University Challenge 2023: First Round heat: Bangor v. Nottingham

The Teams

Bangor

Gus Bastiani

Ethan Silcocks

Laura Lloyd-Williams (Capt)

Ro Pounder

Nottingham

Karen Moran

Will Noble

Robert Allen (Capt)

James Hadland

Eyes down for a full house then, and away we go with the twelfth first round heat of this season’s University Challenge. A miniscule knowledge of Greek was enough to make me think that the person whose name means ‘famous in her father’ might well be Cleopatra. Ro Pounder took a little more of the same question and came up with the same answer and we were both right. Bonuses on scientific awards were not exactly full of Eastern promise for me, yet my correct guess of enzymes for the first set me off on a very early lap of honour. Get it while you can, that’s my philosophy. Bangor managed that and one other. Nice to see them having a Ddraig Goch as their mascot too. Ethan Silcocks knew that circular argument is a type of fallacy for the next starter. The bonuses were on the Great Gatsby. Confession time. The Great Gatsby was the favourite novel of my girlfriend at Uni prior to me meeting Mrs. Londinius, but I never really thought that much of it myself. Hence me only getting 2 of them. ”Holtzman drives – “ began the next starter and I yelled “IT’S DUNE!” Sorry. I first read it when I bought a paperback copy in Shepherd’s Bush Market when I’d just turned 16 and I’ve loved the book ever since. The sequels? Meh, not so much. Robert Allen took his team’s first points with that one. Tripoints in Australia sounded a wee bit tricky, but bearing in mind there aren’t that many states or territories it proved surprisingly easy to pick up a full house. Nottingham managed two. So to the picture starter, and a picture that none of us managed to identify as a lenticular galaxy. Gesundheit. This was followed by the good old chestnut about Baily’s Beads and Robert Allen took his second starter knowing it occurs either side of a total solar eclipse. Galaxy photo bonuses followed, of which Nottingham identified 2. Essential oil – toothache – and – dried bud gave me cloves and it did the same for Gus Bastiani as well. Pairs of people sharing a given name yielded just a single bonus. So at just after the 10 minute mark, after a brisk opening the score stood at 45 – 40 to Bangor.

Noe, I will be honest. With the next starter I leapt in far too early when asked for a temple complex, zigging with Angkor Wat. Only to hear JP add that it was on a small island. Oops. Nobody knew that this was Borobudur. Now if it’s a question about a poet and he was mates with Coleridge, chance your arm with Wordsworth and you’ll be right more often than not. Ethan Silcocks certainly did. Sidney Poitier is a subject I must know more about than I thought I did, since I full-housed, but Bangor were unable to take any of the set. The term lagomorph escaped both teams for the next starter. Will Noble knew that the Emperor Meiji was the great, great grandfather of Naruhito. One bonus on medicine levelled the scores. Soon as the next starter mentioned a mountain in the Karakorum I went for K2 – (which was named after the 7x great grandfather of Doctor Who’s dog) Ethan Silcock won the buzzer race once the answer became obvious. Books by the journalist Peter Who? – or Peter Oborne as he is more politely known – saw another bonus set go begging. A lonely harmonica lament came over the airwaves for the music starter. None of us recognised the theme from Once Upon A Time In The West. Glory be, I got a Maths starter right! I worked out that the sum of the two lowest three digit primes is 204. So did Bangor skipper Laura Lloyd-Williams. Three bonuses on other film themes with harmonica suggested  Midnight Cowboy might feature and indeed it was first, swiftly followed by Jean de Toilette as I once heard it called, then Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Bangor – once again, nul points. Ro Pounder impressed by giving the full name of Lord Salisbury when the next starter asked who was the Prime Minister at the start of the 20^th century. Bob’s your uncle. US TV shows set in Philadelphia finally brought Bangor a couple of bonuses. The Nottingham skipper struck back with the next starter knowing that the name linking a cycle race and a US president was Keirin – just checking you’re awake still. No, it was of course Madison. Bonuses on glucose brought just the one correct answer. Still, it meant that for all their superiority on the buzzer, Bangor only led by 95 – 70 at twenty minutes.

A gorgeous starter saw Karen Moran identify that DIX is 509 in roman numerals or 10 in French. South East Asia provided Nottingham with 2 bonuses. When asked which British reformer, named after the city of her birth – I came in with Florence Nightingale. You see, hardly anyone in the UK was named Florence until she became famous. My grandmother’s aunt was named Florence after her, and my grandmother was named Florence after her auntie. Laura Lloyd-Williams had that one. A fine UC special set on contronyms provided a fairly easy full house, which gave Bangor the benefit of a 30 point lead which Nottingham would need two visits to the table to overturn. For the second picture starter the Bangor skipper correctly identified a photograph of Bath. Other real locations mentioned in the works of Jane Austen only yielded one bonus, but the clock was running down, and the smart money was on Bangor to cross the line first. Will Noble knew that the kitchen on an airplane is a galley. Novels from the early noughties did nothing to help the Nottingham cause. Nobody knew the anopheles mosquito. Robert Allen worked out that giga x milli = mega. Not arguing with that – couldn’t if I tried. John William Waterhouse, the artist, only provided one bonus, but if Nottingham managed a full house on the next set, then it could give them the lead. Well, Robert Allen did the first part of the necessary by correctly answering Einstein for the next starter, but Nottingham failed to get any of the bonuses on Olympic Mascots. That looked like the game to me, especially when neither team managed the next starter. That was it. The contest was gonged with the score at 135 to 125.

It was an exciting show – well done to both teams on that. However, the bonus conversion rate was low for both teams – Bangor will want to do a lot better than that in the second round in order to have a chance of making it to the quarter-finals.

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

Anopheles – as in the anopheles mosquito, comes from the Greek for useless.