University Challenge 2022 - Round 2: Exeter v. Imperial

Ah, the resumption of University Challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I watched and enjoyed the Christmas series, but I also found myself getting a little frustrated with it. I’d say that the great and the good who populated the teams weren’t many of them quizzers. Oh, and while it was nice to see Goldies playing, it’s a shame that being a Mastermind winner doesn’t qualify you for an invite to join the team. Sigh.

Well, let’s get on with last night’s second round match. Exeter University won their first round match against Manchester by 130 – 80.

Exeter

Ollie Kirwin

Jefferson Ting

Jacob Evans (Capt.)

TJ Alabi

Imperial broke the 200 barrier in their 210 – 155 victory over St. John’s Cambridge. St. John’s were good enough to reach the repechage.

Imperial

Max Zeng

Fatima Sheriff

Michael Mays (Capt.)

Gilbert Jackson

Form wise, Exeter’s first round performance didn’t look that impressive compared with Imperial’s. However, their win was a win over Manchester, who rightly take pride from their UC pedigree. So, I wasn’t counting them out before the start. On the other hand though I did write after their first round match that Imperial’s was a strong performance, and looking back they were one of the more impressive teams in the first round.

The Details

A rather soft starter saw Michael Mays identify the given name Charlotte from one clue (murderer of Marat). A full set of bonuses on world rivers were knocked off quickly. I didn’t know the answer to the next starter until JP mentioned furniture beetle, which must mean woodworm, I reckoned. I guess that Gilbert Jackson meant the same thing, but after he buzzed in the answer came out ‘wormwood’, which is actually something different – it was originally used to flavour absinthe. So this lost , but Exeter couldn’t pick up the dropped fruit on this one. Now, for the next starter, I knew that Olivia Newton-John’s grandfather won the Nobel Prize, but crucially I didn’t know the old chap’s name. TJ Alabi chucked Max Born’s name on the table, which was a very sensible thing to do, it being the right answer. Exeter were given a set of bonuses on plants. Knowing that the gymnosperms that have been around since the Jurassic are cycads, I was happy to award myself an early lap of honour around the sofa. I also knew that the maidenhair is also known as the gingko, but that’s a bit of an old chestnut, and certainly not worthy of a second lap of honour (thank God, since I was knackered from the first.) Sadly Exeter didn’t pick up any of this set. Speaking of chestnuts it took an awfully long time for either team to chance their arm at the actress who won the 1940 Oscar for her role in Kitty Foyle. Given the whole question, both teams sat for a moment before Gilbert Jackson chanced his arm with a speculative but correct answer of Ginger Rogers. That wasn’t quite so much of a chestnut as the three questions on FA Cup firsts that followed. Lacking a football fan among the team, Imperial failed to add to their score. For the picture starter, both Max Zeng and I were in very quickly to identify the city of Portland being indicated on an outline map of the USA. I knew the state was Oregon, so went for the largest city in the state. Other cities which are known as the City of Roses, like Portland is, allowed Max Zeng to show remarkable skill at identifying cities – the only one I could identify before he did was Bloemfontein. None of us knew that 76 percent of the world’s chlorine is Chlorine 35. There you go. Max Zeng correctly guessed that the US sporting trophy named after the son of a British Prime Minister was the Stanley Cup. Sadly, Imperial knew as much about knitting terms as they did about FA Cup finals. Alright, I didn’t know the first two either, but I did guess CO must be cast on. This meant that as we approached the 10-minute mark, Imperial led by 65-10, but they’d not really been firing on all cylinders on the bonuses yet.

Max Zeng picked up on a description of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and correctly identified the Cotswolds. Imperial picked up two of a rather gentle set of bonuses on film collaborations between Scorsese and De Niro. Now, I know that hexadecimal has something to do with computers, and it is base 16. That’s it. I haven’t a clue how you’d work out what number is AA in hexadecimal, but neither had either team, so it seemed. A fine buzz from Jefferson Ting saw him identify the Kingdom of Bohemia within the Holy Roman Empire. A set on Geology brought Exeter their first bonus of the evening. This brought us to the music starter. We heard Elvis Presley, and Michael Mays recognised that this was indeed the King of Rock and Roll. However, he suggested that the song was Blue Suede Shoes. "No!" I shouted at the telly, "It’s ‘All Shook Up.’" Exeter’s answer was even further off the mark. Michael Mays won back the music bonuses knowing the term augmented reality. 3 more songs also either written or co-written by Otis Blackwell followed. I recognised the dulcet tones of Jerry Lee Lewis, passed – as did Imperial- on Del Shannon, and of course knew Peggy Lee on Fever. This chap Blackwell had some serious songwriting chops. Several homophones gave Max Zeng the Greek letter Rho. Bonuses on Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia saw a lot of discussion but it was productive as Imperial took a full house on the set. Right, you know how this works – you hear ‘Greek philosopher’ and ‘Alexander the Great’ in the same question, then you slam the buzzer through the desk and answer ‘Aristotle’. Well, he didn’t slam the buzzer, but TJ Alabi certainly gave the right answer. Jefferson Ting showed that bonuses on Asian cities with 3 letter names were very much his forte, taking the full set for the team. Fatima Sheriff showed very good knowledge of Dickens to identify Poverty and Riches as the titles of the two halves of ‘Little Dorrit’. (Brief pause for a Two Ronnies joke – ‘Later we interview a man who attended the Charles Dickens nudist weekend. Her set off with great expectations, but it was a very bleak house and nobody was impressed with his little dorrit.’ Apologies) Bonuses on malnutrition – honestly – brought two more correct answers. Fair play to Exeter’s Ollie Kirwin who knew that an amphidromic point has no tides. Which means that the old Ealing swimming pool in Longfield Avenue next to the town hall was an amphidromic point, I guess. Skipper Jacob Evans seemed to roll his eyes at the news that they had earned themselves bonuses on opera. Understandably so, considering that the bonuses brought them no further points. So, just seconds short of the 20-minute mark Imperial led by 140 to 55. All over bar the shouting. Well, that’s how it looked.

Ollie Kirwin took his second consecutive starter by recognising a photo (an old photo according to JP – well we’re none of us getting any younger Jez, as a quick glance in the mirror will confirm) of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. 3 more winners of the Royal Designer for Industry Award. A full house put them just 20 points adrift of a triple figure score. However the next starter saw master Geographer Max Zeng in very quickly to identify the names of some of the Aleutian Islands. The first bonus on Physics had the wonderful answer 'yoctograms' – which is a word I would definitely like to use more in conversation. Imperial took one bonus with our old friend, the Boltzmann Constant. Now, if you’re asked who wrote something in the 1640s, then just answer ‘Milton’. It won’t always be right, but you’ll gain a lot more points than you’ll lose by giving that answer. Neither team gave him as the answer to the writer of the 1644 ‘Areopagitica’. The answer to the next question – gravitational waves – was given by Michael Mays – the Imperial skipper was having a very successful evening. However the set of bonuses on the novels of John Irving passed them by. What do you know about hectoseconds? Me? Nowt. However, when asked how many hectoseconds are in an hour I thought – well, there’s 3600 ordinary, garden variety seconds in an hour, so let’s either add some noughts or take some off. I took two noughts off, and what do you know – 36 was right. I didn’t take a lap of honour – though in truth I thought I deserved one. Neither team quite had it. Neither team knew that the process developed by Alan Tring to help break the Enigma code was named after the town of Banbury. Asked what takes its name from a Greek word for Wanderer, Michael Mays was first in with ‘planet’ to grab that particular piece of low hanging fruit. Chemical elements brought a further two correct answers, but to be honest we were at the stage where any correct answers just added a little more gilt to the Imperial score – the game had been effectively over for several minutes. None of us knew Thwaites and the Doomsday Glacier – weren’t they also a lesser known Britpop band of the mid-90s? I didn’t know the terms acrolect and basilect, but the - lect morpheme was enough to tell me we were talking about language.  Max Zeng was close enough with dialects for JP to give him the nod. Glacial features (my primary school teacher, Miss Forsey had those) saw Imperial answer moraine for each of the three questions, and get rewarded for their efforts on the last. Michael Mays took his 5^th starter – one behind Max Zeng’s 6 – knowing that Drumnadrochit is a settlement close to Loch Ness. So the Imperial score clicked over through the 200 barrier, just as the gong reverberated. The final score was 205 – 70.

Hard lines to Exeter. They were outbuzzed and it’s just one of those things. As for Imperial, this was another strong performance, although a bonus conversion rate of just a smidgen less than 50 suggests there might still be more in the tank.

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

The Stanley Cup is named after the son of the 19^th Century British Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby. Me, I hoped it was named after Stan Lee.