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