University Challenge 2027 First Round Durham v. Manchester

Durham v. Manchester

The Teams

Durham

Robert Morris

Bella Thomas

Dominic Challis (Capt.)

Andreas Ktori

Manchester 

Maciej Wojdyla

Ethan Lehane

Argyro Olympitis (Capt.)

Caroline Ball

Durham lost five on the first starter. It was one of those where you have to wait, and at the end it becomes very obvious. The word the question was looking for was ‘absolute’ Maciej Wojdyla took first blood for Manchester with this. Bonuses on the cuckoo family (I met a few of them in my 40 odd years as a teacher) brought Manchester a full house. Andreas struck back for Durham recognising references to the 20^th century history of Mongolia. Durham picked up two bonuses on dyes but missed out on woad. Thankfully Argyro Olympitis came in early to halt an unfathomable stream of applied gibberish for the next starter with the answer of alpha helix. Nope, me neither, although it sounds like it may have been defeated by Tom Baker in a Doctor Who serial from the late 70s. Bonuses on regulations for road cycling competitions brought two more bonuses for Manchester. The picture starter showed a diagram of a railway line starting at Worksop, heading south through Mansfield and ending at a mystery location. I reckoned it should be Nottingham. So did Ethan Lehane, earning the bonuses. None of us added to our score with this set. This meant that the score on 10 minutes was 55-15 to Manchester.

Maciej Wojdyla knew that the highest point of Spain, Mount Teide is in the Canaries. A nice UC special set on pairs of words where you add a g to the start of one to make the other was the reward. I particularly enjoyed Gruffalo – Ruffalo. Manchester took a full house. Andres Ktori knew that Tiresias and other mythological figures were blind for the next starter. The intriguing subject of artworks and winter holidays proved relatively benign and Durham took 2. Neither team could take advantage of the fact that the clues were there in the wording of the question to lead us to the answer of coinage metals for the next starter. “Which German philosopher . . . “ invited us to pick one out of the half dozen or so that came to mind. Bella Thomas knew it was Hegel, whose chief attribute that he was outconsumed by David Hume. Human-animal transformations in myth brought Durham another full house. For the music starter I didn’t recognise The Jam – shame on me – but Ethan Lehane did. For the bonuses I again had to applaud Amol’s adherence to the correct answer being the only thing acceptable as the correct answer. Manchester offered Diana Ross and the Supremes, which Amol would not accept because it was recorded by the Supremes after Diana Ross left. Harsh? No – if you are a serious quiz competition, which UC is, then it is imperative if you want to keep credibility. Close enough is just not close enough. Both of us managed just the one bonus with The Specials. Bella Thomas knew that it was Arsenal (language!) that signed Olivia Smith from Liverpool. Works of Gothic fiction did Manchester few favours as they only took 1. Now, link these three things – writer – state of Maine – Horror award? I did and so did Andreas Ktoni and we both came up with Stephen King. Rightly so. The philosophical other minds problem – no, me neither – brought nowt. Still, in the last few minutes Durham had staged an effective comeback and only trailed by 85-95 as we closed in on 20 minutes.

Gawd alone knows what the next starter was about, but after a paragraph of pure gobbledygook Andreas Ktori answered with phase. This put the teams at level pegging. Opposites in Science saw me claim a lap of honour for anabolic and centrifugal. We’ve moved the furniture around so for the time being the lap of honour circumnavigates the Clark coffee table, rather than the sofa. 2 bonuses meant Durham were the first team to reach triple figures. A Gillray political cartoon showing Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte carving up the world between them for the second picture starter passed by both teams. With the next starter I was pleased at guessing Maltese correctly at the same time as Ethan Lehane. This brought Manchester the picture bonuses, three more political cartoons by 19^th century British artists. It was lovely to see two by my favourite, John Tenniel, but Manchester did not add to their score. For the next starter Maciej Wojdyla knew about Ken Burns’ documentary on the North American Bison – which is great and you should watch if you haven’t, like all Ken Burns’ work. Manchester drew a blank on Welsh rivers. With the scores at 125 – 105 and only 3 and a half minutes to go it suddenly struck me that one of these teams would not be going any further in this year’s competition. Mathematical meanings of the word complete saw Ethan Lehane doing his best to make sure that it wouldn’t be Manchester. A full house on John of Gaunt’s daughter , Phillipa of Lancaster helped too. Gondoliers and Yeomen of the Guard helped Caroline Ball work out Gilbert and Sullivan for the next starter. Two bonuses on scientific terms that begin with tor took Manchester to 165, which was beyond the event horizon. Maciej Wojdyla added a little more gilding to their score, knowing a biographer of Charlemagne. A very quick full house on unconventional films about the lives of musicians followed allowing Andreas Ktori in with Crown dependency for the next starter. Mudras, the hand gestures in traditional Indian dance had just enough time for Durham to answer the first question correctly. The final score was 190 – 120 for Manchester.

Statistically Durham achieved a BCR of 58% while Manchester achieved 60%. So it was Manchester’s superior buzzing particularly in the last 5 minutes that made all the difference. Hard lines to Durham – it’s early days but they surely won’t make the repechage, I’m afraid.

Amol Watch

Again, I applaud Amol for being consistent in his refusal to accept anything other than a first answer – as it was this worked in Manchester’s favour with gens.

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

John of Gaunt was the grandfather of Henry the Navigator.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In Physics what five letter word follows “Pancharatnam-Berry” or “geometric” in the name of a property acquired by a quantum system when its Hamiiltonian is adiabatically varied around a circuit? More generally this word denotes the position of a wave relative to a reference point in its oscillation cycle.

Need I even say dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum?

Mastermind 2027 First round Heat 2

I know that you’ll have been worrying about this, so I’ll put you out of your misery now. My prediction came true and I did not achieve a double figure aggregate on tonight’s specialist rounds. I got 8, or 3+3+2+0.

Just as importantly though, how did our contenders get on? First up with probably the most unusual subject of the night was Farrar Hornby answering on British and Irish Cheeses. Farrar certainly started brightly enough but pretty soon the round became hard going. Was it nerves? Was it the question setter having a wider conception of the extent of the subject than Farrar did? To me it looked like several answers were on the tip of his tongue but could not be cajoled to venture any further. He finished with 6.

Elsie Clark – no relation that I’m aware of – was answering a set of questions on the Roman general and dictator, Sulla. Despite a slight stumble mid round Elsie kept her head and kept on picking up the points throughout the round, earning herself the estimable prize of a double figure score.

I don’t remember ever watching Jonathan Creek on TV. Mind you, I never watched Sulla on TV either so I can’t really use that as an excuse. I managed two very easy ones. Emily Ryan did well to get a round of 8, I thought. There were 5 series and 32 episodes in total, Wikipedia tells me – which is an awful lot of details to try to commit to memory. Decent round.

As for Adam Royston’s subject, Johannes Brahms, I would have done better if the subject had been Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served. Adam’s round was a little reminiscent of Farrar’s. It started well, but he lost momentum. Did this mean that he missed out on answers he would have had if he had been on a roll and built up some momentum? It could well be, we’ve seen this happen in the past. Whatever the case, he scored 6.

In contrast to last week’s heat, the GK round would turn out to be a bit better than the specialist round had been. First to return was Farrar, and I dare say he might well have a bit of a quiz background, or at the very least be a regular quiz player. His 12 equalled the best GK score so far this series and took him to 18. No, that looked unlikely to be a winning total, but it showed what might have been.

Adam Royston couldn’t manage 12. However he did manage a double figure score, which turned his night’s Mastermind work into a far more respectable performance. His and Farrar’s rounds were a timely demonstration that when it comes to Mastermind, you have to have both, the specialist and the GK. Preparation, thorough preparation does not guarantee success, but it is one way of taking as much control as you can over your own destiny in the show.

Sadly, Emily Ryan’s round also demonstrated the same thing, albeit in the opposite way. The questions just refused to fall her way, leaving her stranded on a GK score of 6 for a total of 14.

So it was all down to Elsie. The interesting thing was that despite having led Farrar by a full 4 points at the half time interval, his GK heroics meant that she was going to need a GK round of 9 in order to win, and that’s a very decent GK score in Mastermind these days. Well, the key to doing that was to do what she’d done in the specialist round, keep calm, pick off what you know, give the best guess you can about what you don’t know and above all else, don’t panic. It carried Elsie to her own double figure round of 10, and the win.

Well done! Best of luck in the semi final.

The Details

Farrar Hornby	British and Irish Cheeses	6	1	12	0	18	0
Elsie Clark	The Roman General Sulla	10	0	10	0	20	0
Emily Ryan	Jonathan Creek	8	0	6	1	14	1
Adam Royston	Brahms	6	1	10	2	16	3

Tonight's Specialist Rounds

Well, the BBC have not taken the show off for a week or two yet to make way for pro-celebrity gurning or end-of-July Watch or any other pretext so let’s be thankful for small mercies. In tonight’s show the specialist subjects are:-

British and Irish Cheeses

The Roman general Sulla

Jonathan Creek

Johannes Brahms

I’ll be honest, I don’t see me getting a double figure aggregate this week, and won’t be in a position for fill my boots. It’s case of my banker subject – Sulla – being just as likely to be a nul points round for me.

A Bit of a Downer

Wednesday was a wee bit of a downer to be honest. I believe that there was a football match involving England somewhere that didn’t quite turn out as we might have wished. More importantly thought, we lost the film quiz in the Gwyn Hall.

Well, alright, maybe not quite so much of a downer. The subject was Epic Movies. It turns out that this is a genre I rather like, for I had a better night on a personal level than I usually do in the film quiz. Maybe it is just my imagination but it seemed to me there were more questions about older movies than is usual. Mind you, I'd question by which definition some of the movies referenced were epics. Casablanca, for example, is a rather intimate movie, and surely the very opposite of what would be defined as epic.

But we still lost by a point. Now in some ways this is actually better than tying for the win and losing on a numerical tie break. What put the slight downer on it is that I was kicking myself for not knowing the answer to the last question. Of course the film starring Christian Bale and Miranda Richardson was Empire of the Sun! Oh well.

I’m glad that we had the Wednesday quiz this week though, because in all honesty I could not bring myself to go to the rugby club on Thursday. If you read my post from April - Life After Mastermind: Principles be damned

Well, question master who set that quiz was doing it again last Thursday and I could not face it. I wrote the post when I was in a bit of a mood, but even having had time to reflect I honestly think giving it a miss was the kindest thing for both of us. I find that I cringe with embarrassment for him when he is trying and failing to read out his own questions. I would not put it past myself to make some unkind comment if he resuses the same questions in two rounds because he just can’t be arsed to check it. I don’t like myself very much for doing it, but at least if it didn’t work out on Thursday I won’t have ended up making it worse.

None of which helps me to decide what I am going to say if he asks me why I wasn’t there. . .

R.I.P. Dermot Murnaghan

I would just like to pay a brief tribute to Dermot Murnaghan who passed away last week. I was lucky enough to share a studio with Dermot 4 times, once in Eggheads, and three times in series two of “Are You An Egghead?” The nature of the beast when you’re a contestant in a quiz show is that there’s never a huge amount of time for you to talk to the host off camera, but on each occasion when I did get to chat a bit with him he struck me as a very nice, thoroughly decent gentleman, who did not take himself or the games too seriously.  

Rest in peace, sir.

New Show - The Chase Around The World

Last Thursday saw the first episode of latest extension of the “The Chase” franchise, a show that looked to be something of an excursion across ground we’ve trodden before in “Race Across the World” and “Destination X”. Well, you might recall that I do like both of those shows, so this at least merited me giving the show a fair viewing.

“The Chase Around The World” pits six two person teams head to head. Each week they face a series of challenges in one of the world’s great cities. Well, I say the world. Actually it’s Europe – in fact it’s just Western Europe. Thursday’s first episode was in Rome. Next week it’s Barcelona. I think that the itinerary after that is Athens, Lisbon, Zurich then the finish line in Paris. Well, I’ve never been to Zurich, but I’ve visited the other 5, and they’re all certainly valid destinations.

If the format for last Thursday’s show is repeated then the teams will race against each other through a series of challenges to various checkpoints throughout the city, until finding Bradders at the finish line. But what makes this The Chase? Well, the last couple to get to the finish line each week have to take on and beat two of the Chasers in order to stay in the game. Lose and they’re out. I’m guessing that when we get to Paris, the team who find Bradley first will win the overall series prize.

So, how well does it work? If you’ve seen any online reviews of the show you might have seen quite a bit of negative comment on various clickbait sites. A lot of these comments are based on a comparison with BBC’s “Race Across the World”. Well, the similarity between the titles of the two shows does kind of invite that. On the other hand, it’s a pretty good signpost to attract the kind of viewers who might enjoy it. Swings and Roundabouts. Both shows have some fantastic scenery, and much rushing about within it. Essentially, though, they’re different games. In “Race Across The World” for example the way that the teams manage their budget and their transport options is a vital component of the game mechanics. That’s not a concern at all in the ITV show.

So what were the mechanics of the first show? We started with the six couples being quizzed by Bradley. Each team had a buzzer. The first team to buzz in with a correct answer could pick up their backpack and get moving. Then the second, then the third – you get it. In their backpack was a tablet, on which they were asked a question to help determine their first checkpoint. They were asked – Which building did Michelangelo say had been built by angels, not men? Was it the Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon or St. Peters? Whichever answer they locked in was the answer they had to walk to. Get it right and further instructions would appear. Get it wrong and they would have to go to whichever they thought was correct of the other two, losing precious time in the process. 43 years ago I did trek from one of the wrong answers – St. Peter’s – to the right answer – The Pantheon- and in the heat of a Roman summer it was a bit of a slog.

The second challenge involved choosing the correct logo from a sequence – basically the logo belonging to an Italian company/organisation in a range of categories. Get it wrong and the satnav in the car you were loaned would take you off on a wild goose chase. You’d then have to pick again, meaning more precious time was lost.

The third challenge involved the teams having to name three famous Italians. Should they not know the answer or get it wrong, the Italian in question was one of the 200 plus famous Italians whose busts were situated in the park they had been taken to, so what they had to do was find it. Right, pedantry corner. Now, I’m pretty much certain that the instruction was that you must enter either the first name and last name of the answer, or just the last name. NOT just the first name. So I got all pedantic about the tablet accepting the poet of the Divine Comedy as just Dante. NO. It should have been either Dante Alighieri or Alighieri. Unless I misunderstood the rules, which is possible.

From there to either a pizzeria or a teddy bear stand or both. The pizzeria offered you clues to a choice of toppings. If you got the right ones, then you got the question – what links them? Chorizo and Manchego were obviously Spanish – so the final destination became clear. As for the teddy bears, well they each had the same first name as a member of Steps.

Last across the line, then, were father and daughter Ashwin and Nikita. To stay in the game, they had to beat the Chasers. This involved playing a shortened version of the final chase from the parent show. They had to answer ten questions as quickly as possible. Only they were given a two question head start so only had to answer 8. By the 3^rd question daughter Nikita had clicked into game mode and they went very quickly through their set. Now, in the parent show the Chasers have the advantage that they don’t have to buzz in to answer and can thus build up a head of steam. In this version, the two chasers – in this first show the power team of Anne and Mark – did not have that advantage. Bradley asked the question, then said the name of the Chaser who had to answer. In such a sprint round this makes a huge difference. Ashwin and Nikita survived and we’re all off to Barcelona next week.

What did I think? Well, you have to think that quizzing and travel are two of my favourite things. I like this particular genre of show and I think that "The Chase Around The World" certainly has potential. In some ways it was similar to the final episode of Destination X last year, even down to the finish line on the Spanish Steps. If you’re mostly in it for the quiz/puzzle content then there probably isn’t enough of it here for you. I felt that the Chasers were a little underused as well, considering that this is billed as The Chase around the world. But look, as a show it kept me going for an hour, and I’ll definitely watch next week’s show.

Shows of this kind live or die on the contestants they present us. He might not have won Destination X, but would the show have been quite as watchable without taxi driver Daren and his often name checked wife, Jackie P? I think that how well we’re allowed to get to know the teams and whether we emotionally invest in their competition with each other will go a long way to determining how successful the show will be.

Good stuff.

University Chalenge 2027 First Round Heat 1 Bristol v. Imperial

The Teams

Bristol

Jake Wingfield

Francesca O’Connor

Freddie Burns (capt)

Artem Borisov

Imperial

Dennis Reppen

Lola Linnane-Barron

Charlie Lowman (capt)

Edward Isrankura Na Ayudhya

Ding dang dong, dingy dingy dang dong, dingy dang dingy dong. Like John Keats’ gathering swallows twittering in the sky, the return of University Challenge is a sure harbinger of our progress towards Autumn and then Winter. By the time we know our series champions, Spring will be on us again. Thus has it ever been.

So to the first starter. Now, given London in 1885 and American born artist – well, let’s be honest, you’d go for Whistler every time, wouldn’t you? Given a little more of the question Charlie Lowman, the Imperial skipper, took first blood for his side. Birds in Arabic sounded interesting. I correctly predicted that Alcatraz would come up – pelican and indeed, the Al- connection helped us both come up with a full house. In the maths question that followed Artem Borisov was unlucky to give us enthropy rather than entropy and lose 5. Imperial couldn’t capitalize. The next starter, although mentioning teams in the National Hurling League of Ireland basically asked you to work out which traditional counties Solihull and Greater Manchester had belonged to and Jake Wingfield dispatched this gentle lob to the boundary to take Bristol’s first points. Bristol took their own full house on the primatologist, the late Jane Goodall. Imperial lost 5 on an incorrect interruption for the next starter allowing Bristol skipper Freddie Burns to identify places named after Kaiser Wilhelm II, a prime contender for the title of bearer of History’s silliest moustache. (That’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, not Freddie Burns.) The films of Luchino Visconti brought one bonus. When it comes to the picture starter flags are a good old UC staple and I recognized that of Belize just before Charlie Lowman buzzed in with the same answer. Flags I know. National coats of arms I do not, so failed to add to my score on the bonuses which showed three national coats of arms. Imperial took one to level the scores. Charlie Lowman took his third starter, recognizing several works of literature whose titles each contained the word darkness. One correct answer on the following OPEC bonuses brought the score to 35 – 50 in Imperial’s favour at just past the 10 minute mark. A lively start to what had always promised to be a quality match up.

Look, I won’t pretend that I have the slightest clue what tautomers are when they’re at home but Edward Isrankura Na Ayudhya did to take the next starter. Events of 1625 proved to be a relatively gentle set which gave us both another full house. If you’re asked for a female figure from the Odyssey, you can zig with Circe like Imperial did, or you can zag with Penelope, which Francesca O’Connor did to win the points on the next starter. Bristol managed two bonuses on an interminable set on mathematician Kurt “Playtex 24-hour” Godel. Right, with the next starter, it asked which film, based on a Pierre Bulle novel, did Rod Serling write a screen play for. Now there’s only the two Boulle books I know that made famous films. I couldn’t see the Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling having scripted Bridge on the River Kwai, so it had to be Planet of the Apes. Dennis Reppen took that one. One of my highlights of my much enjoyed visit to Liverpool last September was seeing Another Place up close, and so it was a pleasure to see Anthony Gormley referenced in the bonuses. Charlie Lowman seemed disgusted with himself to not get Gormley but he did take the following two bonuses. Nobody recognized Jefferson Airplane for the music starter – not surprised. Both teams waited with the next starter concerning a battle between the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until the death of James IV was mentioned and Charlie Lowman pounced to win the buzzer race. Other songs used in famous karaoke scenes in films brought a further ten points and Imperial were stretching their lead. Did you know of the Etruscan and Christmas Island shrews? Me neither. Mind you I still guessed the next starter. Dennis Reppen took that one. Authors who won the Booker prize with their debut novels reminded me of DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, which I’d successfully wiped from my memory. Imperial took 2 .Jake Wingfield stopped the rot for Bristol with the musical term mordant. Slavic inspiration in classical music. Bristol had 2 correct answers which was 2 more than I did. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the Galapagos syndrome in Economics, but Galapagos seemed a good guess. Freddie Burns had that one. Two bonuses on flows meant that Imperial led by 130 – 95 on 20 minutes. All still to play for.

For the second picture starter Francesca O’Connor identified Millais as the painter of a painting. I thought it might be DG Rossetti. More paintings illustrating poems by John Keats brought a single bonus, but the gap was now down to 20 points, a gap that might be bridged in a single visit to the table.Fair play to Dennis Reppen who knew that the state of Vermont once declared itself an independent republic in 1777. Wonder how that worked out for them. Bonuses on Egypt in the Bible brought a full house and the gap stretched again. Amazingly I did know the piezoelectric effect even before Freddie Burns buzzed in early with the same answer. I have no idea how I knew it. 2 bonuses on cultural references to croquet – none of them Alice in Wonderland sadly - narrowed the gap to 25. Again Dennis Reppen took the next starter, recognizing Koranic and Biblical references to stars. Computing terms spelled with just the top letters of a qwerty keyboard highly amused Charlie Lowman but Imperial only managed one of the bonuses about them. The Imperial skipper showed imperious form in buzzing early to identify Rizal Day as a holiday in the Phillippines. The First World War in Africa saw Imperial fail to score, and the pedant in me has to applaud Amol for not allowing Jan Smut instead of Jan Smuts. With the game essentially over as a contest it was still important for Bristol to build their score towards a repechage slot. Jake Wingfield obliged, recognizing a reference to Provencal. Corn, the main constituent of much that I write, brought two bonuses. Poor Freddie Burns fell foul of a question that took a swerve, giving parsec when the full question was asking for gigaparsec. Dennis Reppen kicked that one into the open goal. One chemistry bonus was taken. Lola Linnane-Barron took the following starter on fireflies meaning that all 8 players had correctly answered at least 1 starter. Words from other languages ending in – ondo – Artem Borisov took the next starter on Belgrade. A bonus on commemorative £2 coins took them to 160. Neither team would add to their score, and Imperial won by 220 – 160.

For the record Bristol achieved a BCR of 59% while Imperial’s was slightly better at 61%. Pretty good, but a clear indication that Imperial’s buzzing was better. Will Bristol qualify for the repechage? Hope so, though I’d say that the coin is in the air.

Amol Watch

It is always gratifying to see Amol applying the – what’s written on the card is the answer and you get nowt for a close wrong ‘un rule. I’m not convinced it was a very nice thing to do to suggest that the whole of Imperial knew Penelope, but Dennis Reppen having buzzed early with Circe he had to take it, Amol. Bit like rubbing salt into the wound, that.

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

London, Warwickshire and Lancashire are represented by teams in the National Hurling League of Ireland.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Godel’s completeness theorem builds on a set of results proved in the 1920s by which Norwegian mathematician who, along with Leopold Lowenheim, gave his name to a theorem on the cardinality of models often split into separate upward and downward results. And the slithy toves did gyre and gimbel in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves and the mome raths etc etc.