University Challenge 2025 Round Two - Durham v. The Open

The Teams

Durham

Joe Ancell

Emilia Brookfield-Pertusini

Jake Roberts (capt.)

Luke Nash

Open University

Nicky Maving

Tom Barber

Karie Westermann (capt.)

Hector Payne

The first starter asked for the name of an Africa capital city. Both teams sat back a little but Luke Nash was in with the correct name of Harare before the end of the question. They took two bonuses on glass. Joe Ancell knew that the word Matrix is derived from the latin for womb or source. Bonuses on pirates – arrrhhhh, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, me hearties etc. etc. brought just the one correct answer. Nicky Maving managed to drag the Open into the competition, knowing the term picaresque for the next starter. Questions on electronics meant nowt to any of us but at least took us up to the first picture starter. My old mate KD Johnson will have shouted ‘peregrine falcon!’ the moment he saw the bird silhouette we were shown. He often complains that the bird questions on the show are easy and that people don’t get them when they should.  I didn’t. Luke Nash had it. Three more silhouettes brought two correct answers – we both recognised the buzzard and the red kite, but not the sparrowhawk. A fine early buzz from Karie Westerman recognised the words of artist’ Jenny Saville. Three questions on Love’s Labours Lost brought no points. I always thought a costard was an apple, there you go. Luke Nash recognised the Palmetto as being a symbol of South Carolina. Durham took what I thought were the two harder bonuses on classical music, but surprisingly missed Delius’ On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring. Nonetheless, at just past the ten minute mark Durham were leading by 75 – 20.

Neither team knew the answer to the next question. That was central – gawd knows what the question was about, but it wasn’t – what is the red line on the tube map, more’s the pity. AAARRRGGGGHHHH! The next starter mentioned Milos Forman who lost me thousands of pounds on Millionaire. (Alright, strictly speaking it was me who lost the money, but the question was about him.) I know he’s Czech now. So did Hector Payne. Large lakes in smaller countries provided one correct answer but at least Open were closing the gap. Karie Westerman knew about samphire for the next starter. Morphogenesis, who I believe may have been a renegade Time Lord during the JNT era of Doctor Who, bought just the one bonus. The music starter followed and Hector Payne very quickly recognised the work of Richard Wagner. Other pieces of music using the Dresden Amen – no, me neither – brought the Open a timely full house and tied the scores. Nicky Maving recognised a reference to Riot grrrl to take the next starter. Player managers in football brought another full house. This was turning into a very good spell for the Open. This continued as Nicky Maving took a second consecutive starter with Leap Second. Like a Leap Year, it is a tradition for ladies to ask gentlemen to marry them on a leap second, but they have to do it quickly. Cocteau provided Eaupen with two beaunuses. Godel, Escher, Bach escaped all of us for the next starter. Nicky Maving struck again with Keystone species for the next. Rulers brought a full house. At just past the ten minute mark Open had inflicted a ten minute shut out on Durham and led by 75 to 145.

For the picture starter nobody recognised the work of Paula Rego. Joe Ansell knew about a diplomatic mission to the Qing Empire. More pictures depicting dancers by the sea brought two correct answers in quick time. This seemed to energise Durham and skipper Jake Roberts took the next starter with electronegativity. Avant garde cinema brought one bonus, but the Durham charge was on. Luke Nash buzzed early for the Ardennes and he buzzed correctly to earn bonuses on Adam Bede, but sadly they just failed to take points on them. They were only a full set behind Open though. Karie Westermann recognised several meanings of the phrase Hail Mary, and the gap stretched again. Towns on the English coast with names ending in – mouth brought just the one bonus, but importantly it ran the clock down. Nobody knew Lagrange for the next starter. Jake Roberts went all in for the next starter, but came too early, leaving Nicky Maving to give the correct answer of quick. Particle physics just washed over me for the bonuses and brought nowt to the Open. But again, it brought the gong ever closer. There was just time for Karie Westermann to give us the Crime Writers Association and then that same gong announced the end. Open had won by 180 to 115.

Both teams had similar BCRs – Durham had 48 while Open finished with 47, but when you look at the contest as a whole Open were better on the buzzer which is why they won, even if the gap between the teams did flatter them a little at the end. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

Amol Watch

I think Amol was as surprised as I was when Durham missed the cuckoo and suggested woodpecker. “Said with such confidence. But no.” I wonder if it was with a sense of irony that Amol stated ‘Six minutes to go Durham, plenty of time.’ Either one or the other, Amol, but not both.

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

The word Matrix is derived from the latin for womb or source. How have I never heard that before? Just ignorant, I suppose.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

The German biologist Christine Nusslein-Volhard discovered the first morphogenic protein, named bicoid, as part of her work on which popular model organism? Thomas Hunt Morgan had earlier used it to demonstrate sex-linked inheritance. Huh? Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 First Round Heat 16

Hello, good morning and welcome. What, me? Fine, thanks for asking.

Now, looking at last night’s menu of specialists, I should have done a lot better than I did, since on paper I knew something about three of them. Nowt about the other one, mind you, but we’ll come to that. In the end though I just about scraped an aggregate of 6, which all goes to show that you never can tell. First up was Jeremy Hicks answering on the Manx Missile, Sir Mark Cavendish. Now, I was in London to watch the Prologue of Sir Mark’s first Tour de France, and I watch it every year, but even so I couldn’t do much with these questions. I thought it was a tough round, and that puts Jeremy’s 8 into perspective. We’ve already seen this series how 8 can be a competitive score in the first round.

Back in the day I really used to like The Darkness, the subject of Lucie Knight’s round. Lucie again really knew her subject. This was a wide ranging set – and not all of them, I noted, were specifically to do with the music despite the title of the round. Anything in double figures nowadays and you know that you’ve done really well. Lucie came close with 9 and no passes. It all depended on how our last two contenders would do, but it looked as if she would be in contention by half time.

I thought I recognised Dom Tait, our third contender. Indeed I did. For Dom Tait is an Only Connect champion, a member of the Scribes. ‘Allo, thought I, expect fireworks. Dom was answering on The Day Today. Not just the Day Today, either, but also its radio predecessor, On the Hour. Again, it was a show that I enjoyed very much, but that didn’t seem to help me in accruing many points. Still, at least I had the pleasure of watching Dom put on a text book performance of how to answer Mastermind questions. It wasn’t quite a full house, but by golly it was close. 11 points and no passes.

Having to follow Dom’s round renders Jeff Davies’ round on Sylvia ‘Who’ Towsend Warner all the more praiseworthy, since you wouldn’t have blamed him for being daunted by what had come before. Jeff treated us to a perfect round of 11 correct answers from 11 questions. He wasn’t answering at express pace which explains why he ended up with the same score as Dom, who really was. But at least it guaranteed that he would be last to go in the GK and would know the exact size of the task ahead of him.

Spare a moment of sympathy for Jeremy Hicks. He returned to the chair first for the GK round and delivered a very good GK round indeed, a round which might have been good enough to win another heat of the show. Well, at least he set the bar at 21 and I’m sure it’s not much consolation, but Jeremy, I appreciated your round and I’m sure many others will have as well.

Lucie Kight came back next. She had one of those rounds where it seems like every time you narrow down your answer to a couple of possibilities in your head you end up picking the wrong choice. Not that she did badly. As it was she scored a respectable 8, but on this particular show it was not going to be enough. She ended with a total of 17.

So to Dom, and if I was to tell you that I wasn’t expecting something a bit special, then you know that I’d be lying. It wasn’t just the fact that he answered so many of his questions correctly – 16 in total. No, it was the way he did it. Concentrating intently until the last syllable of the question issued from Clive’s mouth then leaping straight in with the answer. For the second time this series I found myself applauding the telly. Relatively few people have the level of GK you need in order to be able to deliver a round like this, but it’s so gratifying when you see someone who can.

Jeff, then, had to follow that. He gave it a go, I give him full credit for that. He started well, but a couple of wrong uns robbed him of momentum and to be honest it was a bit of a grim old slog from that point. What I liked was that when Clive announced that he had scored 8 for 19 points there just seemed to be the tiniest nod and a look of satisfaction, as if for him this had not so much been about winning, as about doing as well as he could. I can run that up the flagpole and salute it.

Well done Dom, a really first class performance. No predictions from me – they rarely come true anyway. But I wish you the very best of luck in the semi final.

The Details

Jeremy Hicks	Sir Mark Cavendish	8	0	13	0	21	0
Lucie Knight	The Music of The Darkness	9	0	8	2	17	2
Dom Tait	The Day Today	11	0	16	0	27	0
Jeff Davies	Sylvia Townsend Warner	11	0	8	0	19	0

University Challenge 2025 Round 2 UCL v LSE

The Teams

UCL

Calum Jack

Josh Mandel

Olivia Holtermann-Entwhistle (capt)

Sanjay Prabhakar

LSE

Albert Ying Zhi Nyang

Grant Dalton

Sebastian Bramley (capt)

Christina Jiang

 With the first starter Albert Ying Zhi Nyang tried a wild early buzz and lost five, but don’t knock it. Sometimes if you can take that first set it gives you a momentum that can last for the whole show. Once the question mentioned a particular US abolitionist it became clear that the given name required was Harriet as in Tubman. Olivia Holterman-Entwhistle took that one. The book Time’s Echo (the book Time’s Echo – see what I did there?) brought UCL a full house of bonuses. The Sight and Sound List of the 100 greatest films has My Neighbour Totoro as the highest ranked animated film. Did you know that? Calum Jack did. Amines actually brought me a full house, and if I was able to walk on my hands I would have done so, but I can’t so I didn’t. UCL took two. I knew aniline because I’ve read all about William Perkins because he set up his synthetic dye factory in my home borough of Ealing. Calum Jack showed remarkable powers of concentration to still be alert and even awake by the end of the most incredibly waffly starter question about Francis Crick. Three questions on flags of communities of Spain brought just the one bonus. So to the picture starter. We had to identify the city indicated. Since it was clearly inside the borders of Mongolia it was surely going to be Ulaanbaatar? You might be able to name another city in Mongolia, but me? Not so much. Sanjay Prabhakar thought the same and we were both right. Other cities that are home to over half of their respective country’s population brought a full set. Calum Jack took another starter, knowing that the city of St. David’s is in the utterly gorgeous county of Pembrokeshire. Marguerite ‘Who’ Yourcenar brought a full house. This meant that UCL led by a impressive 110 to minus 5 at 10 minutes.

Finally UCL mistimed a buzz and the full question allowed LSE skipper Sebastian Bramley in with rococo. World-systems theory did not sound very promising but two bonuses at least kept the score moving in the right direction. It had taken this long for Josh Mandel to take his first starter, which he did, dating the Battle of Bannockburn to 1314. Tom Lehrer and his “The Elements” song brought two bonuses. The Undivine Comedy brought Albert Ying Zhi Nyang a starter with a fast buzz for Polish. The photographer C.M. Battey (known as Norah to his mates) brought a good and fast full house to LSE. Nobody recognised an uncharacteristic bit of Bach for the music starter. Nor did anyone know Pumped Hydro Storage – not surprised. Josh Mandel knew that the shade of red sharing its name with a 19^th century battle was magenta. This earned the dubious reward of the music bonuses. Only one of them was answered but still UCL had a three figure lead. Anitra’s Dance, the first title mentioned in the next starter was clearly Peer Gynt. Josh Mandel took that one. Varieties of the Persian language brought two more bonuses. Sanjay Prabhakar just beat LSE to the buzzer to identify the polymath Mersenne. People who played a key role in the 1916 Easter Rising brought two bonuses. This meant that they led by 180 to 40 at just after 20 minutes. It was no longer a question of who was going to win, just by how many points they would.

Albert Ying Zhi Nyang took his second and LSE’s third starter with the Deccan Plateau. There would not be another, I’m afraid. Women who have won the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society brought two correct answers. For the second picture starter nobody recognised a still from One Man Two Guv’nors. Albert Ying Zhi Nyang threw caution to the win with the next starter and lost five for doing so. UCL couldn’t quite get the city of Ur. (incidentally the interiors of the buildings of the city could be described as Ur Indoors. I’m ‘ere all week, Ladies and Gents.) Sanjay Prabhakar worked out that the star taker had to be the Astrolabe. The picture bonuses showed us other nominees for Best New Play at the Oliviers. They only took one, but we were long past the point where his would make any difference. Nobody knew the Treaty of San Francisco for the next starter. The UCL skipper knew that lettuce derives its name from the Greek for milk. Theatre architect Frank Matcham brought a full house in fairly short order and the UCL juggernaut bulldozered on. It was all too easy for them as Josh Mandel supplied the words – My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings – from Shelley’s brilliant poem. Characters whose names ended with – ette brought another single bonus. Josh Mandel knew various consorts called Anne. Counties of Ireland brought the one correct answer needed for 250 points. Nobody knew Bantu knots for the next starter. Josh Mandel knew that DC is 600 in Roman numerals. The contest was gonged before UCL could add to their score, meaning hat they won by 255 to 55.

For the record LSE had an incredible BCR of 78. However this was achieved by scoring 7 out of a possible 9 bonuses, and that tells its own tale. For the record UCL had a BCR of 63. If you’re outbuzzed, you’re outbuzzed and I’m afraid that’s what happened to LSE.

Amol Watch

For once Amol was absolutely right when he issued an encouraging ‘Plenty of time to get going” to LSE on ten minutes. But their crestfallen faces suggested that the knew the score at this point in both literal and figurative meanings of the phrase.

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

Kuwait City, Djibouti City and Montivideo are each home to more than half of their respective countries’ inhabitants.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Along with Graeme Mitchison, who published a 1983 article in Nature entitled the Function of Dream Sleep, where he proposed that a major function of dreams was to forget memories formed during the day, a concept he called reverse learning? He’s better known for his work in Cambridge where he formulated the so-called central dogma of molecular biology and where his research led to the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Alright, so its not as unfathomable as most questions that provoke my dum dums, but come on! There’s no way that this question needs to be this long! Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 First Round Heat 15

Yeah, I’m sorry for anyone whose day was ruined by me no being able to post until now. Normally I do my write up early in the morning before I go to work, but I overslept this morning.

Charles Boden kicked us off last night with the solo career of Robbie Williams. It seems to me that we don’t see quite so much of the talented Mr. Williams now, but it’s worth noting just how big a star he was back in the day. Charles seemed pretty secure on the music but was caught out by the odd question on the videos and other periphera. That’s the thing about a Mastermind specialist round – if it could possibly be asked about something then you have to know it or learn it. Nothing to be ashamed with on 6, but unlikely to win.

Mark Kerr gave us a more traditional subject in the shape of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Goodness me but I loved those books when I was in the primary school. However. . . that was half a century ago, and frankly, I didn’t remember very much about them – other than Eustace’s surname being Scrubb and gawd only knows why I remembered that. I thought Mark didn’t do at all badly with the set, but again, although 7 is perfectly respectable, it does leave you with a mountain to climb in the General Knowledge.

So we come to last night’s government health warning subject. I had answered Charles’ first question correctly and no others. Then I answered Mark’s first question and no others. Now I answered Matilda Makemson’s first on the Fauna of Madagascar and didn’t manage any others. What a subject. I don’t know how many species of creatures inhabit the place, but it’s a big old island. You had to feel for Matilda. She had a couple of wrong ‘uns and it certainly seemed to play on her mind as the round went on. Then to add insult to injury she had to endure Clive announcing both of her passes with the coda ‘You knew that, didn’t you?!” Fair play to Matilda, she didn’t say “Oh, sod off Clive!” as some of us might have been tempted to, but just nodded with a smile. Clive, mate, I know you’re trying to be kind, but please don’t. Matilda scored four.

It isn’t often that there is anything that even approaches controversy in Mastermind, but I was a little surprised in Roopam Carroll’s round on the Matrix Films. Roopam was going great guns until she was asked for the name of the award winning Australian costume designer credited on the first three films. She answered “. . . Kim . . . sorry.” Now had she just said “Kim” then I think Clive’s prompt of ‘more?’ would have been quite acceptable. However, for me the sorry seemed to mean ‘I’m sorry I don’t remember’ and I was a little surprised that he gave the prompt after. It’s a marginal call and I do not for one moment blame Roopam or taking advantage and giving the right answer, and fair play, she kicked in the best specialist round of the night with 9 and no passes.

You know me by now. I like it when a contender can put adversity behind them and whack in a good GK round, so I was very pleased to see Matilda Makemson manage to do just that. She scored a double figure round to finish with fourteen.

This looked even better as Charles in his round scored 8 which meant that he too finished with fourteen.

So we came to the business end of the competition. If you’re only two off the lead at the turnaround then you have a chance. Mike whacked in his own double figure round to at least give himself a chance. 17 meant that Roopam would need 9 to win outright, however the fact that Mike didn’t incur any passes made this look just a little more tricky.

Not that it appeared to affect Roopam. Without going quite at express pace she quite easily broke the tape with time enough to add a couple more correct answers to finish with her own 10 to finish with 19. My daughter Phillippa doesn’t often watch the show with me, but she was there last night, and she complained that Clive accepted Alto for Contralto. I’ll be honest, I thought this was okay, but it didn’t matter because Roopam was already in the winner’s enclosure.

Well done Roopam! Best of luck in your semi.

The Details

Charles Boden	The Solo Career of Robbie Williams	6	0	8	0	14	0
Mike Kerr	“The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis	7	0	10	0	17	0
Matilda Makemson	The Fauna of Madagascar	4	2	10	1	14	3
Roopam Carroll	The Matrix Films	9	0	10	1	19	1