Mastermind Specialists tomorrow

Heads up about tomorrow’s Mastermind. Specialist subjects are Billy Joel, JMW Turner, the BBC Sitcom Miranda and Antoine Lavoisier. Looking att my chances of scoring any points – well, I rather liked Billy Joel back in the day, so it’s not impossible I might pick up one or two. A member of my family once said that the BBC sitcom Miranda should have been retitled ‘Large Lady Falls Over a Lot”. I watched an episode once, and while I think that’s a little uncharitable I think there’s a grain of truth in it. Prediction – Royaume Uni nul points. Antoine Lavoisier – hmm, maybe a scraped point. JMW Turner – I’m not saying he will bring me any points, but I do have a slightly tenuous family connection.  Through my Cobden grandmother, I’m descended from a family of artists and engravers, the Dawes. My five times great grandfather Philip Dawe was an artist and engraver, who reputedly learned from Hogarth, and tutored George Morland. He may even have given instruction to Turner at one time. Even if this was not the case, his son Henry Edward Dawe, my four times great grandfather was and engraver who definitely worked with Turner. Mind you, the real star of the family was Henry’s brother George Dawe, who became official first court portrait painter to the Tsar of Russia. Over 300 of his paintings hang in the Hermitage. Not that this connection will necessarily bring me points. I predict – I hope that I’ll manage four or five as a total aggregate.

University Challenge 2024 : First round heat: Lincoln, Oxford v. King's, London

The Teams

Lincoln, Oxford

Ella Warde

Mehmed Tatoğlu

Alexander Baker (Capt)

Anna Drummond Young

King’s, London

Alex Halliwell

Alessandro Bogo

Taiga Clarke (capt)

Zahra Sultan

Yeah, I know. It’s Wednesday. Sorry about that. Let’s no waste any more time then. Eyes down and devil take the hindmost. First question was about all of the Balboas – explorer, currency, and doubtless fictional boxer would have followed. Not before Alessandro Bogo buzzed in with the right answer. This brought King’s a set of bonuses on islands that follow the word ‘and’ – like Barbuda in Antigua and -. This set brought us both a full house. Mehmed Tatoğlu recognised the epitaph from the tomb of Robert Frost to get Lincoln off and running. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin brought another full house, and for the moment the scores were tied. Amazingly I carried my streak to 9 consecutive correct answers even though we had a starter on mathematical terms, which all ended with -ix. Subgenres of science fiction and fantasy brought me another full house, although Lincoln missed on one. The picture starter took me to 13, guessing correctly that the seal we were shown belonged to the EPA. Mehmed Tatoğlu had that one. More seals of US federal agencies brought my streak to an end with 13. Lincoln managed one. The kingdom of Aksum pushed me to the Ethiopia area, so it stood to reason that Eritrea was the country that derived its name from the Greek and Latin for red. Mehmed Tatoğlu took his third starter with that one. The architect Eric Mendelsohn I didn’t know, but I’m a fan of his De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill. He brought just the one to Lincoln. This was enough to give the Oxford team a lead of 75 – 25. It was already looking a bit ominous for King’s.

Both teams sat on their buzzers a little for the next starter, but it was the Oxford skipper who provided the answer that pimento is also known as allspice. The lifetime of a cell promised me nothing, but the one that Lincoln got right pushed them to the brink of triple figures. The next starter was asking for the word pillars and Ella Warde won hat particular buzzer race. Top goal scorers at FIFA world cup tournaments brought just the one correct answer. Mehmed Tatoğlu took a fourth starter, knowing of the derivation of the name Burkina Faso. Three bonuses on langue and parole – no, me neither – yielded nothing for Lincoln, but I did know that fabula is Latin for story, I did not know it means the same in Russian. This brought us to the music starter and a little bit of Britten. None of us recognised it. The agony for King’s continued as Alexander Baker correctly provided the answer simple machines for the next starter. Other pieces of music from 1962, the year of UC’s first broadcast, brought two more correct answers. For once Mehmed Tatoğlu miscued on a starter, but King’s could not capitalise with roman a clef. You could see Henry VII coming up for the next question and Mehmed Tatoğlu made no mistake this time to take his fifth. Female heads of government brought two correct answers. It never rains but it pours. Alessandro Bogo came in too early for the next starter and lost five. That man Mehmed Tatoğlu came in with the language Turkic to earn a set of bonuses on translations of Japanese anime and manga. 2 correct answers brought the score to 165 – 20 at twenty minutes.

Mehmed Tatoğlu continued in the same vein, getting the next starter about Kansas. Literature, communism and US politics coalesced in the next set which again brought two for Lincoln. Unsurprisingly neither team recognised a photo of the moon Callisto. Finally Alessandro Bogo hit the starter target knowing that some silly sod had created a symphony using data output from Black Holes. Beats working for a living, I suppose. More photos of Jupiter’s moons as taken by the Galileo probe followed. (The photos taken by the Figaro and Magnifico probes were crap.) King’s took one, which was one more than I managed. Still, at least King’s were away now. Alessandro Bogo knew that the total number of provinces and states in respectively Canada and Australia is 16. Theatre and the Law brought two bonuses. A triple figure score sill looked a long way away. Nobody knew that the pipe organ is deadly from close up for the next starter. Mehmed Tatoğlu brought a hiatus to the King’s mini revival, knowing the term realism. Questions on the river Taff brought nowt to Lincoln, but at least we could enjoy a name check for Richard Trevithick. Alessandro came in too early for the next starter. As clues to peacock and mustard were revealed, Ella Warde gave the correct answer of characters from Cluedo. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy added 10 points and a little more gilding to the Lincoln total. Taiga Clarke finally forced his way onto the stater board , knowing a reference to Just Stop Oil when he heard it. One bonus on winter bird visitors brought another bonus. Ella Warde knew the element Lutetium takes its name from the roman name for Paris. That was it, he contest was gonged with the score at 225 to 65 in Lincoln’s favour.

Well, very much a case of SIJNYN (Sometimes it’s just not your night) for King’s. They had a BCR of 58, but that was just off 12 bonuses. As for Lincoln, their BCR of 46 was one of the less impressive we’ve seen from winners thus far this series.

How is Amol Doing?

There’s just a couple of times when Amol says things and I’m not quite clear whether he’s being mean or ot. For example, when Lincoln struggled with the seals he rather dismissively said ‘well you got that one at least’ when they had the CIA.

The encouragement to the trailing team came at a relatively early 12 and 3 quarter minutes.  The fact that he felt the need to do so again a mere four minutes later should give an idea of how successful the first was.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know of the Week

Mensa was originally formed in Lincoln College, Oxford.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Not this week.

Mastermind 2023 - First Round Heat 7

We’re forging on with Round 1, good people, and (say it quietly) a show that produced my lowest specialist round aggregate for the entire series so far. The first of these tight fisted rounds was offered by Robert Hemming. Robert was answering on the battleship Bismarck. Now, I did think that there might be a chance of a couple here. No chance. I was lucky to scrape one. Robert, as I so often say, clearly knew his stuff. You can’t score 8 on such a round if you don’t. But it was just a couple of marks short of a score that would put him up with the leaders by half time.

Someone who did get a score that put her up with the leaders at half time was Reena Patel. Reena was answering on the late Syd Barrett, the musical genius behind so much of what was good about the very early Pink Floyd. Again, I thought I might get more than one. Nope, in fact I had to really dredge my memory to scrape one point. Reena on the other hand produced 10 and as we so often note, anything in double figures on specialist is good going these days.

Isobel Murray almost repeated the double figure feat in round 2, but finished just one point away on 9. She was answering on the poet Frederico Garcia Lorca, executed by Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. I’ve taken a lot more interest in the Spanish Civil War since visiting the monument to the political prisoners in the San Isidro camp in the village where my mother in law used to live. Not enough, obviously as I only scraped one point again.

Finally Paul Judge on the basketball player Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson. Look, the fact is that some sports you like, and some leave you could and I’m afraid that basketball is the latter for me. I’m not dissing the game, but just saying I can’t get up any interest in it. Paul obviously could. He too scored 10 and apart from the first question there appeared to be precious few gimmes in the round. The first question, incidentally, was the only 1 I got right to leave my aggregate on a measly 4.

We saw a week ago how it’s possible to come from a few points behind to win with a strong GK, so all 4 contenders were certainly in with a chance going into the GK. Robert was first to return to the chair, and he gave it a decent lash. With the best will in the world though he really needed more than the 9 he scored to force the other three contenders to all have to negotiate the corridor of doubt.

Isobel, on the other hand, put in a useful turn at the quiz face in her own GK round. She often looked as if she didn’t know the answer and was a little surprised when it turned out to be right. And she had 11 correct answers in all, taking her total to 20. This is a significant number. There’s a whole world in the one point that separates 19 and 20.

Renna took her turn. What she scored was a perfectly respectable 8 points, but this was not enough to give her the lead. Reena looked a little downhearted when she sat back in her chair. I hope that she wasn’t, as she had nothing to be ashamed of, even if she wasn’t going to win this time.

Only Paul Judge remained, then. He started one point ahead of where Isobel had started her round, so matching her score of 11 would be enough for an outright win. I wouldn’t necessarily say that he ripped the round apart, but he did score 12, which is not bad going by anyone’s book. In his piece to camera at the end I liked his comments about watching as a fan and finally deciding to give it a go. Well done sir! If we didn’t have people willing to give it a go, we wouldn’t have a show. Best of luck.

The Details

Robert Hemming	The Battleship Bismarck	8	0	9	2	17	2
Reena Patel	Syd Barrett	10	0	8	4	18	4
Isobel Mosely	Frederico Garcia Lorca	9	1	11	1	20	2
Paul Judge	The Life and Career of Magic Johnson	10	1	12	0	22	1

 

Mastermind Specialist Subjects tomorrow

I don’t have time today myself but if anyone fancies the wiki challenge for tomorrow night’s Mastermind – here are the specialist subjects:-

The battleship Bismarck

Syd Barrett

Frederico Garcia Lorca

The Career of Magic Johnson

I can maybe scrape 1 or 2 on the Bismarck. There’s a chance of doing better with Syd Barrett – when I was a teenager I was a huge Pink Floyd fan and nerd, Lorca I predict no points on and Magic Johnson – perhaps I'll scrape 1 . Aggregate forecast – 3 to 7. Telegram claims not required (ask your grandparents.)

So Farewell, then, 'Sitting on a Fortune' and 'Moneybags'

I’ve heard on the grapevine that both Moneyball and Sitting on A Fortune have been cancelled. I reviewed both shows in November 2021. Neither of these ex-footballer hosted quiz games gained my full approval, but neither of them was a complete turkey either. For me they could both have been a little shorter and a lot more fast moving. Either would have been a decent enough evening opener, but neither was strong enough to stand against, for the sake of argument, Strictly Come Dancing.

Run of the Mill night down the club

Well, there were no themes or gimmicks in Thursday night’s quiz and we should at least be grateful for that. It was a perfectly decent, run of the mill general knowledge quiz and it was – and I know that I’m a heel for saying this – a bit of a bore.

You know, I couldn’t take a huge issue with any individual question that was asked, which is something of a rarity for me, I know. But the quiz as a whole somehow managed to be less than the sum of its parts. There was no handout, for one thing. I’m ambivalent on handouts. I’m not a fan of ‘name the vacuous celebrity’ type picture quiz handout but I do rather enjoy anything more cryptic or anything that rewards a bit of knowledge.

Since I’m in full grumpy old sod more I’ll say that I think that it works like this. You don’t have to be a great quizzer to make a great quiz. However, it does help if you are at least good enough to know the difference between a hard question, a ridiculously hard question and a ridiculously easy one. Thursday night’s quiz lurched drunkenly from one extreme to the other.

University Challenge 2024 Bangor v. Edinburgh

The Teams

Bangor

Nihal Bhatt

Katie Barnes

Jack Cunliffe (capt.)

Luke O’Hagan

Edinburgh

Matt Stafford

Frances Hadley

Arun Uttamchandani (capt.)

Matt McGovern

To a quizzer of a certain age, ‘Born in York in 1570 – “ which is how the first starter opened, this immediately flags up the name Guy Fawkes. It took both teams a moment or two more to process this before  Arun Uttamchandani buzzed in to pluck this particular unconsidered trifle. Bonuses on landmark experiments involving cohe picture starter common culinary plants amazingly saw me take a lap of honour for knowing that dephlogisticated air was the rather splendid name the Joseph Priestley gave to oxygen. No, of course I didn’t know the first. Mind you I knew all about Gregor Mendel and his peas. Edinburgh took the first and last. A list of films was given and Nihal Bhatt buzzed in to say they were all set in Boston. Both teams were now off the mark.  Bonuses on 60s and 70s music were a pretty easy set for an old codger like me, but the youngsters from Bangor couldn’t manage any of them. Right – what comes to mind when you hear the words Eurasian network of overland routes? Silk Road it was for me and silk road it was for Luke O’Hagen. This earned Bangor a set of bonuses on chess world champions and this set was far more to their liking. We both took a full house. The picture starter showed us the ensign of a navy of a European country. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have scooby which navy it belonged to. Neither did the teams. It was the Latvian Navy. Yeah, a little bit of a whythe’ell as a question. Fari play, I was impressed with Mat Stafford’s answer of neoplasticism for the architecture starter that followed. The 3 naval ensign bonuses that followed were thankfully a lot easier to identify than the Latvian one – at least they bore some reference to the national flags. I was surprised how long both teams dwelt on the metal with the lowest atomic mass. “Lithium?” I answered, not quite believing it might be so simple. It was, though. Luke O’Hagan chanced his arm with mercury, This let Arun Uttamchandani in with Lithium. This gave a set of bonuses on pairs of fictional works liked by words in their titles. Edinburgh took two. Luke O’Hagan recognised definitions of the word canon, and this brought a gettable set on island peaks. They messed up the second by giving a country rather than the island it’s part of, nonetheless they managed a pair. It was, at this stage, quite an even contest, with Edinburgh leading by 65 – 55.

Matt Stafford came in early on the next starter to identify places in Saudi Arabia. Subtitles of films in the MCU yielded a relatively simple full house, despite not including my favourite subtitle Thor: Seasiderok. The next question was about the kid of explanation that Sir Humphrey Appleby used to give in the beloved “Yes, Minister” – I give confidential briefings, you leak, he is being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.” Nobody knew that this is also called a conjugation. Matt Stafford worked out that the various definitions they were given were all pointing towards punt. Gobbledygook about chemical bonds saw us both take just the one with vitamin C. Arun Uttamchandani could see that the next starter was leading towards the word masala and this gave them a shott at bonuses on the work of engineer Mike Burrows. They took just the one. Nonetheless they were now comfortably into triple figures and were increasing the lead with each set. It was Arun Uttamchandani who was first to recognise the Ronettes with Be My Baby. Other tracks with drums played by Hal ‘Who’ Blaine brought Edinburgh two bonuses. Arun Uttamchandani, who was practically running the game at this point, knew the answer polymerase to a question I didn’t understand. Leading figures of Dadaism brought another brace of bonuses. Poor Bangor couldn’tt buy a starter at this point. Jack Cunliffe did exactly what he should, and buzzed early for the next starter to put Edinburgh off their stride. Sadly it was too early and allowed Edinburgh a free shot at goal. Frances Hadley knew that the title of Orwell’s book about his participation in the Spanish Civil War ends in the letters – ia. This brought a swiftly taken full house on places sharing their names with the tiles of novels. Right then – you hear of a gentleman with a seemingly arab sounding name, and you’re told he’s rebuilding a library. So come on it can only surely be Alexandria, can’t it? Luke Hagan thought so and this at last set the Bangor wheels in motion again. They also took one bonus on the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. An arithmetic question involving adding the numbers of stars on specific flag then dividing by the square root of the number you first thought of, or summat like that saw Matt Stafford give a very quick and correct answer. A rather gentle set on abandoned settlements in southern England provided the rampant Edinburgh team with another full house. This meant that they led by 210 – 65 at the 20 minute mark.

For the second picture starter we were shown a Leonardo – that’s the artist and not the turtle. It was quickly recognised by Matt Stafford. Three other paintings depicting John the Baptist provided two more correct answers. Such was the lead by this stage it was surely academic by now. I was pretty pleased that when the next question asked for the letter ascribed to a straight line passing through the centre of a circle I guessed it had to be D for diameter. Meringues brought another full house. You had to wait a bit wih the next starter, but when it mentioned ‘his signature tune, Take the A Train’ it become a buzzer race won by Frances Hadley. Poor old Bangor. It must have felt as if they wee on the receiving end of a beating with blunt instruments as Edinburgh took another full house on glaciers. Luke Hagan stemmed the tide for a moment, knowing that the uncle of Queen Victoria sharing a name with presidents McKinley and Taft was William. Names beginning with Cass yielded just one bonus. It was at this stage, with several minutes left on the clock, that I noticed that one more full house would be enough to take Edinburgh through the rarely-broken 300 barrier. It didn’t happen with the next starter. Katie Barnes took that with various words beginning with – rum. The Greek philosopher Theophrastus saw them take a welcome full house, pushing them through the 100 point barrier. Luke Hagan recognised Hooke’s Law (which, as we all know states you should never smile at a crocodile) and brought Bangor bonuses on Lady Mary Wortley Monatgu. I loved her series on History’s greatest fibs. Bangor took a full house, and there was just he outside possibility that they might get onto the repechage ladder. Captain Jack Cunliffe made it look less unlikely by knowing that the 40^th anniversary of The Italian Job was marked by a competition to solve the cliffhanger ending of the film. 2 bonuses put them tantalisingly close on 150. -That’s enough of that – the Edinburgh team metaphorically said and Matt Stafford buzzed in to ake the next starter on the French pointillist painter Signac. The city of Arezzo in Italy provided two correct answers, and took Edinburgh to the magical 300 points. “Written on Watter” has to refer to John Keats, surely? Frances Hadley felt so and was right. Two bonuses on Nebraska  added to the Edinburgh total. There the gong ended the contest.

Superb score, Edinburgh. Bangor did well with the bonus they were asked, achieving a 62.5 BCR, but they didn’t get asked enough. Edinburgh achieved a 72.7 BCR, all the more impressive considering just how many bonuses they were asked. We will all have to watch Edinburgh very closely from this point on.

How is Amol Doing?

Fine, what do you expect by now. It was just after the 17^th minute that Amol uncorked “Plenty of time Bangor. See if you ca get going with this.” Now, we’ve seen that so ar in this series, far from being the kiss of death that it was in the time of Paxman, this has often worked as a rallying cry, which we have quite logically taken as proof that Amol is a jedi. Well either his powers are on the wane, or Bangor are just not susceptible to the Force.

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

Nebraska is described as the only triply landlocked country of the USA

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

“Large lactone rings are present in which class of antibiotics? This class includes erythromycin and is commonly used to treat pneumonia and chlamydia.” No the most extreme example we’ve had this year, but pleasingly obscure.