The Teams
UCL
Calum Jack
Josh Mandel
Olivia Holtermann Entwistle (capt.)
Sanjay Prabhakar
Open
Nicky Maving
Tom Barber
Karie Westermann (capt.)
Hector Payne
Howdy pardners. Take your seats by the bar in the Last
Chance Saloon, while UCL and the Open duke it out for continued existence in
the competition, all for your viewing pleasure. Mind the spittoon.
Both teams are old hands now and knew the value of
patience. The first starter ground on and on but nobody twitched until Amol
mentioned Confessions of an English Opium Eater which saw Karie Westermann
unleash her buzzer finger and give the correct answer of Thomas de Quincey –
who was also the ventriloquist with Nookie Bear on his days off. Ask your
parents. Rock songs with repeated titles – She said She said being one –
brought just the one bonus with Louie Louie. None of us really got hold of the
next starter which was looking for A – E – I – O – U. Fair enough. Sexual Dimorphism
brought Sanjay Prabhakar UCL’s first starter. Octavia ‘I ‘ate you’ Butler brought
UCL a welcome full house. Lee Miller gave The Open the next starter bringing up
a set on cotton weaving terms, (as opposed to cotton-pickin’ varmints. Remember
Deputy Dawg? No, alright, then.) For the picture starter we saw a diagram of
the cross section of a leaf, that looked as if it was about to attack the
Starship Enterprise. Nicky Maving took it with xylem. I’m sure I once met a guy
called Billy ‘Spongy’ Mesophyl in 1985 in the Duke of Cambridge in Lewisham
(since demolished to build a bus garage) but he wasn’t an acceptable answer
anyway, so The Open took two bonuses on that set. Nobody knew that a group of
wonderful and /or horrendous people were all alive in the 1610s. Olivia Holtermann
Entwistle knew a group of works all linked by the word blue. A timely full house on seaweed sadly did not
include – if the answer is ‘because the seaweed’, what is the question? (Why
did the lobster blush?) but meant that the score at just after 10 minutes was
60 – 50 to the Open.
The Orion Nebula allowed Sajay Prabhakar to level the
scores. He was on good form last night and the most successful of either team.
Video Games released in the year of 95 brought two correct answers to UCL – and
I got one of them with Worms. Loved that game. Calum Jack knew that the Japanese
culinary term katsu derived from the English cutlet. Lakes in the EU brought a
brace of bonuses. For the next starter the unmistakeable opening bars of New
Order’s Blue Monday set off a buzzer race won by Nicky Maving. Three tracks
that ‘would never have been made without the Hacienda’ proved less well known.
I had none while Open had the Chemical Brothers. When I hear the words ‘literary
quarterly I usually answer Granta, and so did Karie Westermann, earning her
team bonuses on the Majahapit Empire. Yeah, me neither. The Open still took 2. Josh
Mandel was the first to recognise a set of clues relating to the word
assumption. A science set about gawd only knows what brought UCL one more bonus
than it brought me. Sanjay Prabhakar knew that Charles Lyell wrote ‘Principles
of Geology’ and then Gabriel Garcia Marquez brought 2 bonuses. That man
Prabhakar struck again on the next starter, recognising clues to the word
ignorance. Famous pantomime performers brought me a full house, but only one
correct answer to UCL. However they were starting to exert control on the
match, leading at 20 minutes by 149 – 95.
For the second picture starter Karie Westermann recognised
the work of costume designer Leon Bakst. More of Bakst’s designs for the Ballet
Russes brought two correct answers. One full set separated the teams. Josh
Mandel came in early to identify a funeral oration given for Pericles. A
beautiful UC special set on football teams and patience gave three clubs who
had to wait a long time between winning trophies. Next year if they ask the set
they’ll be able to include Newcastle United. Two bonuses stretched the lead
again. Sanjay Prabhakar stretched the lead further knowing Eightfold Path in Physics.
Directors who have worked numerous times with Tilda Swinton brought UCL a full
house. The gap was now more than two full houses and the sands of time were
gathering on the bottom of the Open’s hourglass. LAM reader Hector Payne had a
lash at the behavioural scientist needed for the next starter but none of us
knew it. Calum Jack knew the Oscar Winning Twenty Days in Mariupol to pretty
much seal the deal. Terms in graph theory only provided one bonus, but UCL were
heading for the winner’s enclosure anyway. Josh Mandel knew the river on the
banks of which stands Hanoi. This allowed UCL to take 2 of a relatively gentle
set on the Labours of Heracles. Sanjay Prabhakar knew of augmented chords and
US composer and supporting character in Porridge, Charles ‘Bee’ Ives, brought a
well guessed full house. None of us knew karyotype. Nobody could get that
Tennyson’s Sea King’s Daughter was Alexandra of Denmark before the contest was
gonged. UCL won by 235 – 105.
The stats are pretty much all in favour of UCL. Across the
whole show they outbuzzed the Open, and scored a BCR of 67, while the Open
managed a BCR of 61. So hard lines to the Open, but hey, you are quarter
finalists and nobody can take that away from you.
Amol Watch
Got a bit fussy with pronunciation with the lake set did
our Amol. When Josh Mandel offered us the Ee – sel meer Amol accepted it but not
without correcting him to Eye – sel – meer. I bet that wouldn’t pass muster in
the Netherlands, Amol.
Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of
The Week
The Japanese culinary term katsu derived from the English
cutlet.
Baby Elephant Walk Moment
A repulsive term scaled by the Debye Length is included in
DVLO theory. This measures the stability of what type of mixtures where a small
insoluble phase is suspended throughout another phase? Examples include gels,
aerosols and foams.
Poetry, sheer poetry – although nowhere near as sonorous as
dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.