It was Twenty Years Ago Today. . .

In my previous post, I mentioned the 2003 Channel Four Quiz Series Grand Slam. It’s 20 years ago that this show happened, and I thought it might be worth looking back on it now.

I remember the buzz about this show when it was being made. In 2003 I was a year or so away from making my own first appearance on a TV quiz show. Grand Slam was a quiz competition, contested between 16 players in knockout format. The big talking point at the time was that each of the contestants had to put up £1000 of their own money in order to take part. I’ll come back to this later.

I’ve googled the show because although I did watch some of them, it was a long time ago and I wanted to be certain of my facts. I remembered that it was a race against the clock. A similar idea has been used in segments of several shows before and since, but in case you’re not familiar, it works like this. Both contestants have a clock with 60 seconds on it in each round. When one is asked a question, the clock ticks down until he or she provides a correct answer. The clock stops, the opponent’s starts until he or she provides a correct answer, and so on. According to my sources the rounds were always:-

General Knowledge

Words and Language

Contemporary Knowledge

Numbers

The Final Combination – a miscellany of questions from the other round categories.

At the time the show went out the only contender I knew personally was Mark ‘the Beast’ Labbett. Mark was unfortunate enough to be drawn against eventual series winner Clive Spate in the first round. Clive was a multi-Countdown champion, as were some others among the 16. From the general knowledge quiz world, notable names were world quiz champion Olav Bjortomt, future Brain of Britain David Stainer, Discovery Mastermind champion Michael Penrice and BBC Mastermind champions David Edwards and Gavin Fuller. Clive defeated Gavin in the Final, to win the top prize of £50,000.

The idea of a tournament between champion quizzers is a pretty sound one to my mind, and it has been used occasionally since in shows like “Are You/Make Me An Egghead”. I did find that the format of Grand Slam meant that in practice the result of a great many of the shows became clear before the final round, which robbed the shows of much tension. I wasn’t quite convinced by Carol Vorderman as the host either.

Well, let’s come back to that USP, the £1000 entry fee. Now, I’ve no reason to say anything other than that this was kosher and above board and all of the 16 did have to pay a grand of their own money. Even at the time though I couldn’t help wondering whether this was brave or foolhardy. I mean, I’m still a pretty decent quizzer and I never enter a quiz where I don’t want to win. But I know for a fact that I cannot win every quiz I play in. Along with the vast majority of the population, there are a lot of people out there who are better quizzers than I am. That’s not even to mention the people who are no better than me, or worse, but who may have the lucky fall of the questions on a particular night. Can I see myself ever having paid £1000 to enter a quiz where my chances of winning would be slight at best? No. Can I see myself ever having paid £1000 to enter a quiz? Don’t be daft. So I can at least tip my metaphorical hat to the 16 for putting their money where the proverbial was.

The Better Late Than Never Puzzling Review

What do you think of the UK’s Channel Five? Be honest now. It’s a strange beast in some ways, is Channel Five. I mean, can you think of any really successful drama series from Five which haven’t been either imported, or picked up from one of the other channels when they have discarded them? You can say the same about a lot of genres. Then when it comes to documentaries, it seems to me that the huge majority are about the Royal Family, or murders – I haven’t watched one that combines the two, but if there is such a thing it will doubtless have been shown on Channel Five. As for quiz shows, well, there’s Eggheads, snapped up when the BBC seemed to have grown cold on the idea of further series. As for home grown quizzes, well. . . there was 100 Percent in the early years of the channel, and not a lot else.

Enter Puzzling.

Now, for reasons I’ve hinted at in my opening comments, Puzzling is just not the kind of quiz game show that I would ever have expected to see Channel Five showing. Which brings me to what has to be the elephant in the room when discussing Puzzling. This is the fact that the show seems to owe something to Only Connect. If we take the superficial similarities first, then both shows are hosted by highly intelligent blonde women. Both shows pit two teams of three against each other. The teams face off in several rounds of puzzles. While each show produces a winner, the goal is to reach the final and win the whole series overall.

The big differences are these. In OC the focus is, naturally on connections – what connects, what completes a sequence, which of the items on the grid are connected to each other and what connects them, and missing vowels, with sets of words and phrases all connected by themes. In Puzzling, there isn’t such a tight focus. In the two shows that I’ve watched, the teams played against each other across the same rounds. These were :-

In Other Words. This one involves being shown two words. Substitute them for other words with the same meaning and try to get a phrase connected with a theme you’ve already been given.

Pressure Points. This is a number round, not unlike the mental arithmetic tests in Child Genius a few years ago. In Pressure Points, though, the contestants ae helped by onscreen visual representations, although never in straight Arabic numerals – instead spots on a dice, roman numerals, you get the drift, I’m sure.

Rule Breakers is basically Odd One Out (for those of us old enough to remember it). So, the teams have to work out the connections between groups of four, but then also work out which one doesn’t fit.

Picture This is where the teams have to complete lyrics from Blondie top forty singles. Or in the real world, it’s basically a set of questions involving picture puzzles of several different sorts.

Memory Bank is the final round where the teams play against each other. They’re show a five by 3 grid, each rectangle containing a potential answer to a question. After a wee bit of time, the words are replaced by numbers. Questions are asked, and the teams have to answer with the number where the correct answer was.

That’s the team rounds then. Which brings me to the other big difference between Puzzling and OC. For the teams actually consist of three people who have never met before and been allocated to teams before the start of the show. So after the five teams rounds, the 3 members of the team with the lower score leave with nothing. The three remaining players now play Divide and Conquer – or put it another way, more questions like the ones we’ve already seen from he previous rounds. One player wins and will be back for the semis, the others won’t.

I can’t think of very many examples of commercial channels trying to produce their own high-brow, high difficulty – low reward quiz games in the past. However, on the few occasions I can remember, the particular demands of commercial television seem to have worked against them, with the exception of Channel Four which at least can point to Fifteen to 1 and Grand Slam on its resume. So hats off to Channel Five for even trying this. While I thought that the difficulty of some of the picture questions varied enormously, on the whole I didn’t feel that Puzzling is an example of a more challenging quiz game being dumbed down and diluted to be more accessible to the wider audience at home. And I appreciate that.

With regards to the similarities to OC, well, Only Connect, to me, now always runs like a well-oiled machine. It zips along like a brand new Porsche and there’s no fat to be trimmed off the joint. In terms of game play and playing along at home. I didn’t feel quite the same about Puzzling. It is broken up by adverts, and while you can’t blame the show itself for this, it does mean that it’s imperative to get the pacing right, and I don’t feel that Puzzling does this yet. Let’s remember that Only Connect grew up on the relatively sedate backwaters of BBC4, where one suspects that ratings would have been something of a dirty word. By the time it became a mainstay of Quizzy Mondays the show was already a seasoned campaigner, comfortable in its own skin, and with a hard core audience who would watch it whenever or wherever the BBC chose to position it in the schedules. It remains to be seen whether Channel 5 will allow 12 Yard and Wheelhouse the time to nurture Puzzling to the stage where it develops its own hardcore following.

Lucy Worsley, then. You know, time was when I wasn’t a fan. But I have to say that over the years I’ve come to like and appreciate her qualities as a presenter of interesting History documentaries on the Beeb. As a curator of the Royal Palaces, a lot of these have focused on royalty – maybe this is what attracted Channel Five to her in the first place. I didn’t appreciate her style at first but she won me over with her infectious enthusiasm, and her penchant for diving into the dressing up box for period costume whenever the opportunity arises. Seriously, if you watch a Lucy Worsley History documentary you can play a drinking game where you have to take a swig every time she changes into costume. 

As a quiz/game host though? After all, you might think it looks easy, but it requires a particular set of skills and attributes. I think of Paddy O’Connell from the first series of “Battle of the Brains”. Paddy is a fine broadcaster, with a ready wit but as a quiz show host I felt he was very much out of his comfort zone. Prior to the first edition of Puzzling being broadcast Lucy put on record her admiration for Victoria Coren-Mitchell and did nothing to play down comparisons with Only Connect. This worried me a little, because at the end of the day there’s only one Victoria Coren-Mitchell. You don’t see VCM trying to present documentaries about the 9 wives of King Louis the Randy of France, do you? Thankfully Lucy did her job well for the most part. She seemed warm and friendly, and also relaxed with the teams. Yeah, I think she spent too much time talking with them, but then you know what I’m like. I’m just not interested in that sort of thing.

Will we get just the one series of Puzzling? I hope not. I hope that Channel Five will give it the time to tweak itself a little, work out the pacing issues, and develop a following.

Ironically, my team are the Boycs - short for Boycott.

It was a tale of two quizzes again this week. Yes, it was the monthly film quiz in the Gwyn Hall. July’s theme was Disney movies. Now way back in the day, some twenty years ago, my late teammate Anne and I always used to say that if we could only win one quiz in the rugby club a year, then we would want it to be the end of year quiz. Well, when it comes to the film quiz in the Gwyn, if there was only one quiz in the year we could win, we’d want it to be this one. We’d put quite a lot of pressure on ourselves with our performance last year, when we had already amassed a winning total before the questions in the last round were even asked. Well, to cut a long story short, we did not amass a winning total before the last round on Wednesday. Thankfully there was daylight between ourselves and the second placed team at the end – but not so much as last year.

As a local quiz, I think that last night’s was the best attended I’ve ever played in. I think that I’m right in saying that there were forty four teams last night, which is remarkable really. Yeah, I know, we would have about a hundred teams sometimes for the Birmingham mega-quiz, but Birmingham is certainly not local.

I mention this because it’s the time of year when attendance at the rugby club quiz becomes a bit sparse at times, what with people going on holiday. In fact we arrived last night to be greeted by Mr. Norwich with a heartfelt plea for my team to provide question masters for quizzes on 10^th and 17^th August. Well, I’m sketching in wonderful wonderful Copenhagen for a few days in early August and I’m not back until the 11^th (don’t blub – I will catch up as soon as I get back.)So Jess is going to do the 10^th and I’ll do the other.

I think it was Adam who made the very pertinent point to Dai – wouldn’t it be a good idea if all of the teams took it in turns to provide a quiz and a question master. I have known places where this is the norm and it has worked successfully. However, we’re walking a bit of a precarious line at the club at the moment. We have only five regular teams, and to be fair four of these teams do provide at least one question master on a regular or semi-regular basis. However there’s no obligation for them to do so. Our fear is that if were to become a regular obligation, then we might end up losing teams, which is something we just can’t afford. So we’ve ended up with this situation whereby one team never provides a question master, while our team provides four.

It isn’t a perfect world, so it’s sometimes necessary to accept an imperfect situation like this. I would far rather put in the time and effort tto make a quiz now and then, than have weeks when there’s no quiz because there’s no question master.

However, that doesn’t mean I think we should give in to threats along the lines of one I was told of last night. If you read my post about last week’s quiz, you might remember that it really was not very enjoyable in my opinion. Well, it turns out this was an opinion shared by pretty much everyone who expressed one. Mr. N. said that he’d had his ear bent by members of all of the other teams. In particular he said that one team had threatened that if last week’s setter were to do it again, they would not be turning up for the quiz.

This is a tricky one. It’s not actually black and white. I mean, if you really don’t enjoy a quiz set by a particular setter should you really be under any obligation to attend it? Well, maybe not. But in our particular situation, though, I kind of think that it’s rather churlish if you do start to give a particular question master a miss. Most of us come week in, week out, expecting that there will be a quiz for us. Of the 20 – 30 regular players, less than 10 produce a quiz for everyone else on anything like a regular basis. So I don’t think it’s unfair to expect the rest to show some appreciation by turning up whenever possible.

Yeah, I know I was moaning about the quiz last week. However, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t turn up next time this setter does it. Lord knows, in the last 28 years we’ve had a couple of very poor setters in the quiz but I’ve always turned up for them if I could. There was only one setter I boycotted I the club ad as I’ve explained in the past, that was personal issue, not because her quizzes were frankly mediocre at best (which they were).

I’d like to think that I’ve mellowed a bit in the years we’ve known each other, dearly beloved. So I’m not going to say – hey, if you never do a quiz yourself you’ve got no right to boycott someone else’s quiz. However, I can’t help feeling that if you don’t like someone else’s quiz, have a go at one yourself and try to show them how it should be done.

The Misappliance of Science

Sorry. I didn’t post at the weekend because I was pretty busy. However, I did think that it was no bad thing to let last week’s quiz at the club settle on the stomach before commenting on it.

If you have been a regular reader for at least the last year or two, you maybe read a post I made a year ago about a new setter at the club who blinded us all with Science (questions). He’s not set a quiz again since and if I’m honest that’s probably no bad thing if Thursday night’s quiz, which he set, was anything to go by.

If you look at what I wrote last year you’ll find that I did say that I did enjoy the experience in a perverse kind of way. I quite enjoyed the first half of the quiz on Thursday. There was far too much Science of course, but a proportion of it was gettable with a good general knowledge. Not the second half though. That was a struggle.

Now, before I go on, I need to acknowledge a few things. Variety is the spice of life, and it’s not necessarily any bad thing to have a quiz which is different now and again. If we didn’t have people willing to put the time and trouble into compiling a quiz for a couple of drinks then we wouldn’t have a quiz.

Okay. Now, personally, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t go out of your way to compile a quiz that you think people are most likely to enjoy. His first quiz, last year, was forgivable because I think that he honestly thought that most people would find it easy and enjoy it. However, the comments from many of the teams, that he must have heard a lot of, were enough evidence to convince the most thick skinned of question masters that it was going down like a lead balloon. I fact, I think he must have taken them on board to some extent because he did pass comments a couple of times last week about asking questions to annoy the teams, or words to that effect. Why would you want to do that? It’s one of my bugbears with a certain type of question master, that they seem to think that the quiz is a contest between themselves and the teams. It really shouldn’t be. I have won some high-level quizzes in the past, but it wouldn’t take a massive amount of effort to make a quiz when I could only answer 1 or 2 questions every round. Or maybe even none. So what? Would it prove that the QM was a better quizzer than me, my team and all the other quizzers there? Nope.

Putting together a quiz takes time and effort and thought. If last week’s QM does one again next year, or even before I shall certainly play in it, unforeseen events permitting. But I do hope that he gives a little thought to the questions he asks. Yes, you can have your hard Science questions but limit them to one per round. Earn yourself the right to throw in a question that YOU like, by asking a majority of questions that the poor devils who have to answer them would like.

You know it makes sense.

Oh, and I’m sorry for saying “We’ve still got 3 rounds of this shite to go.” after round five. That wasn’t nice.

 

University Challenge 2024: Heat 2: Aberdeen v. Birmingham

The Teams

Aberdeen

Archie Broomfield

Zachary Eisler

Emily Osborne (Capt.)

Kyle McClements

Birmingham

Archie Bennett

Faiz Ahmed

Will Rogers (Capt.)

Sam Hastings

Good afternoon, dearly beloved. It’s already the second heat of the first round of UC: The Next Generation, and last night it was Aberdeen v. Birmingham. The Birmingham team seemed to have a mascot of the famous Joseph Chamberlain clock tower made of lego (other plastic brick-based construction toys are available although don’t ask me to name any of them right at this moment.)

Both teams were sensible to wait with the first starter until the word ‘ragtime’ was mentioned. As we all know, when you hear that word you slam the buzzer and answer – Scott Joplin. Archie Broomfield did and opened Aberdeen’s account. This brought them bonuses on the body and they knew their vertebrae well enough to brig a full house. Again, both teams listened to the question for the next starter and as soon as it became obvious this time Birmingham skipper Will Rogers nipped in with the correct answer – poet Andrew Marvell (known as ‘Captain’ to his mates.) With a set of bonuses on forms of Japanese theatre, Birmingham got their Kabuki confused with their Noh and ended up with 1 correct answer. Archie Broomfield chanced his arm with the Byzantine Generals’ Problem for the next starter about a thought experiment, and was close but no cigar losing five, allowing Archie Bennett in with the correct answer of the Two Generals Problem. Never heard of either, me. Chemical elements used in the making of red and green pigments earned me a lap of honour for a full house. I was surprised that Brum didn’t know that chromium is used in stainless steel. So to the picture starter. We saw titles of works in their original German. Now, to me, Aschenputtel – ash – screams Cinderella, so I answered that the authors were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Zachary Eisler took his first starter with the same answer. Extracts from the original texts of some of the stories in the original German saw Aber take two and the lead. With a rush of blood to the head Zachary Eisler came in too early on the next starter. Asked for an artist he gave Jackson Pollack, allowing Archie Bennett in with the correct answer of Mondrian, whose picture had hung upside down for many decades. Indigenous peoples brought Brum two bonuses and they led by 55 – 35 as we approached the ten-minute mark.

The Fascist, the Communist and the Hitler-Lover were not as it happened rejected names for three of the seven dwarves, but three of the Mitford Sisters. Zachary Eisler had that one. Words containing ‘bit’ brought a full house. Will Rogers took the next starter knowing that the two neighbouring countries on the Mediterranean whose names, and the names of their capital cities both begin with the same letter are Algeria and Tunisia. Home victories by home drivers driving for home teams in F1 Grand Prix brought a couple of bonuses for Brum. Had I not already taken a lap of honour I would have taken one for recognising a description of what had to be superconductors. Sam Hastings took that one. With the set of bonuses on Toni Morrison, Brum only knew Beloved but they made sure they got the points for it. Zachary Eisler, who’d now found his range, buzzed in early with a good interruption on the term Orientalism for the next starter. Now, I’ll be honest, polymerase chain reaction rarely comes up in conversation in LAM Towers. So I was surprised that my hastily made up word thermophile was right for he third bonus on it! Aberdeen did the same and took one bonus. Emily Osborne recognised the unique stylings of Taylor Swift for the music starter. Extracts from others of the official best albums of the 2010s provided 2 bonuses. The artist they didn’t get was Frank Ocean. I remember his dad, Billy, and his grandad, Pacific. (Note to self: You can do better than that. Note to note to self: No I can’t) Zachary Eisler knew that Charles Edward Stuart won the Battle of Prestonpans – although one suspects that his soldiers had rather more to do with the outcome than he did. Aber took 2 bonuses from a gettable set on Angela Lansbury. For the next starter Fiaz Ahmed identified Heimdall as the deity protecting Bifrost (which I was once told was pronounced beef-roast in the original Old Norse) which led to three bonuses on the Bounty. That’s the Mutiny on the – as opposed to the taste of paradise. They missed out on Bligh’s eventual destination – Timor – but took the other two. Arche Bennett recognised a description of Agar – incidentally John Agar was, I believe, the first husband of Shirley “You can’t be serious” Temple. Bonuses on the tomb of Oscar Wilde brought just the one bonus on what seemed like something of a hail Mary punt. Still, that was enough to ensure that they led by 125 – 110 at the 20-minute mark.

Kyle McClements took his first starer knowing a variety of football teams who play in green and white. Bonuses on the Markov chain – me neither – gave Aber back the lead. Back in 2019 I was lucky enough to visit Vienna, and the Kunst – or Culture – Museum has a superb collection of Brueghels, so I recognised the second picture starter as their work. Neither team did. That man Zachary Eisler, building up a very useful set of starters, knew that the King James Bible was published in the 1610s. Other paintings featuring Mount Vesuvius brought just one bonus. All still to play for. Now, if you know that gypsum is 2 on the Mohs scale, you’ll know that this corresponds to Helium on the periodic table. Kyle McClements was first to work this out. German states brought a single bonus. Fiaz Ahmed did exactly what you should do when you’re behind with little time remaining. He buzzed for the next starter as soon as he might have known it. OK, this time it didn’t work, but you’re never going to win if you don’t buzz. Kyle McClements completed his treble, knowing that all of the places alluded to in the question only contained a and no other vowel. Aber only managed the one bonus on Shakespeare, hinting that Literature may be a weaker area for them. Not that it seemed to matter in this match. Sadly, Fiaz Ahmed lost another five points, but Aber could not capitalise with bhaji. For the next starter Fiaz Ahmed hit the jackpot with the mathematician Ramanujan. I enjoyed “The Man Who Knew Infinity” based on his life. Brutalist architecture in London brought a name check for Erno Goldfinger – the story goes that when he threatened to sue Ian Fleming for using his surname, Fleming offered to rename it Goldprick. Sadly Aberdeen missed all of the bouses, and to be honest this felt very much like a last despairing throw of the dice for them. Especially when Zachary Eisler buzzed in with the correct answer of the Palaeolithic for the next starter. 1 out of three bonuses on types of stone added a little gilding to Aber’s score, but the contest was already won. As Amol began the last starer we were gonged, Aberdeen winning by 190 – 125.

It was a close contest for the first 20 minutes, but Aber’s superior buzzing told in the last third. Added to that, their bonus conversion rate was above 50 percent while Birmingham’s was slightly below. Another good show – keep it up.

How is Amol Doing?

In short, very well. He began by giving us the full run down of the rules which he didn’t do last time out. Shades of Bamber Gascoigne when he explained, kindly, that the Byzantine Generals Problem was actually related to the Two Generals Problem, which Archie Broomfield seemed to appreciate. Good. Is Amol a formula 1 fan? I asked because in the appropriate question he responded ‘the GREAT Alain Prost’. When Emily Osborne recognised the Taylor Swift starter Amol responded “You’re obviously a fan.” Hmm – not too sure about that one Amol. Just because you recognise someone’s music it doesn’t mean you like it. Not sure if he was having a little dig there. Late on in the contest Amol said, “Just under 4 minutes to go.” then immediately added, “Plenty of time Birmingham.” Now, I’m sorry, but those two statements are mutually exclusive. If the first is correct, then the second cannot be. Time will tell if this piece of encouragement proves to be as much the kiss of death as it was in the Paxman era. Then when Emily Osborne took a wild punt with plantain for the question about bhajis Amol once again channelled Paxman. “Plantain?!!!!” Finally, he paid tribute to his father’s love of Ramanujan. “My dad’s hero.” Having a mathematician as a hero? Fair play to you, Mr. Rajan, Senior.

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

Scott Joplin was actually born in Texas.

University Challenge 2024 - Trinity, Cambridge v. Manchester

The Teams

Trinity, Cambridge

Sarah Henderson

Agnijo Banerjee

Ryan Joonsuk Kang (Capt.)

Jeremi Jaksina

Manchester

Bluma De Los Reyes – White

Ilya Kullmann

Hiru Senehedheera (Capt.)

Dan Grady

Yes! It’s back. Another series of University Challenge, although for the first time since the return of the show to TV in 1994, no Jeremy Paxman. Commencing his run as QM was Amol Rajan. We’ll say a little more about him later on. I did think that the new set contrived to make Amol look a lot smaller than the mighty Paxman did, but this is of little import.

George Berkely is not, for me, a name to conjure with, but it was the correct answer to the firs starer of the Rajan era, provided by Agnijo Banerjee. Cultural references in the novels of Murakami saw Amol seemingly channelling Jeremy Paxman, as he queried “What?!” when Trinity offered Gone with the Wind as an answer to the second. Thankfully this was one isolated incident. There’s only one Jeremy Paxman, after all. We both only managed the one starter. I’ve never heard of Uncanny Valley, let alone picnicked there, but Hiru Senhedheera came in early to give it as the answer to the next starter. Films directed twice by the same director provided an interesting bonus set. I had the DeMille one and the Hitchcock one. Manchester didn’t, but they did have the second. The next starter saw Mr. Banerjee interrupt incorrectly. I was pleased with myself for working out that the most likely city of more than 100,000 furthest away from any other was probably Honolulu. Manchester couldn’t capitalise. Mr. Senhedheera knew that the American artist being referenced in the next question was Georgia O’Keefe and buzzed early. Monarchs who reigned for 70 years or more did not actually reference Her Majesty, the late Queen Elizabeth II. Nevertheless we both took a full house on them. So to the picture starter. We saw, written in Cyrillic the title of a famous Russian novel. Jeremi Jaksina – of Bialystok, Poland – was very familiar with the language as he came straight in with the answer of Boris Pasternak, the writer of the novel Doctor Zhivago. 3 more of the same brought 3 more correct answers for a timely full house. Now, as soon as Solomon – Queen of Sheba – and – Menelik were mentioned I shouted “Ethiopia!”. A split second later Mr. Banerjee buzzed in with the same. We were both right. The Greek letter Phi bonuses weren’t quite all Greek to Trinity as they managed one of the bonuses. All of which meant that they led 50 – 40 at the 10 minute mark.

Jeremi Jaksina took his second starter in a row knowing the Miller – Urey experiment. No, me neither. Works of art depicting crimes brought me a full house, although Trinity missed out on Cezanne. Bluma De Los Reyes – White struck back for Manchester, knowing that Wandavision is set in New Jersey. Weighing it up carefully, I’d have to say that I preferred Wandavision to Chucklevision. The Frankfurt school is not an establishment with which I have any familiarity. As it was Manchester only managed the one bonus. Still, I did recognise a description of the Kalevala for the next starter. So did Mr. Banerjee. Various Hydes brought one bonus to Trinity – although none of the questions referenced Tanya Hyde, a name with which my late father would oft times threaten to do to me in days of yore. Sarah Henderson was in for the music starter extremely quickly, recognising a piece by Britten which was based on a piece by Purcell. More composers of variations brought a full house. I don’t know a great deal about cricket, but I remember Warwickshire (captained by Dermot Reeve?) carrying all before them in 1994. So did Ilya Kullmann. Photo electric gubbins provided Manchester with the same number of points as it provided me – nowt. Still, when asked about a Nobel Prize winner Hiru Senehedheera played a captain’s innings, buzzing early with the correct answer of Lorenz. Malthus and his ideas gave us both one bonus. That man Banerjee took the next starter, knowing where the Machu language is written in the Forbidden City in Beijing. 2 bonuses on the parsley family – he was a lion, wasn’t he? – were enough to give Trinity a lead of 130 – 80.

With the comfort of a lead of two full houses, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that Trinity already had one foot in round two. Well, nobody seemed to have told Dan Grady who immediately wiped out ten points of the deficit by buzzing early with the name Shoegaze. A UC special set of three word names or terms in which each word has the same number of letters – Salt Lake City for example – saw a name check for the Great Vowel Shift – always a pleasure to see this come up. Manchester took a full house, which reduced the gap to a single full house. So to the second picture starter, and a detail from one of Vermeer’s paintings. Jeremi Jaksina took that one and earned bouses on more paintings depicting women and plucked instruments, which brought a full house and stretched the lead to fifty again. Again, it was Dan Grady who struck early to pull back Trinity on the next starter, recognising Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. Chemistry bonuses saw me earn a belated lap of hour for getting formaldehyde. Mind you, I also knew bakelite as well. Manchester took a couple, but were still in need of at least two visits to the table. Trinity Skipper Mr. Kang recognised references to yellow for the next starter. Trinity did well to get two bonuses on a difficult set on antipodal cities. Ilya Kullman knew that Dijon is the capital of Burgundy. Plays that feature scientific themes brought a full house. Surely now both of these teams would be going through, one by right and one by repechage. But which team would go through by right? It was thrown wide open when Bluma De Los Reyes – White took the next starter, knowing the works of Messrs Miyazaki. 1 bonus on words derived from the Indo-European root Kers meat that Manchester were still 10 behind. Was there time for a last starter? Yes! Both Bluma De Los Reyes – White and I answered Yak! And that was it – teams tied. GONNNGGGG! Yes, the first game of the series ends in a tie break. Well, fortune favours the brave, and it was the Manchester skipper, Hiru Senehedheera, who buzzed bravest, and came up with the correct answer of Guerilla Girls. A remarkable comeback to see Manchester win by the narrowest of margins.

Congratulations to both teams – this was a really good match. Both teams had a bonus conversion rate a little over 50. Up to last year Trinity’s 175 would pretty much guarantee a repechage slot. I’m just being a little cautious, since it remains to be seen whether Amol’s noticeably faster delivery will result in higher scores this season. Speaking or which . . .

How is Amol Doing?

In a nutshell, pretty well in my opinion. His delivery is noticeably faster than JP’s, which is no bad thing. I didn’t notice any stumbles on any questions either – his diction was clear and pleasant. There was just that one response to an early bonus, but other than that he projected warmth and friendliness to the teams. A good start. I will mention that he hailed the cricket question, saying we should have more of them. Well, Amol, only if it means a Science or Philosophy question gets jettisoned to make way for it, old son.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already know of the Week.

Burgundy takes its name from a Germanic tribe originating in Bornholm Island.

 

The Price is right but the Brice certainly isn't

How are we doing? Me? Well, I’ll be all the better this time next week after the school year has finished, but no, fair’s fair, I’m doing pretty well, all thing’s considered.

I haven’t much to tell you if I’m totally honest. Let’s start with a reminder that University Challenge: The Next Generation starts tomorrow with Amol Rajan in the QM’s chair. The I just want to mention something that happened at the club on Thursday. It’s the rare occurrence when the question master confuses two things, one with the other, in the question itself. One memorable example of this was quite a few years ago when one of our less popular question masters of the time asked –

“Which British actor won a Best Supporting Actor for his role in Spartacus?” The answer he gave was Hugh Griffith. The wrong answer he gave, I should say. As you probably know, Hugh Griffith won his Oscar for his role in another epic toga opera, Ben Hur. What made it worse, though, was that a British actor DID winn best supporting actor for Spartacus, but it was Peter Ustinov.

Let’s come back to last Thursday then. The QM asked the question – “In which work of fiction was Fanny Brice the name of the main protagonist – and for a bonus point, tell me the name of the author.” Well, the thing is, that Fanny BRICE is the name of Barbara Streisand’s character in the movies Funny Girl and Funny Lady – and although some of the events portrayed may have been fictionalised to some extent, Fanny BRICE was very much a real person. Then it struck me. He must mean Fanny PRICE, in which case the answer was Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I’m always at a bit of a dilemma when I notice things like this. Believe it or not there are times when I do keep my gob shut about things like this. On other occasions I have learned not to shout at the QM, but to have a quiet word. For example, when the same QM asked “What is the connection between Thomas the Tank Engine and Libya?” I went up to him and quietly told him that IF the connection was Idris, then it wasn’t Thomas the Tank Engine, but Ivor the Engine. Realisation dawned, and he announced the correction to the question to all. Why did I tell him on that one and not on other errors? Well, because the misdirection to Thomas the Tank Engine made the question almost impossible to answer, so it struck me as the fairest thing to do.

Which is all a long winded way of saying that I did alert the QM to the error. For all I know all of the other teams had worked out the QM’s mistake already. Maybe some of them had and not others. Maybe none of them had. But it just seemed the right thing to do at that point.

I’m not trying to have a moan about the question master here. Everyone of us who has ever set a quiz on a regular or semi-regular basis has made mistakes with it. Yes, gentle reader, even me. What’s more, one of mine actually went down in print! In one of my quiz books on the Kindle I asked the question – Which singer was nicknamed the Velvet Frog? – Apologies to Mel Torme for that one – he was of course nicknamed the Velvet Fog!

Back to the blog

I know, I know. I didn’t post much in June, and it’s now well over a week into July. I wouldn’t have blamed you for thinking – oh, that’s it, we’re not going to hear from him again for another 18 months. As it happens I did have another bout of depression in May going into June, but that’s not why I didn’t pos. No, it was really just a consequence of not having a great deal to say – I know, that’s never stopped me in the past , and suffering from tendonitis in right wrist and shoulder which is made worse when I type.

So, what do we need to talk about today? Well, I am tempted to review Lucy Worsley’s Puzzling. However I have only watched one edition so far, and in the interests of fairness, I feel I ought to watch another couple before passing judgement.

The quiz in the club, then. Many years ago, before LAM, even before the SOBM (Season of Blessed Memory) of Mastermind my team, Boycs, went through a whole quiz in he club and answered every question correctly. It had never been done by any team before, and it’s never been done since. We did come lose a few years later, but in the very last round my mate Rob, who was QM at the time, refused to accept Sony for Sony Ericsson. There you go.

Well, it was Dan’s quiz on Thursday nigh, and we had one of those nights when the questions were just falling for us. We completed the first half of the quiz without dropping a point. In fact it was round 7 before we really had to guess any answers. We guessed that the percentage answer for the railway station with the most platforms in the world is Grand Central, New York. So, going into the last round it was definitely ‘on’. With three questions to go, all of which we knew we’d answered correctly we were asked about how old a National Hunt horse has to be in order to be allowed to race. Well, we are none of us students of the turf, and not to put too fine a point on it, our answer was wrong.

It was a shame, but then we had also had two answers wrong in the handout. We were given 25 official abbreviations of US states, and we had 2 wrong. Mind you, that’s not too bad, considering that on quite a few occasions there is more than one state that starts with the same two letters – I think that Arizona and Arkansas presented us with a difficult choice, for example.

Well, that’s just about it for today, well, other from the welcome piece of news that University Challenge is back a week tomorrow, on the 17^th July. Good news!

And as a bonus, here's one of the paintings I made during the challenge in June