University Challenge 2023: Quarter Finals stage - Southampton v. Durham

The Teams

Southampton

Ethan Lyon

Magda Steele

Dom Belcher (capt)

Elliot Miles

Durham

Harry Scully

Chloe Margaux

Alex Radcliffe (capt)

Bea Bennett

Well, if you read my preview you’ll know that despite Durham’s higher aggregate I fancied Southampton a little more. In all honesty, though there are four or five teams who there seems to be very little to choose between and both of these teams are in that category.

Now, if you’re asked for a type of igneous rock and you hear the name Aberdeen, just sling buzzer and answer granite. Harry Scully did just that, and it was enough to earn Durham a set of bonuses on literary titles containing the names of fruits. Which brings me to ask, did you know that Jane Austen’s working title for 'Pride and Prejudice' was 'Mr. Darcy’s Plums?' Shouldn’t think so since I just made it up. Durham took a full house. Neither team knew materialism for the next starter, and Dom Belcher lost five. However he more than made up for it knowing a whole slew of things which happened during the 1770s. Bonuses on UK National Parks brought a further 10 points. Harry Scully looked most disbelieving as he answered feedback inhibition to the next inscrutable starter- but he was right. The bonuses were on green tea. Now, I’m a teetotaller – I don’t touch tea and never have – so these meant little to me, and indeed both Durham and I only got the one. None of us recognised a Segre chart for the picture starter. Ethan Lyon won the buzzer race to identify the words ‘Only connect’ as having originated in Howard’s End – (a bit like Hayes End, only posher. Forgive me for a little West London suburbs reference there.) For the bonuses it was back to the Segre chart. I could tell you that I understood the questions, but that would be an utter lie and so I will suffice it to say that Southampton managed one. This meant that at the 10 minute mark Durham led by 40 – 30.

You had to really stay with the very long winded next question, but Ethan Lyon did and it enabled him to get the legal term mischief. Video game types were very much to Southampton’s liking, especially Elliot Miles and they took a good full house. Now, when asked for a Greek titan for the next starter I was pleased I had it after just one clue – NASA launch vehicles, and Dom Belcher got it from the North African mountain range – Atlas. The Solar System seemed to promise much, but delivered but little to any of us. I will admit that I took a lap of honour for knowing that the densest planet of the solar system is Earth and the least dense is Saturn (which would float if you could find a large enough body of water to put it in. Harry Scully applied a bit of a halt to the Southampton charge, knowing that Koumbi Sele is in Mauritania. Good shout. Philosophical terms beginning with ab provided just one bonus. For the music starter Ethan Lyon jumped in to identify the work of Wendy Carlos. Three more adaptations of classical works by electronic musicians followed. Hmm – electronic musicians? Androids, perhaps? Now, I am proud to say that I guessed Delia Derbyshire, who played the original and best version of the Doctor Who theme. So did Ethan Lyon, but that was the only one of the bonuses that any of us managed. For the next starter the mention of a world heritage site with Polder in the name really suggested Netherlands and skipper Alex Radcliffe thought so too. This earned Durham bonuses on animals, although they could only manage one of them. Which was one more than I managed. Right. You hear ‘painter’. You hear ‘Sondheim’ You buzz and the answer you give should be Seurat. To be fair that’s what Harry Scully did. Bonuses on mistral brought a timely full house that saw Durham retake the lead on the twenty minute mark with 90 – 85. Good match!

Alex Radcliffe extended the lead with Cream of Tartar for the next starter. Grammatical cases were not easy – I’ve never heard of the ergative case – but Durham still managed a full house. Southampton weren’t giving up though. For the second picture starter Ethan Lyon dragged his team back into contention by recognising the work of George ‘Who?’ Grosz. Work by other artists who were persecuted by the Nazis who branded their work degenerate proved too tricky to provide any more points. The gap narrowed further when Ethan Lyon took a piece of low hanging fruit, naming the Comedie Francaise. Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire brought the two bonuses they needed to draw level. I didn’t get the next starter, but then neither did either of the teams. It was ten to the power of nine if that helps. Me neither. Now, with regards to the next starter – who would you say is 3rd in line to the throne? Prince William is first in line to the throne, so surely Prince George is 2^nd? This starter said he was 3^rd, so I can only surmise that the show was recorded before the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Dom Belcher had it anyway. Capital cities that had taken over capital status from others brought a full house. So now Durham needed their own full house to draw level. Well, Alex Radcliffe knew Cosmic Microwave Background radiation for the starter. Goddesses in Virgil’s Aeneid only provided two bonuses though. This really was squeaky bum time. The next question asked Pepin the short was one of which dynasty – Dom Belcher won the buzzer race, but oh no, he answered Merovingian. Five points away and Harry Scully provided the correct answer of Carolingian. Two bonuses on the human muscular system gave Durham a 20 point lead. A full house would do it for Southampton but there was hardly any time left. As it was the excellent Harry Scully won the buzzer race to identify riboflavin as vitamin B2 – and that was the game. Durham won by 165 – 135.

A thoroughly enjoyable match. Durham have shown themselves to be a team of some substance, and Southampton are not out of it either. Southampton managed a 54.1 percent bonus conversion rate and Durham a 65.8 percent rate – both teams having the same number of bonuses. Well played both.

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

No. 1 on the Goodreads list of novels with fruit in their titles is James and the Giant Peach. Quite right too.

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 23

23 out of 24 down now, dearly beloved. By this time next week we can guarantee that we will have definitely seen the winner of this year’s Mastermind. Who that will prove to be, well, it’s a little early to start conjecturing on that.

So let’s instead concentrate on Catherine Sparks’ round on the Empress Matilda. I feared a little for Catherine when her first couple of questions went begging, but thankfully this was just a momentary blip and she soon began to knock most of what remained over the boundary rope. An interesting subject Empress Matilda. I wouldn’t claim to be a great expert on this particular phase of English history, but through a combination of sources, not the least of which were probably the Brother Cadfael novels I’d leaned enough in the past to take five of these. It’s been a  while since I failed to get a double figure aggregate on specialists but with that start I reckoned it was a good chance I could do it again.

Not that Geoge Pope’s round on Stevie Nicks produced many more correct answers for me. Well, the majority of these were on Stevie’s solo career and earlier career, while I’m strictly a Fleetwood Mac man, myself. George didn’t have any huge problem though. He pushed on to a good 9, which was only one or two answers short of being a very good round.

Of all the specialist subjects on offer during this evening’s show I was pretty sure that Rebecca Messina’s round on the What Katy Did Novels would bring me the least points. Well, I was right about that. I was explaining to a family member at the weekend that the lot of the quizzer is to know little bits about books they’ve never read, films they’ve never watched and music they’ve never listened to. Well, I’ve never read these books – in fact my lasting memory of them is an old Two Ronnie’s joke about a BBC classic serials season comprising of what Katy Did, What Katy Did Next, Who Did What To Katy and Son of Katy. Look, that was the sort of thing that passed for sophistication when I was growing up in the 70s. Rebecca knew her stuff, and managed a very respectable 8 points.

All of which left us Mark Rogers and Universal Frankenstein Films of the 1930s. I did enjoy these films when I was much younger, but even allowing for that I was amazed to get 7 of these, for my best 2023 unwikied aggregate of 14. Now, bear in mind that my combined aggregate for 4 specialists was just 1 point higher than Mark’s sore for his 1 subject and it will give you an idea of just what a great round it was. I love it when a contender gabs his or her subject by the scruff of its neck and gives it a good old thrashing and that is exactly what Mark did.

Rebecca, then, was five points behind Mark when we turned around and started heading for home. Despite this, she managed a very good double figure GK round. You know, it’s easy for me to sit here and tell you, in order to get a good score you play the percentages, trust your knowledge, and give the obvious answer because it’s often right. Yeah, it’s easy to do that, but you try doing it in the studio sitting in that chair. Well Rebecca scored 10 to finish with 18. Well done.

Geoge didn’t really do quite so well. He added a further 7 to his total. That’s perfectly respectable, but it meant that he finished on 16, a couple of points adrift of the total.

So to Catherine. Now, on the one hand she didn’t produce as good a round as Rebecca had done. On the other hand though she had a three point cushion from the specialist round, which proved to be decisive over all. Catherine scored 8, which was enough to take the lead by a point, although her reaction to a couple of the questions suggested that she may well have left a couple of points on the table.

The question, then, was whether George would score the 7 he needed for an outright win. Well that was answered in pretty quick time. Which led me to ask myself if he could possibly produce a GK round that was as impressive as his specialist. Well, for more than a minute and a half the answer was, most certainly he could. For the last part of the round he became a little becalmed and the answers dried up a little, but nonetheless he still added the best GK round of the night to the best specialist round of the night. Mark scored 11 for a total of 24.

I enjoyed that. I’d always far rather watch all 4 contenders give a good account of themselves in specialist than watch someone having a ‘mare. Well done Mark – best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Catherine Sparks	The Empress Matilda	11	0	8	1	19	1
George Pope	Stevie Nicks	9	1	7	2	16	3
Rebecca Messina	The What Katy Did Novels	8	0	10	2	8	2
Mark Rogers	The Universal Frankenstein Films of the 1930s	13	0	11	0	2	0

The End of the Streak

I don’t know if I should tell you this. Promise me you won’t be upset. Right, my winning streak has come to an end. It began in August 2021, when I returned to the quiz in the rugby club. It ended last night in the Gwyn Hall Movie Quiz. It was Musicals this time, and despite the Herculean efforts of our Musicals expert Fran we lost by half of one point. In a strange way I’m not sorry that the streak is over. You honestly can’t win them all. If I’m sorry for anyone it’s Fran. She played a blinder last night, supplying more answers than the rest of us put together, by several degrees of magnitude as well. Me? I think I managed two last night. I mean, I knew more than 2 answers, but there were only two which the rest of the team didn’t know. I dredged up from the dump bin of memory that A Chorus Line was directed by Richard Attenborough, and I recognised Good Morning from Singing in the Rain being played backwards. Sometimes though, it’s not your night. Not quite.

University Challenge Quarter Final Round Preview

Quarter Final Preview

Well, let’s try to pick the bones out of this, shall we? Let’s have a look at the stats :-

Does that help? Well, the picture isn’t necessarily as clear as it maybe looks. I have sorted the results according to the average score across the two rounds, or the 3 in the case of Newnham and Bristol. You’d maybe say that you can perm any four out of Durham, Robert Gordon, Southampton, Jesus and Durham to go through to the semi-finals. Hang on, though.

For a start, this doesn’t take into account the strength of the opposition. With all due respect to the teams involved, you’d have to say that Durham’s second round opponents really didn’t perform well, while UCL’s were one of the best teams in the whole of the second round in my opinion. Then again, let’s take Newnham. Their highest score out of their three matches is lower than the average score of all of the teams above them on the table. Their bonus conversion rate average is less than forty percent. You’d say they are highly unlikely to make it to the semis. Yet in both the repechage and the 2^nd round they strangled their opponents on the buzzer. They weren’t converting their bonuses very well, but they were keeping their noses ahead on the buzzer. Even Royal Holloway managed a 62.5 percent bonus conversion rate in their first round.

So where do I see the semi-finalists, then? At the risk of cursing their chances, Bristol have played three high quality matches so far, losing just the first of them. In every match so far they have managed a higher than 55 percent conversion rate. I’d be surprised if they didn’t get to the semis. I have to pick UCL as well. They have had two tough matches and won both. They are extremely consistent as well with the highest average bonus conversion rate of all 8 quarter final teams.

As for the rest, well, working my way down the table, Durham could do it because they’re sharp on the buzzer. They are one of the more likely semi finalists from the other 6. I worry about Robert Gordon’s conversion rate, and I do wonder if they will find the other teams too hot to handle on the buzzer. You have to respect their average score, but I would be a bit surprised if they make it. Southampton look a pretty useful each way bet, although there’s really not a great deal to choose between them and Jesus, Oxford. Neither of these would be a great shock. I have Newnham and Royal Holloway as underdogs, but then as we say, matches aren’t played on paper. Best of luck to all of the teams.

University Challenge Second Round: Durham v. Bangor

The Teams

Durham

Harry Scully

Chloe Margaux

Alex Radcliffe (Capt)

Bea Bennett

Bangor

Gus Bastiani

Ethan Silcocks

Laura Lloyd-Williams (Capt)

Roy Pounder

The Tale of the Tape

Durham 195 – Bristol 185 – Bonus conversion 56.7 percent

Bangor 135 – Nottingham 12 – Bonus conversion 33.3 percent

Well, dearly beloved, the first round stats do make it pretty clear that it always looked as if we were in for a fairly comprehensive Durham victory. It looked even more so when you consider that Durham had to beat the impressive Bristol outfit. On paper, a clear win for Durham. However, UC matches aren’t played on paper, are they?

Laura Lloyd-Williams clearly hadn’t heard that her team were supposed to be the underdogs for this match when she buzzed in fist to say that warning signs on British roads are triangular. When JP announced that the bonuses wee on fictional clubs I did wonder whether Drones and Diogenes would be rearing their venerable heads, but no. It was nice to see Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers getting a shout out. Bangor managed just the one – maybe they might have known Lord Peter Wimsey. Bea Bennett, Durham’s literature student leapt in on the next starter, recognising a reference to King Lear. The mathematician Hilbert, who is also a Scott Adams cartoon strip, saw mathematician Alex Radcliffe take a good full house for his team. For the next starter Ethan Silcocks took an early buzz to identify the word conjugation from a scientific definition. If we’d got onto Latin verbs I might have had a sniff. Staple foods of the tropics (a hazelnut in every bite?) brought one bonus. To be fair, it was one more bonus than I managed. So to the picture starter. I was pretty pleased with myself that I guessed the location of the World Heritage Site, built in the 19^th century, on the map of the UK shown would be Saltaire. I was even more pleased when neither team got it. For the next starter once it was clear that we were dealing with a film which has for a long time been viewed as extremely racist it was always going to be a buzzer race and it was Harry Scully who won to give us the answer ‘Birth of a Nation’. The picture bonuses did, as I expected, give us New Lanark, Port Sunlight and Bourneville, but Durham missed out on a full house by giving us Port Sunshine by mistake. Non uniform curvature of the cornea – began JP. “Astigmatism!” I shouted and set off on my lap of honour around the living room before anyone pointed out that since I suffer from it then I hardly qualify for a Science lap of honour for it. Harry Scully took that one for a starter double. Durham wen on to take a brace of bonuses on Mary “Hoots, mon, where’s ma heid gone?” Queen of Scots. Now, the Warden of Goldsmith’s College during my first year, Richard Hoggart, described Middlemarch, the answer to the next starter, as the most perfect 19^th century novel in English. Mind you, he also described Mastermind as a most ridiculous programme as well, so there you go. Bea Bennett recognised Miss Brooke as the heroine. Astronomy sometimes provides me with points and both Durham and I managed the last one, knowing quasar is derived from quasi-stellar. This took us to just past the 10 minute mark, and with the score at 80 – 30 in Durham’s favour there seemed to be fairly ominous writing on the wall for Bangor.

Now, if you get a question which contains the name Sir Stamford Raffles the answer will either be London Zoo or Singapore. If, as in the case of the next starter, the question contains the word island as well – well, you don’t need me to draw you a diagram. Neither did Harry Scully. Roman Provinces followed, but Durham couldn’t convert any of them. Japanese traditional form of drama is either going to be No or Kabuki – and if the question asks fo the fist two letters it is going to be kabuki. Alex Radcliffe had worked his out and gave the right answer for the next starter. Mythical Beasts again saw them fail to trouble the scorer, which can’t have been doing much for their bonus conversion rate. Nonetheless they were eating up all the starters. Nobody recognised The Rite of Spring for the music starter – have these people never watched Fantasia? – so the bonuses rolled over. For the next starter it fell to Harry Scully – going great guns with the starters on this show – to identify Alexis Kivi as a Finnish writer. Sadly Gus Bastiani lost five through an incorrect interruption. Nonetheless this was the right thing to do. You have to do something to try to break up the other team’s momentum when you’re in Bangor’s position, and that means taking a flier on something you just might be able to guess. This time it didn’t come off, that’s the way it goes. Durham earned bonuses on works using two sets of timpani. They didn’t recognise any of them. Me neither. Alex Radcliffe knew that SHM – which was also a lad’s mag, wasn’t it? – stands for Simple Harmonic Motion. A set on Werner Herzog again saw them fail to answer any. This was becoming a habit. Poem – village station – you hear those words and you do what Bea Bennett did. Buzz and answer Adlestrop. John Major did provide them with ne correct answer. This meant that they led by 135 – 25 at the 20 minute mark. Mind you, considering that they had answered every starter except the music one in this 10 minute period, 55 points really wasn’t much of a return. Better than Bangor’s though, for they had sadly lost 5.

Was there any way back? It looked unlikely. Still, Roy Pounder offered a glimmer of hope knowing that Peter the Hermit, as well as having a hit with I’m Into Something Good, was a leading figure in the First Crusade. Chloroform did none of us any favours as the bonus set, though. So to the second picture starter, and Van Gogh’s painting of the yellow house in Arles, where he stayed. Gone now, I’m afraid. Harry Scully snapped up that particular piece of low hanging fruit. Paintings from between 1910 and 1930 brought two bonuses. The excellent Harry Scully knew the term sarco for the next starter. Bea Bennett’s eyes lit up as JP announced bonuses on flowers in Shakespeare. They managed the one. For the next starter Bea Bennett worked out that if it’s a symbol used in both religion and heraldry it’s most likely to be a cross. They took one of a gettable set on US place names with the word Fort at their head. I haven’t studied German, but I know enough to know that our word dream shares the same derivation as trauma so my guess that the German word for dream begins with tr seemed a decent shout. This was confirmed by Alex Radcliffe as he gave the same answer. Chess notation provided them with a full house. GOE – if you have to guess a chemical element in the atmosphere which this one refers to you’d go with O for oxygen surely. That’s what Harry Scully did to take his penultimate starter. More astronomy saw me get a rare full house, and Durham take two. Still no gong to save Bangor. Harry Scully took an 8^th starter with Kathryn Bigelow and at last, after a missed bonus on writers with three letter surnames that was it. Durham won by 240 – 35.

Right, what can we say about Bangor? JP probably said it best with words to the effect of – look, you got to the second round, and nobody can take that away from you.- As for Durham, well, they were so much faster on the buzzer than Bangor that the result was a foregone conclusion from pretty early in the contest. I‘d worry about their bonus conversion rate of 41.8 percent but they did a lot better in the first round, so who knows? It’s all down to how you perform on the night, or in the case of the quarter finals, the nights.

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

Fleuy, Moline, Bottony, Pommee and pattee are all words that can be used to describe crosses.

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 22

Only 2 more to go after this one, dearly beloved. Since I haven’t mentioned anything prior to this post, I think I should say that I hadn’t even looked at the website before watching. So even if I had wanted to do the wiki challenge, I had no idea what the specialists were. Still, it meant I was going for a hattrick of unwikied double figure aggregates. Ooh, it’s exciting, isn’t it?

The Plays of Tennessee Williams, as answered by Shaun Cairns, didn’t really promise a bumper crop of points. Under the circumstances, then, I was pleasantly surprised to get 3 of them. Poor old Shaun himself only managed 4. It was difficult to see exactly why he didn’t do better, mind you, it must be hard for a graduate student to find the time to revise. It’s not a disaster, but the poor fellow looked absolutely devastated as he returned to his chair. At the end of the day, it’s only a game, as the great Magnus himself said on more than one occasion.

Rema Wilkins was answering on US First Ladies since 1945. Now, I don’t claim to know a massive amount about the First Ladies. I do, however, know quite a bit about their husbands and it turned out that this would be enough to get me a pretty useful five on the round. Two rounds down and the aggregate was already 8. Ream did a lot better with a praiseworthy 9, so at least she would be in the shakeup after the half time oranges had been handed out.

I also knew next to nothing about NBA MVP winners since 2000. This time there was nothing I did know about which could help me very much and so I failed to add to the aggregate. Ronan McKenna on the other hand provided the best specialist round of the night. I know nothing about basketball, or next to nothing, but I found Ronan’s round of 10 to be pretty impressive. It only yielded 10 marks though, while I thought it looked a point or two better than that. Well, that’s the way it goes.

Stephen Finn’s Mithridates the Great actually did hold up hope that I’d get the couple that I needed for double figures. I didn’t know that much about the lad himself – that’s Mithridates, not Stephen – but I do know just a bit about the last century of the Roman Republic, and that was enough o bring me three points and an aggregate of 11 for specialist. I’ll settle for that. Stephen managed 9 points, and so obviously knew his stuff. One point then covered the top three at the half time turnaround. All to play for.

Heaven knows Shaun Cairns gave it his best shot. He tried, in fact he tried so hard you could see him getting annoyed with himself when he gave a wrong answer. 6 points behind is a hell of a long way to come back from though. At least a valiant effort gave him 11 points and the brief lead. As we’ve seen a number of times this series, when it’s not your night, then it’s just not you night.

I thought after a few questions that it wasn’t going to be Rema Wilkens’ night either. Yet she rallied, steadied the ship n adjust kept taking each question on its merits and taking he points where they were there to be had. Yes, she gained 8 which didn’t necessarily look like a winning performance, but I just had the feeling that this would be one of those shows when there was something in the air, something infectious which was going to strike throughout the GK round. 17 probably wouldn’t be enough . . . but then it might.

Well, no, it wasn’t. Stephen Finnhad begun his round on 9, just as had Rema, but it was a bit of a struggle for him on the way to getting the 9 he needed to take the lead by one point. There were some long pauses, and sometimes these can be disastrous for the contenders. Yet he did manage to keep going, and breasted the tape just before the white line of death encircled the score.

So this put the task facing Ronan McKenna into fairly simple terms. He needed 8 and 1 pass or fewer to win. 8 and 2 passes would mean a tie break, and anything less wouldn’t be enough. Remember that I said a moment ago that there was something in the air in the GK rounds? Well, poor Ronan took the full brunt of it. Once he got stuck after a couple of questions he just couldn’t build up any momentum at all, and the answers came singularly, and sporadically. By the time the white line was on its way round, it was too late for him to get the 8 he needed. In the end he added 6 to his total.

So, commiserations to the other contenders but to Stephen, the spoils. I wish you the very best of luck in your semi final, sir.

The Details

Shaun Cairns	The Plays of Tennessee Williams	4	0	7	0	11	0
Rema Wilkens	US First ladies 1945 - present	9	0	8	1	17	1
Ronan McKenna	NBA MVP Winners 2000 – present day	10	0	6	0	16	0
Stephen Finn	Mithridates the Great	9	0	9	2	18	2

 

Brought to you by the Department of How The Hell Did I Miss That?

I have no idea how I managed to miss this last Apil when it started. I don’t listen to Radio Four as much as I used to and so I suppose that is something of an excuse. However, miss it I did and I can only apologise. Yesterday I was painting, and I went on BBC sounds and searched quiz. What should come up but Paul Sinha’s Perfect Pub Quiz. You can find it using the link below.

 Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz

It's a little gem, is this. Each show is a combination of the Sinnerman’s wit, some great trivia questions, some of which are provided by Paul, and some by his audience. There’s also some really interesting trivia, most of which I’d never heard before. If you love quizzes – and I respect fully suggest that you might be reading this blog by mistake if you don’t – then if you’ve never listened to the show before you should do yourself a favour and check it out. It’s great.

University Challenge 2023: Round Two : Christ's, Cambridge v. Southampton

The Teams

Christ’s, Cambridge

Isaac Jackson

Hollie Wright

Chris Talbot (Capt.)

Abhimanyu Gowda

Southampton

Ethan Lyon

Magda Steele

Dom Belcher (Capt.)

Elliot Miles

The Tale of the Tape

Christ’s – 150 – Oriel, Oxford – 130 Bonus Conversion 48.1 percent

Southampton 210 – Balliol, Oxford 115 Bonus Conversion 52.7 percent

So looking at the form book, dearly beloved, there seemed to be a slight advantage to Southampton. More than that, their comfortable margin of victory over a Balliol side that had a higher than fifty percent bonus conversion rate of their own suggested that they had been good on the buzzer. Time would tell.

Poor Hollie Wright buzzed early for the first starter just as JP was saying the word which showed her that her answer of Guernica was right. Given the whole question the answer had to be Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival for films on LGBT topics got me 1 correct answer with Pedro Almodovar but film student Ethan Lyon took a good full house to give Southampton a flying start. Now, a salted cod in Portuguese I guessed would be the same as in Spanish – bacalao – and so I guessed the three letters we were looking for to answer the next starter were bac. I was right too. Chis Talbot needed a few more clues before buzzing in, but then I guess he probably doesn’t have a mother in law living in Spain like I do. Constellations brought just the one bonus. I thought that the quotation for the next starter sounded like Aristotle (who was a b*gger for the bottle, by the way) and so did Dom Belcher. He was right. Questions on Cumbria did none of us any good. On to the first picture starter. I recognised the outline of the Korean peninsula but just didn’t know that the island to the South was called Jeju Island. Hollie Wright did. More islands that contain their country’s highest peak brought just the one bonus. Let’s not pretend that I understood the next question which sounded like Geometry, or Maths or both. The answer, as provided by Dom Belcher was 3 anyway. Biology bonuses saw me happy to take a lap of honour for knowing that haemocyanin uses copper. And I thought about taking a second lap for guessing carbon monoxide for the second. After these bonuses Southampton lead by 55 – 25.

I’ll be honest I was struggling to make much headway with a lot of the starters, so I was very pleased when I guessed that SR – which was also the product advertised in the first ever TV advert in the UK – stands for stimulus response in SR theory. Magda Steele came up with the same answer to widen the Southampton lead. I’m sorry but I didn’t know Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa (Bet you thought I was going to say Maria Who). She provided Southampton with a correct answer. The next starter was obviously a sports ball of some kind, but which sport? Dom Belcher zigged early with cricket and lost , allowing Abhimanyu Gowda to zag with tennis bal. This earned Christ’s bonuses on Welsh spelling. This excited Swansea’s Hollie Wright. I knew the ch, diolch, and the double ff – although Christ’s didn’t (not a fan of the Ffestiniog Railway, obviously) and yes, I took a full house as I had double D’s (supply your own innuendo please). Oh good, I enthused sarcastically as JP asked the next starter, - more Science. Didn’t understand neither question nor Dom Belcher’s correct answer – Acetylcholine. Gesundheit. The Ancient Greek explorer Pytheas brought one bonus. I couldn’t say anything. For yours truly it was an evening when the questions just really didn’t as a whole suit me that much. So to the music starter. A rush of blood to the head saw Dom Belcher buzzing far too early, allowing Christ’s a free shot, but none of us recognised the work of Debussy. Dom Belcher and I both identified Middlesbrough from the description in the next starter. This earned So’ton the music bonuses.3 more works that are the only examples that a composer completed in a particular genre of form did not sadly include Mozart’s only rugby song. I wondered if we might get a bit of Fidelio but no. One bonus was taken. Chris Talbot knew that Man with a Red Turban was one of Van Eyck’s greatest hits for the next starter. Indian cricket stadiums earned two correct answers. Dom Belcher knew the Cliffs of Moher for the next starter. Book title bonuses brought enough points to mean that Southampton led by 110 – 65 at the 20 minute mark. Not over yet, certainly.

Neither team dredged up the word ruminate for the next starter. Hollie Wright recognised a couple of the most spoken languages in Afghanistan. Period 3 elements brought a timely full house and narrowed the gap to 20. I knew that the term taw is in marbles, but that clue didn’t help either team to get the next starter. Cluse pointed to nearest, earnest and eastern for the next starter. Needing only one of them Dom Belcher took the points with eastern. Paintings of nurses yielded nowt. But crucially the starter meant that Christ’s would need more than one visit to the table. The photograph for the second picture starter showed us a Nobel prize winning scientist, Billy Bragg, and his nobel prize winning son, Billy Bragg. Alright, they were both called William, but I’d like to think that they were better known as Billy. Elliot Miles took that one. Other parents and children who both won Nobel Prizes yielded no points. However it did run the clock down and for a team in the lead this was almost as useful. Dom Belcher pretty much sealed the deal, knowing the Clay Mathematical Institute (did it change its name to the Ali Mathematical Institute?).British monarchs and Chinese dynasties bumped up the score nicely. Asked for an Assyrian capital, nobody else buzzed so Dom Belcher took another starter with Nineveh. 2 bonuses on cetaceans added a little more gilt. That was that, though. JP asked a starter, but nobody answered it correctly before the bell. Southampton won by 175 – 90.

Hard lines to Christ’s, who quite simply were outbuzzed, although they were by no means outclassed. Southampton, whose captain Dom Belcher scored a magnificent 9 starters, did well, although they had a conversion rate of forty two point four percent which isn’t that great. Mind you I thought it was difficult tonight, so go figure. You pays yer money . . .

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

Gandhi’s Salt march began in Ahmedabad

Mastermind 2023: First Round Heat 21

There’s a lot to talk about from tonight’s show, dearly beloved, so let’s get cracking, otherwise I might find myself giving away too many spoilers in the opening paragraph.

So Matt Carter kicked off with U2. 80s survivors, not unlike my good self, when you get right down to it. I’ll be honest, while I like U2, I can’t in all honesty describe myself as any kind of fan, so I was resigned to slim pickings, or more likely no pickings at all from this round. In the end I was lucky to get 1. Matt, at one point, looked as if he was knowledgeable enough to go clear through the round. Well, it didn’t quite work out like that, but he still managed a double figure score. Well done!

Wendy Knipe was answering on toy dog breeds. Well, I used to watch Crufts on the telly every year, but that’s about the length of my knowledge on this topic. Which makes it all the more remarkable that I still managed to pick up a couple. Paled into insignificance when compared with Wendy’s own performance. She went one better than Matt had done, scoring 11. Again, very well done.

Now, as little as I know about toy dogs, I know even less about toy Mitfords. Or so I thought. As it turned out though, I do know at least a bit about the times, and the literature of the times of the Mitfords, and this brought me a surprising four points. Suddenly I was on 7 overall, and with my ‘banker’ round yet to come I reckoned that a second consecutive double figure aggregate might be on the cards. A double figure score was exactly what James Beeby, whose round it was, scored. He too gained 11 points to share the lead with one contender left to go.

Hannah Loxton was answering on “Guest Stars in “Friends”. That’s the kind of round that is always a lot harder than it looks on paper. So having said that, I did managed five of my own points, for another good specialist aggregate of 12. As it worked out, most of those points I took were also taken by Hannah, and she did a little better with 6 points. Still, it does illustrate the difficulty of the round.

Moving on then to the GK round, I wasn’t counting any result out after what we saw last week. Just as well too, for Hannah, undaunted by the stress of her Specialist round, returned to the chair and pretty much smashed her GK. Anything, and I repeat anything in the teens in the current era is good going, and Hannah kept her composure, played the percentage answers where she was guessing and took 13 points to set the target at 19. Even though all three of her fellow contenders had posted double figures in GK, I murmured to myself – well, she won’t finish in fourth with that total.

Nor would she. Matt returned next, and he started brightly enough, taking the first two. After the first half dozen though he seemed to lose all momentum. There were more correct answers, but these were sporadic, and time was against him. Even so he was inching closer to the total until the last few questions stopped him completely in his tracks. Look, it happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it when it does. Matt scored 7 to end with 17.

It’s funny how lightning can strike twice in quick succession. Wendy’s round bore a strange resemblance to Matt’s. Neither of them answered particularly quickly, and both of them started off comfortably and looked as if they would get there with some time to spare. In Wendy’s case the answers began to refuse to jump off the tip of her tongue, and I dare say that even some of her correct answers ended up costing her the chance of an extra couple of questions. She too scored 7, and ended one short of the total.

Surely, I mused, surely we weren’t going to have the winner of the show come from being well behind at half time for the second show in a row? Well, not quite, no. However it was remarkable to see how James Beeby had a bit of a wobble after scoring 7 to take him to 18 - it seemed like ages before he had another correct answer. However, once he’d surmounted that obstacle he went on to put daylight between himself and the chasing pack, finishing with 11 to take him to 21.

Another exciting show. Well done to all, and James, best of luck to you in the semi final.

The Details

Matt Carter	U2	10	1	7	3	16	4
Wendy Knipe	Toy Dog Breeds	11	0	7	4	18	4
James Beeby	The Mitford Sisters	11	0	10	2	21	2
Hannah Loxton	Guest Stars in Friends	6	3	13	1	19	4

 

Mastermindy Stuff

Just in case you were thinking of taking the wiki challenge, tomorrow night’s subjects on Mastermind will be U2, toy dog breeds, the Mitford Sisters and guest stars in Friends. I doubt very much that I will wiki. Still, if I did, the last one looks the least wikiable, but then it would probably prove to give me my best chance of success unwikied.

In the SOBM (Season of Blessed Memory) of 2007, one of the contenders in my first round heat, Stacey Mitchell, answered on the life of Jennifer Aniston – you can see the Friends connection I’m sure. Ironically, I only much later found out that Stacey is in the same Amateur Dramatic group as my best friend from University. Small world. Stacey received some very unfair online comment along the lines of being allowed to take Jennifer Aniston as a specialist subject was proof positive that the show was dumbing down. Never mind that as well as Jennifer Aniston, the other subjects on the same show were The Life and Career of Henry Ford, German Wines and Frida Kahlo. I don’t know, I just enjoy the irony.

Now, I’ll be honest, my TV and radio quiz career has been on hiatus since my 2014 tilt at Fifteen to One. I can’t see myself applying for another TV quiz, at least not while I’m still dragging out my career as a teacher to the bitter end, but I certainly wouldn’t say that I’ll never apply again. Last Monday’s Mastermind winner, Anna Milford Goldstein made her previous appearance on the show as long ago as 1976, as Anna Goldstein. Now, I can’t say whether Anna has appeared on any other quiz shows during the 47 year gap between appearances, but even if she has I find it a little bit wonderful that you can appear on a TV show, maybe not do as well as you hoped (I think Anna said that she’d come third in her first show) then, the best part of half a century later come back and have another go on the same show and win your heat. There are many things that make Mastermind special to me, and this is another of them. I’d love to hear just how things have changed on the show since 1976 (series won by the great Roger Pritchard, first person to have won both Brain of Britain and Mastermind). So Anna, while I doubt you might ever read this, if by any chance you ever did, I’d love it for you to drop me a line and let us have your views.

I’ve lent my DVD showing my appearances in the 2007 SOBM to my teammate Adam. No worries, he’ll give it back. I was interesting talking to him about it on Thursday night when he said that watching it has made him decide that he is not going to apply to go on the show. He gave the impression that he’d only ever said he would as a bit of a joke anyway, but if he had ever meant it, then my DVD has put him off. I’m not sure entirely how I feel about that. I really wouldn’t like to feel that I’m responsible for putting people off from applying for the show. After all Mastermind relies on having contenders willing to do their best to learn at least one specialist subject and to put themselves through what can be a rather stressful experience. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to think about just what you’re putting yourself up for if you do apply.

Let me state my current way of thinking about this. If you appear on Mastermind, and you have a low score on Specialist or General Knowledge it signifies one thing, and one thing alone. It signifies that you probably didn’t know many answers to that particular set of questions. Honestly, that’s all. I learned over 1000 questions for one of my specialist subjects, but you can bet your life there were at least a dozen questions I didn’t cover which could have theoretically been asked. I’d have been scuppered then. Likewise, General Knowledge, everyone on this planet has more than a dozen things they don’t know. You see where I’m coming from.

Unfortunately it’s easy to make hurtful comments and hurtful assumptions when contenders don’t score very highly. I would love to hear from any of the contenders in this series whose scores have been modest, about their experiences on the show, yes, but also about reactions after the show, although I quite understand any contenders who found themselves in this position not really wanting to discuss it again. I always hope that everyone who is brave enough to appear on the show enjoys their time and takes comfort from knowing that they’ve done something that only a few people ever get to do, whatever the scoreboard might say. But I don’t know. I can only hope.

University Challenge 2023 Second Round UCL v. Newcastle

The Teams

UCL

Rachel Collier

Michael Fleetwood-Walker

James Salmon (capt)

Louis Collier

Newcastle

John Ingham

Tom Speller

Sam Keay (capt)

Elizabeth Lamb

The Tale of the Tape

1^st Round

UCL 180 – Sheffield 170 – 70.3

Newcastle 195 – Open University 115 Bonus conversion 63.3

Yes, that makes interesting reading doesn’t it, dearly beloved. Two teams with excellent bonus conversion rates, and one of them would be home before the postcards. Hardly seems fair, but that’s tournament play for you.

Rachel Collier (mother of Louis Collier of the same team) was first in to identify Ovis Aries as a ram. This earned bonuses for UCL on the poetry of WB Yeats. Now you’re talking, says I – yum yum, yes please. UCL took two, but possibly should have known gyre from “The Second Coming” – it’s a pretty well-known poem. Skipper James Salmon knew transaction costs for the next starter, and then a good full set on Mount Semeru. Tom Speller earned his ‘one decade out’ T shirt for the next starter (Oh, come on, you must know Popmasters on radio 2) allowing Louis Collier (son of Rachel on the same team) to identify 1730s as the decade that saw Robert Walpole move into 10, Downing Street. Bonuses on George ‘Who’ Gamow saw the first one earn me my lap of honour around the living room. Lemaitre ?– oh well, said I, gotta be the Big Bang Theory. And it was. Paled into insignificance next to the full house that UCL earned, though. So to the picture starter. A map of the counties of England as they were following the 1972 reorganisation saw Michael Fleetwood – Walker identify Hereford and Worcester, although he did get a telling off for saying Hereford and Worcestershire. Three more counties created at the same time which have since been abolished brought a couple of bonuses. We were some way short of the 10 minute mark, and UCL already led by 90 – 0. At this point they did falter a little, though. A chemistry starter saw captain Jamie Salmon in with a wrong answer allowing Sam Keay, his Newcastle counterpart in with the correct – or at least acceptable – answer of hydrogen oxide. Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci brought two bonuses and it meant that the scores were 90 – 20 to UCL as we approached the ten-minute mark.

I don’t claim to have understood the next question but Sam Keay, who now seemed set on hauling his team back into contention said it was gravitational lensing. Hey, that works for me. It worked for him too as it earned Newcastle bonuses on three word alliterative expressions. ‘Veni, vidi, vici !’ I shouted to nobody in particular. This is why they won’t watch UC with me. That one didn’t come up and like Newcastle the only one I knew from the others was Wee Willie Winkie. John Ingham knew the prefix meta for the next starter, and Newcastle were eating up the gap. Zoology questions brought them a timely full house which did even more damage to the UCL lead. Now, I don’t often get music starters, so when a lady came on singing in German, sounding suspiciously like Lotte Lenya, I bit the bullet with Kurt Weill as the composer. So did Rachel Collier, and we were right to do so. More songs from the Threepenny Opera recorded at a later date by other artists brought one correct answer with Marianne Faithfull, while I took one for Bobby Darin. I can’t claim to know a great deal about philosophy, but I knew who wrote The Subjection of Women. Neither team could dredge up John Stuart Mill (who, incidentally, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill). James Salmon knew that the ash is one of the species of British tree with pinnate leaves, the rowan being the other. Places associated with Mary Wollstonecraft brought just the one bonus. The only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Neptune was a bit of a naughty question. I mean it was obviously Ceres which is always within the orbit of Neptune, but then Pluto does cross inside Neptune’s orbit for part of its own orbit too. Sam Keay was in like lightning for that. The financial crisis of 2008 provided a full house. James Salmon, having a good evening on the buzzer, came in early to supply the word gaucho for the next starter. White blood cells could only bring them a single bonus. Again, James Salmon struck on the next starter with Public Lending Right. Bonuses on Susannah Clarke were enough to bring the score to 155 – 85 in favour of UCL as we approached the 20 minute mark. Looking pretty clear cut, you think?

Sam Keay stuck early to identify 1974 as one of the 20^th centuries years of 2 elections – 1910 being the other. British rivers sharing their names with animals did none of us much of a favour though. So to the picture starter. In all honesty I don’t recall having heard of a Barcelona chair before, neither, I think, had either team. So the pix rolled over while Tom Speller worked out that a Queensland hairy nosed could only realistically be a wombat. This earned the poisoned chalice of the picture bonuses. I answered Eames for all three and was right with the last. John Ingham knew that Queen Vic’s youngest lad was called Leopold for the next starter. Irish history saw them miss one of the set, but what they did get put them just one full house behind. Again the Newcastle skipper went early to identify the city of Persepolis. London Prisons left them just 10 points adrift, with all of the momentum. What a great buzz from inspiational captain Sam Keay to identify Meitnerium as the only element named solely after a female scientist. European history failed to supply the bonus that would have given Newcastle the lead. A Thomas Hardy quote looked to be hinting at Shakespeare. Louis Collier zigged with John Donne allowing John Ingham to zag with Shakespeare. A full set would leave UCL needing more than one visit to the table. Novelists yielded just one, but even so a fifteen point lead with hardly any time left looked good. If they could just take the next starter . . . It fell to Louis Collier who knew that Tom Daley and Mattie Lee won gold from the 10m platform. Borneo brought a full house, and the lead. If Newcastle could take the next starter – ah, but it was gonged before JP had finished asking it.

Newcastle, I’m very sorry that you didn’t quite do it. You would, I dare say, have won several of the other 2^nd round heats. All I can offer is the cold comfort of having made a wonderful fightback. As for UCL – congratulations – it was won, for my money, through achieving a 66.66 percent bonus conversion rate. Newcastle’s was slightly less than 50 percent. A really good show, that frankly deserved to have happened in the quarter finals, semi finals or final.

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

Meitnerium is the only element named SOLELY after a female scientist.