University Challenge: Round One: Heat 14: Birmingham v. Sussex

The Teams

Birmingham

Mark McParlan

John Robinson

Michael Joel Bartelle (capt)

Jaimy Sajit

Sussex

Marianne Glascott

Spike Asri

Tom Khan-White (capt)

Jack Harcourt

Well, dearly beloved, it’s the final heat of the series and, as it turns out, a remarkable heat in its own way. Now, lovers of pedantry will have known the next starter, - the summit of a mountain in which range is the furthest point on the world’s surface away from the centre of the Earth? John Robinson correctly answered ‘The Andes’ , knowing that, the Earth not being a perfect sphere, the summit of Chimborazo in Ecuador is further from the centre of the Earth than Everest. A lovely set on crows and ravens in Shakespeare yielded us both a full house. I ran out of luck then when a question about Dutch scientist Peter Debye raised its head, and it was scant consolation that neither team knew this one either. The Scapegoat and The Light of the World saw Michael Joel Bartelle win the buzzer race to supply the name of William Holman Hunt. A set of words which all began with t and contained r gave me another full house, although Birmingham rather tied themselves up in knots with them, only getting 1 of a decidedly gettable set. John Robinson won the buzzer race to identify Joshua as the first person with a book of the Old Testament named after him. If it hadn’t been just one person, then surely the band Genesis would take that one. Astronomy often offers me the rare chance at a Science bonus, and so although I didn’t take a lap of honour for knowing Cassiopeia, once Cassini came up I set off around the Clark sofa. Now, my Spanish isn’t brilliant, but for the picture starter the words “familia que la llama” – and – “la industria textil’ were enough to suggest alpaca as a pretty good shout. So it proved, as the Birmingham skipper confirmed. More of the same, with creatures whose English names are Spanish, if you see what I mean, yielded mosquito, armadillo and coyote (which sounds like a firm of solicitors in Alicante I once used) and a full house for Birmingham. “Statistical Physics” announced JP. “Nighty nighty” announced my brain. Gawd knows what the question meant, but neither team had much more of a scooby than I did. Mark McParlan either recognised or guessed several different flags used by China, earning a set of bonuses on US cartoonist Sarah Andersen. Once again, my brain switched snooze on. Which makes me all the happier that I guessed Adulthood Is A Myth. Birmingham only managed one bonus as well. However this meant that just after the ten minute mark, they led by 100 – 0. As for Sussex, one suspected the dreaded ‘plenty of time for you to get going’ might already be on the JP launchpad.

John Robinson recognised that a description of a great icy London winter came from Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando”, which book holds the great distinction of being the only one of her novels I ever managed to finish. Co productions by the BBC and HBO brought just the one correct answer. The 1908 Siberian Explosion saw Tom Khan-White , the Sussex skipper, win a buzzer race, sadly only to supply an incorrect answer. John Robinson hadn’t heard of the Tunguska Blast either. I did think that both teams rather sat on their buzzers for the next starter, since the names of a group of animals, and the name Saint -Saens meant that it couldn’t really be anything other than the Carnival of the Animals. John Robinson took that. Wildlife provided just the one bonus, but really and truly even only halfway through the show it was pretty clear that there was only going to be one winner in this contest, and it wasn’t going to be Sussex. For the music starter I was pretty sure it was Liza Minelli singing, which really suggested the musical in question would be Cabaret. It was, but neither team recognised it. Jack Harcourt did recognise a group of authors all distinguished by a middle initial D – Salinger, James, you know the sort. In one answer he turned Sussex’s minus 5 to a plus five. It was at this point that Jeremy Paxman really rather disgraced himself. Having earned himself my approval for not telling Sussex there was plenty of time to get going, he then well and truly rubbed their faces in it saying “and you storm away to a whole five points!” Couldn’t resist it, could you Jez? Shame on you. This earned them the music bonuses on musicals that take place during World War Two. Sadly they only managed one of a very gettable set. Another astronomy question brought me the opportunity of a second lap of honour. Maybe it’s just me, but I would have thought it was obvious that e, in terms of orbit, stands for eccentricity. Neither team knew it. Up until this point it really looked as if Sussex were buzzer-shy, and it was all too easy for John Robinson to buzz in with the correct answer of the One Hundred Years War for the next starter. The actor Irfan Khan was the subject of the bonuses, which provided us both with 2 correct answers. Tom Khan-White grasped the nettle and buzzed early for the next starter, losing 5 for his pains. It never rains . . . To be fair Birmingham didn’t know the answer – Classics – either. So on the cusp of the 20 minute mark, Birmingham led by 150 – 5.

Okay – let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room, shall we? I never want a team to do badly in UC. But I have to say that I watched the last few minutes of the contest feeling something like a tricoteuse, since I was wondering whether we would see a remarkably low score. Birmingham certainly weren’t giving any free buzzes away, as Michael Joel Bartelle correctly identified Phoebus’ Marriage as one of the chapters of Notre Dame de Paris. Books of the King James Bible and also the Apocrypha named after females led me to suggest that we’d be looking at Esther, Ruth and Judith, and it was only a question of which order. Birmingham had the order spot on. This brought us to the picture bonus, stills from films which David Clark Has Never Seen ( a remarkably wide genre, as it happens.) Jack Harcourt recognised Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and suddenly it looked as if Sussex would be capable of posting a score that was just modest as opposed to being interestingly low. They didn’t know any of the bonuses, sadly. Now, it’s an old quiz chestnut that Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, but sadly not one that Spike Asri had heard before, which meant that Birmingham had a bite of the cherry and correctly identified Lebanon as the country in question. Now, when you get a set of Maths or Science bonuses where the team in possession of the ball don’t get any of them, I often wonder whether the question setter is making them up. Well, this might have been the case with the maths set had followed, had the setter been the late Stanley Unwin. A stream of what sounded like pure gobbledygook furnished none of us with a sniff of any points here. Adding insult to industry this was followed with a maths question answered ridiculously quickly by Jaimy Sajit. St. Anthony provided a set of bonuses that provided the one correct answer necessary to take Birmingham to 200. Spike Asri admirably threw caution to the wind with the next starter asking for a compass direction, but sadly zigged with East when he should have zagged with West. 5 points lost. A full house on Istria applied a little more gloss to the Birmingham total. Nothing daunted Spike Asri slung some buzzer again with the answer Beijing. It was Shanghai which brought more bonuses to Birmingham on Selma Lagerlof – which is emphatically not a muppet name, but the first female winner of the Nobel for Literature. Nobody knew the answer to the next starter about chemical elements. And that was it. Birmingham won by 245 to 10.

Right, let’s get that Sussex score out of the way. I could well be wrong, but I believe this is the lowest score of the Paxman era. I also believe that it is equal with the lowest score from the Bamber era – another Sussex team, as it happens, not including the Christmas specials. Doubtless Twitter users have had their say. JP himself said – at least you got on the show and 100 teams didn’t. Well, yes, that’s true, and it’s not necessarily something I’d go advertising. I am certain that the Sussex team are all very intelligent and capable people – they got to the university in the first place for one thing. But on this evidence, they’re not great quizzers, I’m afraid, and one questions the show’s selection criteria which would allow them to endure an experience like this.

Congratulations to Birmingham. We’ll see in their second round match how much of Sussex’s plight was due to great buzzing, but whatever the competition, you can’t argue with a score in the double hundreds.

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

Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” was dedicated to Vita Sackville-West (Hey, it was a bit of a slack week)