University Challenge 2022: Round 2: St. John's, Cambridge v. Queen Mary, London

The Teams

St. John’s. Cambridge

Thomas Clark

Louis George

Jonathan Chan (capt.)

Kiana Ouyang

(R1 – L 210 – 155 to Imperial- Repechage W175 – 170 over UCL)

Queen Mary, London

Ab Uthayakumar

Marcus Deal

Alex McGill (capt.)

Catherine Dominic

(R1 – W115- 90 over Oxford Brookes)

So here we go with the first match of the second round. St. John’s Cambridge entered the lists already battle-hardened after winning a close match against UCL in the repechage. Their reward for their endeavours? Well, it was a match against the joint lowest scoring winners of the first round, Queen Mary, London. Well, there’s only so much you can draw from first round form, but the smart money seemed to be all on fast starting St. John’s.

It was the St. John’s skipper, their star buzzer in previous matches, who was first in to identify a list of things named after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. This earned a set of bonuses on monsters in fiction, which gave us both a full house. I awarded myself a very early lap of honour around the Clark sofa for getting osmotic pressure for the next starter. Jonathan Chan also took his second starter with this one. I returned to my seat just in time to take a second full house on Manuscripts in the Library of Wales. St. John’s took two of these. Now, I’ll be honest, I didn’t know that Sitric Silken Beard was a former ruler of Dublin, although the Battle of Clontarf told me it had to be that. Personally, I thought he was the guy who used to sleep under the bandstand in the Talbot Memorial Park, but you live and learn. Jonathan Chan was very uncertain when he offered Dublin, but it brought up his hat trick from the first three starters. Then we had bonuses on scientists, and that was my opening run halted at 9 correct answers. St. John’s took 2. For the third match in a row they had made an impressive start to the contest. Jonathan Chan buzzed in for the picture starter, with a city highlighted on a map of Africa, and proved that he was human by getting it wrong. This allowed Marcus Deal to open Queen Mary’s account by identifying the city in question as Durban. Three other cities that have hosted African Union summits saw them fail to add to their score. However add to their score they did when skipper Alex McGill buzzed early to identify the phrase deus ex machina. A good UC set on the French word boucher brought them two bonuses. This meant that ST. John’s led by 6 – 30 at the 10 minute mark.

I liked the UC special starter which followed, basically asking you to take the letters from chemical formulas (and ignore the numbers) to form the name of a snack food. So much so that I took a second lap of honour for getting the answer nacho. Bad move – I’ve been knackered all day since. Jonathan Chan took his 4^th starter with that one. Former princely states of India brought just the one bonus, although the team did throw away Jodhpur for Jaipur.I was pleased that I could dredge up the name of the Vendee Globe yachting competition, which passed by both of the teams for the next starter. Sadly Queen Mary came in a microsecond too soon and lost five. Thomas Clark buzzed in for his first starter, correctly identifying diaresis. I find imodium particularly effective against that. Now, I’ll be honest, the best that the phrase “carbonate minerals” is ever greeted with in LAM Towers is polite indifference, and I expected to score zilch. Thankfully the Smithson question was a wee bit of a giveaway, which I was more than happy to takeaway. The two bonuses that St. John’s gained were enough to take them into triple figures. We’ve seen teams come back strongly against St. John’s at this point, but it just didn’t feel like lightning was going to strike again here. Thomas Clark took his second starter recognising the – hai – element in certain placenames. US astronomer Andrea Ghez  - yes, known in LAM Towers as Andrea Who? – surprisingly yielded me a couple of bonuses with black hole and Hawaii – not necessarily two things that often appear in the same sentence, incidentally. I didn’t get Roger Penrose, but fair play, the lad’s done well for himself since splitting with Danger Mouse. This brought us to the music starter, and I don’t blame Ab Uthayakumar for taking a real flier and a stab in the dark with Swan Lake. Sometimes you have to take a huge gamble to alter the course of the competition. It didn’t come off, sadly, and lost 5 more of their precious points. Right composer as it happened, but wrong ballet, as Kiana Ouyang knew, correctly identifying Sleeping Beauty. That brought back memories. Back in the early/mid 70s I answered that question to my parents’ amazement. They had short memories – it was only a couple of weeks earlier that they’d taken me to the Northfields Odeon to see Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, which utilised a great deal of Tchaikovsky’s original score for the ballet. More ballets bought St. John’s no more points, although they missed out on 1 by giving the name of the composer – Delibes – rather than the name of the ballet – Coppelia. Marcus Deal won the buzzer race to identify the clavicle from JPs description, to earn a good UC set of bonuses on artists and dogs. They managed just one out of what I thought was quite a gettable set. Nonetheless I was impressed with Marcus Deal’s buzz to take his second consecutive starter, identifying Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude – good shout, that. Berkshire towns unfortunately again showed Queen Mary struggling to convert any of their hard earned bonuses. By the 20 minute mark St. John’s now led by 125 – 50.

Kiana Ouyang recognised the term Jim Crow for the next starter, earning bonuses on the FIFA World Cup. No huge fans of nternational football in the team, I dare say, since they failed to add to their score, although Chile was on the table for the last before being rejected for Colombia. Not a daft answer – Colombia were the original chosen hosts for the 1986 tournament, before having to pass on it. For the second picture starter we had a still from what looked like an Alfred Hitchcock film starring James Stewart. Yes, but which one? None of us identified it correctly as Rope. Neither team recognised definitions of the word altitude for the next starter either. Again, Queen Mary found themselves being very harshly penalised for buzzing in when it certainly seemed as if JP had just finished asking the question. Jonathan Chan added to his starter collection, identifying that the clues given by JP all led to answers beginning with can. This brought up the picture bonuses – stills from three more films which play out in close to real time. They managed two. I don’t know what this says about me, but the moment urine was mentioned in the following chemistry starter I knew the answer was phosphorus. For the third time in this match Jonathan Chan sounded most uncertain as he offered the correct answer. Two correct answers on musicals followed – and it could have been a full house if they hadn’t rejected Cats for the other. A good early buzz from Thomas Clark identified a church transept for the next starter. Poor old Queen Mary – at this stage they looked as if they were shell shocked. Bonuses on Physics didn’t do much for either of us. To be fair I got caught barking up the non-Newtonian tree for the second one too. Then I didn’t go for Newtonian with the next and missed a rare science bonus. St. John’s had that one. Right – if you’re asked for an instrument and you don’t know, then go for a violin. That’s what I did with the next one and it brought me and so did Jonathan Chan, shaking his head as he did so. Years 121 BCE and CE and 121.5 years provided two more correct answers. There was just time for Thomas Clark to correctly answer a number starter, and then the contest was gonged. St. John’s finished as runaway winners with 220 to Queen Mary’s 45.

Now, Queen Mary’s performance wasn’t great, but Jeremy, that is no excuse for telling them that they were ‘absolutely pulverised’, which is what you did. I’ll gladly accept that you didn’t mean to be nasty, but comments like that which rub salt into the wounds only come across as mean spirited. It’s not big and it’s not clever.

Well played St. John’s – first team into the quarter final stages.

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

The Treaty of Windsor of 1386 created the longstanding alliance between England and Portugal