University Challenge 2027 First Round Emmanuel, Cambridge v. Somerville, Oxford

The Teams

Emmanuel, Cambridge

Olga Devine

Sam Palmer

Fin Brickman (capt.)

Adrija Bhattacharya

Somerville, Oxford

Milton Lee

Zoe McGuire

Rohan George (capt.)

Elijah Scheinson

For the first starter I thought it had to be Tito (that’s General Tito of former Yugoslavia not Tito from the Jackson Five). Sam Palmer buzzed in early with the same answer. Bonuses on fine Art and the TV show Succession brought one correct answer. Adrija Bhattacharya, who was going to have a very productive evening, recognised clues to the Catalan language. I’d guess that there was at least one Great British Bake Off fan on the Emmanuel team because they took a full house on baking terms in fairly short order. I’m sure that I have seen the swan automaton that was the subject of the next starter but Somerville lost five and Emmanuel didn’t know it. The next starter took a while to become clear but the phrase ‘polyalphabetic substitution’ suggested cryptography and Adrija Bhattacharya won the buzzer race to give that answer. Organometallic chemist Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson is not, I will admit, a household name in LAM Towers but despite the soporific effect of the bonuses about him I answered one, earning myself a lap of honour while Emmanuel didn’t get any of them. So to the picture round and a line drawing of an oak tree and an oak leaf. Now, I hope that we’re all mature enough that I can mention that they came from Baden-Powell’s “Scouting for Boys” without any sniggering in the back of the room. Fin Brickman sounded as if he was guessing, but he was right. More of the same brought nowt. A work on medicine allowed Milton Lee to raise the Somerville total to zero, having had two incorrect interruptions earlier. The linguistic landscape of the middle East at around the time of the birth of Jesus brought a full house. This meant that at the 10 minute mark Emmanuel led by 55 – 15.

For the next starter Fin Brickman knew that Lloyd George became PM on the resignation of Robin Asquith. (ask your Grandad). Secondary characters in The Witcher series of books brought two bonuses. Look we weren’t given enough of the next starter for me to have a clue about it but Adrija Bhattacharya gave the correct answer of Transformer. The third Muromachi shogun did not promise me a great deal – yet I managed two correct answers as did Emmanuel, who missed a full house by zigging with Kabuki while they should have zagged with Noh. For the music starter nobody recognised one of Mussorgsky’s chart toppers, Night on Bald Mountain. Elijah Scheinson knew the latin term Colonia after Emmanuel had lost five. Music bonuses on more pieces inspired by mountain climbing brought them one bonus. A bit of a convoluted twisty question eventually allowed Elijah Scheinson to take his double with California. Heinrich Kayser (what a geezer) brought one bonus. Rohan George continued the Somerville purple patch knowing about the muon. UNESCO World Heritage Sites in France brought another single correct answer. Both teams’ members are probably too young for the portmanteau word Madchester to mean much to them and neither team got it for the next starter. That man Scheinson obliged with the next starter, knowing what a theme was in the Byzantine empire. The bonuses were uses of the word villain in Shakespeare, (‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, and in his cups, a right villain, innit?’) They took one but would have done better to just guess at the biggies rather than looking for something more obscure for the 2^nd and 3^rd. Still, as we rounded down on the 20 minute mark Somerville had made significant inroads into the Emmanuel lead, as the score stood at 90 – 75.

For the second picture starter Adrija Bhattacharya recognised a still of Michael B. Jordan in Sinners. Three more stills from films in which actors played their own twins brought nothing. Sir Clive Lloyd – whom I saw in what I think was his last test match in England at the Oval in 1984 – I knew was from Guyana. Nobody else did. Milton Lee knew that the first non round moon to be discovered was Hyperion. A full house on countries of the Middle East narrowed the lead to just 5 points. So Olga Devine picked just the right time to get her first starter, giving Norway as The Country That Became Too Rich. The discovery of Australopithecus brought two bonuses. Adrija Bhattacharya took another starter knowing that Korsakoff’s syndrome can lead to amnesia. (supply your own jokes). Terms used in climbing and bouldering brought two bonuses. Sam Palmer won the buzzer race to identify the northernmost point of Canada as being situated on Ellesmere Island. Poems on Death brought another two bonuses and the gap was looking unbridgeable in the few minutes we had left. It didn’t help too much when Fin Brickman buzzed too early for the next starter, which allowed Rohan George to answer fluorine. Music in the early 20^th century saw a bit of confusion throw away one of the bonuses and take one of the others. Poor old Rohan George jumped too early at the Brothers Grimm to give us fairy tales, but the question concerned their other hat, as lexicographers. Olga Devine knocked that one into the open goal. Terms in biology beginning with sph brought a couple of bonuses, and the outcome of the contest was certain by now. Words beginning with Dh allowed Fin Brickman to apply a little more gilding to the Emmanuel score. Former counties of England brought one bonus before the gong brought the contest to an end. The last few minutes had been dominated by Emmanuel and they won by 190 to 105, but make no mistake, they were made to fight for it

For the record, Emmanuel’s BCR was 47.2% to Somerville’s 52.3%. Not a lot in that, but Emmanuel won it with their buzzing and found an extra gear when they needed to.

Amol Watch

I’ll be honest, I think that saying “At one point I thought that you guys might get zero” to Somerville was not the most consoling thing he could have said at the end.

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

Lincoln is ultimately derived from the Latin word Colonia, meaning a city or outpost in recently conquered territory.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Wilkinson shared the Nobel Prize with which German chemist (das Boots?) who also discovered the structures of organometallic sandwich compounds? This chemist and Richard Schrock give their names to two different varieties of transition metal carbene complexes. - Would one of them be dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 10

When you appear on Mastermind, there’s really only one aspect of the show that you have any control over and that’s your specialist subject. Now, you can prepare thoroughly and things can still go wrong for a number of reasons – nerves, feeling ill on the day of the recording, or maybe a mismatch between your understanding of the parameters of the subject and the setter’s understanding of it. By and large, though, the more effectively that you prepare, the better you will do. Yet bearing this simple axiom in mind, it is remarkable how many times we see contenders failing to really hit the heights on their specialists. If you watch the 1977 series which is being repeated at 9:30pm on Monday nights on BBC Four, you’ll see that this is by no means a recent development. In last night’s BBC Four show we saw three contenders underachieve on GK, which meant that the other, despite having a ‘mare on GK, still won.

Well, heat 10 of the 2026 series kicked off with Kate Peck answering on the music of George Michael. This was my ‘banker’ subject of the night, which says more about my lack of knowledge of the other subjects than my knowledge of George Michael, but it still delivered me three points. It delivered Kate a good round. For most of it she looked as if she was heading for double figures, but fell just short to finish with 9. That’s a good score in the current era.

The only other specialist I thought that was likely to bring me any more points was the next up. Gareth Peel was answering on tennis star Monica Seles. Surprisingly this one gave me more points than George’s music did. I landed 4, to take me up towards respectability for the aggregate. Gareth, like Kate before him, looked as if he was heading for double figures and what’s more he achieved it finishing with 10 points and a singe pass. Good round.

There was only one of the four specialists which I could not score on and if you’d asked me before the show which one it was going to be I would have picked Justin Uzomba’s round on Kerry James Marshall. Yet I did get a point, more by luck than judgement. There was no luck involved in Justin’s terrific score of 11, though. Like the previous two contenders his round had double figures written all over it in fact the only surprise was when he ended up passing one. Quality.

Three specialists and three really good rounds. Was Eileen Thatcher going to be able to complete a full set with the Lord Peter Wimsey novels of Dorothy L. Sayers? Yes, she was. Sometimes I say that there’s something in the air, something infectious that seems to make successive contenders struggle in some shows. Well, what there was in the air with this show was confidence and knowledge, and Eileen too powered through her round to take a fine 11 and 1 pass. Quality.

Well done everyone! The fact we so rarely see all four contenders in a single heat do so well on their specialists made this a better heat already than many of this series.

Was it a case of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ in the GK? Not really, no. Kate Peck, who would be forgiven for thinking herself a little unlucky to be in fourth place after scoring 9 on specialist, gave a competent performance on GK, scoring another 9 for 18 in total. Which would have won or tied some of the earlier heats in the series. Good work.

We were all returning to the chair for GK in the same order in which we’d undergone the specialists so it was Gareth Peel back next. Now, Gareth’s first half dozen or more answers were delivered with such confidence and authority that I thought he was going to be on for a second double figure round in the same show. But the wrong answers and a couple of passes crept in and he lost a bit of momentum. In the last part of the round he steadied the ship and took the last question to give himself 9 for a total of 19 and the lead.

Now, I don’t think that we saw a single bad round last night, but we did see a round where one of the contenders seemed to struggle just a little bit. That was Justin’s GK round. Now, don’t get me wrong, the 7 he scored brought him to a perfectly respectable 18 points, a total which has been a winning total already during this series. However he did look just a little disappointed not have claimed at least a share in the lead with one contender still to go.

This was Eileen. She needed 9 to put the result beyond doubt, and this she achieved. You know, there’s a lot to be said for keeping your head, answering what you know, giving the percentage answer for what you don’t and just carrying on answering. In the end it brought Eileen 11 points for a total of 22. The feat of achieving double figures in both specialist and GK is one we haven’t seen that many times during this series yet, and so many congratulations for that. In fact congratulations to all four contenders for making an exciting show. I wish Eileen the best of luck in the semi-finals.

The Details

Kate Peck	The Music of George Michael	9	0	9	3	18	3
Gareth Peel	Monica Seles	10	1	9	2	19	2
Justin Uzomba	Kerry James Marshall	11	1	7	1	18	2
Eileen Thatcher	The Peter Wimsey Stories of Dorothy L. Sayers	11	1	11	1	22	2

Mastermind 2027 - First Round Heat 10 - Preview

 Good Lord, look at the time! Where did that weekend go? Well, never mind, let’s have a look at tomorrow night’s Mastermind Specialist subjects:-

The Music of George Michael

Monica Seles

Kerry James Marshall

The Peter Wimsey Stories of Dorothy L. Sayers

Personally I think there’s maybe 1 or two for me in the first two, but nowt in the others, even the old stager Lord Peter Wimsey. Pools panel forecast – no telegram claims required.

University Challenge Round One - Southampton v. Queen's University Belfast

The Teams

Southampton

James Carrick-Lawson

Zosia Mikolajczuk

JB Cassidy (capt)

Michael Wu

Queen’s University, Belfast

Owen Carter

Thomas Dean

Isa Arellano (capt)

Noah Calhoun

Thomas Dean understood that the references in the first starter all related to the number 100. A lovely UC set on planetary bodies in the Star Wars universe saw Queen’s gratefully accept the full house of bonuses. There was too much pressure on both teams to be able to get the answer of pressure for the next starter but Queen’s lost 5 of their lead. For the next starter we had the second paragraph of a novel that had to be “The Catcher in the Rye” and JB Cassidy won the buzzer race to give that answer. Original departments of the First French Republic that are no longer part of France today provided an interesting set but we both only gave the one correct answer. Zosia Mikolajczuk had an epiphany that all the cakes in the next starter are eaten to celebrate Epiphany. I had my own epiphany when I got the first Physics bonus right with diffusion. Off around the sofa on the lap of honour I went.  Southampton also had the second but not the third. This took us to the picture starter. Both Thomas Dean and I recognised the location of Rotterdam on a map. Other cities to host a Grand Cycle Tour, outside the country of the tour brought Queen’s a very well earned two correct answers. Sosia Mikolajczuk could see that the next starter was driving at tortoiseshell and she earned her team a set of bonuses on composers who have written incidental music for plays. 2 bonuses meant that as we approached ten minutes Southampton led 55 to 40. Good match so far.

Gawd alone knows what the next starter was all about, but thankfully James Carrick-Lawson gave the correct answer of the square root of two before the question was completed. Three questions on economic sociology yielded one correct answer. Was it cold in Southampton’s part of the studio, I wonder, bearing in mind that the skipper was wearing gloves and Michael Wu a woolly hat. Dialects of Telugu allowed Thomas Dean to earn a set of bonuses on poems that personify Time. One of them was answered correctly. JB Cassidy was in super fast to identify castles of the Order of the Assassins. Single digit numbers in Science were not exactly greeted with shouts of joy in LAM Towers when they were announced as the next set of bonuses. They brought a timely full house to Southampton and nowt to me. For the music starter that followed nobody recognised a bit of Bellini. With the next starter it was a bit of a race to identify the architectural gothic style and the race was won by Owen Carter. For their pains they received the music bonuses, but failed to score, missing, among others, Petula Clark’s Downtown. There is an urban myth that the song was about Kingston upon Thames, but it was actually inspired by a visit by songwriter Tony Hatch to Manhattan. The speedbuzzing of Owen Carter won a second consecutive starter when he was first to recognise that the Gulf of Carpe- can only be about Australia. Cities whose English names begin with LU brought a full house and now whichever team took the next starter would be the first to break into triple figures. Look, if I pretended that I knew what the next question was all about you’d know I was lying. Noah Calhoun said it was plane – good enough for me, squire. The Chinese liqueur Moutai brought two correct answers. Henry Kissinger liked it, apparently. Michael Wu came up with the anthropologist Levi-Strauss (who must have been an expert on genes too, surely). Pottery terms beginning with B did not provide further points – but I bet Throw Down fans were yelling the answer to at least two of them. I was one of them. JB Cassidy knew Werner/Wernher for the next starter. Epithets frequently used as the second part of binomials brought us both one correct answer. So by the 20 minute mark Southampton had just popped their collective nose in front, leading by 120 – 110.

Michael Wu won the buzzer race to identify a painting by Rembrandt for the next starter. Other works stolen in the same 1990 art museum heist brought one correct answer. You got the feeling that another full house from either team just might be the decisive move in this tight match. James Carrick-Lawson took the next starter with the stomach. BAFTA Games awards nominees brought two bonuses. Queen’s really needed the next starter. Thomas Dean got it, knowing that the planned new Indonesian capital ends in ARA. Native American imagery on US state flags  brought a great full set to Queen’s. They were too slow on the buzzer when the name of Baron Scarpia was mentioned for the next starter allowing Michael Wu in with Tosca. A bonus set we haven’t seen for some time in UC on false friends in other languages brought Southampton one bonus, but ran the clock down which benefited them more than Queen’s. Thomas Dean struck back with the next starter knowing that Bromine is one of the 2 elements whose name refers to an unpleasant smell. Decolonisation brought Queen’s a full house in quick time and the gap narrowed again. Michael Wu won another buzzer race to identify Spielberg as the director of the Fabelmans. Spring in East Asian literature brought two bonuses and Southampton were looking good for the win. Again, Thomas Dean came book with a fine buzz to answer Luxembourg. Sad to see that the Winkler test has nothing to do with “Happy Days” but soldier on. It brought Queen’s two bonuses. If they could take the next starter . . . Well, Noah Calhoun knew that the ohm is the only one of the 22 SI Derived units to be symbolised by a Greek letter. Cantons and Canton brought the two bonuses they needed to snatch a narrow lead. Was there time for another starter? Yes, but only just and it was taken by JB Cassidy, playing a captain’s innings. There wasn’t time for any bonuses to be answered, and Southampton had just won, by 200-195.

Well, we’ll see both of these splendid teams again. 195 will be enough for Queen’s. The Southampton BCR was a modest 47% to Queen’s 64% - but who cares after an exciting match like that? Well played to all.

Amol Watch

Good professional job done.

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

Indonesia is planning a new capital city called Nusantara

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Two differential equations describing how the size of a concentration gradients affects diffusion and how concentration varies with time are known as the laws of diffusion of which 19^th century German-born chemist?  Complete this famous phrase – dum de ?

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 9

Well, that was certainly more like it, wasn’t it.

Beth Goodliff kicked off the first round with The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. I did explain in my preview that I have never read any of these and sadly my memories of the TV adaptation of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit were too sketchy to bring me any points. Beth on the other hand managed the coveted double figure round, so whatever happened in the rest of the show, hers was not a wasted journey to the studio.

Lottie Verheijen was answering on the Films of Nicole Kidman. I know more about the films of Nicole Kidman than I do about the novels of Jeanette Winterson but I still didn’t know enough to earn any points on this round. Lottie, though, managed our second double figures round of the night, going one better than Beth and scoring 11. Again, she can be very pleased with how she acquitted herself in the chair.

Were we perhaps on for a triple of double figures rounds? It feels like a long time since that happened. Yet Alex Spacey looked a shoe in to achieve this from very early doors in his round on the radio comedy series Round The Horne. I stumbled my way to 4 points, but Alex blasted through to his own 11 points. So far the whole show had been like a little oasis of quality in what has so far been a rather uninspiring first round.

Finally civil servant Freddie Mitchell with a real old-style Mastermind subject, the Paris Commune of 1871. Would he complete a first round of all double figure scores for us? Well, no, not quite. Still, his 8 was not achieved without a very good knowledge of his subject, and by no means suffered badly by comparison with what had gone before. I scraped two to finish with an aggregate of 6.

Prospective contenders please take note. These performances show you what you should all be aiming for in your specialist subjects. There is no substitute for thorough preparation and if you prepare thoroughly for your specialist round, this is what you can achieve.

Freddie Mitchell returned to the chair and, as if to make amends for missing out on double figures in his specialist he put in a very good GK performance to score 11. It is not very often that we see a contender who is fourth at the turn around go on to win, but a performance like this certainly put him in contention to do so.

Beth returned to the chair needing a double figure round of her own for an outright lead. She too put in a good performance, keeping her head , picking off what she knew and guessing what she didn’t. It didn’t quite take her to double figures but it brought her 9, although Freddie retained the lead on pass countback. So, two contenders were in the clubhouse and both could feel very pleased with their performances all evening.

Lottie, sadly, did not do so well on her general knowledge. She gave it her best shot and did manage to come up with answers to every question, but was unable to find enough correct ones to challenge the lead. She finished with a total of 16.

So only Alex Spacey remained. None of the other three contenders had quite managed two double figure rounds. If Alex could to it then he would win. If he could score 9 and no more than 2 passes he would win. Well, I mentioned in my review of the previous heat that you can often tell someone who has a quiz background from the way that they answer. Alex certainly gave that vibe to me as he never looked in any doubt. He passed the target and had enough time to add several more correct answers to take his overall score to 24. 13 in general knowledge is a total that has to be taken seriously in this series. Very well done, Sir. You coulda been a contender and in fact, you very much are.

As for Freddie and Beth, well, I hope that they take consolation from the fact that the majority of this season’s heats have been won with scores of 19 or less. A show with no fewer than 4 double figure rounds. Monsieur, our ‘ost is spoiling us.

The Details

Beth Goodliff	The Novels of Jeanette Winterson	10	1	9	4	19	5
Lottie Verheijen	The Films of Nicole Kidman	11	0	5	0	16	0
Alex Spacey	Round the Horne	11	1	13	1	24	1
Freddie Mitchell	The Paris Commune of 1871	8	1	11	2	19	3

 

Mastermind Heat 9 Specialist subjects

 Here we are then, the subject line up for tomorrow’s Mastermind heat 9. They are:-

The novels of Jeannette Winterson

The films of Nicole Kidman

The BBC radio comedy series Round The Horne

The Paris Commune of 1871

I don’t see myself getting a hatful of specialist subjects. I’ve never read any of Jeannette Winterson’s novels although I did watch the excellent TV adaptation of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit with the late Charlotte Coleman and Geraldine McEwan. Films of Nicole Kidman may be my best chance of 1 or 2 points, while there might be a piece of low hanging fruit in Round the Horne for me.

Adieu, Nobody's Fool

 I was sorry, but not completely shocked by the news that ITV are not planning to make another series of Nobody’s Fool. Back in May ITV aired this hybrid of a Traitor’s-style intrigue game and a quiz, hosted by Danny Dyer and Emily Atack. I liked the show and made a point of watching every episode. In my review of the series after the final episode I said,

“Summing up then I enjoyed “Nobody’s Fool”. It isn’t “The Traitors” (although one suspects that it rather wishes that it was) but I watched the first two shows on demand then made a point of being around to watch each show of the rest of the series as it aired. The big question, though, is whether enough viewers felt the same. I hope so. If it comes back, I will watch it.”

Well, I think that the answer to that big question was a pretty resounding, no, not enough viewers did feel the same. It’s a shame, because I enjoyed it. This comes at a time when ITV are also rumoured to have no plans to make a second series of The Chase Around the World, another quiz based show that I really enjoyed. That’s the problem with what my grandparents would have called commercial television. The bottom line really is the bottom line.