The Teams
Darwin, Cambridge
Rebecca McClelland
Sophie Willis
Harrison Whitaker (Capt.)
Rowan Stewart
Edinburgh
David Aiton
Jess Mellor
Greg Myles (Capt)
Caitlin Self
Ah, here we are again, Dearly Beloved. OC has finished its
Christmas specials and we’re back to the competition proper. I Can’t Believe
It’s Not University Challenge finished last week, meaning we’re back to the
real mccoy. I noticed that Mastermind Lite hasn’t finished yet, but hopefully
we’ll be back to normal soon.
One of the small pleasures of UC is watching for that
moment when one word or two unlocks a question. In the case of the first
starter it was Baron Hausmann, which gave Harrison Whitaker the answer of
Paris. Paintings of enslaved people brought 2 bonuses from what was not the
easiest set. A very excited Harrison Whitaker won the buzzer race to answer
Argonauts for the second starter. He bonuses on extinct creatures taught me
something. I had always thought that the Dimetrodon lived in the Triassic, but
it was even earlier, the Permian. We both took the other two bonuses. Nobody
knew about prosecutions for blasphemy for the next starter. The next starter
about contributions to a reference work could only be answered by the OED or
the Britannica. Harrison Whitaker zigged with Britannica allowing Jess Mellor
to zag with OED and get Edinburgh moving. Bonuses on cinema in Taiwan brought 2
bonuses. So to the picture starter. Yes, to be honest I was disappointed that
it was a scientific diagram of something that Sophie Willis informed us was
called the Krebs process – presumably named after the character played by Steve
Kanaly in Dallas. (ask your grandparents). Three more pictures of the cycle
asking about various bits of it brought just the one correct answer. More
science followed with a bewilderingly long chemistry starter. Greg Myles knew
the iodine clock reaction. A set on nixtamalization – me neither – brought me a
lap of honour for knowing niacin is vitamin B3 – while Edinburgh took just the
last bonus. This took us to the 10 minute mark with Darwin leading 55 – 30. It
was becoming an interesting contest, but neither team was pulling up any trees
with the bonuses.
With the next starter you just had to wait until the name
Bamako made it clear the country in question was Mali. Harrison Whitaker made
no mistake, timing his buzzer run to perfection. The French department of
Yvelines brought two bonuses, but being realistic Darwin probably could have
known the treaty of St. Germain for a full house. Still, another Harrison
Whitaker starter followed in short order on film director Ari Aster. Place
names that are etymologically related brought another single bonus. So to the
music starter, and David Aiton recognised an arrangement of Pictures at an
Exhibition by Mussorgsky. More classical music brought 1 bonus when a good save
saw them swap Satie for Saint Saens at the last moment. David Aiton took his
second consecutive starter recognising various uses of the word arc. Women In
Science saw a harsh but fair ruling, disallowing Dorothy Hodgkins for Dorothy
Hodgkin. This meant that they took just the one on the set. Caitlin Self took
Edinburgh’s third consecutive starter, knowing that Attila (the Hun, not the
Stockbroker) was nicknamed the Scourge (of God). Extinct Germanic languages
brought two bonuses. Now, the next question began “Which figure of Anglo Saxon
legend . . . “ Come on, it’s got to be worth an interruption for Grendel after
that, hasn’t it? Both teams sat on their buzzers for a moment or two until his
mother was mentioned, which allowed Harrison Whitaker to shake off the doldrums
and get his team buzzing again. A lovely set on Shakespeare’s characters as
they would appear in an alphabetical list brought two bonuses. David Aiton knew
that con sordino means played with a mute. The tree of Life brought jus one
bonus, still at just after the 20 minute mark the score stood at 110 – 95 in
Darwin’s favour, and it was anybody’s game.
So to
the second picture starter, and what one of my less enlightened friends once
called ‘one of them pre-Raphaelite bints.’ It looked more like Lizzie Siddal than
Jane Morris, I thought, and so did Harrison Whitaker. We were right. More
paintings by other artists for which Ms. Siddal modelled brought just the one
bonus. Harrison Whitaker was the first to get clues to words beginning with pep
for the next starter. US astronomer Debra Fisher brought me my second lap of
honour opportunity for the Doppler Effect. Then another for diffraction, while
Darwin managed just the one bonus. The next starter suggested Sri Lanka, and
David Aiton buzzed in with just that answer. Bonuses on the archaeological excavation
of Aphrodisias ( a made up name, surely ) in Turkey brought two bonuses, but
Edinburgh were still a full house behind – and we hadn’t seen many of them in
this contest. Various Ao – names ad words fell to that man Whitaker again. Ninette
de Valois yielded just one bonus, but more importantly ran the clock down. Then
a candidate for the baby elephant moment yielded me another lap of honour
opportunity for knowing precession for the next starter. Greg Myles had it too.
Two bonuses on Mohism brought nowt, and then the gong ended the competition.
Darwin won by 155- 125.
Neither team impressed with the bonuses. Darwin’s BCR was
48 while Edinburgh’s was 42. I’m tempted to say that the difference between the
teams was Harrison Whitaker’s buzzer speed. Whatever the relative strength of the
opposition, 19 starters in two games is serious form. However, that BCR is a
concern.
Amol Watch
Amol started off paying tribute to Harrison Whitaker’s 11
starters in the first round. Fair enough, it was a hell of a performance, but
you gotta admit that was putting a lot of pressure on the Darwin skipper for
this match. Maybe this was why he was so hyped up for the competition that with
the second starter he committed the breach of show etiquette which saw him buzz
and shout out the answer before his name was announced. Amol, possibly
realising that he himself might have been partly responsible allowed it but
reminded him to wait for Roger.
Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know of
the Week
In 1697 Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Britain
to be executed for blasphemy.
Baby Elephant Walk Moment
I need the name of a chemical here. Widely used in
chemistry courses to demonstrate rates of reaction and chemical kinetics, the
clock reaction, developed by Hans Heinrich Landolt, involves measuring the time
taken for a colourless solution of reagents to turn blue as what element reacts
with a starch indicator.
I slept well last night after playing that question again
on the iplayer. In fact I nodded off about halfway through it.
