix, and what I believe were 4 Mastermind virgins. They all came up clean on the database, anyway. First up was Janet Farley. Now, allow me a digression here, if you will. Janet was answering on REM. Way back in the mists of time, when I made my first, ill-fated appearance on Mastermind in Geoff’s 2006 series, one of the contenders in my heat was Neil Phillips, and he too was answering on REM. Neither of us won, but it was the start of something more important, a friendship, and a few years later we would be playing together with our esteemed captain, Mastermind champion Gary Grant, in the final of Only Connect. Neil passed away earlier this year. To me he was always ‘the Legend’ following his exploits in our OC semi final. Coming back to MM, Neil did brilliantly on his round on REM, scoring 17. Well, personally, I don’t think 17 is possible the way that the specialist rounds are constructed in this day and age – 15 is even pushing it. So Janet’s 11 was still a competitive score, which would mean that she wouldn’t be out of the running by the time that the half time oranges were being passed around.

John Payne offered us another subject that has featured on Mastermind before – Edward Lear – in fact I think that you could say the same for all 4 of last night’s subjects. Edward Lear is of course most famous for nonsense verses like “The Owl and the Pussycat”. He was a great populariser of the limerick, to which I’m quite partial myself, and so it was a great disappointment when I actually read some of his to find out that a lot of them are, to use a literary term which I think may have been originally coined by F.R. Leavis, ‘utter crap’. However I digress. It looked as if John was making slow progress at the start, but he certainly picked up momentum as the round progressed to take the lead with 12 and no passes.

Now, I’ll be honest with you, a lot of art from the 1880s right through the first half of the 20^th century tends to leave me cold. I do have a thing about Gustav Klimt’s paintings, though. So I was pleased that Rebecca Shaw had taken him as her specialist subject. None of which meant that I scored many points on this round, but never mind. Like John before her, Rebecca finished with 12 and no passes, and let’s reiterate the point, for the last few years 12 has proven to be a very good first round score on specialist.

All of which left us with just Simon Jenkins. He was answering on The FA Cup 1978 – 2018. I can’t help confessing that I’m always interested when I see the contenders taking a subject like this with a date range. I mentioned earlier my ill-fated 2006 appearance. My specialist subject back then was The Modern Summer Olympic Games. Now, I wouldn’t have minded taking let’s say 1896 – 1936 – or – 1968 – present day. I was told in no uncertain terms that I would have to do the whole lot. Yet since then the Olympics has recurred, when I’ve seen other contenders allowed to take a specific year range. Ok, maybe different production teams, different approaches, I don’t know. Anyway, whatever the case, Simon had clearly learned his stuff, and despite getting caught out once or twice he still managed double figures with 10. Kudos to all 4 contenders for preparing well, I always appreciate that.

With only 2 points separating all 4 contenders any one of them could win with a good general knowledge round. Sadly for Simon Jenkins, though, he had an absolute ‘mare. For all the hype about the effect of the ‘fearsome black chair’, it really isn’t very often that we see a contender really have a disaster in the GK round. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to Simon Jenkins. He fell into a deadly pass spiral, one of those awful situations when not only does your memory refuse to supply the correct answer, it also spitefully refuses to throw up any plausible alternative. It happens – not that often, but it does, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Bad luck, sir.

From a round where almost nothing went right, to a round where almost everything did. Janet Farley really impressed with her GK round. It wasn’t so much the score – although 16 was certainly impressive – so much as the range of answers she provided. Even when it looked and sounded as if she was guessing, the guesses were sensible, and in the majority of cases right. Sometimes you just get a feel that a contender has got something of a quiz background, and I had this feeling with Janet, even though she did look a little shellshocked at her own performance when John announced the score.

John Payne had the unenviable task of following that performance, knowing that he needed to equal Janet’s performance to go into the outright lead, or answer 15 questions correctly without incurring any passes. Well, he had a good old go, you have to give him that, and you can’t knock any contender who can get into double figures in a GK round. But even saying this it was fairly clear that he was behind on the clock while there was still a good minute to go, and he ended on 23, a perfectly respectable evening’s work, but some way short of the target.

It fell to Rebecca Shaw, then, to close the show. Now, Rebecca’s round was a pretty good demonstration, if any were needed, of just how good Janet’s round was. I don’t mean that in any derogratory way about Rebecca. Rebeca was clearly very focussed on her round. She gave her answers very quickly and clearly, and made sure that she answered every question so as not to incur any passes. She achieved 12 correct answers, a good score. Yet for all that, a round in which it looked like she had got close to an optimal performance for her, there was still daylight separating Rebecca from Janet. That’s the way that it goes.

Good show. Well done Janet, and best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Janet Farley	REM	11	1	16	0	27	1
John Payne	The Life and Works of Edward Lear	12	0	11	3	23	3
Rebecca Shaw	Gustav Klimt	12	0	12	0	24	0
Simon Jenkins	The FA Cup 1978 - 2018	10	2	3	7	13	9

University Challenge 17/12 Goldsmiths, London v. Glasgow

Well, here we are, Dearly Beloved, the last leg of my quiz catch up this weekend, and arguably the one that I have the most personal stake in. My alma mater, University of London Goldsmith’s College, making what may well be their first ever appearance in the second round of University Challenge. Goldies were represented by Keshava Guha, Ieuan Cox, Jamie Robinson and effervescent skipper, Diana Issokson. Their opponents were Glasgow, represented by Lewis Barn, Freya Whiteford, Cameron Herbert, and captain James Hampson. This team had shown ominously good form in beating Emmanuel in the first round. I needn’t remind you that the same Emmanuel team are already in the quarter finals.

Freya Whiteford opened Glasgow’s account, recognising definitions of the word broadcast. This was after Keshava Guha dropped five for an incorrect early buzz. Film soundtracks brought them two more correct answers. James Hamspon was incredibly crick to realise that an article in Nature in 1953 would be Crick and Watson’s – presumably revealing the structure of DNA. Bonuses on Sir David Brewster yielded just five more points. The nezt starter, on the location of the University of Debrecen, was one of those you had to have patience with. As soon as it became clear, Cameron Herbert buzzed in with the correct answer of Hungary. Pairs of words beginning with the same doubled vowels provided another single bonus. For the picture starter we saw an actresses nominations for Oscars, and the films for which she was nominated but didn’t win. James Hampson identified the actress as Helen Mirren, and the film as The Queen. Once again, they took a single bonus on more of the same. Nobody really got the next starter on palindromic names, but Keshava Guha came in too early to put Goldies a little further into the red. Thus, on the cusp of the 10 minute mark things were looking bad for my guys, as Glasgow led by 65 to minus 10.

Right, if you should be asked for a 17^th century female writer, you’ll never be that far off with Aphra Behn.  That’s what James Hampson said, and he was spot on. Place name elements n China and Japan promised but little, which is more than it delivered me, although Glasgow did again manage one bonus. I correctly guessed that the Nomonhan Incident involved the USSR and Japan, as did Cameron Herbert. This took the lead to 100 points, but things denoted by the Greek letter lambda did no favours to any of us. Goldies looked so dispirited by this time that nobody even tried to buzz for the next starter, allowing Cameron Herbert to score with a speculative punt that the flower being described was bluebell. You’ve guessed it – one bonus was taken on literature and substance abuse. So to the music starter. Now, I often say if it’s classical, and you don’t know, and none of your team is buzzing, then give Beethoven a go. That’s what Cameron Herbert did, and he was right! How many bonuses did they get? One! Mind you, captain James Hampson tried hard to persude his team out of that one right answer. Now, let me tell you that by this point I was worrying that Goldies were going to end up with the lowest score ever. The contest was over haflway through, and they hadn’t answered anything correctly yet. Especially when Keshava Guha, doing what you must do in such straits, by hitting and hoping, lost another 5 points. Glasgow didn’t know the term abduction either, but they had a three figure lead, and at this stage it didn’t seem as if their squandering of bonus opportunities was going to matter in the least. Finally captain Diana Issokson stopped the rot by answering that moss sometimes forms peat. Dadabhai Naoroji provided the two bonuses needed to at least give Goldies a positive total. The Goldies’ skipper, seemingly warming to the task. Identified a lighthouse for the next starter. Female composers brought another two bonuses which meant that, as we reached the 20 minute mark, the deficit was back to single figures, as Glasgow led by 120 – 25.

No, I didn’t think Goldies had a cat in Hell’s chance at this stage. Neither team knew the next starter which was some Physics thing. Plucky Keshava Guha was not put off from buzzing early by previous misfortunes, and knew that as it is the Daily Planet in Superman, it is the Daily Beast in Scoop. Eponymous laws only provided on bonus, but at least Goldies were now actively climbing towards respectability. I didn’t understand the next Maths question, but Ieuan Cox had it right. Goldies had now brought up their half century of points in quick time. A full house on Eurasian bears meant Goldies earned themselves a coveted Paxman well done. James Hampson thought that this was quite enough of a Goldsmith’s revival to be getting on with, so he won the buzzer race to identify the work of Magritte for the second picture starter. Three other works from the Peggy Guggenheim collection provided a correct answer. Nobody knew that the National Forest spans parts of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Goldsmiths’ weren’t quite finished yet, though. Keshava Guha knew that the metical and others were currencies of former colonies of Portugal. A full house on Macchiavelli took Goldies to 90 points. Could they actually, maybe, still be in this match, I began to ask myself. It didn’t look like it. Keshava Guha, hearing gingiva, buzzed in with gums – not hearing the part of the question saying- which supports. Ah, cruel fate. James Hampson flirted with disaster by missing the open goal and kicking the ball into row Z of the stands, saying mouth rather than teeth. Never mind, that man Guha took the next starter on Aden. Two bonuses on human anatomy put them a mere 30 points behind. Crucially, though they would need two starters plus bonuses – and there was hardly any time left. I’ll admit it – I was out of my seat cheering when Keshava Guha took the novel “A Passage to India” for the next starter. Two starters on Africa meant we were a mere 10 points behind. If we could take the next starter, then even if we were gonged it would mean extra time. Well, I’ll be honest, I was gutted when the contest was gonged just after the next starter was read out, but my goodness, what a fightback. Hard lines, Goldies – I’m proud of you guys. However, Glasgow were the winners, and they deservedly take their place in the quarters. Well done guys, and best of luck.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

Right Jez, I have a bone to pick with you. Granted, Goldies’ opposition in the first round, University of London Institute in Paris were one of the weakest teams we’ve seen in several years, but it’s just bloody rude and frankly snide to say that they’d left their brains in Paris. Shame on you.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Sorry, but I was too absorbed in the contest to pick anything this week. Watch this space.

University Challenge 2019: Clare, Cambridge v. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford

Right then. Monday 10^th saw Clare, Cambridge take on St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford. Clare were represented by Anish Naik, Matt Nixon, Elijah Granet and captain Andrew Gurr, while Teddy Hall’s team comprised of Agastya Pisharody, Marceline Bresson, Lizzy Fry and captain Freddy Leo. Let’s get on with it.

Matt Nixon did. He buzzed early to take the first starter on various meanings of the word charge. Sociology bonuses brought a brace of correct answers.Alice Guy Blache (altogether now, also known as Alice Who-Who? in LAM Towers) was a pioneer in the field of cinema. I didn’t know that but Marceline Bresson did to open Teddy Hall’s account. The 19^th century engineer, John Scott Russell, brought just the one bonus. Now, with the next starter, which mentioned the author of “I have No Mouth And I Must Scream” Elijah Granet took a flyer, and gave the surname – Ellison. Hard lines, for the question wanted the first name – Harlan – as in Saunders, the famous fried chicken purveyor. Nobody had that. Fair play, Elijah Granet wasn’t phased by this, since he buzzed very early to provide the correct answer of tardigrades for the next starter. Never heard of ‘em. 16^th century royalty provided just one bonus. Fair play to Marceline Bresson as well, she was in very quickly to identify ‘rhapsody’ as being the musical term derived from an ancient Greek term for someone who recites epic poetry. The ornithology bonuses this earned seemed gettable, but yielded just the one bonus. So to the picture starter. We were shown a map with a strait indicated by an arrow. At last the Oxford skipper managed to find a way into the contest, as he buzzed very quickly to identify the Strait of Otranto. More straits provided one bonus. Suitably galvanised, Freddy Leo buzzed in very early for the next starter to correctly identify Louis IX. World events and the Summer Olympics provided another bonus. So at the 10 minute mark, St. Edmund’s Hall led by 60 to 30, but neither team so far was setting the world alight with their bonus conversion rate.

There was something about Shrodinger in the next question. Gawd knows what it meant, but Agastya Pisharody knew the answer was psi. Ancient Greek philosophy brought both of us 2 correct answers. Works linked by the city of New Orleans gave Freddy Leo his third starter. Computing in the 1990s brought a further two bonuses, and Teddy Hall were stretching the gap between the teams in a way which looked ominous for Clare. The impressive Oxford skipper well and truly had the bit between his teeth by now, and took another starter, knowing that a chap with the unfortunate name of Munter was one of the founders of the Blue Rider. Quotations about sailing in a sieve did his team no favours, and they didn’t add to their score. This brought us to the music starter. None of us recognised the work of Sibelius. That man Leo was back in for the next starter, to which the answer was the Eustachian tubes – which was one of the rejected names for the London Crossrail project, so I believe. This earned the music bonus on pieces premiered at the triennial Birmingham music festival in years gone by. They took two bonuses, and the third was on the table, as it were, but rejected. St. Edmund’s Hall now led by 100 points, and at this stage I began to feel that the dreaded Paxman words of encouragement would be offered to Clare at any moment. Freddy Leo continued piling Pelion on top of Ossa for them, as he zoomed in to recognise the first words of “Not Waving But Drowning”. This enabled the Oxford side to take two bonuses on Jane Fonda. Now, if you get asked the name of a Soviet filmmaker, 90% of the time it boils down to Eisenstein, if it’s early, or Tarkovsky if it’s later. Who else but Freddy Leo buzzed in early to the next starter with Tarkovsky. Two bonuses on former Chinese capitals took their score to 170 to Clare’s 30 at the 20 minute mark. This meant that Clare had been shut out for the whole of the second 10 minutes, during which time St. Edmund’s Hall had scored 110 unanswered points.

“Irredentism!” said Freddy Leo. Gesundheit, I replied, but it was the right answer, whatever it meant. One bonus on CLR James followed. With the picture starter at last Clare managed to win a buzzer race, as Elijah Granet was first in to recognise a photograph of Al Gore. A lovely bonus set on presidential candidates who failed to win a majority of the popular vote, but won enough votes from the electoral college in the US to become president followed. Two bonuses were taken. Now, I’m very sorry, but whenever a chemistry question asks for a word beginning with V I always say Valence. So did the Cambridge skipper – and we were both right! So what was looking like a lap of honourless week was thus transformed. While I was chugging my way around the sofa, Clare threw away two very gettable answers on graphic novels. I doubt it would have made any much difference to the result, to be honest with you. I had the next starter, knowing that there are 12 letters in the German equivalent names of Cologne, Geneva and Vienna. So did Agastya Pisharody. Elements of the Periodic table gave me a full house, and had I not been exhausted from my previous lap I might have taken another. Teddy Hall managed a couple. Lizzie Fry correctly guessed that the first recorded visit to the Galapagos Islands was made by the Bishop of Panama in 1535 when he was blown off course while sailing to Peru. This brought up a set on music in the 1730s. Two bonuses fattened their score further, as we lumbered towards the gong. Now, I’ve often said that you’ll get a number of the maths questions on UC right by answering zero to them without actually understanding the question. So I did so on the next and got it right. To be fair to Anish Naik (from Ealing! Yay!) he actually understood the question, but mine still counts, even though I didn’t. Authors with three letter surnames gave Clare a full house and a good chance of getting into three figures before the end of the contest. There are 6 atoms in a molecule of sodium bicarbonate. Fancy that. Nobody knew so lets move on. Andrew Gurr showed a nifty buzzer finger to identify the White horse of Uffington for the next starter. This took them to 100 points, which became 110 with a couple of correct identifications of Egyptian deities. Sadly 5 of this was lost when Elijah Granet buzzed too early for the next. This left Marceline Bresson to correctly identify the US State of Colorado. Now, when JP announced that the bonuses were on given names created by authors I was certainly that JM Barrie’s Wendy would be one of them. It wasn’t, actually! The next starter asked for the cartoonist who depicted Napoleon and Pitt the Toddler carving up the plum pudding of the world between them. Any question about cartoons from the end of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th centuries is likely to be about James Gillray, and not, as Andrew Gurr rather ungallantly suggested, Deborah Meaden. Yes, of course I know he was joking. There was no way of following that, save with the gong. Teddy Hall had completed a comfortable win by the margin of 245 to 105.

Hard lines, Clare. As for St. Edmund Hall, well, when you have an exceptional buzzer like Freddy Leo you are always going to be a team to watch, so you never know just how far hey might go.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

Nowt.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know of the Week

The first recorded visit to the Galapagos Islands was made by the Bishop of Panama in 1535 when he was blown off course while sailing to Peru.

Mastermind 2019 - Heat 10

Right then. Last night our first contender was Lena Gazey. Lena appeared in the first rounds of both Isabel’s 2017 series and Marianne’s 2015 series. In both of these she produced good GK performances, but lost out through her specialist rounds. So I was interested to see how well she would go on Emma, Lady Hamilton. Lady Hamilton – she was a bit of a goer, wasn’t she? Well that’s the impression that I got from this set of questions.

Our second contender, Tricia Blatherwick, was answering on the artist Gerhard Richter, or Gerhard Who? as we like to refer to him in LAM Towers. Knowing nothing about him it’s very hard for me to venture an opinion on how difficult or otherwise this set of questions was. Still, you can’t argue with 12 points, which is what Tricia had scored by the end of it. Well done, job done.

Now, I like Alexander McCall Smith, but I’ve only ever read some of his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency novels. Jo Moody was answering on his other very popular series, the 44 Scotland Street series. Right up until the last question this was shaping up to be a perfect round. Sadly, it was the last question which did for Jo. Nonetheless, an excellent round. As we know, in recent years any specialist score in the teens is quality.

Kit Lane, then, was left to bring the first round to a conclusion. Kit was answering on Alexander Hamilton. Now, he’s a truly interesting and seminal figure from the earliest years of the United States of America, and I did think I knew a little about him. Nope. I scraped 2 points on this round. Kit did considerably better than this. She too managed 12 and no passes.

So, well done to all 4 contenders in this heat. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I do like to see contenders who have thoroughly prepared their subjects, all 4 had obviously covered almost all of the bases.

I wonder what Lena Gazey felt when she was called back to the chair first. She can’t have known that there was only one point separating all 4 contenders. If it was a concern, this didn’t show. I have said in the past that I honestly believe that coping with the demands of the black chair gets a little bit easier each time you sit in it, and so while Lena didn’t give us any of the pyrotechnics of Allan Wright’s round in the previous heat, her 12 was steady, calm and assured, and it meant that any contender who wanted to take the lead was going to have to pass right through the corridor of doubt to do so.

With all due respect to Tricia Blatherwick, it was pretty apparent from early doors in her GK round that she wasn’t going to make it. I can’t say that I felt that any of the four rounds last night was particularly more difficult than any of the others, and it didn’t seem as if Tricia was particularly nervous. It just didn’t work out for her and she finished on 19.

Kit Lane was a little more convincing in her own GK round, but again, she was losing ground on the clock, and by the time the blue line of death appeared her chance was gone. She didn’t quite make it into double figures for the round, finishing with 21.

So only Jo Moody could prevent Lena from pulling off the remarkable feat of going from last to first throughout the GK round. Mind you, that isn’t quite as remarkable as it sounds, since last place at the end of the specialist round was also joint second place, and only one point behind first place. Jo’s round was rather similar to Kit’s. Not bad, but one in which she steadily lost ground on the clock. In the end, she too scored 9 for a total of 22.

So well done to Lena. Best of luck in the semi finals.

The details

Lena Gazey	Emma, Lady Hamilton	12	0	12	2	24	2
Tricia Blatherwick	Gerhard Richter	12	0	7	3	19	3
Jo Moody	The 44 Scotland Street series	13	0	9	0	22	0
Kit Lane	Alexander Hamilton	12	0	9	1	21	1

Mastermind 2019 - Heat Nine

How are you all? It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’ve missed you, you know? Look, I’m sorry about last week, but I was making the Christmas present run to my family on the South coast, and so just didn’t have time to write and post. I’m here now though, and I’m going to do my best to catch back up as quickly as possible.

So, Friday 14^th’s heat began with Ellie Mackin answering on Sir Bobby Robson. Poor old Sir Bob was probably the finest England manager since Sir Alf Ramsay, and yet was never really appreciated as such until after he’d finished. 2018 has seen England reach the semi final of the World Cup, but this year we were beaten conclusively. I still haven’t got over the penalty shoot out in 1990 – and in that game we were at least as good as West Germany. Still, I digress. I managed 9 of these, which was the same score that Ellie managed. She obviously knew her stuff, but a few too many of these got away from her.

Isabel Morgan, our second contender, has been this way before, although to be fair she’s never been asked to walk through the portal of portent on her couple of previous appearances. These previous appearances were marked by good performances on SS, but merely decent performances on GK, so it looked important for her to really fill her boots on specialist. Answering on James Kier Hardie she didn’t really manage to do this. Don’t misunderstand me, you have to know a lot about your subject in order to score the 8 points that she did, but I’m afraid it’s just not a competitive score, and it’s going to leave you with too much to do in your GK.

Allan Wright strode through the portentous portal as if he meant business for his round on Links golf courses of the UK and Ireland. To be fair, this was an accurate impression, since what followed was a very competent demonstration of how to take a round by the scruff of the neck and accumulate a very tasty score indeed. His 13 points put him 4 ahead of his nearest challenger with just one more contender to go.

So, the nature of the challenge for final contender Stephen Simons was fairly clear. To be fair, he started his round on British submarines since 1945 looking as if he too was going to produce a double figure score. However when he reached 4 points in short order, the wrong’uns began to creep in, and it looked as if the rest of the round was something of a grim old struggle. In the end he finished with 7.

Well, let’s be fair. I never felt that Ellie, Isabel or Stephen had skimped on their preparations, as I sometimes do feel with some contenders. But all 3 of them had been found out by some of the more searching questions, and the effect was that the show was now very much Allan’s to lose.

Stephen’s round on GK was curiously similar to his Specialist. It started brilliantly, and the correct answers lasted a bit longer than they had in the specialist round. For the first minute or so he seemed sure to push his overall total into the 20s. However as we always say, the GK round is a marathon and not a sprint, and he did seem to run out of steam and lose momentum in the last 90 seconds or so. Now, don’t get me wrong, 11 is a perfectly respectable score on GK. But I’m afraid that an overall total of 18 was never going to be enough.

You know, I like Isabel’s attitude to a round in the black chair. She was going to enjoy whatever happened, and on those odd occasions during her round on GK where the answer would refuse to leap off the tip of her tongue she took it in very good humour. Let’s be honest, by the time you’re making your third attempt at Mastermind, I’d guess you’re either doing it because you enjoy it, or because you’re obsessed with it, or both. Definitely the former in Isabel’s case, I’d say. Good on yer. Good score of 12 too, which pushed her into a respectable 20 points overall.

A good 12 was also what followed in Ellie’s case. In fact I think you could say that with all three contenders so far in the GK round you could see that these were people who had certainly earned their right to have go at the black chair. Each of them gave answers which I would say you need at least some quiz pedigree to answer. It’s just a bit of a shame that it hadn’t worked out for the three of them in the specialist rounds. Ellie finished with 21 points, and couldn’t be worse than second.

Putting the task in front of Allan into perspective, he needed 9 points to win outright without recourse to pass countback. I do tend to think that you only really face a passage through the corridor of doubt when you’re facing a double figure total. The questions still have to be answered. Just as he had with the specialist round, Stephen gave a magnificently unflustered demonstration of how to deal with a GK round. 17 is a very good score, whichever way you look at it, and to be honest, his overall total of 30 for me suggests that Allan is a contender who could to very well when the semi finals come round. Well done to you, and best of luck in the semis, sir.

The Details

Ellie Mackin	Sir Bobby Robson	9	0	12	3	21	3
Isabel Morgan	The Life of James Kier Hardie	8	2	12	2	20	2
Allan Wright	Links golf courses of the UK and Ireland	13	0	17	2	30	2
Stephen Simons	British submarines since 1945	7	1	11	1	18	2

University Challenge 2019 Round 2 - Edinburgh v. UCL

Edinburgh v. UCL

Another second round match, dearly beloved. Last time out we saw Matt Booth, Marco Malusa, and Robbie Campbell Hewson and their captain Max Fitz-James of Edinburgh administer the UC equivalent of 6 of the best to an outgunned Sidney Sussex team in round one. In this show they faced sterner opposition in the shape of George Mitkov, Sophia Walker, Feiyu Fang and captain Robert Johnstone of UCL, who had won an absorbing contest against King’s, London in round one.

I knew that Jerome K. Jerome said he could watch work for hours, but both teams needed the full set of clues before Robert Johnstone supplied the correct answer. Terms and phrases provided a gettable set, and UCL should have done better than just the one. Mind you, Feiyu Fang made up for this with a splendidly fast buzz to identify the Stamp Act for the next starter. This brought bonuses on fruits in poetry which proved far more fruitful for them, yielding the first full house of the evening. Sophia Walker continued UCL’s impressive start on the buzzer by recognising a series of works linked by the word castle for the next starter. Bonuses on the ancient cartographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy provided nowt for any of us. Neither of the teams knew or could guess the Roman goddess Concordia, the goddess of defunct supersonic airliners. Max Fitz-James put his team into negative equity with an incorrect early buzz for the next starter. I don’t blame him. Had he been correct and thus opened his team’s account it would have been inspired. This allowed George Mitkov to take UCL’s 4^th unanswered starter. With a couple of bonuses that took their total to 70. This meant that we’d seen a genuine UC rarity, a shut out for the first ten minutes, since Edinburgh, languishing on -5 had not yet given a correct answer.

This situation was soon remedied. Marco Malusa did brilliantly to see a word cloud of the most regularly recurring words in a famous work of philosophy, and ascribe it to Descartes. More of the same provided a well-earned full house. Robert Johnstone knew that RCT stands for Randomised Controlled Trial. A UC special set on names from Shakespeare made up from chemical symbols – eg Aluminium and Arsenic give you the first word of Hamlet’s speech about Yorick - brought UCL 2 bonuses, and me a lap of honour for knowing all of those elements and getting a full house. The knowledgeable UCL skipper knew that a lammergeier is a vulture for the next starter. Winners of the Turing award in computing promised me little so I was quite surprised to take two, the same two as UCL. Marco Malusa knew that Nicholas II was deposed in 1917 to take Edinburgh’s second starter. Towns in southern England did not fall kindly for them and they failed to add to their score. This brought us to the music round. We were played the outro of a pop song, and Max Fitz-James struck with a lightning buzz to identify Otis Redding’s Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay. More pop provided Edinburgh with a timely full house. George Mitkov came in too early with an incorrect answer for the next starter, but Edinburgh didn’t recognise abbreviations of teams from the premier league in Denmark. Not flippin’ surprised, either. Another rush of blood to the head saw George Mitkov lose another five points. Now, if a question has the words ‘essayist’ and ‘Shakespeare’ in it, hit the buzzer and say Charles Lamb. Max Fitz-James took the whole question and then supplied the correct answer. A splendid full house on theology followed. Feiyu Fang took a speculative punt that the name codeine is derived from the Greek for poppy head, and he was right to do so. John Masefield’s poem “Cargoes” provided just the one bonus. So on the cusp of the 20 minute mark UCL led by 115 – 80, but things looked a little more hopeful for Edinburgh since they had reduced the deficit from 75 to 35.

I did actually know that Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest country without permanent rivers. Neither of the teams managed that one. Feyu Fang dropped five for an early buzz. Max Fitz-James knew several things which end in -oon, and what’s more he knew it very quickly too. Two word phrases from Nobel Prize citations earned me a surprise two bonuses, but more importantly provided Edinburgh with a full house which put them just one bonus behind UCL. UCL skipper Robert Johnstone though was keeping his head, and was the first to recognise a description of a clarinet. Figures whose surnames mean blacksmith in their native languages made a rather lovely set which gave UCL their on timely full house. Thus we arrived at the second picture set. We saw Impression Soleil Levant and quite rightly, bearing in mind how famous the picture is, Max Fitz-James ws in very quickly to identify it as the work of Claude “Show me the” Monet. Works by other exhibitors in what has been called the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 brought another full  house. Something about bases in Maths passed by all of us without troubling the scorer. Sophia Walker won the buzzer race to recognise several definitions of the word motif. UCL answered two bonuses on Joshua Trees. I did think they might have sneaked in a question about the U2 album into that set, but it was not to be. Edinburgh weren’t finished yet. Marco Malusa was very quickly in to recognise regions of Norway. Seemingly inevitably they provided a full house, and yay, the scores were tied! Squeaky bum time. Something about proteins gave Max Fitz-James the next starter, and Edinburgh the lead for the very first time in the contest. Orchestral works seemed to be something of an Achilles heel, since they only took one bonus. One again it was that man Johnstone steadying the ship and keeping his team moving, when he correctly supplied the term peptic for the next starter. Bonuses on Japan yielded them nothing. Little time remained. If Edinburgh could take the next starter, a  bonus would surely leave UCL with too much to do. Sophia Walker gambled on an early buzz – I really can’t blame her for that – and lost five. Max Fitz-James – as influential for his own team as Robert Johnstone had been for his – correctly identified the Algonquin Hotel to leave UCL more than a full house behind. The Pritzker Architecture Prize was the subject of the bonuses, but hey, we were gonged before any of them were completed. Edinburgh had thus pulled off one of the greatest comebacks since Lazarus, carried out with what I suspect should be a superb bonus conversion rate.

Congratulations to both teams on a splendid match.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

I think that he was as absorbed in the match as I was, since there was nothing worthy of note for the whole match.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

In Greek mythology Tiresias, the blind prophet, had lived both as a man and as a woman.

University Challenge 2019 - round two - Hertford, Oxford v. Manchester

Hertford, Oxford v. Manchester

Well, dearly beloved, last week we watched the first of our repechage winners go on to claim a spot in the quarter final stages. Aiming to do the same in Monday’s match were Hertford, Oxford, represented by Steffi Woodgate, Pat Taylor, Chris Page and skipper Richard Tudor. To do that, though, they would have to defeat Manchester, whose team of Alex Antao, Georgia Lynott, Joe Hanson and skipper James Ross won a close contest against East London in the first round.

Both teams rather sat on their buzzer for the first starter, which was gettable from the first clue. Even if you didn’t know, you could surely have guessed that the French version of The Office had the word Bureau in it. Richard Tudor finally took that piece of low hanging fruit. Unbuilt cities provided particularly fertile ground, yielding them a full house. Now, I didn’t know that the last word of the quotation – Half of Science is putting forward the right – would be -questions, but it seemed obvious that this would be the answer, which indeed it was. After a bit of an interval Chris Page lobbed the same word in to earn a set of bonuses on books of the Old Testament referring to the King James Bible. These, it must be said were by no means gimmes, and Hertford failed to trouble the scorer. Kati Horna, Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington were all ex pat surrealists who made Mexico City their home. I didn’t know that but Joe Hanson did, to open Manchester’s account for the evening. Pairs of letter – used for both a chemical element and an American state postal abbreviation – provided a lovely UC special set of which they took a full house. The splendidly named Fred Whipple – who surely missed his metier and should have been an ice cream salesman rather than an astronomer -  hypothesized about the make up of the nucleus of a comet. Chris Page edged out Joe Hanson in the buzzer race to win that starter and win bonuses on shades of green. They took two correct answers, but didn’t know chartreuse. So to the picture starter, and an interesting world map in which the size of each country was directly proportional to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity generated from a major fuel source. The teams had to deduce the fuel source. From the relative hugeness of the UK I guessed coal, but neither of the teams saw it. James Ross was very quickly in to confirm that “To A Wild Rose” was a piano piece composed by Macdowall – although he didn’t say whether this was Roddy or Andi. This earned the picture bonuses, more strangely distorted fuel maps. 2 bonuses meant that, although it appeared that Hertford had had the better of the opening exchanges in the first ten minutes only 10 points separated the teams, with Hertford leading by 55 – 45.

Okay. Did you know the acronym MOGREPS? Me neither, and nor did the teams, so none of us knew that the E stands for ensemble forecasting. Moving swiftly on, for the next starter I did know that Sir Harrison Birtwhistle composed the opera Punch and Judy, which linked nicely with Harrison Schmitt, one of the last 2 astronauts to walk on the moon. I gave myself a pat on the back for guessing that the next clue would relate to Harrison Ford – and indeed this was the clue which gave Chris Page the answer. Sadly he had a rush of blood to the head and gave the surname – “Ford”, then realised what he’d done and corrected himself – “Harrison”. He still lost 5, and then JP passed it over. I’ll be honest, I’ve seen times when similar things have happened and JP has administered a severe wigging, but not passed it over. For what it’s worth, I think passing it over was the right thing to do in this case. It was bad luck, and these things can happen in the heat of the moment, but Manchester were entitled to their crack and the bonuses that ensued. James Ross tapped that one into the hole, and Queens of France provided them with one correct answer and me with a full house. Well, I do have Huguenot ancestors, you know. I also have a far-from-Francophile sister in law – whom I love dearly - who was horrified when I let her know that particular aspect of her husband’s genetic makeup, but I digress. Nobody knew about Sikkim, which apparently gets its name from a command used by dog handlers. Nobody knew that typhus, caused by the Rickettsia bacteria, is also known as Jail Disease. Chris Page was the first to buzz in to identify John Montagu as the Earl of Sandwich. (Insert your own jokes here) Elements of the names of Chinese capitals gave me an unexpected bonus – I knew that Nanking means Southern capital, so got Nan for the first. Didn’t have a scooby about the others, though. Neither did Hertford, with both of us getting just the first. None of us knew the term contact inhibition – although I’ve experienced what could certainly be described as contact prohibition a few times in the past. Alex Antao was the first to recognise a series of clues indicating the letters B and R for the next starter. Chemical stuff provided Manchester with a full house. This brought us to the music starter, and nobody recognised the work of Stravinsky. Not surprised – what we heard sounded far too musical for Stravinsky. Miaow. Georgia Lynott buzzed too early for the next starter, allowing Richard Tudor to supply the correct answer – that Stilwell’s nickname was Vinegar Joe, as opposed to other condiments. This gave Hertford a shy at the music bonuses. More composers brought the one bonus needed to level the scores. Nobody knew that the first proper name in Paradise Lost is the location The Garden of Eden. Good question – I was wrong. I went for Pandemonium. Did you know that nasturtium takes its name from the latin for nose twister? None of us did, but it’s a blooming good question, should you pardon the pun, and I’m going to be asking that one in the rugby club next time I’m QM. Right, I don’t pretend to understand the next Maths starter, but the answer was 168, which neither team had. Alex Antao knew that if the question is about ancient religion and Iran, then it’s Zoroastrianism. Bonuses on immortality in Shakespeare’s tragedies brought two bonuses, and a lead of 20 points – 100 – 80, as we reached the twenty minute mark in what was an absorbing and closely matched contest up to this point.

A terrific captain’s early buzz from James Ross identified Prasutagus as the husband of Boudicca. Scales and measures brought another two correct answers, and it was vital for Hertford that they took the next starter, since the gap was widening at precisely the time they needed it to be narrowing. However this was the picture starter and it was Alex Antao who identified the work of Goya. Only one bonus accrued, but the momentum was with Manchester. Chris Page pulled Hertford back from the brink, recognising the planned trilogy, the Book of Dust. Bonuses on literature earned a further ten points to reduce arrears to 35. The impressive Chris Page pulled a further 10 points back, knowing that if the question asks about watchmaker John Harrison, you’ll never be far away with the word longitude. The British exploration of Africa. helped narrow the gap further. Manchester, though, were also holding their collective nerve. Alex Antao took the next starter on various verse forms in Japanese poetry. Roman provinces helped them reestablish a 30 point lead. That’s crucial. It meant that Hertford couldn’t draw level with just one visit to the table. Alex Antao again displayed a finely tuned buzzing finger winning the buzzer race to identify Herr Messerchmidt ( Willy? I think so.) as the designer of the BF109. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland provided one bonus, but that was rather immaterial. There just couldn’t be enough time left for Hertford now. Neither team managed the next starter, but it was that man Antao who took the next, working out that since Rosario is a prominent city in Argentina, then Operation Rosario may well have taken place during the Falklands Conflict. African cities provided Manchester with a lightning fast full house. We were gonged seconds later with the score at 185 – 115. It looks like a comfortable victory for  Manchester, yet they were pushed all the way by this good Hertford team, and on this showing look like useful dark horses in the quarters. Well done both teams, and best of luck to Manchester.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

After the very first starter JP chided the Hertford skipper with “Some people find that question difficult, you know. There’s no need to look so dismissive.” Jez – have you ever looked in a mirror after a team fails to get a question on Shakespeare right? Physician, heal thyself, that’s all I’m saying.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Typhus is also known as jail fever.

University Challenge 2019 - Round Two - St. Peter's, Oxford v. Emmanuel, Cambridge

Chins up, dearly beloved, it’s the start of the second round proper. St. Peter’s, Oxford, in the shape of James Hodgson, Seb Braddock, Laura Cooper and captain Nick Williford, he of the splendid handlebar moustache, saw off one Cambridge team in the first round in the shape of Pembroke. More Cambridge opponents came in the shape of battle-hardened Emmanuel, for whom Connor Macdonald, Vedanth Nair, Ben Harris and skipper Daniella Cugini narrowly lost to Glasgow in round one, before comfortably beating King’s London in the repechage.

Okay, the first starter. Any question which mentions Ireland and geological formation is pretty much suggesting Giant’s Causeway right from the off, but neither team took a real flyer, until Connor Macdonald buzzed in with e right answer. The French town of Valenciennes didn’t look particularly fertile ground for a full house, but that’s exactly what it yielded. Laura Cooper’s sharp buzzing in the first round heat was a huge advantage for St. Peter’s, but she was in too soon for the next starter, misindentifying the poet in question as Thomas Hardy. The English specialists really should have got it for ‘dapple down dawn.’ Dapple is like a huge signpost saying Gerard Manley Hokins – Glory be to God for Dappled Things etc. I earned my lap of honour early in this show, for I knew that a cell converts chemical to electrical energy. So did James Hodgson. The Scriblerians yielded just the one correct answer. Laura Cooper’s twitchy buzzer finger struck again and saw her lose 5 points for the next starter, which mammal description wanted the answer tapir. Emmanuel couldn’t capitalise. For the second time in the show I was underwhelmed by the English specialists – nobody in either team had any idea that Confessio Amantis was written by John Gower. Vedanth Nair stopped the rot, knowing the term camel case, which I certainly didn’t. Bonuses on WHO lists of essential medicines brought one bonus, and led ont o the picture starter. This spliced together the opening lines of two sonnets. I recognised Anthem for Doomed youth by Wilfred Owen, and guessed the other would be by Siegfried Sassoon. I’m sure that Daniele Cugini recognised the Wilfred Owen lines, but she zigged with Rupert Brooke, allowing Laura Cooper to zag with Sassoon. More of the same brought a correct answer to St. Peters. I had that one and also the Milton and Donne, but didn’t have a Scooby about Rosetti and Barrett-Browning. This was a timely set for St. Peter’s though, since it at least gave them a toehold in the match, and they trailed Emmanuel by 40 – 20.

Credit where it’s due, there was a terrific fast buzz by Daniela Cugini to identify element 100 as being named after Fermi. The year 1991 in feminism didn’t provide much for the team, just the one bonus. Nick Williford made an equally impressive early buzz to identify words attributed to French King Louis XIV. Misreadings and mispronunciations gave rise to some amusement when it mentioned the Indian newsreader who rendered Chinese leader Xi Ji Ping’s name as Eleven Ji Ping. Reminds me of a Sunday league quiz in Cardiff once. When asked which king of England was crowned King of both England and France when only a babe in arms we answered Henry VI. Nope said the question master. The home team answered Henry IV. Nope, replied the poor hapless individual – you’re both wrong. It says Henry Vie here. – St. Peter’s took one bonus, but really and truly one of them should have known that the Hundred Years war began in the reign of Edward III, I would have thought. Vedanth Nair was again in early to identify the Dravidian language family. German Grand Duchies provided Emma with a timely full house, and led us nicely into the music round. The first to buzz in to identify the cat singing scat was Cameron Macdonald, who didn’t mistake the unmistakable voice of Louis Armstrong. 3 more examples of scat singing were always going to include Ella Fitzgerald, but like Emma I didn’t have a clue about the second. I recognised Sammy Davis Jr, though.  I didn’t even understand the next question, but Laura Cooper knew the answer was DNA. The architect David Adjaye brought another bonus. St. Peters were hanging on there in the match, but really needed to up their bonus conversion rate if they were going to have a hope of pegging back what already looked like a significant lead for Emmanuel. Vedanth Nair, having another good match on the buzzer, knew that the Titulus Regius was the instrument used by king Richard III to give a veneer of legality to his usurpation of the throne. Astrophysics promised me but little and delivered less, although Emmanuel did pick up a single bonus themselves. The St. Peter’s skipper was impressively quick on the buzzer again to identify Wellington – the city, not the footwear, duke, or educational establishment – as soon as a reasonable clue had been given. Dorothy Coade Hewitt – Dorothy Who? in LAM Towers – provided them with nowt. They really were not getting the rub of the green at all in their bonus sets. Now, whenever the question mentions the Ismaili sect, just buzz and say Aga Khan. That’s what Cameron Macdonald did. 2 bonuses on works published by past or future prime ministers pushed their score to 125 against St. Peter’s 60 at the 20 minute mark. Not quite over the event horizon, but not far off.

Good old astronomy gave me a Science starter, as both Ben Harris and I knew that the planet with 4 large moons (and a shedload of wee ones) is always going to be Jupiter. Chemistry didn’t look likely to offer me much and indeed there was never much chance of me earning a further lap of honour here. Emmanuel, though managed a full house. For the second picture starter Nick Williford won the buzzer race to identify Sir Roger Bannister. More athletes photographed making sporting history brought two correct answers. Didn’t phase Emmanuel though. Cameron Macdonald took a real flyer on the next starter, identifying Nietzsche very quickly. Bonuses on foreign language film Oscar winners promised none of us very much but Emmanuel did manage a single bonus. That man Nair knew something about pi which earned the next set of bonuses on literary works using reverse chronology took their score to 175, and the game was up for St. Peter’s. Nobody knew the next starter about the River Clyde. To be fair to St. Peter’s they didn’t just give up, and Laura Cooper was the first in to identify the novel Last Exit to Brooklyn. A bonus on Asian dog breeds took them to 95. Now, I’ve never heard of the mirror test, but I guessed it from the terms of the question. Daniela Cugini took that starter for Emmanuel. A full house on dystopian novels took Emmanuel to 200. None of us knew the opening words to Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Ben Harris lost 5 when he came in too early for the next starter, while Nick Williford, who had been playing a captain’s innings all evening, came in to give the correct answer of Afghanistan to take his team into triple figures. A full house on national flags was too late, but at least they got one. That was it, though. The contest was gonged halfway through the next starter, and Emmanuel had won by 195 to 120. JP couldn’t quite resist rubbing a little salt into the Oxford team’s wounds by telling them that they never really had a chance to get into their stride. Cobblers. They had their chance, but just couldn’t convert enough bonuses to compete. It happens.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

Little to report here. There was a mild case of apoplexy when Emma suggested Sammy Davis Jr may in fact have been Miles Davis, but really there was nothing more of note. Must try harder, Jez.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Camel case is the correct term for the use of upper case letters in the middle of a string of lower case letters, particularly in proprietary or commercial names.

Mastermind 2019 - Heat 8

My wife has many excellent qualities. She is not, however, a lover of Mastermind, and indeed, I’m not sure that I blame her. She virtually lost me to Mastermind for large chunks of 2007 when I was, as she would put it, ‘mumbling away to yourself in the dining room for hours at a stretch’. Well, the fact is that if you want to really learn your specialist subject you’ve got to put the effort in. As I said, though, she isn’t a lover of the show, and last night was the first time this series that she joined me in watching it. Her reaction to the portal of portent was, and again I quote,

“Oh, how bloody ridiculous! What on earth are they making them do that for?” I found that I was unable to give her a satisfactory answer.

So to the show. Sarah Turner offered us Cher for the first of last night’s specialist subjects. This was one of those subjects where I thought I might snaffle a couple of points, but I did a bit better than I expected, taking 5. Sarah’s was a good round, but not a great one, as she passed on a couple. As one does, I did wonder whether those passes might prove to be significant in the final reckoning.

The Cambridge Spy Ring offered me, I believed, the chance of a big fat zero, so again, I was pleased and surprised to be able to take another 4 out of this round. Alister Jones did a lot better than that, mind you His 12 wasn’t quite a perfect round, but as we’ve seen throughout the series, 12 is the kind of score that will invariably leave you in contention coming into the GK round.

If the Cambridge Spy Ring offered me the chance of nowt, then Tove Jansson, the subject offered by Fi Withers, actually delivered it. I mean, I do recall reading a couple of the Moomin books maybe 45 years ago, but apart from the fact that the illustrations made the Moomins look a little like tiny cute hippos, that’s about all I could remember. Of course, this round ranged a lot wider than just the Moomin books, and Fi Withers obviously knew her stuff. However a few questions went begging, and while 9 is a perfectly respectable score in this day and age, I fancied it would leave her too much to do in the GK.

Lastly Linda King. Maybe it was just me, but I felt that her walk to the chair had something of the air of ‘let’s stop all of this faffing around and just get on with it, shall we?!’ Well, she certainly meant business in the chair. She was answering on The Derby 1955 – 1990. I do wonder sometimes how people manage to negotiate these specific time parameters. Way back in the mists of time when I was making my first appearance, I wanted to do the Modern Summer Olympics from 1948 to the present and was told in no uncertain terms, no, sorry, you’ll do the lot of them, my boy, and like it! For my 2007 final I wanted to just do Old London Bridge 1179-1831, and again was told, no, you do ALL of the London Bridges that came before and the ones that have come after as well. Well, whatever the case, Linda too took a fine 12 to give herself every chance in the GK round.

Fi returned to the chair. Now, let’s be fair, it is only a game so it’s not a case of there ever being any real cause to feel shame or regret about a round, or an appearance on the show. But I do always feel that if you can get double figures in a round then you can feel perfectly at ease with how you’ve done. Fi managed that in her GK round, scoring 10, Ah, what might have been. One more point and she’d have made 20 overall, which is only one point more than 19, but psychologically sounds so much more.

That target was unlikely to last very long, and indeed was overhauled by Sarah Turner when she returned to the chair. Sarah herself did only manage the 9 points on GK, not quite getting into double figures, but having started two points ahead of Fi, this put her into the 20s. Again, though, it didn’t really look as if the target was going to last for very long.

About 2 and a half minutes, actually. Alister Jones achieved the feat of scoring the same in both his specialist and his GK rounds. 24 is not a bad score at all, and it is the kind of score which can sometimes win a heat though. It wasn’t going to win this one. Linda’s GK round enlivened what had been up to this point a relatively quiet show. Without wishing to be harsh, my socks had remained firmly on my feet throughout the whole show up to this point. Linda’s round, though, was quality. This, I thought, is a person with a pretty good general knowledge. It wasn’t just the number of correct answers that she had. In this season, I’ve thought that the average GK rounds have been mostly relatively gentle, although each has had a sprinkling of harder questions. I’ always more impressed when the contenders do pretty well with the few harder questions that they get, and this was the case with Linda. From early on in her round she was obviously going to win, and in the end she’d added a very good 16 to win with 28. Well done, and good luck in the semis.

The Details

Sarah Turner	Cher	11	2	9	6	20	8
Alister Jones	The Cambridge Spy Ring	12	1	12	0	24	1
Fi Withers	Tove Jansson	9	0	10	0	19	0
Linda King	The Derby 1955 - 1990	12	2	16	1	28	3