University Challenge 2025 - Quarter final qualification match - Darwin, Cambridge v. Bristol

The Teams

Darwin, Cambridge

Rebecca McClelland

Sophie Willis

Harrison Whitaker (Capt.)

Rowan Stewart

Bristol

Ted Warner

Bridie Rogers

Kevin Flanagan (Capt.)

Olivia Watts

Well, after all the excitement earlier in the evening in Mastermindland were we, I wondered, in for a wee bit of a change of pace in UC? Probably not. For this was another qualification match. To the winners a place in the semis and to the losers a bar stool in the last chance saloon.

I will confess that I didn’t really get where we were heading with Iris van Herpen’s skeleton dress for the first starter, however it was Darwin’s top buzzer who did. Harrison Whitaker knew that this must have been the first dress made by 3D printer. Good shout. - Norse Myths as chronicled in Gylfaginning - announced Amol. Yum yum, announced I. I had the lot, but only the last one, Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge was at all easy, and this was the one bonus Darwin took. Bristol’s top buzzer, Ted Warner took the next starter knowing the Mukden Incident, among others. Muk Den was the main character in the Beijing based version of Eastenders back in the 80s, I believe. Winners of the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival brought us both just the one point for Pride. For once I awarded myself a lap of honour for something other than a Science question. I know as little about video games as I do about Science so when I correctly guessed the Final Fantasy series of games for the next starter, off around the Clark sofa I trotted. Ted Warner gave Bristol the lead with that one. Amol announced a set of bonuses on proteins and my mind went back to sleep for a bit. Bristol took two, and received an apology from Amol that he couldn’t accept the third. For the picture starter we saw a map and a vinyl disc. The vinyl disc contained a photograph of a recording artist. The map showed the location of a town or city mentioned in the name of a well known song recorded by the artist. Olivia Watts knew it was Aretha Franklin so the city had to be San Jose. Ah, but she didn’t ask Amol if he knew the way to San Jose so was right, but didn’t get the starter. Rebecca McClelland knew Nobel Laureate Felix ‘Everybody in the whole cell’ Bloch for the next starter. This earned the picture bonuses. The last answer was Tina Turner and Nutbush City Limits, which I once thought was about Rupert Bear’s home town. Darwin took a single bonus. Nobody knew the Rhinemaidens for the next starter but Darwin lost five. So at the ten minute mark Bristol led 35 – 25.

Now, thanks to Alex Haley’s “Roots” I knew the term griot for the next starter.  Harrison Whitaker knew it as well. Gloria Steinem brought a full house which pogoed Darwin into the lead. I haven’ t heard of the Crying of Lot 49 but Harrison Whitaker was in quickly for it. Medieval philosophy provided a second consecutive full house to give Darwin fifty points on the bounce. Centimorgan? Me? Nope, but it gave Ted Warner the next starter. The artist Barbara Walker brought just one bonus, but Bristol will have to view that particular set as a missed opportunity. With the next starter we had to wait and wait until suddenly it became clear we were looking for the mother of invention. Harrison Whitaker won the buzzer race to say necessity. Science stuff brought a full house, and Darwin had a fifty point lead. I was very pleased with my guess of Poulenc for the music starter – nobody else had it. Ted Warner knew an inlet of the Caspian Sea and this earned him the music bonuses on Les Six. A full house halved the gap between the teams. Bridie Rogers knew trochlea and trochlear for the next starter. Ways of preparing vegetables for cooking did not include the classic British method of boil the bejeesus out of them. We both took the same one with Julien. Darwin lost five with an early interruption for the next starter, allowing Ted Warner in with the cocktail party problem. Women and the Mexican Revolution brought just the one bonus. So as we zeroed in on the 20 minute mark Bristol led by 105 – 95. Anyone’s game.

Harrison Whitaker traced the Lords Appellant to the reign of Richard II, without mentioning the Lords Repellant in every reign since. 3 questions on the element Mercury brought two bonuses. So to the second picture starter and Kevin Flanagan identified a beautiful painting by Rousseau. Bonuses on three more carnival scenes brought two correct answers. French philosopher Lyotard gave Harrison Whitaker another starter. The literary magazine Blast brought Darwin two correct answers. A good old quiz chestnut about the acid present in culinary vinegars saw both teams hesitate before Olivia Watts gave the answer of acetic acid. A really tricky set on semantics yielded nowt. All square again. “The Journey Across the Heath” was the clue that we wanted The Return of the Native for he next starter. Ted Warner zigged with Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This allowed Harrison Whitaker in with the right answer. European place names beginning with the English name of a culinary herb – eg – Dillenburg – brought just the one bonus, when a full house would have been possible. Nobody knew Don Giovanni for the next starter. Captain Kevin Flanagan knew that Marie Curie would be he right answer to the next starter. Historical fashion brought nowt and Bristol still trailed by 10. Olivia Wats wiped this out recognising a starter alluding to the Japanese Tea Ceremony. They got one bonus wrong, and then came the bong. Another tie break! For once, I also knew the answer to it. I knew my favourite poem, Ode to Autumn ends with “Gathering swallows twitter in the sky”. So did Harrison Whitaker. On such small margins. Darwin went straight through to the semi final.

It seems an obvious thing to say that there wasn’t much in it. Darwin were slightly outbuzzed by Bristol. However their BCR of 67 kept them in the game. Bristol won two more starters than Darwin did, but their bonus conversion rate of 38 meant they couldn’t seal the deal in full time.

Amol Watch

Whatever else I say about Amol, I freely admit that he consistently gets it right with his rulings on whether answers are acceptable or not. Yes, I know that he probably has direction coming into his ear about this, but his “I’m so sorry, I can’t accept that Olivia, I did ask for the full title of the song. . . “ just strikes the right note. I yield to no one in my admiration for Jeremy Paxman, but sometimes his rejoinders in such cases were tantamount to insult being added to injury. While I’m praising Amol, I like the way he makes it clear just how much fun he’s having. His reaction to Tina Turner’s Chattanooga Choo Choo from Darwin was rather infectious.

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

The cocktail party problem is a term describing the phenomenon of selective attention wherein someone can attend to a single auditory stimulus tuning out surrounding noises.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In enzymology, the Km is the substrate concentration where half of the maximum rate of reaction is reached. The letters Km stand for which constant?

I was fine up to ‘in’. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 Semi Final 1

 

							Table Position
Ian Grieve	11	0	17	0	28	0	1
John Robinson	12	0	12	0	24	0	4
Robin Dunford	11	0	12	3	23	3	7
Jane Northen	10	0	12	3	23	3	8

Well, peeps, if you read my preview of the semi finals last week then you’ll know that John Robinson promised us that this week’s first semi final would boast four of the top 8 contenders of the first round. Well, he was right about that. We’ve seen semi finals before that have been this top heavy – let’s be honest, we tend to get 1 every series, at least. But it just strikes me as a shame to have a line up of contenders who could grace a final all in the same semi. Well, regardless of what I think, that’s what we had.

First to go was LAM reader Ian Grieve. Ian had a great specialist round in his first match, followed by an absolutely blinding GK round, the best of the series so far. Tonight he was answering on The Clash. Cars on the table – to say that I did not do very well on the specialists in his show would be an understatement. Ian did well, in fact at one stage I thought a perfect round might be in the offing. Well, we didn’t quite get that, but 11 and no passes was a serious statement of intent.

Jane Northen was offering us The Ironclad Battleship, HMS Warrior. I think the Warrior has its own Mastermind connection since I think that Mastermind legend Gavin Fuller – 1993 champ (youngest champ of the Magnus era) was its archivist. Jane had obviously prepared really well, and she topped Ian’s round, scoring 12 and 1 pass. Already this semi final was turning out to be one of the best shows of the series so far – and we’d only had 2 of the 6 rounds yet.

Robin Dunford, who was 7th on my unofficial round one leaderboard, had scored two double figure rounds in his heat. Answering on the films of Marilyn Monroe he managed 8. In this day and age that’s a good score, but the merely good was not going to be good enough in this particular show. As an aside “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” did at least bring me my first correct answer of the show, so I can thank you for that, Robin.

Finally then, LAM reader (and teacher) John Robinson. John was fourth on my first round leadership table and he was answering on one of his favourite artists, Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Mine too, John, mine too. I’ve been lucky enough to see his work in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum too. This yielded me a massive or measly three. (Measly because it’s a low total, massive because its three times as many points as I got from any of the other specialist rounds. John’s round was practically flawless, and he had a deserved lead scoring 13 and no passes.

So it would all come down to the GK. Robin, nothing daunted by having become detached from the leading group, rallied himself well and delivered a double figure round of 10. No, he wouldn’t win with 18, but he’d certainly be able to walk away with his head held high.

So to Ian, then. If the round went his way he had shown that he was capable of setting an extremely challenging total. Did it go his way? Well, it was a very good round indeed, but the dog end of the round just seemed to throw in some of the hardest questions we’d hear all night. I never knew that the Man in the Iron Mask was part of a longer work, for example. As a result Ian’s round finished on 13 for 24 when it looked as if he was going to score one or two more. It meant he was clearly leader in the clubhouse, but with two left out on the course anything could happen. If Jane could equal her best of 12, she would be behind Ian on pass countback. She had 12 on the scoreboard and a question to go. Which state is Mt. Kosciusko located in? She zigged with Victoria when she should’ve zagged with NSW. 24 points. Fine score, but only good enough for 2^nd.

John’s outstanding specialist round meant he needed 11 and no passes to force a tie break, and 12 to win outright. John had scored 12 in the heats, so he was certainly capable. It was close, but in the end not that close, since he managed to equal Ian’s 13 and no passes, which gave him a clear win on 26.

This was a fine, fine show, full of excitement and great performances.  Time will tell if 24 would have been enough to have won some of the other semi finals – my gut feeling is that it will. I will have huge sympathy for Ian and Jane if this does prove to be the case. Every year we lose at least one genuine contender because they are in a really tough semi, but knowing this can’t make it ay easier to bear if you’re the contender to whom it happens.

But on a more positive note, congratulations to John! That performance was a great example of what I said about preparation and maximising your performance in GK. I think at this point I should introduce a self imposed rule that I do not tip, or even comment on the potential of teacher contenders since it only tends to scupper their chances. So I will content myself by saying great performance. Best of luck.

The Details

Ian Grieve	The Clash	11	0	13	0	24	0
Jane Northen	The ironclad battleship HMS Warrior	12	1	12	3	24	4
Robin Dunford	The Films of Marilyn Monroe	8	2	10	3	18	5
John Robinson	Pieter Brueghel the Elder	13	0	13	0	26	0

Mastermind Semi Final Preview

Here it is, folks, the tale of the tape of the first round heat winners of the current series.

Ian Grieve	11	0	17	0	28	0
Dom Tait	11	0	16	0	27	0
Nancy Braithwaite	11	0	14	0	25	0
John Robinson	12	0	12	0	24	0
Olivia Woolley	11	0	13	1	24	1
John Harden	13	0	11	2	24	2
Robin Dunford	11	0	12	3	23	3
Jane Nothen	10	0	12	3	23	3
Cathryn Gahan	12	0	10	0	22	0
Ivan Milatovic	12	0	10	0	22	0
Gary Austin	12	0	10	3	22	3
Phil Nowek	7	0	14	0	21	0
Mike Noyes	8	1	13	0	21	1
Dan Shoesmith	7	2	13	1	21	3
James Waller	7	0	13	0	20	0
Neil Pritchard	9	1	10	1	20	2
Lewis Jones	5	0	14	0	19	0
Aine McMenamin	10	0	9	0	19	0
Roopam Carroll	9	0	10	1	19	1
Rashmi Bhardwarj	8	0	10	0	18	0
Arnar Umranikar	6	0	12	0	18	0
Krish Hook	9	0	9	0	18	0
James Barrow	9	0	9	0	18	0
Rakesh Sharma	10	0	7	0	17	0

 

Now, as tempting as it is to take the six contenders from the top of the table and say – here we are, there’s our six finalists, it’s highly unlikely to work out quite that way. What prompts me to say this? Well . . . I don’t KNOW for certain how the production team decide which contender goes into which semi final. I do know from discussions with some insiders that certainly in the past they paid more attention to combinations of subjects rather than combinations of contenders. In practice this means that in most series you can get some ‘top heavy’ semis, and some ‘bottom heavy semis’. So there’s no guarantee that our 6 top contenders will each be in a different semi. If two or more are in the same semi-final, well, only one of them will get to the final.

Then let’s consider the unreliability of first round form as a guide. Some people overperform in their heat then underperform in their semi. Some people win their heat without hitting top form then hit a real purple patch for their semi-final. Some contenders seem to have only the one good specialist round in them. Some flatter to deceive in GK.

So, having put down those caveats, I will say that both Ian Grieve and Dom Tait looked fantastic in winning their heats. I do think it will be very unfair on them and on the audience if they are paired in the same semi final.

It’s  funny old round, the semi final round. In the first round heat you know that even if you win, you’re a long way from the glass bowl. In my semi, it was as I was walking to the chair, last to go in the GK round, that it suddenly hit me. -You’re just one round away from the Grand Final, and you’ll never have a better chance of getting there.- (I needed 11 points and no passes) In all honesty I don’t know if his helped me or not. But it is a fact that this realisation, that you are so close, can suddenly strike you and you need to be ready in case that happens.

So who wins the semis? I don’t know. But what I do know is that if you prepare your second specialist subject thoroughly, you keep a cool head, you concentrate and answer as many GK questions as you can correctly and make the best guess that you can for the things you don’t know, then you’ll give yourself the best chance.

I’m looking forward to the next few weeks.