University Challenge Quarter Final Qualification Match: Durham v. Royal Holloway

The Teams

Durham

Harry Scully

Chloe Margaux

Alex Radcliffe

Bea Bennett

Royal Holloway

Joel Abramovitch

Joanna Brown

George Harvey

Micka Clayton

It’s a funny old game, this University Challenge punditry, isn’t it? In this quarter final qualification match we had two unbeaten teams, Royal Holloway and Durham. In my unofficial round 1 and 2 table Royal Holloway were the strongest team – because they were propping up all the rest of them. Boom boom, I’m ‘ere all week, ladies and gentlemen. Durham, by contrast were top of the table. Had this been both teams’ first quarter final match, then matters would have appeared a little more clear cut.

But their last matches changed the complexion of this match. Durham had a much lower score than their average, having just beaten Southampton in an excellent close match. A bonus conversion rate of 65.8% sealed the deal for them. Royal Holloway had a more comfortable win against Robert Gordon. Partly this was built on their superior buzzing. However, it was also down to a bonus conversion rate that was much better than their average from the first two rounds. So while I still fancied Durham to win, the signs that things were not going to necessarily be quite so clear cut were there, had I just had eyes to see them.

The first starter asked us for a 193 play, and that date was enough for me to blurt out The Crucible. Massachusetts Bay Colony and 1690s were enough to give Harry Scully the same answer. This brought Durham a set of bonuses on Martha Gellhorn brought us both two bonuses. Several musical clues to the name Johnny brought Harry Scully a second starter, although he juggled the ball a little bit and was lucky not to knock on. Events of the 1450s brought just the one bonus. Harry Scully, trying for a hattrick came in far too early for the next starter – it was only after he buzzed and gave away five that it became obvious that Dido’s brother was called Pygmalion. Royal Holloway’s star buzzer from previous rounds, Joanna Brown, took that one. Pioneers of Radio Telescopy saw us both take a single bonus with Sir Bernard Lovell. So to the picture starter. This showed us a leitmotif and asked which character it represented. This involved working out that it was Peter and the Wolf and then recognising it represented Peter himself. Alex Radcliffe did so very quickly indeed. The bonuses were other character leitmotifs from the same. I answered duck to the first two and got it right for the second. Durham took a full house on this set. This meant that as we approached the 10-minute mark they appeared to be well in control at 55 – 15.

This impression was strengthened when Joel Abramovitch lost five for the next starter. Alex Radcliffe recognised the two titles as belonging to work by Alfred Russel Wallace – hell of a good shout, that. The Chinese installation artist Xu ‘Who’ Bing provided us both with a single bonus for the Analects of Confucius. Alex Radcliffe gambled on the next question by going early only to have the distressing experience of hearing his proposed answer become part of the question. Nobody knew that it was Nobel Prize winners Laue and Franck whose medals were dissolved in aqua regia to prevent them from getting into the hands of the Nazis. For the second starter in a row Alex Radcliffe jumped in too early. He lost . Joel Abramovitch didn’t lose five, but he came in too early to hear significant parts of the question. Because it didn’t actually want the golden ratio to four significant numbers, but the king on the throne if you read the numbers as a date. Some inscrutable thing about microfarad conductors (can you get driver operated microfarads which don’t need a conductor?) saw nobody get the right answer of 300.Nothing daunted Alex Radcliffe buzzed early again to get the word brassica. We both identified Derek Walcott for one of the bonuses on verse novels. Now, I thought that I knew Keats quite well, but I didn’t recognise the lines that gave Joanna Brown the next starter. Science stuff about magnetic fields did as little for Royal Holloway as it did for me. For the music starter Chloe Margaux won the buzzer race to identify music from the Musical Hairspray. Hairspray is a film that became a stage musical that became a musical film, and three others of the same delivered just the one correct answer with Little Shop of Horrors. Harry Scully, asked for an Italian city featuring in the title of a novel by Stendahl came close but lost five for Parmigiano. I’m surprised that Joanna Brown didn’t know that one, but she went with scarlet from Le Rouge et Le Noir. A truly lovely UC special starter asked which was the middle county of the 7 on the English channel coast. Skipper George Harvey came in first to correctly answer Hampshire. Words in the titles of Assassins Creed games brought two bonuses, and this made the score look slightly better for RH, even though they trailed by 90 – 40 at the twenty-minute mark.

Triton – Titania- Titan – Ganymede began the next starter. Phobos! I shouted, hoping that I had correctly remembered which is the larger of Mars’ moons. I was as George Harvey confirmed. Historic cities of West Africa brought just the 1 bonus, but the gap was narrowing and that was what was important. George Harvey clearly had the bit between his teeth now as he took the next starter recognising that it must have something to do with a Rubik’s Cube. Bonuses on plastids amazingly brought me a bonus and a lap of honour. I knew that one based on the Greek for white could be a leucoplast. Not even Royal Holloway had that one. For the next starter we were shown photos of two writers who shared their first and second initials. Well, I recognised JM Barrie, who was probably known to my 3x great grandparents when he was growing up in Kirriemuir. More authors linked by middle initials brought just one more correct answer. That was enough to mean that RH were going to need more than one visit to the table, but there were still a good few minutes to go before the gong. Harry Scully went too early. One of my new years questions was which country became the first in the world to accept the bitcoin as legal currency, and George Harvey dredged it up. I did know Edith Head for the first bonus which RH didn’t, but they took the other two. This meant that Durham led by a mere five points. I didn’t really get the next question but Joel Abramovitch came in early with actin. That put RH into the lead for the first time in the match.Bonuses all beginning with voc – stretched the lead by five more points. Essentially, then, what we had was a one buzz game. If RH took the next starter, then there surely wouldn’t be time for Durham to come back. If Durham took it,, we were all square, with bonuses to come. I was surprised when neither team buzzed at the name of Frieda Von Richthofen, but when JP said she was the model for Ursula Brangwen then Joanna Brown made no mistake, buzzing in with DH Lawrence. A single bonus on culinary sauces put just a little more gloss on the victory. Royal Holloway won by 125 – 100.

Royal Holloway deserved their win and took a place in the semi finals that I, for one, did not think that they could get. Sorry Royal Holloway, and best of luck in the semis. This despite a bonus conversion rate of 45.4%. As for Durham, well, they are not out of it at all, and will still get there if they win their next match. They had slightly the better bonus conversion rate at 52.3% but their five penalties cost them dearly tonight, and it remains to be seen if this will make them more cautious on the buzzer.

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

Jean-Phillipe Leo Smet was the real name of Johnny Hallyday