University Challenge Quarter Final - Edinburgh v. Trinity, Cambridge

The Teams

Edinburgh

Ben Russell Jones

Lewis Thomas

Rishi Sundar (capt)

Al Karunaratne

Trinity

Hattie Innes

Navonil Neogi

Ludwig Brekke (capt)

Luke Kim

Now, I know what you’re thinking. – What does the form book say, Dave?- Well, Edinburgh scored a mighty 270 in the first round when they beat Peterhouse in the first round, but only just beat Bristol in a quality match in the second. Trinity took out Durham by a margin of 100 in their first-round match, before destroying St. Hilda’s in one of the most impressive performances of the second round. So the form book pretty much washes its hands of the whole business and says it’s anybody’s game. On paper, that is.

I had nothing for the first starter until the word ‘opium eater’, and then answered ‘confessions’ at the same time as Rishi Sundar. Bonuses on trees brought just the one correct answer. For the next starter there was an awful lot of water that passed under the bridge between ‘thin wafers of which element’ and ‘integrated circuits’, but I guessed silicon as in chips, and so did Al Karunaratne, seemingly disbelieving that it could be that simple. Who cares? -thought I, and set off on my lap of honour around the Clark sofa. Physics in popular music promised little, but I had REM and EMF. Edinburgh also took two. A great buzz by Lewis Thomas saw him identify Jeanne Baret as reputedly the first woman to circumnavigate the world. Medieval History – specifically battles of the Wars of the 1th century – brought a full house. I was fuzzy on the next question, but Ben Russell Jones knew that the answer was Fuzzy logic. Their bonuses were on the artist Kehinde Wiley, who painted the official portrait of Barack Obama. They took one, but missed out on another from that popular misconception that it’s Grand Central Station beneath Madison Square Garden. It isn’t – it’s Pennsylvania Station, but I’ve heard question masters say that it is before now. They’re always right, you know. I didn’t know Puncak Jaya on the island of New Guinea for the picture starter, but then neither did anyone else. The next starter asked for a cartoonist, and it was some time before it became obvious that the answer was going to be Rube Goldberg. Lewis Thomas won that buzzer race. The picture bonuses showed three peaks, each of which is in the top ten highest peaks on islands in the world. Two of these put Edinburgh up to 100, and completed a shut out of Trinity up to the 10 minute mark.

The game wasn’t over, of course, but Trinity really needed to find their buzzer fingers. I really don’t know why they struggled so much at the start of the match. Yes, Edinburgh were very good on the buzzer, not unbeatably so. The wait for their first starter continued, as Ben Russell Jones answered that Napoleon’s fateful number was 18. Fair enough. The magnitude of stars provided just the one correct answer. Finally Trinity got their first shot at a starter as Luke Kim buzzed in to identify the 16^th century scientist who was the subject of a 2009 opera. What’s more, he was right when he said Kepler. I didn’t care for Jeremy’s snarky “You’re awake. Good!” The pantheon of Gods in the Elder Scrolls video game thankfully drew on sources that gave me a couple of points. Trinity scored a timely full house. Lewis Thomas was the first to join up the dots on the next starter and come up with the correct answer of Portland – as in vase, and bill. Fish whose name contains the name of a mammal provided one correct answer. I don’t know how I have got to 57 and a half years of age without knowing about gombocs, but I have. Still, now that I know about this class of three-dimensional homogenous bodies I find it to be a word which I would like to use more in conversation. Neither team knew it either. Parmentier in the next starter suggested we were looking at spuds, and again it was Lewis Thomas who took this one. Words beginning with sph yielded two bonuses. For the music starter Navonil Neogi was in quickly to recognise the werk of teutonic miserablists Kraftwerk. Three more performers or groups who have cultivated robotic stage personas – announced Jeremy. Gary Numan and Daft Punk will be there, I predicted. I was right too, although I didn’t know Janelle Monae (another member of the Who? family in these parts, I’m afraid. I was surprised Edinburgh didn’t have a punt at Daft Punk. They didn’t need to, though. Neither team knew the term Cats paw. I can only suggest that none of them are fans of the original series of Star Trek. A Maths starter littered with letters and words like factorial followed, and Navonil Neogi correctly answered the Exponential function. Gesundheit. A couple of bonuses on language families reduced the gap between the teams to double figures, but it was still looking like a long, long way back for Trinity. Especially when Lewis Thomas took the next starter, recognising a definition of the phrase ‘nuclear family’. New writers in the 70s brought a couple of correct answers. The normally sure footed Lewis Thomas came in way too early on the next starter asking for one of the new sports which debuted in the Tokyo Olympics. He zagged with sport climbing, and lost , allowing Ludwig Brekke to zig with skateboarding. A full house on flags that are mostly green meant that Trinity trailed by 80 to 185 at the 20 minute mark, and they were not going to win, but at least they were on the brink of a triple figure score.

Neither team recognised a description of the sternum. Now, for the next starter we were asked who painted the 1917 Bride and Groom with Eiffel Tower. I am sure we were shown this picture as a bonus in a picture round earlier in this very series. I remembered it as Chagall, which is more than either team managed. Neither team knew Zambia for the next starter either. This brought us to the actual second picture starter – and it was Ben Russell Jones who recognised the work of Kazimir Malevich. More works where the artist made interesting and extensive use of white brought just the one bonus. I knew that French words for war and wasp both begin with GU – I still remember reading about the adventures of Sylviane la guêpe in an ancient French text book we used in the first year in the comp. Bloody crap it was, too. Musicians and instruments put Edinburgh just one starter away from 200. I visited Prague in 2017, and so I saw the Dancing House, and very proud of it the good people of Prague are too. Ben Russell Jones won the race to identify where it is. Wild Goats didn’t sound like the most promising subject for a set of bonuses, but Edinburgh managed a couple of them. I didn’t really get the next question, but it required nautical mile and nanometre, and it went begging. Now, I absolutely loved dinosaurs as a kid after being given the How and Why Wonder Book of Dinosaurs  at a young age. I think it was my first ever favourite book. So the 6 year old me would definitely have known that the dinosaur whose name translates as double beam is Diplodocus. Al Karunaratne knew it too, although his tone and gesture suggested that this had been a bit of a shot in the dark. Places connected with the name Caesarea earned a full house. Lewis Thomas did a rather strange thing. The next question asked for a Scottish University. He knew it was either Strathclyde or Stirling. He gave the wrong answer of Strathcylde, and so said the right answer, Stirling, immediately after. Ta muchly, thought Ludwig Brekke, and answered Stirling, looking across to Lewis Thomas as he did so. It was a rare moment of light in what had been a pretty grim evening for Trinity. Subatomic particles provided the bons First three flavours of quarks to be discovered? Immediately I said the first three to come into my head – up, down and strange – and they were right! Nastily the contest was gonged when Trinity were on 95, with a bonus yet to come which might well have taken them to 100. The final score was 230 to 95.

I’m not crowning Edinburgh as favourites yet – I think they’ll be relieved about that, but they did very well indeed. Trinity are no mugs at all – they didn’t get many chances at bonuses but did very well with those they did get. But oh, they must get their buzzer fingers working from the start next time out.

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

Jeanne Baret is widely believed to be the first woman to circumnavigate the world.