University Challenge 2022: Round One: Heat 13 Wolfson, Oxford v. Bristol

The Teams

Wolfson, Oxford

Martin Nowakowski

Maitrai Lapalikar

Daattavya Aggarwal (Capt)

Archie Williams

Bristol

Alex Regueiro

Sam Woodcock

Seb Priest (Capt)

Anna Brian

Not long to go people. Just one more heat after this one and we’ll have seen all of the teams in this year’s competition. Tonight, then, I took the first starter for the first time in a few weeks, recognising that rose, tulip, cedar, velvet and green were all terms applied to various revolutions. Archie Williams took that one. Quotations from English Literature which all involve words from the acronym TARDIS were a UC special set that was very much to my liking, as you might imagine. Wolfson managed 2 of them. None of us knew that Tonle Sap is in Cambodia. Daattavya Aggarwal lost five coming in for the next starter, something to do with telescopes and black holes, I think. Then, suddenly the question became clear *Warning – Lap of honour imminent!* by saying that the telescope network in question shares its name with the boundary limits of a black hole. “Event horizon!” I shouted, just before Alex Reguiero, rather more calmly, said the same. Now, maybe it was because I was circumnavigating the sofa, but it seemed to me that the next question suggested that Talulah Bankhead was born in 1982! Nay, nay and thrice nay! Bristol managed just the one on people connected with Huntsville Alabama. Archie Williams gave a good early buzz to identify polar explorer Shackleton for the next starter. I turned down a second lap of honour for knowing enzyme for the first bonus and likewise electron for the last. It’s been a long time since I took two bonuses on a science set that wasn’t specifically about the periodic table. Wolfson took the same two. The picture starter showed the rather distinctive national flag of Grenada. Martin Nowakowski took that one, and then treated us to the first of a brace of starter celebrations, a manoeuvre which I believe is commonly known as a ‘dab’. One thinks that Bamber Gascoigne would somehow not have approved. More examples of fruit in heraldry brought Wolfson no further points. Now, 30 odd years ago, if you heard the words ‘Mexican’ and ‘Painting’ you’d be fully justified in slinging buzzer and giving the answer Diego Rivera. Now, though, you’d be playing with fire if you gave any answer other than Diego’s missus, Frida Khalo. That’s the answer that Archie Williams gave, and he was right to do so. Video games are rather less fruitful as a subject for me than even psychology, economics or the sciences, so I wasn’t surprised to score zero on video games of 2001. Rather more surprisingly, Wolfson didn’t score at all either. Nonetheless they’d had clearly the better start to the contest and led Bristol by 55 to 10.

Various clues gave Martin Nowakowski the word canton for his second starter. This time he made an exaggerated toasting gesture by raising his class of water. Thanks, Martin, we’ve got it that you’re the ‘wacky’ member of your team by now. Early 19^th century French art brought Wolfson nowt. Sam Woodcock began the Bristol fightback, buzzing in with the answer that it was Debussy who composed La Mer. Me, I thought it was Georges Trenet. Or Bobby Darin. (Ask your grandparents). A couple of bonuses on John of Salisbury wiped ou  significant slice of the Wolfson lead. This took us to the music starter and a very quick buzz from Anna Brian to recognise ‘Leader of the Pack’ and recall that it was recorded by the Shangri-Las. Other examples of the teenage tragedy genre of the 50s and 60s saw them miss out on The Everly Brothers’ Ebony Eyes. They stopped performing it, and when asked to perform it on tour would usually reply – sorry, but we do have to fly places, you know. They recognised Bobbie Genry, but couldn’t recognise Roy Orbison. Ah, the folly of youth.  I wouldn’t have minded hearing all of the next question about some remarkable stuff which produced facial convulsions amongst other effects, but Alex Regueiro buzzed in early to say whatever it was, it came from Sardinia. A UC special set on film titles formed by combining countries’ internet codes proved to be rather low hanging fruit which Bristol were only too happy to gorge themselves upon, and in the process they opened a 5 point lead. Alex Regueiro took his second starter on the bounce by recognising a definition of the word sedition. This earned them a set of bonuses on black holes. Well, I’m very sorry but I already exhausted the totality of my knowledge of black holes in that bonus earlier on. Bristol lapped them up. 8 minutes earlier you’d have got very long odds on Bristol being the first to break into triple figures, but here they were just one bonus away. Captain Daattavya Aggarwal buzzed to shake his team out of their torpor, correctly supplying the mathematician Ramanujan ( well his name – not the actual person. That would have been weird). Sadly for Wolfson the bonus dice were still refusing to roll kindly as they received a set of bonuses on Puccini. I somehow doubt that they are great fans of his oeuvre, missing out even on Madame Butterfly. Sam Woodcock buzzed early to guess that in the exercise form H I I T, the H I must mean High Intensity. (Or in my case – Help – It Is Torture) A set on History followed. Yum yum! – said I. The swines only went and tuned it into a maths set – all the events mentioned happened in years when the final two digits of each answer were three times the first two. I confess, I was still working out the question as Bristol were picking off the answers. The two they gained meant that hey had just completed a splendid ten minutes’ work, and they led with 115 to 75, and all of the forward momentum.

Sam Woodcock recognised the work of an artist I particularly like, El Greco, for the second picture starter. In the bonus set of artists influenced by El Greco I was intrigued to see Jackson Pollack come up. Neither team recognised a description of the Ridgeway – who was the milkman for whom I used to work on a Saturday – apparently he also had a prehistoric trail named after him. Seb Priest took his first starter, knowing a group of words which all begin with sch in German. Remember Sch – you know who? Again, ask your grandparents. US States bordering Canadian provinces brought another full house, and with a score of 150, even if they didn’t answer another question, Bristol were guaranteed at least a repechage slot. Both teams were a little slow in recognising some well known titles of works by Aristophanes, so Sam Woodcock buzzed in to take that unconsidered trifle. Bristol couldn’t do much with SI derived units, but hey, they had a massive lead and weren’t going to lose now. Daattavya Aggarwal knew a frustum, a name absolutely begging for puns, as it happens. You somehow knew that bonuses on the Prix Goncourt weren’t going to help them very much. They didn’t. Poor Wolfson, they really didn’t have much luck the way that the bonuses worked out for them. Now , surely the Tritone Paradox was an episode of the third and final series of Star Trek (The original series)? Nobody had a Scooby about it anyway. Move on, Jez. Daattavya Aggarwal, playing a captain’s innings in the face of insuperable odds, knew the Lambda Constant (Which was DEFINITELY an episode in the second series of the original series of Star Trek. I remember it since it was the one in which William Shatner wore a syrup and snogged a lady in a dress made out of a couple of handkerhiefs. Why he was wearing a dress made out of a couple of handkerchiefs – that I don’t recall. ) Chinese history took Wolfson’s score to 110. Was it possible that they could yet claim a repechage slot? Well, their chances weren’t helped when neither team knew Limburger Cheese. That was it, since the contest was gonged before JP could finish asking the next starter.

A sterling fightback from Bristol. Hard lines for Wolfson. Had a couple of the sets of bonus fallen more to their liking they might well have made the repechage. Well, as we always say, them’s the breaks.

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

The device which looks like a lit matchhead on the flag of Grenada is actually a stylised representation of the fruit of a nutmeg tree.