Durham v. Manchester
The Teams
Durham
Robert Morris
Bella Thomas
Dominic Challis (Capt.)
Andreas Ktori
Manchester
Maciej Wojdyla
Ethan Lehane
Argyro Olympitis (Capt.)
Caroline Ball
Durham lost five on the first starter. It was one of those
where you have to wait, and at the end it becomes very obvious. The word the
question was looking for was ‘absolute’ Maciej Wojdyla took first blood for
Manchester with this. Bonuses on the cuckoo family (I met a few of them in my
40 odd years as a teacher) brought Manchester a full house. Andreas struck back
for Durham recognising references to the 20th century history of
Mongolia. Durham picked up two bonuses on dyes but missed out on woad. Thankfully
Argyro Olympitis came in early to halt an unfathomable stream of applied
gibberish for the next starter with the answer of alpha helix. Nope, me
neither, although it sounds like it may have been defeated by Tom Baker in a Doctor
Who serial from the late 70s. Bonuses on regulations for road cycling
competitions brought two more bonuses for Manchester. The picture starter
showed a diagram of a railway line starting at Worksop, heading south through
Mansfield and ending at a mystery location. I reckoned it should be Nottingham.
So did Ethan Lehane, earning the bonuses. None of us added to our score with
this set. This meant that the score on 10 minutes was 55-15 to Manchester.
Maciej Wojdyla knew that the highest point of Spain, Mount
Teide is in the Canaries. A nice UC special set on pairs of words where you add
a g to the start of one to make the other was the reward. I particularly
enjoyed Gruffalo – Ruffalo. Manchester took a full house. Andres Ktori knew
that Tiresias and other mythological figures were blind for the next starter. The
intriguing subject of artworks and winter holidays proved relatively benign and
Durham took 2. Neither team could take advantage of the fact that the clues
were there in the wording of the question to lead us to the answer of coinage
metals for the next starter. “Which German philosopher . . . “ invited us to
pick one out of the half dozen or so that came to mind. Bella Thomas knew it
was Hegel, whose chief attribute that he was outconsumed by David Hume. Human-animal
transformations in myth brought Durham another full house. For the music
starter I didn’t recognise The Jam – shame on me – but Ethan Lehane did. For
the bonuses I again had to applaud Amol’s adherence to the correct answer being
the only thing acceptable as the correct answer. Manchester offered Diana Ross
and the Supremes, which Amol would not accept because it was recorded by the
Supremes after Diana Ross left. Harsh? No – if you are a serious quiz
competition, which UC is, then it is imperative if you want to keep credibility.
Close enough is just not close enough. Both of us managed just the one bonus
with The Specials. Bella Thomas knew that it was Arsenal (language!) that
signed Olivia Smith from Liverpool. Works of Gothic fiction did Manchester few
favours as they only took 1. Now, link these three things – writer – state of
Maine – Horror award? I did and so did Andreas Ktoni and we both came up with
Stephen King. Rightly so. The philosophical other minds problem – no, me
neither – brought nowt. Still, in the last few minutes Durham had staged an
effective comeback and only trailed by 85-95 as we closed in on 20 minutes.
Gawd alone knows what the next starter was about, but after
a paragraph of pure gobbledygook Andreas Ktori answered with phase. This put
the teams at level pegging. Opposites in Science saw me claim a lap of honour for
anabolic and centrifugal. We’ve moved the furniture around so for the time
being the lap of honour circumnavigates the Clark coffee table, rather than the
sofa. 2 bonuses meant Durham were the first team to reach triple figures. A Gillray
political cartoon showing Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte carving up
the world between them for the second picture starter passed by both teams. With
the next starter I was pleased at guessing Maltese correctly at the same time
as Ethan Lehane. This brought Manchester the picture bonuses, three more
political cartoons by 19th century British artists. It was lovely to
see two by my favourite, John Tenniel, but Manchester did not add to their
score. For the next starter Maciej Wojdyla knew about Ken Burns’ documentary on
the North American Bison – which is great and you should watch if you haven’t,
like all Ken Burns’ work. Manchester drew a blank on Welsh rivers. With the
scores at 125 – 105 and only 3 and a half minutes to go it suddenly struck me
that one of these teams would not be going any further in this year’s
competition. Mathematical meanings of the word complete saw Ethan Lehane doing
his best to make sure that it wouldn’t be Manchester. A full house on John of
Gaunt’s daughter , Phillipa of Lancaster helped too. Gondoliers and Yeomen of
the Guard helped Caroline Ball work out Gilbert and Sullivan for the next
starter. Two bonuses on scientific terms that begin with tor took Manchester to
165, which was beyond the event horizon. Maciej Wojdyla added a little more
gilding to their score, knowing a biographer of Charlemagne. A very quick full
house on unconventional films about the lives of musicians followed allowing
Andreas Ktori in with Crown dependency for the next starter. Mudras, the hand
gestures in traditional Indian dance had just enough time for Durham to answer
the first question correctly. The final score was 190 – 120 for Manchester.
Statistically Durham achieved a BCR of 58% while Manchester
achieved 60%. So it was Manchester’s superior buzzing particularly in the last
5 minutes that made all the difference. Hard lines to Durham – it’s early days
but they surely won’t make the repechage, I’m afraid.
Amol Watch
Again, I applaud Amol for being consistent in his refusal
to accept anything other than a first answer – as it was this worked in
Manchester’s favour with gens.
Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of
The Week
John of Gaunt was the grandfather of Henry the Navigator.
Baby Elephant Walk Moment
In Physics what five letter word follows “Pancharatnam-Berry”
or “geometric” in the name of a property acquired by a quantum system when its
Hamiiltonian is adiabatically varied around a circuit? More generally this word
denotes the position of a wave relative to a reference point in its oscillation
cycle.
Need I even say dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?
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