University Challenge 2024 Sudden Death Quarter Final - Manchester v. Christ Church, Oxford

The Teams

Manchester

Bluma De Los Reyes-White

Ilya Kullmann

Hiru Senehedheera (Capt

Dan Grady

Christ Church, Oxford

Eliza Dean

Melika Gorgianeh

Arthur Wotton (Capt)

Elliot Lowe

Howdy pardners and thank’ee kindly for joining me for another wee dram in the last chance saloon. And following last week’s fine performance from Christ Church it really was a case of you pays yer money and takes yer choice here. I couldn’t pick a winner before we came under starter’s orders.

Hiru Senehedheera came in too early on the first starter, which remained obscure until the mention of the answer’s trusted lieutenant, Dessalines created the opening to allow Arthur Wootton in for his first starter with Toussaint L’Ouverture. The Oxford skipper took 8 starters last time out, so his buzzer finger would be crucial to CC’s chances of progression. Two bonuses followed on digraphia. Hiru Senehedheera didn’t have to fish too deeply for the mathematician Poisson to answer the next starter (see what I did there?) Medical terms combining Greek and latin derivations, for example neonatal, provided us both with a full house. Yeah, I did take a lap of honour. Dan Grady won the buzzer race to provide the name King Kong for the next starter. Two bonuses on Schopenhauer were taken. I loved the response to the question about Ixion – it’s not in Percy Jackson so I don’t know! Various clues to the word jazz went begging for the next starter. Anechoic chamber? Nope, me neither but the Manchester skipper knew it for the next starter. Two bonuses on the prophet Elijah followed. The picture starter brought a halt to the Manchester charge as Arthur Wootton took his second starter recognising the locations of the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto. More Japanese places with name elements in common brought one bonus. This meant that as we neared 10 minutes the score stood at 55 – 35 to Manchester.

None of us knew what ANT stood for so the next starter went unanswered. Right, now I’m very sorry but the first words of he next starter, “Born in 1791, which physicist – “ were enough for me to shout FARADAY! And so confident was I that I’d completed another lap of honour before Hiru Senehedheera buzzed in with the same. To be fair, it is a very short lap. A UC special set on prominent thinkers whose name appears in other words proved to be surprisingly tricky and we both only had the one. Ilya Kullmann buzzed in before the next starter revealed that the Shakespeare title character it wanted was female. He answered Macbeth. Cleopatra was the answer but CC shot wide of the open goal. So the next starter asked about the four corners National Monument in the USA. Oliver Wotton knew it was maintained by the Navajo nation. Amol announced that their bonuses were on relativistic mechanics and I prepared for the strains of the Baby Elephant Walk to start. Gawd knows what the questions were about, but just like my good self, CC didn’t get any of them. Nobody knew the Non-juror bishops for the next starter. Eliza Dean came in early for the next starter on Negritude. Musical performers named in Angela Davis’ work Blues Legacies and Black Feminism were not as hard a set as it sounded, and CC failed to score. With the gap standing at 5 points we came to the music starter. Nobody could identify the music from the ballet Swan Lake. Arthur Wotton won the buzzer race to answer about Robin Hood Bay to earn the dubious reward of the music bonuses – more pas de deux from other ballets. Nul points. CC were having a purple patch with the buzzer, but failures on the bonuses meant that they weren’t pulling away from Manchester. Dan Grady stopped the rot on the next starter which asked for gravitational waves. Blue plaques in North Staffordshire paid fitting tribute to Elizabeth Wardle, the lady behind the Victorian copy of the Bayeux Tapestry where the naked men in the borders seem to be wearing cycling shorts. Currently in Reading Museum and check it out if you don’t believe me. Manchester took a full house. Nothing daunted Arthur Wotton knew that the upside down tree is the baobab for the next starter. A timely full house on Jose Luis Borges gave CC the lead by 95 – 90 with just a few minutes to show us who wanted it more.

Arthur Wotton certainly wanted it. He won the buzzer race to identify two of the three German states that border Poland. Bonuses on de Toqueville’s “Democracy in America” – which surely inspired Kim Wilde’s immortal “Kids in America” – brought two correct answers, which meant that Manchester would need a full house to even the scores. So to the second picture starter. Elliot Lowe correctly identified a sculpture, of which one of the figures depicted on it was Aeneas. Three more 17^th century artistic portrayals of the story of Aeneas netted now for them. Still, Manchester now needed at least two visits to the table. Both teams sat on their buzzer a bit for the next starter until Ilya Kullman identified Topkapi Palace as the residence of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. Bonuses on industrial catalysts brought one correct answer. Would it be the catalyst that set off a Manchester revival? It looked like it when Bluma de los Reyes-White gave the correct answer of Nobel Prize winning scientist Calvin (the awards committee obviously ignored his partner, Hobbes.) South American cities taking their names from cities in Spain gave them a full house, and the lead. None of us knew the Roman poet Sextus Propertius (or even his stupider brother Emptius Propertius). Hiru Senehedheera came in too early and lost five on the next starter but CC could not take advantage. The Manchester skipper made immediate amends, winning the buzzer race to identify the painter Lucien Freud. The Japanese costume designer Emi Wada did nothing for Manchester other than to run the clock down. Arthur Wotton’s buzzer finger fired too early on the next question, but Manchester couldn’t find the word wax to seal the deal. Yet still Captain Fantastic Wotton came back to take the next starter on the word confederate. Only one bonus on small choo choos in art left them one bonus behind Manchester. Dan Grady just won the buzzer race on the next starter on Simone de Beauvoir. GONGGGG! Yes, after a terrific match it all came down to the last starter. 145 played 130. Congratulations to Manchester, and many commiserations to Christ Church.

Christ Church achieved a BCR of 37, while Manchester who scored fewer starters had a BCR of 63, and that’s what won it and lost it.

Amol Watch

With the ANT starter Amol made he slightly cryptic comment “I thought that was going to take you some time to work out.” Er, they didn’t work it out, Amol. They had it wrong. Amol seemed surprised that Christ Church didn’t know de Toqueville wrote ‘Democracy in America’. Well, they’re all easy if you know them, Amol, and difficult if you don’t.

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

Digraphia means languages which can be written in more than one script.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In a ratio relating to the rest mass of a particle and its mass when travelling a velocity v the Greek letter gamma is used to represent a factor named after which Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate born (buzz)