University Challenge 2023: First Round : Coventry v. Cardiff

The Teams

Coventry University

Dino Buratti

Kirsty Harrod

Aksshat Goel (capt.)

Meredith Whiting

Cardiff University

John Wimperis

Will Balkwill-Western

Zoe Revell (capt.)

Ella Freeman

Is UC going to remain the filling in the Quizzy Monday sandwich? Who knows. That was what it was yesterday anyway.

So off we go. Newbies Coventry and oldbies Cardiff both failed to spot that the Mato Grosso amongst other areas is in Brazil. Dino Buratti took first blood for Coventry, knowing that Kings Cross serves 6 separate Underground lines. Bonuses on well known bridges on the National Cycle Route 1 was right up my street. Or my cycle route. Coventry took a couple, but not the only bridge of the 3 that I’ve cycled over, Rochester Bridge. Varieties of crocus didn’t help any of us for the next starter. Will Balkwill-Western began a good evening’s work on the buzzer, knowing that South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate. The Science bonuses that followed brought me an early lap of honour for knowing phlogiston. And once I’d phlogged my way around the sofa, Cardiff had taken two of the bonuses to level the scores. Kirsty Harrod, like me, knew that if it involves the words zenith and showers it’s probably meteors for the next starter. Bonuses on editions of the Legend of Zelda saw me answer ‘Ocarina of time’ to all of them and get one right. Coventry got another one as well, which brought us up to the picture starter. Shown the flag of a capital city because it had stars I guessed Washington DC. I don’t know if John Wimperis was also guessing or if he knew it, but we were both right. 3 more brought me correct answers for Berlin and Amsterdam, both of which I’ve visited since turning fifty, but I wasn’t yet 20 the last time I was in Rome so I missed that one. So did Cardiff. Will Balkwill-Western knew that William I was responsible for the Harrying of the North. Well, I mean, he didn’t do it all himself, he had soldiers for that, but it was under his orders. Virginia Woolf quotes about other writers – rather bitchy too – saw Cardiff fail to add to their score. Could have done better with at least one. Still, with 10 minutes on the clock they had moved into the lead with 50 – 40.

Me, I’ve never heard of the Maillard reaction – sounds like what you get when you mention orange sauce to a duck – but it was enough to give Zoe Revell the next starter. A rather innocuous set on the Incan Empire provided us both with a full house. John Wimperis knew that if it’s a renaissance scholar from Rotterdam, it’s gotta be Erasmus. Bonuses on people who shared their names with SI units brought another couple of bonuses to lead us into the music starter. Kirsty Harrod was very quickly in to identify the work of Ariana Grande, a diminutive chanteuse of some repute, so I’m told. A rather tenuous connection of the bonus was that the title of the track in question was written with only lower-case letters, as were the three bonus tracks. Coventry took a timely two. I didn’t know that Cotelettes is the French name for that musical piece we call Chopsticks. Neither did either team. Nobody got Kevin for the next starter despite fairly obvious clues. Zoe Revell was quickly in to identify Melon as the (in my opinion) unwanted flavour of Midori. I was pleased to take a full house on post war monster movies – Cardiff managed just 1 but they were in triple figures and stretching the lead.Will Balkwill-Western took his next starter on some chemistry thing. Bonuses on capital cities brought a brace on a rather tricky set. Right, when JP read the start of the next starter, “What Arabic term, meaning ‘In the name of God’” did you leap up and sing “Bismillah! No! I will not let you go!” No? Please yourselves. I did. Sadly, nobody in either team did. French phrases beginning with ‘coup’ gave John Wimperis his 3^rd. Sports at the Tokyo Olympics only brought them 1 bonus. Which was neither here nor there since they led by 145 to 60 as we approached 20 minutes. Game over, I’m afraid.

My principal of answering 0 or 1 for maths value questions went wrong for the trigonometry starter that followed, since the answer was 2. Neither team got it. Will Balkwill-Western knew that Cerberus is one of the moons of Pluto named after multi-headed creatures. Artistic movements saw them miss the old chestnut of the Blue Rider, but Dadaism and Impressionism stretched their lead to over 100. For the picture starter Will Balkwill-Western took a fifth starter, recognising a naked mole rat. Other species that have been around for what I believe is scientifically called a bloody long time brought another two correct answers. Neither team got the next starter on species of cat. Ella Freeman recognised characters from Two Gentlemen of Verona, meaning that all four of the Cardiff team had correctly answered at least 1 starter. Us Secretaries of State brought, well, nowt I’m afraid. I thought they might’ve had Madeleine Albright. The discovery of a meteorite supposedly containing Martian microfossils sounds like it inspired Dan Brown’s Deception Point – neither team knew it happened in Antarctica. Zpe Revell knew films directed by Akira Kurosawa. Science bonuses all beginning with the same letters – which turned out to be eme – weren’t exactly hard, but bugger it, it’s so rare I get a Science full house that I took another lap of honour. Cardiff took a couple. Nobody knew the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf. Will Balkwill-Western took a 6^th starter, knowing various tests for the hardness of minerals. Funnily enough the ‘It it wiv an ’ammer’ test wasn’t one of them. The History of Science saw Cardiff gave them 2 bonuses, but we don’t talk about Giordano Bruno, and they missed that one. The gong sounded just before they were credited with the last one. Which didn’t matter a jot as they won by 230 – 50.

There was no point telling Coventry that they might come back in a repechage, and JP to his credit didn’t, merely thanking them for playing. It was a very good performance from Cardiff, and I shall look forward to seeing just how well they can do against stronger opposition in the next round.

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

Jeanne D’Arc is a variety of crocus