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.

University Challenge 2027 First Round - University College, London v. Royal College of Art

The Teams

UCL

Max Emmett

Alan Hughes

Eva West (Capt.)

Coirle Magee

Royal College of Art

Jack Merriman

Alex Hadyn-Williams

James Bown (Capt.)

Imaan Hyder

When the first starter asked for a novel, of which the author said that when you’ve read it you should be in possession of a minimal Russian vocabulary I immediately guessed A Clockwork Orange. Given the full question James Bown opened the account for the newbies, the RCA. Artists who have designed statuettes for the Brit Awards left me pointless – I haven’t been able to watch the Brits since they were presented by Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox. RCA managed 2. I’ll be honest, for the next starter I only got the connecting word Goblin through Christina Rossetti and Spider-man. Alex Hadyn-Williams did the same. This brought a set of bonuses on plays of Tom Stoppard, and again, RCA took two of them. UCL took their first points with the next starter which gave several scientific uses of the word cone. Max Emmett took that one. I took my lap of honour while the going was good. We both managed two correct answers on the anatomy of the ear. I didn’t recognise the badge of Staffordshire County Cricket Club, while James Bown did, and they went on to identify one other member of the former Minor Counties. Coirle Magee knew the Sixth Generation film movement from China for the next starter. The title figures of operas by Thea Musgrave brought a full house to UCL. The score at the ten minute mark was 55-45 to RCA, which seemed to make light of my fears for them. I always feel that specialist institutions, such as RCA, are in danger of not having the coverage across a broad range of subjects, that other institutions do. Having four team members all studying writing seemed likely to put them at a disadvantage in the Sciences. Time would tell.

Alex Hadyn-Williams recognised references to Rachael Whiteread for the next starter. Bonuses on the Bible and the scientific method – strange bedfellows, I would have thought – brought one correct answer. Max Emmett came in early for the next starter on Thomas More – why were they all Thomases in Henry VIIIs reign? You’ve got yer More, your Wlsey, your Cromwell and your Cranmer. They were all Francises by the time of Elizabeth I’s. The famous midfield trio of Drake, Bacon and Walsingham. The Polish National Film School brought one bonus. UCL captain Eva West knew the term plexus for the next starter. Indian sweets brought two bonuses that put UCL into the lead for the first time. Max Emmett recognised the intro to Soft Cell’s cover version of Tainted Love – lovely little bit of early 80s, that – and for the bonuses that all sampled wee bits of Northern soul tracks, UCL proved that they know as little about it as I do as the only one we could manage was Fatboy Slim. Alex Hadyn-Williams correctly guessed that it was Thomas Paine’s remains alluded to in the next starter.(see below) Terms in Physics that share part of their names with animals showed that my fears for RCA were not that ill-founded. Blank looks and a failure to add to the score followed. Alan Hughes recognised various dromes – hippo- syn- and velo unless I’m much mistaken – for the next starter. This took UCL into triple figures which they compounded with a full house on actresses in history. Eva West knew that Jericho was the first city attacked by the Israelites under Joshua. Literary works with corvids in their titles brought another full house, which meant that they led comfortably by 140 – 85 at the 20 minute mark. The match had been competitive so far but that 50 point spurt in the last 2 minutes looked decisive.

Nobody recognised the usually unmistakeable colours of Gauguin for the second picture starter. Likewise nobody knew the author Henry Miller – dirty boy. Position created by Charles II gave me Astronomer Royal, and Eva West thought so too, given a little more of the question. More paintings with geese in them for the picture bonuses brought a correct answer.  Max Emmett recognised a description of Stockholm for the next starter. Learning Spanish saw me get a few answers because of the grounding in Latin grammar given to me in Elthorne High School by good old Mr. Rose in the late 70s. Thanks Lionel. The term hyperpop, in the words of Ultravox, means nothing to me but Alan Hughes knew it for the next starter. The play Woyzeck and its adaptations seemed to have the same effect on UCL and they failed to score. Max Emmett knew that the word Alligator derives from Spanish for lizard for the next starter. There was a reprise of Ultravox’s Vienna for me when the term ‘hauntology’ was introduced as the theme of the bonuses. However, I did remember how Derrida has been a UC staple over the years and he brought me a bonus. I’m a little bit surprised that, with at least one Welsh team contestant nobody knew Hafren means the River Severn in Welsh but there you go. Alex Hadyn-Williams recognised biographers of Stalin for the next. They got Science bonuses for their pains, the number of hydrogen atoms in a molecule of blahblahblahrium etc. They got more than I did with a correct guess. Jack Merriman knew the next starter about a lockdown performance of Hamlet. World events and British monarchs brought 2 bonuses. The contest was gonged while Amol was asking the next starter. UCL won comfortably by 210 to 115.

I’m glad that RCA reached triple figures. Their BCR of 42.8% would probably have been a bit higher if they hadn’t had those Science bonuses. Without a scientist somewhere in your team you are always at a disadvantage. UCL achieved 60.6%, and look to be a pretty useful outfit, as you’d expect from UCL.

Amol Watch

Maybe it was me but I did think Amol’s incredulity at UCL’s answer of Salt N Pepa to the second music bonus to be a little bit feigned. We know you are ‘down with da kids’ Amol, you don’t need to labour the point.

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

Thomas Paine’s remains’ (that sounds like the start of a nonsense poem.

Please don’t block my drains

With Thomas Paine’s remains)

whereabouts have been reported in places as far afield as Manchester, France and Australia.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Penguin diagrams are a subtype of what family of diagrams that represent contributions to particle interaction probabilities in quantum field theory? This family of diagrams are named for the scientists who introduced them in 1948. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2027 - First Round Heat 8

Back home from Helsinki, peeps and there’s catching up to be done. So let’s begin with last Monday’s 8^th heat of Mastermind.

First up was Taz Modi who was answering on musician Neil Young. More than a few times during this series so far I’ve watched rounds where I’ve thought that the contender is very good on specific areas of their subject, but then they get asked about things which they’re far less secure on. This seemed to happen to Taz a few times during the round. Oh, don’t get me wrong, 7 is perfectly respectable in this day and age but it’s not the definitive marker that you really want to be laying down in the first round.

Charlotte Long was answering on golfer supreme Rory McIlroy. Answering well, too. For most of the round this looked like it was going to be a really sterling double figure round. A couple of questions did trip her up a little on the way to the tape though and Charlotte levelled out to finish with a good 9 points. I didn’t answer any fewer questions than in the first round, but that’s not a consolation considering that I didn’t answer any in either round. Were we potentially looking at a zero aggregate for me on specialist?

No. Lauren Church gave us a round on US astronaut Sally Ride. While I don’t claim to know much about her life or career, I do know enough about US manned space programmes to be able to pick up a few pieces of low hanging fruit. With her score of 4 by the end of the round, it did look as if there were gaps in Lauren’s knowledge, but I can’t help feeling that she seemed to be affected by nerves as well. After all, I’ve no doubt she would have known Edwards Air Force base in California. I’ll say a bit more about nerves when we get to the GK.

Finally then Gustav Ader. His subject was British Brutalist Architecture. Now I don’t instinctively hate ALL British brutalist architecture. But I do hate a lot of it. The second question concerned Erno Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower, and I hate that building, an ugly duckling that has always remained ugly for sure. But leaving aside my own personal feelings, it’s an interesting subject and it brought me 5 points to push my aggregate for the Specialist to 8 points. Gustav did better but with 7 points he too looked as if he’s left a few points behind that he might have managed to get.

So to the General Knowledge. I mentioned about Lauren Church seeming to be a bit nervous in the first round. Well, there were definitely times during her GK round when you could almost see her desperately trying to push the right answer just a little further off the tip of her tongue yet not quite managing it. Who knows, maybe the first round was playing on her mind. She at least finished with a double figure aggregate, scoring 6 to give her an overall total of 10.

Taz Modi delivered a double figure round on GK. He remained calm throughout the round and accumulated points steadily, not rushing in to give a wrong answer quickly where a second’s thought might have produced a correct answer. As a result he pushed through to 11 points. Yes, we’ve seen better GK rounds this series, but only a couple of them, and with the way things have been going you fancied that this might well be a winning performance.

Within the first minute or so of Gustav’s round you couldn’t help feeling that he wasn’t going to match Taz. He too was not answering very quickly, however he wasn’t answering as well as Taz. It was an okay GK round from someone who you’d guess isn’t a quizzer. I’ll say a little bit more about that generally shortly. Gustav scored 7 to take his total to 14.

Finally Charlotte. Essentially she needed a round of 9 points and no passes to win. Basically, a good general knowledge performance. You don’t have to be a quizzer to have a good GK performance, but you do need a cool head, an ability to guess and above all else, just a little bit of luck with the questions you’re asked. At times it looked as if Charlotte had the first two requisites but not the third, as the clock ticked down. In the end she was close but the cigar remained unawarded, for she scored 8 to finish with 17 and no passes.

Well done Taz! With a good GK round many a tricky position at half time can be rescued, and if you can really nail down your specialist for the semi than you are going to be in with a shout. I wish you good luck.

Once again, as seems to have been the case for so much of this series and the previous we’ve seen contenders whose intelligence I have no doubt of, but who are not quizzers. Basically, when you’re a quizzer of a certain standard yourself, there are certain questions that contenders get asked during GK rounds where you think – if you were a quizzer you would have heard that question so often that you’d never get it wrong. And they get it wrong because they haven’t heard it before. Now, I know that it has always been the case that the non-quizzers greatly outnumber the quizzers among the contenders on Mastermind. But there just seem to be so few coming through on the show now who have a good quizzer’s general knowledge. Is it just that quizzers aren’t applying in decent numbers any more? Or is it that, for whatever reason, they’re just not getting through the applications process? I don’t have an answer, but it’s a question that could be asked, certainly.

The Details

Taz Modi	Neil Young	7	1	11	0	18	1
Charlotte Long	Rory McIlroy	9	0	8	0	17	0
Lauren Church	Sally Ride	6	2	4	2	10	4
Gustav Ader	British Brutalist Architecture	7	3	7	3	14	6

Rumours about The Chase Around the World

There was a report in one of the torchons this week that The Chase Around The World will not be commissioned for a second series. In the same article it did say that ITV had neither confirmed nor denied this – well, I have no idea if there is any more substance to it than a rumour. I hope not. As I’ve said consistently I really enjoyed the series. There’s still a lot of water left to flow under our bridge before the awards season comes round, but if it makes a strong bid for this year’s LAMMY I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.