University Challenge 2022 - Heat 7 Durham v. Trinity Cambridge

I’ll begin by apologising to all the teams who’ve already played their first round heats in this series. I’m not going to go back and retrospectively review them, but I did watch all of them, and I did enjoy them. Hopefully that may be of some consolation. (No? Didn’t think so.)

The Teams

Durham

Jack Griffiths

Charlie Hetherington

Emily Mitchell (c)

Isaiah Silvers

Trinity, Cambridge

Hatty Innes

Navonil Neogi

Ludvig Brekke (c)

Luke Kim

The Details

Knowing that a young eel is an elver I was quickly in for the first starter, knowing that the middle letter was V. That one was taken for Trinity by Navonil Neogi. For the first bonus, if you get the words ‘calculus’ and ‘Newton’ in the question, you’ll be right more often than you’re wrong if you answer Leibniz. It was a little too early in the evening for a lap of honour around the sofa, and this was a low hanging fruit, so I could only hope there’s be another easy science one later in the show for me. We both took a full set of bonuses. In 1978 I started studying latin, and I remember that the book we used, Latin for Today, had ironically been published some 30 years earlier. The book taught Latin through short extracts on the ancient history of the republic – I still remember Mettus Curtius and Mucius Scaevola – or Tony Curtius and Lukius Scaevola as we called them at the time – and Fabius Cunctator was one of them too. Luke Kim came in early for that one. Bonuses on John Williams’ film scores for Spielberg, of which they took the first two, missing out on War of the Worlds. I was yet to drop a point. I took the next starter too – dots, artist and New York all suggested Roy Lichtenstein, and the title of some of his paintings just confirmed it. Isaiah Silvers was first in, to open Durham’s account. We both took a full set of bonuses on the Don Pacifico affair. 12 on the bounce! I don’t believe that I have ever managed this before, and amazingly it continued as the first picture starter showed a map of a proposed transcontinental highway across the length of Africa, and I identified the two cities at either end as Tripoli and Capetown. Luke Kim took his second of the contest. That was the end of my streak, as more pairs of cities on the proposed network saw Trinity take two, and me take zilch. Luke Kim took his second starter in a row with the French mathematician Cauchy. Never ‘eard of him. A set of bonuses on artists’ models saw me take a full set, but Trinity managed just the one. Nonetheless, they’d had by far the best of the first ten minutes with a score of 80 to Durham’s 25.

Excellent work from Ludvig Brekke saw him recognise that the next starter was referring to the first film adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland”. Now, a set of bonuses on scientific terms starting with the same letters saw me get barium, which was more than enough to merit a victory jog around the living room. Just as well too, because I didn’t have a scooby about the other two. Trinity picked up two bonuses here to take them to the psychologically important triple figure mark. Charlie Hetherington scored Durham’s second starter knowing that Drone is the word for amongst other things a member of a fictional gentleman’s club created by PG Wodehouse. Archaeological sites on islands in the Mediterranean did them no favours. Luke Kim was in extremely quickly to take his 4^th starter on the decade which saw the first flight of the Montgolfier brothers. Presentations of Lilith in popular culture saw Trinity draw their first blank on a bonus set. A few bars were enough for Navonil Neogi to identify La Donna E Mobile from Rigoletto for the music starter. More opera excerpts sung in German brought another two correct answers. I have such a tin ear that two of the excerpts sounded to me like the late Peter Ustinov singing about Das Heilbut, but there you go. We were into the second half of the show, and JP decided at this point to issue the kiss of death to Durham, telling them not to worry as there was plenty of time left to catch up. Alright Jez! No need for language like that on a family show! Both Ludvig Brekke and I recognised the inscription from Scott Fitzgerald’s tombstone for the next starter. Wonders of the Waterways, according to the canals and rivers trust, offered Trinity precious little and they drew a blank. This hardly seemed to matter consider the amount of buzzer firepower they were packing, as Luke Kim came in very early to correctly offer Beethoven’s 5^th and 6^th for the next starter. I was delighted to hear Navonil Neogi say that he tuned out for the next question on bilogy – welcome to my world, Neogi! Nether Trinity nor I troubled the scorer on this visit to the table. Which didn’t seem to matter since, at the 20 minute mark, Trinity seemingly had matters sown up, leading by 150 to 35.

We were this far into the competition and it was only now that we had our first incorrect interruption from Charlie Hetherington. He was very unlucky to lose 5 though, as he was just a fraction of a second too early. Trintiy couldn’t capitalise with the name of the thymus gland. Hatty Innes knew that the fil The Faourite focused on the relationship between Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough. The East of Scotland football league has quite possibly never provided a set of UC bonuses before, but it was a good set and Trinity might possibly have guessed Primrose. They didn’t though and drew a blank. For the second picture starter Holly Innes recognised a picture of mistletoe, and more pictures from the same source of plants still used in modern medicine saw them add just the one correct answer. I didn’t really understand the next question, but Jack Griffiths said the answer was 2 pi and that was good enough for me, being as it was the right answer. Poetry was not to Durham’s liking and they failed to add to the score. Charlie Heherington took Durham’s second start on the bounce, knowing Io, the satellite of Jupiter. Geochronology sounded as if there wasn’t a lot of meat to be picked off those bones, but actually provided a full house. I don’t know exactly what, but something really seemed to have suddenly shook the Durham team into full attack mode, with Charlie Hetherington leading the charge as he buzzed early to identify North Korea for the next starter. US Senators and the states that they represented provided another full house in double quick time. Navonil Neogi buzzed early to identify Lucy Snowe as the protagonist of “Villette” (the best a man can get). Names in the first chapters of the Gospel according to St. Luke took us up to the gong, with Trinity winning comfortably by 190 – 90.

JP described Trinity to Durham as very, very tough opposition, and you have to say that they would have been good for a mid 200s score if they hadn’t been so profligate with the bonuses. As for Durham, I’m glad they had that late flurry to show what they could do, but it does highlight the eternal truth that you have to sling some buzzer if you want to get anywhere on UC. Yes, it’s better if you do actually know the answer, but sometimes you have to just hit and hope.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

You’re probably aware that Jeremy Paxman has been diagnosed with Parkinsons. I am not surprised that he has decided to continue broadcasting for as long as he can, but I am very happy that he has done so, and have a great deal of respect and admiration for this. In the light of this, I don’t feel comfortable commenting specifically on what he says and does in the show as I have done in the past, and so I’m afraid this section will not feature in future reviews. I hope that he will be able to continue presenting for a long time to come.

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

T Cells take their names from the first letter of the thymus gland.