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.