University Challenge 2024 Quarter final round - Trinity , Cambridge v. The Open University

The Teams

Trinity, Cambridge

Sarah Henderson

Agnijo Banerjee

Ryan Joonsuk Kang (Capt.)

Jeremi Jaksina

Open University

Ellie Romans

Mike Holt

Ann Gavaghan (Capt.)

James Davidson

Here we are again, dearly beloved, racing through the byzantine intricacies (as JP once put it) of the quarter final round. The fixture computer had thrown up a match between the winners of the 2 repechage matches, an interesting matchup that I found difficult to call. I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the International typographic style, but Open skipper Ann Gavaghan knew it was from Switzerland to take the first starter. The Asian financial cash crisis of the late 90s (as opposed to the continuing Clark financial cash crisis of the last 6 decades) brought just the one bonus, although the Ringgit was certainly gettable as a bit of an old quiz chestnut. Jeremi Jaksina buzzed in too early for the next starter and lost five, putting Trinity into the red. He’d get over it. I don’t think Ann Gavaghan knew the term primate city ay more than I did but clues like – archbishops – and mammals like lemurs gave us both the answer. Bonuses on Stevie Wonder brought me a full house and Open two correct answers. Strangely, they weren’t asked which single was accompanied by a video showing pieces of flying toast. It was I just called to say I love you. Fair play to James Davidson for giving the correct answer of Ann Radcliffe to the next starter, which seemed to be tempting the contenders to answer Jane Austen. Greek mythology is a useful subject to know a bit about if you’re a quizzer, so it was disconcerting to see the Open only manage one bonus on female characters in “The Trojan Women”. The next starter wanted the name of a tree and when Amol said the word pedunculate I bet quizzers around the country screamed OAK! in unison. Both teams held their nerves until Mike Holt chanced his arm and earned his team their fourth consecutive starter. Economics for bonuses then. I have a rough rule of thumb. If a question asks for a British economist from the 20^th century I answer JM Keynes. If it asks for an earlier British economist I answer Adam Smith. Well, the first bonus asked for Keynes and the third asked for Smith! Mind you, when it asks for an American economist I always answer Milton Friedman and that was wrong! Open gave the same answers I did. This brought us to the picture starter and already Amol was feeling the need to gee up Trinity. It worked. We were shown a map of a British city with the areas of green spaces highlighted in, er, green. Jeremi Jaksina weighed up what we saw and correctly deduced that this was Liverpool. Three more cities followed. Believe it or not I recognised Edinburgh from the coastline, but not the other two. Trinity missed this one but did recognise Bristol. Jeremi Jaksina took his second starter on the bounce when he recognised a definition of the word investiture. The chemistry of pine trees was an unexpected subject for their bonuses. It brought them a full house, whatever the case. Agnijo Banerjee recognised the words of Wittgenstein, the beery swine. British thinkers of the early 20^th century brought two more bonuses which meant that the Open lead had been cut to 20 as the score stood at 70 – 50 in their favour.

Having weathered the initial Open onslaught Trinity continued taking the starters as Jeremi Jaksina correctly answered that the fresco being described in the next question was painted by Raphael. Altogether now – he could paint well considering he was a turtle. That’s Raphael, not Jeremi Jaksina. Stock characters of the Italia Commedia del’Arte followed. After getting the first one wrong, Trinity followed the time-honoured tactic of, if you don’t know anything much about the subject, then give the one answer you do know to each question in the hope that you’ll get one of them. Thus they answered Harlequin to the last two, but missed out. Ellie Romans was quickly in to answer that the two wars named after specific peninsulas were the Crimean and Korean. Cultural creations featuring in 2001: A Space Odyssey brought just the one bonus. Fair play, I didn’t get the composer either. – Astronomer – 1967 – two word term – YIPPEE! I shouted – it’s black hole! (It’s always black hole for this type of question) and I was off the sofa on my lap of honour even before Amol confirmed that Agnijo Banerjee was right to give the same answer. My exercise for the night week having been completed both Trinity and I took a full set with household insects. Like the household cavalry but smaller. This gave Trinity the lead for the first time in the contest. Ah, the music starter, and what was described as a jazz artist. One of us got it right, even though it was a ‘jazz’ artist I’ve actually heard of, Gregory Porter. My favourite starter of the night followed. Name the two countries that are members of both the Commonwealth and the EU. Both teams fell into the trap of counting the UK as one! (Alright, so did I). The answer was Malta and Cyprus. Brilliant question. James Davidson knew that Orkney and Shetland passed to Scottish control in the 15^th century, This brought the dubious reward of the jazz bonuses. None of us knew any of these. I’m afraid the next starter was completely unfathomable to me. Gawd knows how, but Ryan Kang worked out that the day after Tau day is 28^th June. No, me neither. Literary theory and criticism brought me nowt, but then I only spent three years at Uni studying literature. Trinity took one. I spent no time studying Geology but I still knew a drumlin when I heard one described for the next starter – but neither team did. The next starter asked for a North America transport hub. I had a feeling for Grand Central Station in New York and James Davidson thought so too. That earned the Open a set on Renaissance Popes. They zigged with Medici on the first when they should have zagged with Borgia but took the other two which gave them back the lead. I did not understand the incomplete next starter. I say incomplete because Jeremi Jaksina buzzed in with the correct answer of island while the orchestra was just starting to play the baby elephant walk in my head. Trinity didn’t get any of a gettable set on that old devil, Abel Tasman. This meant that both teams were level on 115 as we passed the 20-minute mark.

Squeaky bum time, then. Which team could take a decisive advantage on the buzzer? Ann Gavaghan took the next starter by recognising a photo of Mary Quant, not just a great designer but also a good score in Scrabble. More fashion designers brought a timely full house. It looked even better for the Open when Mike Holt buzzed in early to identify the Doppler effect. A full house on video games followed. Suddenly the Open had a fifty point lead. Could they take the next starter? Yes, they could. Ellie Romans gave the French city of Nice to earn a set on SI Unit prefixes. Ann Gavaghan’s body language showed her disappointment as Amol announced this set. When you’re 60 points ahead at this stage, and you haven’t got a Scooby, the sensible thing is to run the clock down a little. Ann Gavaghan had honourably been snapping out the bonus answers quickly and continued to do so with this set, but it brought no correct answers and meant that there was still time for Trinity. Really and truly Trinity had to get the next starter and in the shape of Jeremi Jaksina who gave the correct answer of Sassanids, they did. Perennial favourites the Pre Raphaelites brought two correct answers. Captain Ryan Kang also sapped his answers out quickly, but it made sense in Trinity’s case. Jeremi Jaksina’s tag team partner, Agnijo Banerjee came in with the answer constellations – Cepheus and Cassiopia featuring in the next starter. Bonuses on the mammalian heart (a lesser know 1970s prog rock group, I thought) brought just the one bonus and Trinity were still a full set behind. I knew that Praia is the capital of the Cape Verde/Cabo Verde Islands. Neither team did. Mike Holt came in too early for the next starter and lost five. A full set for Trinity would put them in the lead. Science maestro Agnijo Banerjee took the starter with Alkynes. Only one bonus on peat bog bodies (Pete Bogbodies was the original bass guitarist with Mammalian Heart, and Al Kynes was his replacement, I believe) left Trinity just five points behind. Not to be denied Agnijo Banerjee took a crucial starter on vitriol to put Trinity back in front. Cartoon catchphrases brought just the one bonus – with Trinity suffering from a lack of familiarity with Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies from Warner Brothers. Gawd knows what the next starter was all about but Sarah Henderson came in early with the correct answer of ternary form and to all intents and purposes, that was the game. The contest was gonged before they could answer the first bonus. Trinity won by 190 to 170.

A very good game, and really there was only a cigarette paper between the teams. Trinity had a BCR of 45 and Open had a BCR of 50. In the end that final burst of buzzing created just the tiniest bit of daylight between them. I’m glad that we’ll see both of these teams again.

Amol Watch

I can’t swear to it that 7 minutes and 10 seconds is the earliest that Amol has yet offered encouragement to a team but it’s pretty early. Mind you, bearing in mind what Open did in their last match – racing off to a unassailable lead – I don’t blame him.

At one point during the household insects set he referred to the answer given – yes, bed bugs, nasty little brutes, aren’t they? – I’m sure that they speak very highly of you, Amol.

With the EU/Commonwealth question Amol’s “I’m presuming you guys have all forgotten about this thing called Brexit.” was maybe a little smug, but totally forgivable in the context of the question. Oh and while we’re on the subject of smug, Amol – here’s nothing ‘mere’ about A level physics, as those of us who never even got close to an O Level in the subject will gladly admit.

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

A city that is overwhelmingly larger than any other city in its country and dominates that country’s political and economic life, for example Mexico City, can be called a primate city.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

First, a major contributor to the aroma of Christmas trees is the compound pinene which occurs naturally as alpha-pinene and beta-pinene. What name is give to the family of highly aromatic hydrocarbons that includes the pinenes?

Mmmm, pienenes! Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2024 First Round Heat 22

What a show! Last night, certainly on BBC2 Wales, we were made to wait for Mastermind until 10pm, but it was worth waiting for. Before that, though, many congratulations to the Thrifters, who won last night’s Only Connect final on the very last of the Missing Vowels round. Brilliant play from both them and also the gallant Also-Rans.

So to Mastermind. You know I enjoy all editions of regular Mastermind, but there’s something special about a show in which a contender gives a real virtuoso performance. Even more so when two do.

First into the chair was Stephen Dodding. I’m sure we’ve met, at a quiz grand prix quite a few years ago. Stephen is a very experienced – and very good – quizzer. He was answering on the medieval cathedrals of England. I suggested that this might be my banker round when I wrote the preview, and that’s exactly what it proved to be. Questions like the Lanfranc one contrived to bring me four points. Pretty decent. Stephen, on the other hand proceeded to answer every single one of his questions correctly. 12 from 12. I’m enough of a veteran viewer of the show to know that anything can happen so I knew we shouldn’t say that it was game over at this point. Still, it certainly put Stephen into pole position.

If Laura Cooney was daunted by Stephen’s performance she certainly didn’t show it. Laura was answering on Dolly Parton. As I asked in my preview, who doesn’t like Dolly Parton? I certainly like her enough to have managed two points on this round. I got the gimme on the quote about looking cheap and more impressively I also remembered from a Graham Norton documentary that Dollywood is in the intriguingly named town of Pigeon Forge. Laura, just like Stephen before her, slammed in a superb perfect round of 12 from 12.

Dan Hudson was part of a winning team on Eggheads some time ago, so he has TV previous. Dan was answering on the Life and Works of Alfred Wainwright. In my preview I could not see any way I was likely to score any points on this round and that prediction at least was accurate. In another first round show, Dan’s double figure round of 10 would have been the star turn of the specialist round. As it was this put him 2 points behind in third place.

Omer Hamid was the last contender to brave the specialist round last night, on the political career of RFK – Bobby Kennedy in old money. General knowledge and good guessing brought me an unexpected three points on this round. Not quite enough to get me into double figures but I was more than happy to take the money and run with 9 points for my specialist aggregate. You have to feel for Omer. It can’t have been easy, sitting, waiting, watching while the three other contenders all threw in very high scoring rounds. Put simply, it just wasn’t Omer’s night and he scored 4.

Only Omer could say whether this was playing on his mind in the GK round. In the middle he fell into a little bit of a pass spiral but at least he had the determination to pull himself out and keep on to push himself into double figures. He ended with a total score of 11.

And so to Dan. Right, up until this show the highest combined score of this series was 27, and the highest general knowledge score was 16. I think that maybe three contenders had reached a total of 26. Dan threw in a wonderful GK round and ended with his own 16 for his own 26. Putting that into perspective, that would have been good enough to win at least 17 of the 21 shows so far in this series. It was that good a round. He got into a rhythm and when you do that Clive tends to speed up his delivery, and the score just keeps climbing. How would this affect the two contenders yet to come?

Well, Stephen was starting two points to the good. 14 and no passes would be enough. I would imagine that this is the sort of total Stephen can always get watching at home but doing it at home and doing it in the chair can be very different experiences. Can be, but not in this case. Stephen gave no hint of having the least bit of difficulty in giving us the best GK round of the series so far, as he passed Dan’s total and ended with 17 for a grand total of 29. In the current era scores this high are very rara aves indeed. A brilliant performance.

If I felt sorry for Omer earlier, I certainly felt sorry for Laura Cooney as she approached the chair for her round. She needed to score 17 and no passes just to force a tie break. Fair play, she gave it a good go, but judging by the round her general knowledge is good, but not superb enough to challenge Stephen or Dan. Laura scored a good 11 to finish with 23. A score that would have won a dozen of the previous heats but was only good enough for third last night.

This, dearly beloved, is the way it can happen with tournament play. As far as I know there is no seeding in Mastermind. The production team look to combine subjects that will make a good show with something of interest to as many viewers as possible. The repechage places were a good way of ensuring that potential finalists did not slip through the net, and there are series winners who took this route. I myself was a highest scoring runner up when there were no repechage places, although I am arguing against myself a little considering that I came back and won the very next series.

Stephen then. His love of the show and pure delight at winning a heat shone through his piece to camera at the end. Well, I’ve learned not to make predictions that can come back and bite you on the bum, so I shall content myself with saying that, Stephen, should you read this, that was a masterful performance. I have taken my metaphorical hat off to you, my metaphorical socks having already been blown off.

The Details

Stephen Dodding	Medieval Cathedrals of England	12	0	17	0	29	0
Laura Cooney	Dolly Parton	12	0	11	2	23	2
Dan Hudson	The Life and Works of Alfred Wainwright	10	0	16	1	26	1
Omer Hamid	The Political Career of Robert F. Kennedy	4	2	7	3	11	5

Mastermind 2024 Heat 22 Preview

Here’s the specialist categories for tomorrow night’s 22^nd heat of Mastermind. They are – the medieval cathedrals of England, Dolly Parton, the life and works of Alfred Wainwright and the political career of Robert F. Kennedy.

There’s not a lot there for me. Looking down the list I really don’t have a banker subject there. I suppose that if I had to show preference then it would probably be for the cathedrals, but even then I can’t see me getting more than a couple. Dolly Parto? Well, you’re always I with a chance of 1 or 2 in a celebrity round, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a huge fan. I mean, yes, I like her – who doesn’t like Dolly Parton? – but I only know the most well know songs. Never read anything written by Alfred Wainwright and never been to the Lake District. I don’t recall ever getting an answer right when this has been a specialist subject in the past either. As for RFK, well, it’s the kind of subject where I might scrape a point through general knowledge.

To rota or not to rota? Some thoughts.

I mentioned in my previous post that last night Dan was question master for the rugby club quiz, and next week will be his wife Jessica, my daughter. What I didn’t mention was that in a fortnight it will be Adam from our team as well. Now, bear in mind that the only other more than once a year setters are Dai Norwich, Howard, Anne, Paul and . . . er. . . me. So as a team, we provide half of the regular setters.

This led to Adam and me discussing this issue last night. You see, as many of our gentle readers will know, putting a quiz together for an evening can be enjoyable, but if you’re taking care and doing it properly it takes time and care. As I’ve often said, when you do take time and trouble over it you can still end up making mistakes, but when you take the time to do it as well as you can you’re much more likely to give people a better evening’s entertainment. All for a round of drinks.

Of the five regular teams, four of them supply a question master from time to time. Adam raised the point of view that it would be better and fairer if there was a rota system and each team took it in turns to provide the quiz. I’ve written about this before, I recall, but coming back to it my answer is – yes, in a perfect world. But it’s not a perfect world. In our particular circumstances there are problems with a rota system.

One of them is tradition. We’ve never had a formal rota system and we’ve never insisted that every team produce a quiz. Now, I’ve been to quizzes where the setters volunteer, like ours. I’ve been to quizzes where it’s understood that all teams take turns to set the quiz. I’ve even been to quizzes where it’s understood that the winners set the next week’s quiz. There’s good things about each of these, but the main thing is, that it’s understood. I don’t think, after all these years, you could change things just like that. I may be wrong but I’m guessing that at least some of the regulars would say that what we’ve been doing for the last 30 odd years has worked perfectly well, so why change now?

Another of them would be the effect. Dai Norwich is worried, not without reason, that this might put people off from coming, if by doing so it commits them to compiling a quiz. We’re pretty stable with five teams, but if even two teams stopped coming, then I think it would kill the quiz.

Even if all the teams agreed – and I don’t think for one minute it would work unless we all discussed the idea and agreed unanimously – even if we did I think there might still be some problems. Making a quiz is a craft. No, listen, it is. It’s not just a matter of slinging down 80 questions onto a piece of paper. The way we do things in the club is we allow anyone to make a quiz. This means that every now and again, someone different will have a go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes they produce something which really isn’t at all enjoyable. But if it’s only once a year, you can live with it. When it’s more regular, though, well, what happens is what happened with Reg.

Reg was a lovely fellow. He was a regular member of one of the teams. Out of the blue one day he asked Brian, the organiser at the time, if he could be question master. As per established practice Brian agreed, and Reg did his quiz. It really wasn’t very good. Nothing daunted Reg persisted. Did his quizzes ever get much better? No. Did his quizzes get any more popular? Very much so. Not because of the questions. Reg was very inaccurate, added to which he was a notorious malaprop, and so you were always guaranteed some unintentional laughs. I say unintentional, but after a while I began to suspect that Reg was doing some of them deliberately.

Whatever the case, Reg became popular, and people looked forward to his turn as a question master. Now at that time I was far more critical of question masters at the club than I am now and Reg’s quizzes were lots of the things I hate. Thankfully as soon as I saw how much people were enjoying his evenings I decided to keep my opinions to myself.

I was not the only one, though, who did not like the actual quizzes that Reg compiled. Actually, I say quizzes, in the plural, but . . .  We all reuse questions from time to time, but Reg took this to absurd extremes. In particular he had one photograph handout which he continually reused. There was one particular photograph and Reg would always say it was someone different. It started off as Whitney Houston, then next time he announced the same picture was Naomi Campbell, then the next time Beyonce. I think at one or other point he may even have said she was Julia Roberts, Dame Judi Dench and Benjamin Disraeli.

As I said, there was a regular team who didn’t see the funny side of this. They too thought in their hearts of hearts that his quizzes were lazy, slapdash and far too inaccurate and we noticed that they stopped coming whenever it was Reg’s quiz.

We can argue about whether they should have done this or not. Still, what would worry me would be that if someone who didn’t want to compile a quiz and was only doing so because it was their team’s turn would produce a similarly bad quiz and so teams might vote with their feet every time this team set a quiz.

As always, just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

About that Music Round . . .

It was Dan's quiz at the club last night. If you're a regular you'll know that Dan resurrected the music round a couple of years ago and it's very much his trademark when he's the QM now. 

Like all good quiz masters Dan is self critical. Dan usually tries to vary the themes of his music rounds, and last night he told me that he thinks that the round which worked least well was the 8-Bit round. You know what I mean, instrumental versions of 10 well known songs, as they would sound being played on an 8 bit computer. I really enjoyed it, but as question master you are in a good position to pick up what different teams are saying and get a feeling for the vibe. Other teams, it seems, didn't enjoy that round. I could hazard a guess as to why. The average age of the players in the other teams means that this generation of computers and early consoles came along too late for them. 

Well, as I say, I love Dan's music rounds, which is a little surprising considering that I did not used to like the music rounds we used to have in the club. When I started going to the club way back in about '95 we had a semi regular QM called Alwyn. Alwyn was a very nice guy. He would only do a quiz once every few months and for most of the time he would have a music quiz. Each would have a theme, like - all of these songs have a colour in the title. My problem was that Alwyn had a fondness for songs from the 50s and early 60s, many of which I'd never heard of. Today, I'm happy to sit back in the film quiz in Neath, and let others who know a lot more than I do take care of a round where my input, like it or not, is going to be minimal. I've mellowed over the years, you see. But back in the day it used to frustrate the original 'this is a life or death struggle' version of me as a quizzer.

Back in the present day - well - yesterpresent day to be precise, last night's music round was 10 well known songs as interpreted by a mariachi band. Good idea. And it produced the very best kind of question, the kind where you wrack your brain, then, just at the last minute your memory says - look, I've dredged this up, it's probably not right but I haven't got anything else so if you want to go for it, it's . . . You write it down and it turns out to be right. It was interesting which songs were instantly recognisable and which songs weren't. 

I hope Dan won't mind me mentioning this now. It was a really good quiz, but there was a little unintentional humour a the end. When Dan came to make the traditional announcement of next week's quiz master, he forgot that next week is his wife Jessica's turn! 

Well done again Dan - it's a strong start in the race for his year's LAMMY for achievement in quiz mastery.

University Challenge 2024: Quarter finals stage - Sheffield v. Imperial

The Teams

Sheffield

Safiya Rujak

Joe McGough

Cameron Colclough (Capt.)

Matthew Nail

Imperial

Justin Lee

Adam Jones

Suraiya Haddad (Capt.)

Sourajit Debnath

Do you remember life between 1988 and 1993? Wasn’t winter awful without University Challenge? Quizzy Mondays are like a wonderful present to the viewer from the Beeb. We had a great Mastermind heat to start, then a superb Only Connect third place play off where both teams impressed the hell out of me, and now UC. Our cup overflowed.

Down to business, then. Amol helpfully informed us before kick off that Imperial boasted an average score of 270 to 210, which made them look like favourites. Still, the tale of the tape doesn’t always tell the whole story.

The key to the first starter about the artist Castiglione was the mention of his painting on silk after he left Italy. Both Justin Lee and I guessed China, and Imperial were on their way. Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo who was not the Middleweight champion of the world in 1993, surprisingly, but an author, provided an early full house for Imperial, and gave them the opportunity to invent the adjective griffiny. I invite all readers to use that one in conversation. Cameron Colclough knew that the Williams Formula 1 world champion whose son also became world champion in 2016 was Keke Rosberg, and now Sheffield were off the mark too. One bonus on a tricky set about phonetics followed. Cue the first Science starter. Look, I have a very different idea of what a scintillator might be from Sourajit Debnath, he was right and I wasn’t. Some unfathomable maths things provided Imperial with another full house and me with a lap of honour. The last bonus asked for the name of a Dutch mathematician, and Huygens was the only one I could dredge up. Good enough. No cigar for Imperial failing to recognise Carlos Menem as a former Argentinian president which allowed Matthew Nail to take his first starter. A set on the Jewish Festival of Hannukah gave me a full house but only 1 to Sheffield. So to the picture round showing the route of an ocean current. Mattthew Nail recognised the Agulhas current – very good shout, that. The bouses showed 3 more currents and the only one any of us knew was the Gulf Stream. I’ve never heard of Hedonic Calculus, but Mathew Nail had and I’m not arguing with him. That and one bonus on notable banquets meant that by the ten minute mark, Sheffield had become the first team to lead Imperial in this series – 60 – 50.

That’s enough of that – thought Sourajit Debnath as he buzzed in to give the correct answer of manifold to the next starter. Ballads brought another full house to Imperial. At the moment their BCR was incredible. “Ah, bitter chill it was!” quoted Amol. “The Eve of St. Agnes!” I cried, which is actually one of my less favourite Keats poems. Adam Jones, so swift on the buzzer in previous matches had left it this long before getting his first starter. “Your bonuses are three questions on a group of biomolecules called secretory proteins.” Said Amol. “Bloody ‘ell.” Said I. “Yum yum!” said Imperial as they hoovered up another full set. After 4 sets of bonuses their BCR was still a maximum 100. Superb. Nobody on either side recognised two meanings and pronunciations of slough. William Adams led me to shout Japan! at the telly. The excellent Sourajit Debnath took this one. The bonuses were on Sibelius. First bonus – correct. Second bonus – correct. Third bonus – well even I knew Karelia for the third. That’s five sets, and still a 100 BCR. So to the music starter and Joe McGough quickly identified Blondie. Other bands who released visual albums brought two bonuses. So to a chemistry starter. “Twas brillig and the slithy toves- “ began Amol. Well, no he didn’t, but what he did say made about as much sense to me. The answer was bidentate. Of course it was. Safiya Rujak had that. Stoicism brought nowt. Skipper Suraiya Haddad took the next starter recognising the lovers from Coppelia. 2 bonuses on Art followed, but finally the streak ended when they failed to get Chris Ofili. Matthew Nail knew Phaethon for the next starter. Nobel laureates born in 1923 failed to add to Sheffield’s total. So, by the 20 minute mark, Shefield were holding their own on the buzzer, but Imperial’s bonus form meant that they now led by 145 – 100.

Sourajit Debnath stretched the lead, recognising asteroids for the next starter. The Portuguese epic poem the Lusiads still saw Imperial take two of the bonuses. The difference one word makes. Adam jones recognised the film for the second picture starter, but called it The Skin We Live In allowing Safiya Rujak in with The Skin I Live In. Three more Pedro Almodovar films brought two correct answers. Mattthew Nail recognised clues to the name Clifford for the next starter. Only one bonus was taken on abbeys, but by their sheer persistence Sheffield were still in the match, only 30 behind now. Justin Lee recognised titles of novels featuring the Three Musketeers to push away from Sheffield again. The number 11 expressed in different bases only brought 1 bonus, keeping hopes alive for Sheffield. If you’re asked a poet laureate question, if you don’t know then Tennyson is always a good percentage answer. Imperial ignored this, Sheffield didn’t and won the points. A lovely UC special set on historical events of three consecutive years provided the bonuses. It was twice no cigar for Sheffield, but they did get the last. This put the gap back to 30. Still possible but with only 2 minutes to go it looked unlikely. Reliable Sourajit Debnath steadied Imperial nerves recognising definitions of the word firewall for the next starter. 1 bonus on people born in Somerset followed, but more importantly the clock was run down enough to make a Sheffield win extremely unlikely now. Especially when neither team recognised a quote from Stravinsky. There was time for Joe McGough to identify Pince William as bearing the title Duke of Cornwall, same as one of the daughters’ husbands in King Lear. The men’s FA Cup yielded no points before the gong ended the match, with Imperial winning with 195 to Sheffield’s 160.

Well, I’ve often said that buzzing wins matches. Not this one it didn’t. There wasn’t a lot in it but Sheffield answered more starters correctly than Imperial. But comparing their BCRs – Sheffield managed 32 while Imperial’s was 78 percent. That’s serious, especially when you consider the breadth of bonus subjects they answered. They’re not in the semis yet, but halfway there. As for Sheffield, they’re not out, and with a little more rub of the green over the bonuses they can still do damage in this year’s competition.

Amol Watch

How times change! In response to the answer Sheffield gave to the third music bonus Amol answered, “Of course it’s Daft Punk!” in the same way that Jeremy Paxman used to say “Of course it’s Wordsworth!”

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

I should have known this, but I’ve never realised it before. Serfdom in Russia was abolished before slavery in the USA was.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

First, ignoring arbitrary constants, what function is both the derivative and the integral with respect to X of the hyperbolic sine of X?

Yeah, it’s a short one this week, but what a short one! Deadly at fifty paces, soporific at fifty miles. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2024 First round Heat 21

Hello peeps, how are we all doing? Me ?– well, thereby hangs a tale, but it’s a tale for another time, I think. A tale for this time is the tale of last night’s Mastermind, and an exciting tale it was.

First up was Sarah Thornton. Sarah was answering on the Chocolat novels of Joane Harris. As I said in my preview, I’ve never read any. So under the circumstances I was happy that one of the questions allowed or a guess, to give me a point. You know, I never had to prepare for a series of novels as a specialist, but I would imagine it’s a bit of an ask, considering how much you might be asked, even allowing for the fact that there are currently four Chocolat books. You can tell when someone has prepared extremely well, and Sarah had clearly done this. 12 and no passes was a great return.

Sean Haughey was answering on my banker subject for the evening, the great George Best. This is a subject that I know enough about, having read all of his autobiographies and quite a few biographies, to be able to say that this was not an easy set. I felt lucky to get the four that I did. On another night I might have had one other point but that would have been it. Bearing that I mind I have to say that Sean’s round of 10 was very good indeed.

Katy Marchant has some quiz show previous. She was a member of Oriel’s 2023 University Challenge team, beaten in the repechage round by eventual finalists Bristol. She was answering on Alcibiades. Gesundheit. Picking up on the references in the fist couple of questions I just kept answering Pericles to every question which did eventually bear fruit and bring me a point. You know, sometimes there’s something in the air in a show and people seem afflicted by nerves, then other times one contender after another puts on a great show. Katy’s 12 was first class.

Iain Cummings was answering on The Rolling Stones. Think about that for a moment. That’s 60 years of recording, touring and at times scandal making all of which is fair game to the question setters. Then add to that the fact that you’re last to go and you’ve watched all three previous contenders smash it in their specialists. It didn’t work out for Iain. I don’t want to go on about this because there’s little anyone can say to sweeten the pill. Iain scored 3. I knew that their first UK number 1 was ironically, "It's all over now." That point took me to an aggregate of 8.

I admired Iain’s sang froid in coming more or less straight back to the chair, composing himself, and then delivering a very good GK round. Iain did not answer especially quickly, but this looked like good sense to me since it gave him the time to find the correct answer to 12 questions. Fifteen in total is unlikely to be a winning score, but more importantly it’s a perfectly respectable one. Well done, sir.

Sean had seen Iain produce his own fine round on GK. 6 would give him the lead, however that was not going to be enough in this show. So what followed was a round that equalled Iain’s score of 12. He did pick up a couple of passes along the way, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was going to affect the result of the show.

So Sean’s round meant that both Sarah and Katy were going to need double figure rounds – anything less would not be enough. So Sarah was the first to try. She tried pretty well, too. She didn’t manage to equal Sean’s 12, but then she didn’t need to. She scored her own 11 points and that gave her a lead of 1 point, with 23.

Finally Katy. In Katy’s round it became clear that she had made up her mind not to pass. That was the right tactic for her, I think. Sarah had 1 pass, which meant that all Katy had to do to win was avoid passes and equal Sarah’s score. Goodness me, she tried! Agonisingly she finished 1 point short, with 10 for another 22.

Well played, everyone. This was an exciting show that I thoroughly enjoyed. Especially though well done to Sarah. Best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Sarah Thornton	The Chocolat Novels of Joanne Harris	12	0	11	1	23	1
Sean Haughey	George Best	10	1	12	2	22	3
Katy Marchant	Alcibiades	12	0	10	0	22	0
Iain Cumming	The Rolling Stones	3	2	12	4	15	6

About that League

Okay, so let us return to the subject of the film quiz league that I’ve mentioned once or twice. After promising to post the final positions of the league on Facebook, nothing happened. The firs quiz of this year was last Wednesday. After round 4 there was a brief announcement, and we were told our prize. A  T shirt (of our choice). I’m not really complaining. I’ve had worse prizes in the past, and even no prizes in the past. I’m probably more disappointed over the really perfunctory lack of ceremony over the result. You see, if it hadn’t have been for the prospect of a league presentation then I don’t think I would have gone to the quiz. The subject was films of 2023, and with the best will in the world I knew nothing that the rest of the team didn’t already know.

I hope that they won’t be too upset if I do end up not going to some of he quizzes this year. Now that we’ve won the league once, I just don’t feel quite the same motivation. It’s a funny thing. When I was younger, if I played in a league winning team, then I was eager to win the league the next season, and the one after that, and the next after that. Now though, nah, not so much.

Mastermind Heat 21 preview

Here it is, peeps, tomorrow night’s Mastermind specialist subjects.

The Chocolat novels of Joanne Harris

George Best

Alcibiades

The Rolling Stones

No prizes for guessing that my banker subject tomorrow night is George Best – I reckon I might get anywhere between two and five.

Slim pickings apart from that though. I’ve never read any of the chocolat novels. Alcibiades? Well, I doubt I’m going to get a point for knowing he was Greek, but I know sod all else. Rolling Stones? Might be a couple there. So not the best week, but not my worst I hope.

University Challenge 2024 Quarter Final Stage - Manchester v. Birkbeck, London

The Teams

Manchester

Bluma De Los Reyes – White

Ilya Kullmann

Hiru Senehedheera (Capt.)

Dan Grady

Birkbeck, London

Danny McMillan

Olivia Mariner

Samir Chadha (Capt.)

Margherita Huntley

Quarter finals already? Well, yes. The complexities of this stage of the competition mean that the winners don’t automatically go through to the semis and the losers don’t automatically through the exit door. More often than not though the team that win the first quarter match do get to the semis. So which of last night’s teams would that be? Well, being an alumnus of London University I usually plump for a London college over other teams, and Birkbeck had the bonus of a captain from my home borough, the London Borough of Ealing. But then the toxic qualities of support from the Clark sofa have long been evident to readers of this blog.

Dan Grady struck the first blow for Manchester knowing that ‘composer’ ‘tone poem’ and ‘1982’ make Philip Glass a good shout. This earned bonuses on potatoes in Art. And why not? Both of us immediately thought of Van Gogh, but I did know Millet’s “The Angelus”.The last one was of course the Potato Eaters and brought 1 bonus to Manchester. Various meanings of the word normal led to Samir Chadha opening his team’s account. The seven sister states of northeast India did for me but Birkbeck took one to even the scores. Dan Grady came in early to say that the name linking the king following Malcom Canmore in Scotland and the prince who had the best dynastic clam to the throne of England after Hastings was Edgar. Manchester followed this up with a good full house on the Asante people. Margherita Huntley knew that Gillian Wearing created the statue of Millicent Fawcett, the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square in London. Something inscrutable involving infra red radiation gave Birkdale 1 bonus. This was followed by the picture starter showing a periodic table with names and symbols removed. Three stars indicated certain elements, and the teams were asked to identify the link between the names. Seeing that the first was beryllium I gave the answer rocks. Which was worth even more of a lap of honour since neither team quite got it. Ilya Kullman took the next starter knowing that the HQ of CONMEBOL is in Paraguay. CONMEBOLs wobble but they don’t fall down, as the old advert used to say. This earned the picture bonus on more linked names of elements, and Manchester took two. This meant that at a little past the ten minute mark they led 55 – 30.

The Balmer Series, named one would think after the regular expert on the Antiques Road Trip, meant nowt to me but Hiru Senehedheera had it before the end of the question (which had lasted something approaching a fortnight by this time).Languages of Taiwan promised very little which was more than it delivered. No points all round. Boustrophedon is a lovely word which so rarely occurs in polite conversation. It means a system or writing where you go left right, right left on different lines. And why not? Danny McMillan knew Tsingtao/Qingdao for the next starter. I liked the set of bonuses this earned – character names that appear in more than one Shakespeare play. I’d guess that Birkbeck don’t have a literature specialist since this was quite  a gettable set but they didn’t get any of them. Yet Samir Chadha did very well I thought to spot references to the Wasteland by that well known anagram of toilets, TS Eliot. Irving ‘Who?’ Goffman the subject of the next bonus set yielded nothing to any of us. So to the music starter. Kraftwerk! Autobahn! I shouted , scaring the cat in the process. Eventually Dan Grady buzzed in with the same answer. More groups who were helped by Conny “Thick as One Short” Plank None of us recognised either of the two krautrock groups played, but the last one was the song which never got to number 1 because of “Shaddap You Face”, Vienna by Ultravox. Much of this section of the match had been a to and fro affair and this continued as Danny McMillan buzzed in early with Eudaemonia. Bit of ointment usually clears that up I find. Bossa nova yielded two bonuses for Birkbeck. Another Science starter yielded the correct answer of stop codon to Bluma De Los Reyes White. The wildlife of Trinidad and Tobago yielded Manchester a couple of bonuses which meant they led by 100 – 70 just after 20 minutes.

Squeaky bum time. The gap was only 30, but points had thus far proven hard to come by. The next starter for ten fell to Danny McMillan who recognised the clues given to various words all beginning with pie. Mmm, pie. No, it did not fill me with joy when a set on power series in Mathematics was announced to follow. They only allowed Birkbeck to claw back five more points of the lead. For the second picture starter Manchester skipper Hiru Senehedheera made a great shout identifying the work of was artist Paul Nash. 3 more war artists’ work provided no more inspiration. Hiru Senehedheera took his second in a row with Ahimsa , a central tenet of several religions. Various Treaties of London gave Manchester nothing. It was that kind of match. Dan Grady took Manchester’s third consecutive starter, guessing that a character in “The Day of the Locust” shared his name with Homer Simpson. Anamorphosis bonuses only provided one correct answer, but slowly and certainly Manchester were stretching the elastic between themselves and Birkbeck. Samir Chadha reeled Manchester back a little knowing – oh look, it was about metals and the answer was reactivity. Star formation produced a single bonus. Hiru Senehedheera knew the geological term subduction, and this pretty much sealed the deal for Manchester. Onstage representations of Phaedra yielded – yes, you guessed, one bonus. Dan Grady knew Sierra Leone for the answer to the next question. The contest was buzzed before the first bonus was completed.

Manchester won by 160 to 95 in what I felt was a hard old match. Those bonus sets were pretty unforgiving. Look at the BCRs – Manchester 31% and Birkbeck 24%. I don’t blame the teams for this either. Hard quiz.

Amol Watch

I felt Amol was a wee bit fussy on the TsingTao/ Qingdao question by forcing Danny McMillan to spell it out. I do think it’s funny to hear Amol saying things like “Two and a half minutes to go, Birkbeck, plenty of time.” I don’t know if there’s a special word for a sentence of two halves in which if the first half is true then the second is obviously false, but if there is such a word, then this was one of them.

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

Homer Simpson is the name of a character in Nathanael West’s “The Day of the Locust”

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

1) In order for a vibrational mode to be IR active and therefore give a peak in infrared spectroscopy which moment within the module must fluctuate in this mode?

2) The region between 1500 to 500 centimetres to the power minus one on an IR spectrum is given what name? The region often contains a large number of infra red bands.

3) A broad trough in an IR spectrum between 2500 and 3300 centimetres to the power of minus one signifies which functional group?

Yeah, I know that by themselves each of this set is not quite as mind numbingly obscure to the general public (me) as some, but taken one after another they deliver a knockout punch. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

 

Mastermind 2024 Heat 20

Here we are at heat 20, dearly beloved. By my reckoning there’s just 11 shows to go.

Our first specialist subject last night was famous traitor Kim Philby. I once read that when Philby joined MI6 he felt that the whole place was so disorganised that it must be only a front, and that he was taking part in some bizarre initiation. Well, that didn’t feature in any of the questions. Rachel Fullard, our first contender was equal to the vast majority of the questions that were asked and she posted a good 9 points to lay down the gauntlet at the feet of the other three contenders. I took 2.

One of the younger of this year’s contender pool, student Edison Hipkin was answering on Chess: the Musical. A fair proportion of the questions on this round weren’t about the musical show itself so much as the original concept album. Thankfully, Edison was quite prepared for this. It was an impressive performance and I was delighted for him that he got a double figure score which as we know is a real mark of quality for a specialist round in the current format of the show. I guessed Stockholm for one of the answers which brought me my single point.

Mark Davies, our third contender, was answering on the Castles of North Wales. I had to feel for Mark. Somehow it all seemed to go wrong for him after the first couple of questions, and I take my hat off to him for rescuing the situation towards the end of the round. Mark finished with 5. By no means a disaster, but a score which left him with a veritable Snowdon to climb in the GK round. I added 2 to my aggregate.

We finished then with Julie Ashcroft, answering on The Life of Thomas Hardy. Julie didn’t seem to be answering particularly quickly but she just kept answering correctly and the score built accordingly. One question elicited a pass, but other than that she went on to produce a very fine round indeed. 12 points and 1 pass gave just a little daylight between herself and the peloton going into the GK round. As for me, well my knowledge of Hardy’s oeuvre proved enough to give me 5 points and take me to a double figure score of 10.

Mark was first to return to the chair for the gk round and what followed was a rather different kettle of fish from his first round. Although not answering quite at express pace Mark racked up an impressive twelve. I don’t know if he will decide to chance his arm in Mastermind again, but GK like that allied to a more lucrative specialist round could see him do well. He set the bar at 17.

Being realistic, Mark was always too far behind at the halfway stage to win. However three points separated the top 3, which meant that any of them could do it with the right performance on GK. First to try was Rachel Fullard. She didn’t match Mark’s even dozen, but she managed double figures with a 10 which raised the target to 19. A winning score? Well, it was not impossible, certainly.

I always worry with the youngest contenders that they may find the GK rounds a bit of an ordeal. It didn’t look as if Edison was under any distress, however there were just too many questions where I think his relative youth played against him. He achieved a perfectly respectable 8, but this still left him a point behind Rachel.

So finally this brought us back to Julie. 7 and 1 pass would force a tie break and anything higher would bring an outright win. In response to this target Julie produced by far the best GK round we’ve seen for quite a few weeks. She scored 14 and no passes, to leave the rest of the field trailing in her wake for an excellent 26 points. In her piece to camera Julie sounded very surprised at what had happened. Well, if that GK round was not just a flash in the pan, Julie, you have the ability to go further. I wish you the very best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Rachel Fullard	Kim Philby	9	1	10	1	19	2
Edison Hipkin	Chess: the Musical	10	2	8	3	18	5
Mark Davies	The Castles of North Wales	5	1	12	0	17	1
Julie Ashcroft	The Life of Thomas Hardy	12	1	14	0	26	1