The Teams
Southampton
Elise Harrington
Rhys Counsell
Roshana Wickremasinghe (Capt)
Chris Meredith
Christ Church, Cambridge
Eliza Dean
Melika Georgianeh
Arthur Wotton (Capt)
Elliott Lowe
What’s that you say? Me? Oh yes, I had a very nice time in
wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen, thank you for asking. Now, let’s get down to
business.
For the first starter Roshana Wickremasinghe showed
commendable confidence buzzing in early, but considering the starter was about
a description of a building in Rome she only had a one in several chance of
being right, and she wasn’t. Given the full question, and the invaluable clue
that the building bears the name of a renaissance pope Arthur Wotton took his first
starter with the Sistine Chapel – from Pope Sixtus IV, you see. Trilingual
inscriptions led me to predict to my empty sitting room that the Rosetta Stone
would come into this and indeed it was the last of this set. That was the one
that Christ Church managed. I didn’t understand the next starter on Maths, but I rather
liked the correct answer given by Chris Meredith, namely Big O notation. I
never would have known that the great Roy Orbison was also a mathematician. I
wasn’t disappointed that Southampton didn’t know Edward Casaubon is a main
character in Middlemarch. Richard Hoggart once told me that Middlemarch is the
perfect 19th century novel. There you go. Mind you, he also told me
that Mastermind was a most ridiculous programme in his opinion, so what can you
do? 2 bonuses levelled the scores. Roshana Wickremasinghe buzzed early to
correctly identify Rita Hayworth’s Gilda as an example of a femme fatale.
Winners of the John Maddox Prize for people who promote Science and Evidence
brought me my first lap of honour round the living room since returning from
Denmark for knowing HPV stands for Human Papillomavirus. I actually had a full
house on this set. So did So’ton. So, to the picture starter. We were shown a
passage from The Great Gatsby, with two highlighted compound verbs. Neither
team recognised the present perfect. Not surprised. Chris Meredith won the race
to identify the island of Hispaniola as the birthplace of Wyclef Jean. This
gave So’ton the picture bouses of more passages from famous novels and more
tenses to identify. Ah, but the novels were all in their original languages,
there’s the rub. I was able to take a full house more by luck than judgement,
while So’ton took one. Now, the mammals of the class Sirenia, asked for in the
next starter, were always going to be Manatees or Dugongs. But which one?
Arthur Wotton zigged with Manatee and he was right to do so. A nice UC set on
bathing in mythology brought a full house. This meant that the two teams were
pretty evenly matched at the 10-minute mark, with Southampton just slightly
ahead by 55 – 40.
The lead increased when Roshana Wickremasinghe buzzed in
early to identify Doughnut, Edible and Poor as words that can precede
Economics. Yeah, I still don’t think I’ll be using this as a connections set in
Thursday’s quiz. African National Parks
yielded just the one bonus. Both teams waited patiently with the next starter.
It asked about the oldest written text in a language, but when Amol mentioned
Pamplona Arthur Wotton won the race to answer Basque. Both of us managed 2 on
modern British sculptors. I’ll be honest, I’m not very familiar with the
Southern Gothic genre of fiction and neither were the teams for the next
starter. Arthur Wotton added to his already impressive collection of starters,
recognising a description of the word electricity. One bonus on Bell Labs
followed. For the music starter we heard a guitar solo, and Roshana
Wickremasinghe played the percentages answering Jimi Hendrix. Don’t blame her
since I did the same. Other guitar solos played backwards on the records
themselves brought two bonuses. Now, given Helluland and Markland, Elliott Lowe
knew that the more well-known name give to an area of North America he explored
by Leif Ericsson was Vinland. I guess this was before he starred in ‘The High
Chapparal (ask your grandparents). That’s Leif Ericsson, not Elliott Lowe. Japanese
film actor Takashi Shimura saw Christ Church fail to add to their score. And to be
fair, the answers were all very well-known Japanese films. Would their
profligacy with bonuses give them a cause for regret? Time would tell. Various
things connected with Queen Anne saw Arthur Wotton give his team back the lead
and bonuses on overseas departments of France gave Kings a full house. The Cambridge
skipper had the bit between his teeth now and took the next starter knowing a
mango when he heard a description of one. Abandoned invasions of Britain gave a
couple more bonuses. As we approached the 20 minute mark the buzzing of Arthur
Wotton and his team in the last few minutes had changed the complexion of the
competition, for Christ Church now led by 130 – 90.
I didn’t know that ilmenite contains the ore of titanium
but Elise Harrington did for the next starter. The bonuses on metals had a
memorable moment when Elise Harrington made a slip of the tongue and gave skipper
Roshana Wickremasinghe F203 as the chemical formula of magnetite rather than
Fe203. When Amol commiserated that he couldn’t accept it she gasped ‘Oh my God,
I’m so sorry!’ Relax – no need for such apology, we’ve all done it. Well, not
on a Science question in my case, but you know what I mean. Two bonuses took So’ton
to within a full set of the Cambridge team. I was impressed with the speed that the
excellent Arthur Wotton recognised the work of El Greco (‘Buddy’ to his mates)
for the second picture starter. More paintings of funerals brought one bonus. A
really good shout from Eliza Dean saw her correctly answer the de facto state
of Somaliland for the next starter. Sociology bonuses pushed the lead to 55. That
man Wotton knew that artists including John Singer Sargent(when he wasn’t
inventing the sewing machine and conducting orchestras) had painted
presidential portraits. Authors born in Ohio added nowt to the Christ Church score, but the
set ran down the clock which in itself was helpful to their cause. Neither team
could get the term free verse for the next starter. Now, had I not been suffering
a little from my arthritis I would have awarded myself a bar to my earlier lap
of honour for guessing that the molecules affecting the atmosphere being asked
for were CFCs. Chris Meredith had that too. He didn’t do a lap of honour
either. A UC special set on pairs of words where one is the other prefixed by
we- . A full set helped their cause, but So’ton were still more than a full set
behind. Now, if you’re asked for a Tudor cardinal, go for Wolsey. That’s what
Roshana Wickremasinghe did. The history of cereal crops, as a set of bonuses,
were not full of eastern promise. Nonetheless two correct answers brought the
gap down to 15 points. Once again, though, it was Arthur Wotton whose buzzing made
the difference. He was first in with the term greenwashing. There surely would
not be time for another starter after the bonuses. In fact there wasn’t even
time for a full set of bonuses. The gong ended the competition leaving Christ Church the winners by 155 – 180.
Another good contest, well fought by both teams. It’s
probably fair to say that it was Arthur Wotton’s 9 starters that made the
difference. Especially when you consider that they had a relatively modest
bonus conversion rate of forty three percent, as against Southampton’s sixty-seven.
I doubt that Southampton will be back, though, bearing in mind the scores I the
series so far.
How is Amol Doing?
On the Middlemarch set one of the questions asked for the
Smiths song which paraphrased a sentence from the novel in the lyrics. In order
to get ‘How Soon is Now’ Roshana Wickremasinghe sang a wee bit of the lyrics –
you know the bit, it was used as the theme to Charmed. I think Amol was a wee
bit charmed as well, since he replied, “You can sing it as long as you want if
you give me the answer.”
A few weeks ago I did note that Amol will say that there’s
plenty of time left in the same breath as saying there’s only a couple of minutes
to go. He did it again in this show. Look, as far as QM habits go it’s far from
the worst you could have, but I couldn’t help noticing it again.
Southampton were never more than a couple of sets behind Christ Church, but Amol seemed to think they had almost pulled off the most unbelievable
recovery since Lazarus, saying “I thought you were going to pull of the most incredible,
incredible recovery.” Steady on, Amol. Cool head.
Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of
The Week
Sir Thomas Browne was the first person known to use the
term electricity in English. It is derived from the Latin for ‘like amber’
3 comments:
I think you accidentally referred to the Christ Church, Oxford team as Kings, Cambridge.
Thanks Agnijo. I will change it now. I would say I was suffering from jetlag when I wrote it - but Copenhagen is only 1 hour ahead of us! D'Oh!
Starter watch:
Elise Harrington - 1
Rhys Counsell
Roshana Wickremasinghe - 4 (1)
Chris Meredith - 3
Eliza Dean - 1 (1)
Melika Gorgianeh
Arthur Wotton - 9
Elliot Lowe - 1
Winner: Arthur Wotton
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