The Teams
Manchester
Ray Power
Kirsty Dickson
Kai Madgwick (Capt)
Rob Faulkner
UCL
Zak Lakota-Baldwin
Alice Lee
Michael Doherty (Capt)
Manny Campion-Dye
Howdy there pardners.
Pull up a bar stool and let’s join Manchester and UCL in their visit to the
last chance saloon. No more messing about – lose this one and you’re out.
Kai Madgwick won the
first starter on Dio Cassius’ celebrity profile of Boudica. Bonuses on
Transnational UNESCO world heritage sites weren’t easy but Manchester took two
of them. I didn’t know the play Kyoto but Michael Doherty the UCL skipper did.
Alliterative psychologists supplied me with a rare psychology bonus with Alfred
Adler. UCL didn’t score. The ridiculously long next starter required you to
keep your nerve. Kai Madgwick didn’t and lost five. By the end of the question,
several weeks later, it became clear that the answer was perfect, as both Zak
Lakota-Baldwin and I knew. Historian Timothy Snyder brought us both just the
one bonus. No marks for either team for not recognizing the location of the
city of Newport for the picture starter. Michael Doherty recognized the
description of a couple of films with the word Desire in the title. Map
locations of various Chartist riots or protests brought a single bonus. This
was enough to give UCL a 40 – 15 lead on ten minutes.
For the next starter
nobody knew the Sorbs. I remember them for their early 70s hit Part of the
Union. Manny Campion-Dye was the first to recognize a description of work by
David Hockney for the next starter. Terms coined by William Whewell – yes, I
know, should be William Whothe’ell – brought two bonuses and it looked as if
UCL might be starting to pull away. Neither team knew that the women’s 800
metres was not run between the Amsterdam and Rome Olympics because of the
supposed state of the finishers at the end of the Amsterdam race. Michael Doherty
knew the term colostrum for the next starter. Two bonuses on pastels (bet you
can’t put one in your mouth without chewing it) were taken. In one of his less
dramatic but more effective buzzes, Kai Madgwick identified fictional Methodists
for the next starter. The immortal Kind Hearts and Coronets brought just one
bonus but it’s always nice to see my home borough getting name-checked. So to
the music round. Kai Madgwick’s free arm leaped skywards, but he was still
beaten to the buzzer by team mate Rob Faulkner who very quickly identified the
stylings of Fonatines DC. Me neither. Three more indie bands brought our first
full house of the evening. Thales of Miletus – who was a Doctor Who villain
during the Jon Pertwee era – fell to Manny Campion-Dyer for the next starter,
and earned bonuses on the Weimar Republic’s second most popular jazz combo, the
Gottingen Seven. One bonus followed. A very prompt buzz from Michael Doherty identified
nopales as leaves of a cactus. The book Green Chemistry did not bring anything
more to the table. So at just past 20 minutes UCL still led by 100 – 55.
I guessed that the list
given at the start of the next question were all Maglev trains and so did Kai
Madgwick. Low- or un-seeded tennis players recently successful in major
tournaments brought just one bonus and took us to the 2nd picture
starter. Kai Madgwick recognized a photo of Sir Roger Bannister, runner up in
SPOTY in 1954. More runners up in SPOTY brought two bonuses, and narrowed the
gap to 10 points. The Manchester skipper’s head was now well and truly in the
game and he levelled the scores with Tajikistan for the next starter. Northeast
Caucasian languages brought a single bonus, but it also brought the lead. UCL
immediately took it back as Zak Lakota-Baldwin knew the derivation of the
musical term sonata. Songs inspired by the 1992 LA riots gave them two correct
answers and a fifteen point lead. Kai Madgwick knew the film trilogy The Human
Condition and one maths bonus levelled the scores. Kai Madgwick buzzed to
identify a former president of Guatemala. A full house would surely mean Manchester
couldn’t be beaten in ordinary time. Two bonuses meant that the game was not
yet over. Kai Madgwick took the next starter with deuterium and tritium and
then it was. Manchester gilded their score a little with a bonus on Schiller,
before the gong ended the match with the score at 150 – 120 to Manchester.
An enjoyable match of
fluctuating fortunes. For the record UCL’s BCR was 37.5% to Manchester’s 50%.
Had UCL converted more of their earlier bonuses, I think we would have seen a
different result.
Amol Watch
I can forgive Amol for
pointing out that Kai Madgwick nearly jumped out of his seat for the music
starter, because he did.
Interesting Fact
That I Didn’t Already Know of the Week
William Whewell was the
first person to coin the term scientist
Baby Elephant Walk
Moment
In mathematics
what seven letter adjective can precede
all of the following- “graph” to indicate a graph where every induced subgraph
the clique number equals the chromatic number, “group” to refer to a group
(incorrect buzz) equal to its commutator subgroup, “information” to refer to a
class of game in which players move alternately and each player is completely
informed of all previous groups and ‘number’ to indicate a positive integer
that is equal to the sum of its proper divisors?
