University Challenge 2027 Round 2 - Pembroke, Cambridge v. St. John's, Cambridge

The Teams

St. John’s Cambridge

Callum Thomas

Jonathan Watts

Liam Plimmer (Capt)

Aurelia Walker

Pembroke Cambridge

Hebe Robertson

Arvin Boraghi

Timothy Ho (Capt)

Rory Moloney

Yes, last night was derby day for the good citizens of Cambridge, or the students at least as the battle-hardened repechage winners from St. John’s took on Pembroke. Neither team, surprisingly, saw that the first starter was alluding to the Liver bird of Liverpool, although St. John’s lost five so Pembroke didn’t. Now, for the next starter I guessed that the painting in question from the grisly description would be The Raft of the Medusa, but Arvin Boraghi knew it for what was his first starter. It would not be his last. UNESCO geoparks – no, me neither – brought two correct answers from a pretty gettable set. Arvin Boraghi took starter number 2 with the placenta. I loved the name check for a gentleman splendidly called Leon Walras – he had to be heavily moustached with a name like that – as Pembroke answered two questions on auctions. Callum Thomas stopped the Boraghi onslaught for a moment and opened the St. John’s account with the island of Kyushu. Gesundheit. Large panoramic paintings depicting European battles did not bring them any points. They were going to need to do better with bonuses. And they would. For the picture starter flags of the world are meat and drink to many UC teams and Callum Thomas struck speedily to identify the flag of UAE. More flags using the pan arab combinations of black, red, green and white brought a good full house. See what I mean about the bonuses? Clues to names of characters in the titles of works by a playwright gave Hebe Robertson Kit Marlowe. Characters in Paradise Lost – which weren’t easy – brought one correct answer. Arvin Boraghi took his third with a work entitled Stigma. Stigma of the Dump? Who knows? Tennis players who have held world number 1 rankings in both singles and doubles brought just 1 bonus. This meant that Pembroke led by 70-30 on 10 minutes.

Arvin Boraghi beat the rest to the answer thought experiment for the next starter. Number 4. Regeneration shockingly failed to mention the Time Lords of Gallifrey, but brought a full house. It also brought a name check for platyhelminths. I like this word and plan to use it more in conversation. Aurelia Walker struck back for St. John’s recognising several uses of the word cardinal. Material in the Bible considered fulfilled prophecy by Christians brought them another full house and took us to the music starter. None of the young whippersnappers on either team recognised the immortal strains of Van McCoy’s The Hustle. Do do do dedo do do doodoo etc. Liam Plimmer dredged up the use of the word secular in economics to earn the music bonuses. Three more songs that either drew on or inspired dance crazes brought one bonus. Nonetheless the gap was standing at a mere 15 points now. Hebe Robertson knew that Callisto was transformed into a bear – I’ve had nights like that too. Films with single letter titles yielded a full house through some excellent working out. Neither team though could pick up the clues in the question to work out that the last king crowned in Scotland was Charles II. It happened almost 10 years before he was crowned in England. Arvin Boraghi picked up number 5 starter knowing the use of the letter Q in physics. German cultural figures (my immediate thoughts were Goethe and Schiller were likely with Henning Wein an outside chance) brought a single bonus. A novel of 1813 made me think immediately of Pride and Prejudice and correctly so for the answer to the whole question supplied by Hebe Robertson was Mrs. Bennett. Chemistry bonuses took Pembroke to 150 points. The mention of Benghazi in the next starter was enough to give Arvin Boraghi his 6^th starter with Libya. A very quickly taken full house on 19^th century Europe meant that the score was now 175 – 65 for Pembroke as we edged towards 20 minutes. Game over? Not necessarily, but you could have named your own price on St. John’s by this time.

For the second picture starter Aurelia Walker identified a great Arthur Rackham – known to his mates as ‘and Stack ‘em’, I believe -  illustration of Ariel and Caliban. 3 more of the same provided a full house. I’ve tried copying some of Rackham’s work. It’s hard – I can copy the line work, but his subtlety of watercolour is way beyond me. Captain Timothy Ho took another starter for Pembroke recognising a description of ether. Former political parties in Spain put Pembroke on the brink of their double century. Jonathan Watts took a first starter, knowing the latin word ipso. Biographer Sue Prideaux brought 2 correct answers. Rory Moloney knew Paraguay for the next starter. Bonuses on winds of the Mediterranean – Mediterranean cuisine has the same effect on me – brought two bonuses and put Pembroke through the 200 point barrier. Callum Thomas knew that Adelaide is the driest Australian state capital and this earned St. John’s bonuses on The Satyricon – a little-known Doctor Who monster from the mid Tom Baker period, I believe. They took another full house. Callum Thomas knew that llamas are camelids to take a double. Grenoble yielded a two more bonuses which meant that the last couple of minutes had seen St. John’s take a massive 45 point bite out of the Pembroke lead. Hebe Robinson recognised my least favourite Bronte novel, Jane Eyre to stifle the St. John’s revival. The mohs scale of hardness brought two bonuses. Arvin Boraghi took his 7^th starter with the River Rhone. US States and the decades in which they achieved statehood yielded just one bonus, but the gap was substantial again and all the time the clock was running down. Nobody knew polities from the 16^th century for the next starter. Something about joules and mass and all that fell to Timothy Ho. English ceremonial counties whose only borders are with other ceremonial counties brought just one bonus but it was all academic by now. Callum Thomas knew sepia for the next starter and metal alloys yielded St. John’s a quick full house. Arvin Boraghi completed his haul of 8 starters with Burkina Faso. There was no time left to complete any bonuses. Pembroke won by 275 – 170.

Spare a thought for St. John’s. When they got the starters they did brilliantly with the bonuses, achieving a BCR of 77.8%. Pembroke’s BCR was a good 60.4%, but that was off a lot more starters than St. John’s.

Amol Watch

For once the lavish praise Amol bestowed on both teams was justified. They were both terrific and this contest was pretty much as good as it gets.

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

Adelaide is the driest Australian state capital.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Do you know, there wasn’t one question that I felt deserved to be highlighted, although an honourable mention must go to the soporific effect of this set of bonuses :-

In chemistry the property of a molecule not being superimposable on its mirror image is known by what Greek term for the hand?

Enantiomers are chiral compounds that are mirror images of each other. What is the term for chiral compounds that are not mirror images of each other?

Which monosaccharide – one of several diastereomers of glucose – combines with glucose to form lactose?

Mastermind 2027 - First Round Heat 15

I don’t know how many weeks we have left before this first round is killed stone dead by the lay off so the Beeb can put Sleb Mastermind on for its final run, but at least we’re picking up a bit of momentum now.  Well, I had one point this week for the specialists. I guessed the Blondie single Rapture for the Basquiat round – it was the only one I could think of which I was pretty sure was from 1981.

Simon Pitfield has been around the quiz block a bit – notably we shared a series of Brain of Britain in 2009. He was answering on The Swallows and Amazons novels of Arthur ‘King’s’ Ransome. He did well, too. Not quite a double figure round, but 9 is certainly not to be sniffed at in the current era.

As I’ve already said Emma’s round on Jean Michel Basquiat gave me my only correct answer of the specialist rounds. It gave her a lot more, the kudos for a double figure round, no less. She was extremely secure – it’s always a pleasure to watch contenders who have really learned their subject and the double figure score was no less than she deserved.

Even better was to follow from Cameron Johnston, answering on the TV series – that I have never watched – Succession. Knowing Brian Cox is from Dundee, the land of my father’s father, I did guess that the Scottish football team in one of the questions might be Dundee (or Dundee United) but no. Cameron had no such problem. This was a perfect round of 12 from 12, a magnificent performance.

Spare a thought for Gavin Dugan. He had watched one good round, one very good round and one great round. There’s pressure enough on you without having to try to follow that. Yet follow it well he did. So well that I was a little surprised that he only had 10 by the end of the round. Although of course there’s no such thing as ‘only’ ten points in Mastermind these days. Unusually then, all 4 contenders were realistically still in the contest at half time.

Being an old quiz hand can work in your favour in a straight GK round, and Simon navigated his way well through his questions to set a high target of 20. Well, high in terms of being the first to go in the GK round in this series anyway. His 11 meant that all 4 of our contenders had managed at least one double figure round. Well done!

20, the target, would have been enough to win several previous heats so it’s not a score that has been easily achieved. Sadly Emma Swift didn’t quite manage it. Having said that though her own 18 would still have been enough to win more than one of the previous heats and that’s a positive to take away from a good night’s work.

Gavin Dugan had one point more than Simon in the specialist round and scoring one point more than Simon in GK gave him what looked to be a winning total of 22. Not only that but he set the score without incurring any passes. I had the feeling that this was going to be the winning performance.

Let’s be fair to Cameron Johnston, though, he certainly gave it a lash. And remember, he didn’t need to be as good as Gavin had been since he had a two point advantage. A double figure round of 10 and no passes would earn a tie break and 11 would bring the outright win. Well, he didn’t quite make it but nonetheless took the 9 points he needed for 20. It’s not a win, no, but it’s something to be very pleased with.

But the spoils, though, went to Gavin Dugan. Well done sir, a performance as impressive for the manner in which it was done as for the score itself. Best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Simon Pitfield	The Swallows and Amazon Novels of Arthur Ransome	9	0	11	0	20	0
Emma Swift	The American Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat	10	0	8	2	18	2
Cameron Johnston	The TV Serious Succession	12	0	9	3	21	3
Gavin Dugan	SAS Commander Blair Mayne	10	0	12	0	22	0

Celebrity Traitors Series 2

It can be a funny old thing, the celebrity version of a popular game or quiz show. Last year’s massive hit in the genre was the first series of Celebrity Traitors. Now, I have enjoyed The Traitors ever since it debuted – you can check out this post from 2022 as proof

Life After Mastermind: Channel Hopping

So I won’t lie, I really enjoyed the Celebrity show last year. I enjoyed it again this year. . . but not quite as much and not necessarily in the same way.

I’ve seen it said elsewhere that this series was ruined by Richard E. Grant revealing right from the start that he had been selected as a traitor and then by James Acaster’s capitulation close to the end. Well, I think ‘ruined’ is far too strong a word for it. However I do think that the series was changed by it and certainly it ended up not being what it might have been.

As we all know I’m not a celebrity and the chances of me ever becoming one are about the same as me swimming the English Channel (in world record time). So I don’t know first hand if what I’m going to say is accurate. I don’t think I have ever met any of the Celebs involved – I’ve been in the same building at the same time as Michael Sheen but didn’t meet him. But I am pretty sure that celebrities have a different motivation for entering than ordinary participants in the parent show. In the parent show I’d guess that the money is more of a motivation, but also the kudos of 1) having taken part and 2) winning. For a celebrity, I’m not saying that the chance of winning a significant sum for a chosen charity isn’t important. I’m sure it is. I’m also sure that being able to say that you’ve taken part in such a popular show is important. But also, it would only be human to consider what the exposure might do for your career – positive and negative.

Is this why the participants’ reactions to becoming faithful/traitor became so much more of a factor than it has ever been in any previous version that I’ve seen? Maybe. To name three examples, we had Richard E. Grant’s confession and James Acaster’s capitulation that I’ve already mentioned but then you can add to that Joe Lycett’s open canvassing to be recruited as a traitor, a move which had the same results for him as Grant’s and Acaster’s. Now, okay, none of the three got that close to winning as a result, but am I wrong to see something of a disrespect for the rules and conventions of the game? Maybe. We see so many of the celebs telling us what massive fans they are of the show, and yet we had three of them behaving as if they have never seen the show before and two of them pouting about not becoming a traitor or about becoming a traitor.

Which is not to say that the show was not entertaining. It was. But was it the Traitors? Not quite as we know it, Jim.

Mastermind 2027 First Round Heat 15 Specialist Subjects

Okay folks, tomorrow’s Mastermind specialists are:-

The Swallows and Amazons novels of Arthur Ransome

The American Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat

The TV series Succession

SAS Commander Blair Mayne

Now I am aware of just how often I play the pessimism card but I am honestly finding great difficulty seeing where I might scrape a point. I’ve never read any of the novels nor watched Succession. I know next to nothing about Basquiat or Mayne. I only know that Blair Mayne’s nickname was Paddy because he was Stuart Macdonald’s specialist subject in his semi final in 2009. We’ve also had Swallows and Amazons as a specialist before I’m pretty sure.

Let's abolish the thing and have done with it

I was having a good day at work on Wednesday. Basically I accomplished a few quite difficult tasks quite quickly which impressed my line manager, who remarked, “Fair play, you’re having a good day.” To which I replied,

“Hey, it’s always a good day when I don’t have to teach children how you’re supposed to use an apostrophe.” It’s something of a standard response of mine – I also use it in this way whenever something isn’t going quite right – “Well, look on the bright side. I might still have been trying to teach 13 year olds how to use the apostrophe.” Yes, okay, there’s a little exaggeration there, but maybe not as much as you think.

Putting my retired English specialist hat on, I have no hesitation in saying that apostrophes are little sods. Much like some of the kids to whom I was trying to teach them. When I was at university and then when I was training we were confidently told – “Oh, the apostrophe will fall out of use and disappear within about 50 years.” That was back in 1986. It’s been 40 years and they’re still like stinking fish.

Before I retired I discussed this on a number of occasions with colleagues and we all tended to agree. One of the things you might not be aware of is that when you teach English, you start to catch bad spelling and apostrophitis off the children. I doubt that it’s an officially recognised condition but my take on it is that over the years you read so much badly written rubbish (look, I’m not being deliberately rude. The majority of what kids write is rubbish – your job is to make it less rubbishy over a period of time) that it becomes subconsciously learned behaviour. Without even realising you’re doing it you start automatically putting an apostrophe between the penultimate consonant and the s at the end of perfectly innocent words that don’t have an apostrophe. Or between the d and the n in a word like couldn’t. You have no excuse – you know the rules and the correct way to do it. But you have apostrophitis and from now on you’re going to have to check every one that you use is in the right place.

I used to find that , by and large, you could carry some of the kids with you with the idea that the apostrophe is where the missing letters would have been. But once you start talking about possessives, then you can forget it. – Yes, I do know that the possessive apostrophe is actually still an omission mark – in archaic English we would have said David his blog – thus in modern English David’s blog the possessive apostrophe denotes missing letters as well. Well, good luck explaining that to kids and not making them more confused than they were to begin with.

The stupidest thing about it is that when you get right down to it, we dont really need apostrophes to make sense of a sentences meaning because its all in the context. In the vast majority of cases the meaning even without an apostrophe is still clear. Case in point- I deliberately left out three of them in the first sentence of this paragraph. But you still understood it perfectly.

Don’t get me started on colons and semi colons.

The Verdigris Colossus

You know I’ve been lucky enough to see many of the great landmarks of Europe with my own eyes and even sketch them. However I’ve only ever been to New York City outside of Europe. I did manage to sketch quite a few of the city’s landmarks, one of which was the Statue of Liberty. Did you know that it was first opened on 28^th October, 1886 – exactly 140 years ago today? Did you also know that it was originally a coppery colour, supposedly inspired by the semi legendary Colossus of Rhodes. (Been there an'all.) The familiar verdigris patina had completely covered the statue by its 40^th anniversary, 100 years ago. Yes, I know, I’ve been captured by another little bit of clickbait on my home feed. And now, back to regular programming . . .

University Challenge 2027 Repechage 2 - Bristol v. Queen's University, Belfast

The Teams

Bristol

Jake Wingfield

Francesca O’Connor

Freddie Burns (Capt.)

Artem Borisov

Queen’s University, Belfast

Owen Carter

Thomas Dean

Isa Arellano (Capt.)

Noah Calhoun

The first starter twisted and turned like a twisty, turny thing, losing 5 for Queen’s before the mention of George Gerschwin, Liszt and Rachmaninov made it clear to Jake Wingfield that we wanted the term Rhapsody. Who I believe was one of the Angels in Captain Scarlet. You can have that one for free. Questions on a video game, Clair Obscur got Bristol off to the best possible start with a full house. “Portrait” and “prominent piece of jewellery” had to be driving at Girl With A Pearl Earring and it gave Jake Wingfield his double. A slightly macabre UC special set on the graves of mathematicians saw Amol give a rather snappy response to the suggestion of Euler for the first. I hoped we weren’t going to see a repeat of last week’s display from him. Both of us took just one for the obvious answer of Euclid. Look, I didn’t have a clue what the next starter was all about – still don’t – but Thomas Dean gave the correct answer of the Lorentz Factor. Christians in the Mongol Empire brought two bonuses but Queen’s were let down by their dates of English kings. Something really tickled Noah Calhoun about the second bonus, but whatever it was I couldn’t make it out. Come on Noah, share the joke with the whole class, please. What is represented by the formula for the SI derived unit in the picture starter? This was actually the answer as well as the question. It works better if you say it out loud – watt, you see. Jake Wingfield took his third, knowing that the second Hunger Games book is Catching Fire. Three more SI unit formulae provided us both with just the one correct answer for lux. Surprisingly the mention of neighbouring Rawalpindi was not enough to give either team Islamabad for the next starter. So at the 10 minute mark Bristol led by 55 – 10.

Glass and navigation tool pointed to the sextant for the next starter which was taken in an early buzz by Noah Calhoun. Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan (yes, alright, Tavares Who?) yielded 2 correct answers, but they missed on Jack Johnson, the man of whom Nat Fleischer once said he was the only boxer who might have beaten Muhammad Ali in his prime (before his 3 year ban for refusing to fight in Vietnam) You can have that for free too. Poor Owen Carter had been just a little buzzer happy in this first half of the contest and lost five for the third time with a bit of a wild guess. Livonia was enough for me to guess Latvia while Artem Borisov answered Estonia, both of which answers were acceptable. The science of colours brought two bonuses. I guessed, along with Thomas Dean, that the sect referred to in the next question were the Shakers. (I didn’t immediately launch into a chorus of Shake yer booty – but it was s struggle). Lakes that have vanished or greatly diminished in size brought a timely full house to take us up to the music starter. Very quickly Jake Wingfield identified The Marriage of Figaro. “Of Course!” exclaimed Amol. Yeah, well, we don’t all have the answers in front of us like you do, mate. Three more pieces of music whose titles reference Zephir/Zephyr brought two bonuses. Walled city – and – game – were enough to give Freddie Burns Carcasonne. Baroque architecture saw Bristol get one bonus – but a single letter robbed them of two. Amol ruled out Trompe d’oeil for trompe l’oeil and was right to do so. For the next starter the mention of a book title with the latin for logarithm gave Freddie Burns John Napier. Literature set in LA in the 1970s brought a full house to Bristol. Thomas Dean knew the Overton Window for the next starter. We had some blinds put up by our Overton window last year. Physicists in the RNA tie club – don’t ask – brought both of us two bonuses and I made my lap of honour around the sofa while the going was good. This meant that Bristol led 130 – 70 as we approached 20. Just a few minutes earlier the gap had narrowed to 25 points, but it was widening ominously now.

A beautifully constructed UC special on flags saw Jake Wingfield first in with Italy. The inaugural Best Album Cover Grammy brought two bonuses. Fair enough. Noah Calhoun guessed we were seeing a photo of a golden eagle for the next starter. More birds that are shared as national symbols by multiple countries brought 1 bonus, although they were nearly there with the first but said swallowtail rather than swallow. Artem Borisov knew the word for eggs in Korean cuisine. Phonetics saw Bristol take a full house leaving them just one full set away from their double century. They didn’t get it with the next starter for Noah Calhoun correctly buzzed in with algae. A couple of bonuses on Linus Pauling put Queen’s into triple figures. Freddie Burns knew that Joseph Wright of Derby painted Vesuvius a lot. Had he never heard of Etna or Stromboli? Mountain bike challenge races promised but little but we both got the gimme by knowing the capital of Costa Rica. Thomas Dean knew that Japan has been governed by the 1955 system. The late Catherine O’Hara brought just one bonus, but the answer of Schitt’s Creek set my grandson giggling for the rest of the show. He’s a chip off the old block, that boy. Francesca O’Connor knew that the first word of ‘Daffodils’ is I. Off the point, Stan Tottman, one of the best teachers I ever knew, once explained that the first line of Daffodils encapsulates the romantic movement “I wandered lonely as a cloud” – and he was right. It really is all there. Innominate parts of the body (Innominate – de do de do do, Innominate do do do do. etc) brought 1 bonus. Thomas Dean knew that SG was sublimation. Fair enough. There was time for just one bonus on islands. Bristol won by 205 – 135.

Bristol deserved their win and achieved a healthy 60.6% bonus conversion rate. Queen’s BCR was even slightly better, with 63.6%. But you know the old saying – it’s bonuses for show, but starters for dough.

Amol Watch

We saw an unusually snarky Amol last week. Thankfully that Amol seems to have put back in his box. Don’t be in a hurry to let hm out again any time soon, please.

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

The swallow is the national bird of both Austria and Estonia.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

There were just a couple of times when the internal orchestra was about to strike up with the familiar dumdums but on these occasions an early answer put a stop to it, I’m happy to report.