University Challenge Quarter Fial Match - UCL v. Darwin, Cambridge

The Teams

UCL

Calum Jack

Josh Mandel

Olivia Holtermann Entwhistle (Capt.)

Sanjay Prabhakar

Darwin, Cambridge

Rebecca McClelland

Sophie Willis

Harrison Whitaker (Capt.)

Rowan Stewart

UCL have had an interesting series so far. Beaten in round one by the Open University, they won both repechage and round two matches by outbuzzing their opponents and a good BCR of over 60. Darwin never quite reached those BCR heights in their first two matches. However their buzzing – I think of Harrison Whitaker’s Hall of Fame performance of 11 starters correctly answered in their first round match – meant that I would have been foolish to make them underdogs.

Harrison Whitaker began as he meant to go on with a strong early buzz for the first starter. He didn’t mean it to be wrong, though, which his answer was. UCL couldn’t dredge up the term camp though and failed to capitalise. Sophie Willis took the first points of the match when she looked straight at Amol and said “Koch.” Bit harsh, that, I thought before I realised it was a name. Three questions on early calculating devices brought two correct answers from Darwin and a full house from me. Naw, I let the opportunity for a lap of honour around the old Clark sofa ride for a bit. Okay – poet – playwright – translator – Nobel were enough to put me onto Seamus Heaney even before Death of A Naturalist was mentioned. Josh Mandel chanced his arm with Derek Walcott putting his team into the red. This allowed Harrison Whitaker to open his account, earning his team bonuses on married couples who are both noted artists. They took another two correct answers. Josh Mandel knew the Eames design team. I had one of my finest moments in one of their soft pad chairs, but I digress. Emperor Puyi brought just the one bonus. Oh, the picture starter that followed was a sneaky little sod. We saw a latin quote from the Bible, and schoolboy latin told me it said “In the beginning was the Word” etc. Which book? Genesis – said I. Genesis said Sanjay Prabhakar. No, said Amol. It was actually St. John’s Gospel. Nobody had it. Josh Mandel earned the latin biblical verse bonuses for knowing that Roraima is in Brazil, where the nuts come from. We both took a full house on that. This meant that the scores were level as we were just a little shy of the 10 minute mark.

Harrison Whitaker buzzed early for Nash equilibrium in game theory. Well, I mean he would, wouldn’t he? Recent winners of the Golden Lion in the Venice film festival were meat and drink to the Darwin skipper, a PhD film student and he took a full house. He also knew that the Emperor Clavdivs ( look, if you get it, you get it, if you don’t, meh , you ain’t missing much) wrote about the Etruscans. Bit of a gamble, mind you since he also wrote about the Carthaginians. Still, fortune does favour the brave.I’m sorry, but the words Swedish Pharmaceutical Chemist immediately brought to mind a vision of a florid man in a lab coat with a huge russet moustache juggling test tubes while warbling ‘Hurdy, gurdy gurd. . . “ The Muppet Show has a lot to answer for. The chemist in question brought two correct answers to Darwin, but an unexpected full house to me and this time I took the lap of honour. Rowan Stewart knew all about asking American salespeople to say fourth floor. (I guess you had to be there.) Top 10 restaurants of 2023 did not include Margam Fish Bar, surprisingly, but brought another wo correct answers to Darwin. The starter which followed on Kubrick’s The Shining was all too easy for the speedy Mr. Whitaker who knew that Kubrick’s casting of twin sisters was inspired by a Diane Arbus photo. Turkic languages saw Darwin take a quick full house. The music starter welcomed us all to jazz club – niiicccce. None of us entered. Nobody recognised the work of Miles Davis. 20^th Century popular America astronomer screamed Carl Sagan to me, and to Sophie Willis too. This earned Darwin a forced reentry to Jazz club, and they took one bonus. Finally, after a 6 minute shut out Sanjay Prabhakar managed to elbow his way past Darwin to correctly answer that Belshazzar’s Feast features in the Book of Daniel. A very tricky Shakespeare set yielded one bonus. Harrison Whitaker knew an essay by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o for the next starter. Fauna of Madagascar contributed just the one bonus. Sophie Willis, who was proving to be a good support for her skipper on the buzzer in this contest took another starter about pairs of cranial nerves and ribs. I prefer mine with barbecue sauce and tend to leave the cranial nerves on the side of the plate. Philip Glass’ opera Akhenaten brought 2 bonuses. Sidgwick’s book on Ethics – the Only Way is Ethics I think it was called -  continued the Harrison Whitaker buzzer onslaught. The French philosopher Althusser brought a full house. So just after the 20 minute mark Darwin led with 200, while UCL were all but out of it with 50.

The picture starter fell into Harrison Whitaker’s lap with a photo of Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth. More pairs of film directors and actresses to whom they were married really surprised me in as much as they didn’t recognise Ingrid Bergman for the first, while they rejected Roger Vadim because he was married to Jane Fonda. Well, some you win. Darwin certainly looked very like winners now. Josh Mandel knew that Macaulay wrote the Lays of Ancient Rome – presumably after the first two Home Alone films when work got a bit slack. The EUs Access Cities Award brought a couple of much needed bonuses. SATB? Don’t ask me but Josh Mandel knew it. Genetic mutations – ello, thought I , internal orchestra on standby, -brought, I think, 1 correct answer. Sanjay Prabhakar knew the term blast or blasto which brought up bonuses on duty and expediency. These gave UCL what I think was their first full house of the night. Harrison Whitaker took the next knowing Orlam by PJ Harvey – who surely was also the writer of An Inspector Calls, or as it was once called in a memorable review, Anne In Spectacles. SEATO brought nowt, but it was all immaterial by this stage. Josh Mandel knew of Goose Green in the Falkland Islands for the next starter. Classical poetic verse forms yielded nowt before the gong. Darwin, frankly looked good value for their win by 225 to UCL’s 120.

I think that this was Darwin’s best performance by some distance. They comprehensively outbuzzed UCL and ended with a BCR of 61, their highest yet. As for UCL, well, they achieved a BCR of 55. They’ve come back before, so we’re not writing them off just yet.

Amol Watch

Nothing to see here. Go on with your lives, citizens

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

The geographical term septentrional simply means North

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

What term describes mutations where a number of nucleotides that ae not a multiple of three are either added or deleted from a protein-coding gene? The resulting mutation leads to the synthesis of a completely different protein product. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 Heat 21

We’re getting close to the finish line of the first round now, peeps, and to be honest it won’t be before time. The extra long Christmas break this year seems to have robbed the series of a bit of momentum, and it could do with an incredible, sock blowing off performance from a contender to get it back moving with purpose again.

Still, for the moment let’s be grateful for what we have. Which in this case was James Barrow answering on the Isles of Scilly. General knowledge brought me a couple of points from this round. I’ve never visited the Isles of Scilly but I knew about Samson and the splendidly named Sir Cloudsley Shovell. James had obviously prepared diligently and although he didn’t quite win the ultimate prize of a double figure round he did the next best thing and scored 9.

Alex Grindley followed with their round on the complex and always interesting films of Derek Jarman. I wouldn’t say that he was totally responsible for my interest in and love of the works of Caravaggio, but his film certainly played its part in introducing me to them. 3 points meant that I was ahead of the clock in terms of the specialist aggregate this week. Alex, who seemed to be really enjoying their first time in the chair, just missed out on equalling James’ 8, but earned a pretty good 8 to stay just on the leader’s shoulder.

GP Sunder Gopaul offered us Wham!. I was hoping the round would be more of a case of I’m your man rather than wake me up before you go-go. In the end it was somewhere between them as I added four to take my aggregate to the brink of double figures. Sunder managed a respectable six, which just about kept him in the hunt, but I did feel that this was a set where he might have been expected to do a little bit better with the very fair set he was given. Just my opinion and feel free to disagree.

Well, I didn’t get the point that I needed from Annabel Lloyd’s round on Bernini to take my aggregate to double figures.  Here’s a coincidence. In 2019, when I was in Vienna, I visited the Kunsthistorisches (Art/Cultural History) Museum which had a special exhibition about Caravaggio and Bernini on at the time. Interesting, eh? Well, please yourselves. Annabel’s round just failed to ignite, and she knew it too, as she replied, “Oh dear.” when Clive informed her that she had scored four.

It isn’t easy preparing for a specialist round. I worked extremely hard on all (alright, most) of mine, and yet I never quite achieved a perfect round. Things can go wrong, and all you can do is sympathise when contenders have one of those rounds. We’ve talked about this before, but there’s a number of things which can affect your performance in a specialist round. It certainly isn’t always due to a lack of preparation.

Annabel was first to return to the chair. She seemed to set her stall out to take each question on its own merits and as a result although she wasn’t going quickly she continued to rack up her score throughout the round. 8 in a GK round in his day and age is a perfectly respectable score and she finished with 12.

Sunder did not have a very good round. I’m afraid. Once he’d had a wrong’un or two it seemed to affect his concentration and the round seemed to be a bit of a grim old struggle from start to finish. He ended with a total score of 9.

In a way last night’s show was a bit similar to the previous week’s, where the specialist scores meant that it would boil down to a two horse race. First rider out of the starting gate was Alex. I’ve been in the position of having to set a target and I’ve been in the position of having to chase one. And frankly, there’s no real difference to the way you approach them. Quite simply you go like billy-o and answer as many correctly as you can. You can’t count as you go along. Let me modify that. I can’t count as I go along. Alex gave it a good old lash, answering 9 and just missing out on 10 when Exxon Valdez refused to leap off the tip of the tongue.

James Barrow’s task was clear. 9 would bring an outright win, and 8 and up to two passes would do the job just as well. 8 and 3 would mean a tie break, while anything less would mean no cigar. Well, it was surprisingly close. As the round was warbled to a close he sat on 17, and didn’t look like he had an answer. He seemed surprised when his answer of rhododendron was correct. As it was he was already in the winner’s enclosure having 17 and no passes as the question was being asked, and finished with 18.

Well done, sir. I wish you the best of luck in the semi-finals. 3 more heats to go, and then the semis will be upon us.

The Details

James Barrow	The Isles of Scilly	9	0	9	0	18	0
Alex Grindley	The films of Derek Jarman	8	0	9	3	17	3
Sunder Gopaul	Wham!	6	2	3	2	9	4
Annabel Lloyd	Gian Lorenzo Bernini	4	0	8	0	12	0

University Challenge 2025 Quarter final Queen's Belfast v. Warwick

The Teams

Queen’s, Belfast

Sarah Carlisle

Jason McKillen

Daniel Rankin (capt)

Sam Thompson

Warwick

Ananya Govindarajan

Thomas Hart

Oscar Siddle (capt)

Benjamin Watson

Well, on paper it looked fairly difficult to pick a winner. Queen’s were outstanding in their first round match, looking like potential series winners, but they looked just a little less impressive while knocking out Cardiff in the second round. Warwick had looked good in both rounds – not necessarily up among the favourites, but good enough to give anyone a good match.

So Thomas Hart, his elbow bent ready to pounce on the buzzer, recognised various events belonging to the 112^th century for the first starter. He’s from Misgyn / Miskin not that far outside Cardiff. I won a quiz there once and was told that it behoved me to compile the quiz the next week. The winners that night were the most obnoxious team I think I’ve ever met, questioning every answer that was different from theirs, justifying their dissent with “We know all about this, we’re English teachers!” My response was spherical and in the plural. No. I haven’t been back since. Coming back to Thomas Hart his correct buzz earned three questions on the Mediterranean Sea. Two of them were correctly answered. The first clue that this might be a tough night for Queen’s came when Daniel Rankin buzzed far too early for the next question and lost five, allowing Benjamin Watson to identify Erno Goldfinger as the architect of the Balfron and Trellick Towers. He supposedly lived in the Balfron for a while so its first inhabitants could speak to him directly about it – presumably most of their comments being of the ‘why did you make it so ugly, you muppet?’ variety. Warwick cemented their lead with two correct answers on Portland cement – nice to see John Smeaton getting a name check. This time Daniel Rankin made no mistake as he answered Edward Teller to the next starter. Members of the Allahakbarries, a cricket team formed by Kirriemuir’s finest J.M.Barrie, brought a couple of bonuses. I mentioned Kirriemuir because Barrie grew up there at a time when I had ancestors living there just a street or two away. Gawd knows about Dogme 95, but Daniel Rankin came in early to give that answer correctly for the next starter. French ye-ye music – or as I like to think of it –  French non-merci music – brought just the one correct answer. So to the picture starter all about postcode areas. Nobody took it and frankly, I ain’t surprised. Now, to me the words “Kingsley Amis”, “friend” and “librarian” irresistibly suggest Philip Larkin.Benjamin Watson won the buzzer race for that one. All this brought was the flippin’ post code bonuses. Warwick got one more than I got. So, as we bore down on the 10 minute mark, Warwick led by 55 to 30.

Neither team knew that a heraldic two legged dragon is a wyvern – which is a little surprising since it’s a good old quiz chestnut. (Also the emblem of Vauxhall Cars – you can have that one for free.) The interminable science starter that followed – see Baby Elephant Walk Moment – actually brought me a lap of honour for saying Hydrogen just before Daniel Rankin did the same. Women appearing in the works of JE Millais tripped up Queen’s who failed to add to their score. Thomas Hart hadn’t had a starter for a few minutes but he elbowed his way back in with Kant’s definition of the sublime. (His definition of the ridiculous being - anyone who thinks it is possible to explain “The Black and White Minstrel Show to someone under fifty.) The Blood Brain Barrier – which surely featured in one of the worst episodes of season three of the original series of Star Trek – surprised me by allowing me a bonus in the shape of meningitis. When asked about the winner of the first Wolf Prize in Physics I thought Thomas Hart was cheering Amol’s delivery of the question, but apparently Woo was the answer. Delphine Seyrig may not be an actress whose name exactly trips off the tongue but she brought Warwick a full house nevertheless. So to the music starter and Bejamin Watson recognised the work of Mr.? Little Simz, whom one can only deduce is a performer whose work has yet to make any impression on the flinty cliff face of my indifference. More of the same brought neither of us any points.  A quote describing Botticelli’s Birth of Venus brought Warwick a bonus set on Rivers of Africa, one of which was correctly answered. The next starter asked for a fictional school. I wasn’t certain until Mr. Brocklehurst made it clear. Ananya Govindarajan dredged up the correct answer of Lowood from Jane Eyre. Ugh, Jane Eyre! Not for me. Sporting autobiographies brought one more correct answer. Now, I could tell you that I understood the next starter about Dutch economist Jan Tinbergen, but I won’t because my nose is quite long enough already. Nobody had it. I didn’t know about SUVAT equations but Thomas Hart did. Oh good, I enthused sarcastically as Amol announced a set of bonuses on industrial catalysts. Warwick had no more idea about them than I did and did not trouble the scorer. The Scottish Darien plan was all too easy for Thomas Hart for the next starter. Two bonuses on electoral systems meant that Warwick led by 165 – 40, and you could name your own price for backing Queen’s.

Whenever I see a very old photo of an actress Sarah Bernhardt is my go to answer and it rendered me good service for the second picture starter. Daniel Rankin took that one. Other photos of women taking men’s roles in Shakespeare on stage brought just the one bonus, but they were by no means an easy set. Zoltan ‘Who’ Kodaly fell to the imperious buzzing of Thomas Hart. A full house on works of philosophy put Warwick on the brink of 200 points. The next starter asked for a Strait. It was clearly off the coast of Australia, but was it the Bass or the Torres? Thomas Hart said the Bass Strait and he was right to do so. People who were born in 1902 and died in 1984 brought 1 bonus, and an end to any realistic hope of Queen’s winning. That man Hart took yet another starter, knowing Triton, the 7^th largest moon of the Solar System. Ahmed Zewail is not someone whose work I have any familiarity with, and after three baby elephant walk inducing questions I am no more familiar with him now than I was, although light, stimulated and emissions gave me lazers for the last of them. Daniel Rankin worked out that As stands for Arsenic for the next starter. Mythology of Japan brought them the one bonus. I knew that Memed, My Hawk is from Turkey – Peter Ustinov made a film of it many years ago – and so did Daniel Rankin. Musical melodrmas provided just the one bonus – which was pretty much the story of Queen’s night. That man Rankin very quickly worked out that King Charles III is King George V’s great grandson for the next starter. Brightest stars in constellations brought. . . well they brought just one bonus again. This brought Queen’s to triple figures, but sadly they dropped five for an incorrect buzz for the next starter. That was all the time that remained. Warwick won comfortably by 215 to 95.

When I reviewed Queen’s second round victory over Cardiff I made the point that Queen’s were heavily reliant on skipper Daniel Rankin’s buzzing ad that they could be in trouble if he had an off night. Well, he certainly didn’t have an off night, scoring 7 starters. But then that in itself was a problem since these were the only starters Queen’s managed. But it wasn’t just that.  For the record Warwick’s BCR was a relatively modest 46 to Queen’s 33.3. Well, both teams will play again, so nothing is over for anyone. Not yet.

Amol Watch

Kudos to Amol for saying what we were all thinking about the postcode picture starter. “That’s going to be a fun set of bonuses when that picture set comes up.” Amol at least did Queen’s the courtesy of telling them there was plenty of time left after the halfway mark. You know it’s not your night when he trots that one out in the first ten minutes.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know of the Week

Triton follows a retrograde orbit around Neptune. (Look, it’s what I find interesting, okay?!)

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In kidney physiology, excretion of what element from the proximal tubule in the nephron is promoted by Angiotensin II ( who was also Tutankhamen’s great grandfather) and is concomitant with the increased reabsorption of sodium ions? The same element is pumped by V-Type ATPases into organelles such as lysozomes in order to maintain an acidic pH.

In the words of Gary Coleman – what you talkin’ ‘bout, Willus? I picked an element I know is in some acids, Hydrogen and got it right. And the question still made me feel dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 - First Round Heat 20

Well, here we are at heat 20, dearly beloved with only another four heats to go after this one. Usually we see something a bit special in one of the last few heats. Was it last night’s show that provided this? Well, I know what I think, but see what you think.

Our first contender last night was Tamara Hon. Tamara was offering us the first elected president of the USA, founding father George Washington. This was a wide-ranging set of questions and decent general knowledge brought me two of them. Tamara took five. That’s by no means a disaster, but from the look on her face when Clive told her the score she knew she might have done better. It’s impossible to be certain why a round doesn’t turn out the way that a contender would have hoped – sometimes not enough preparation, sometimes a misunderstanding over the rage of the subject, sometimes just a nervous reaction to the chair. I’ll come back to this shortly.

Aine McMenamin was answering on Taylor Swift. Research tells me that Ms. Swift is a chanteuse of some renown these days. That’s nice. As you might guess I knew nothing about her or her oeuvre and failed to add to my aggregate. Aine by way of contrast knew an awful lot about her and reached double figures with a score of 10. Yes, I might be an ex-teacher now, but a good performance by one of my old profession always brings a little joy to my heart.

The closest thing I had to a fill yer boots subject last night was name derivations of elements of the Periodic Table, as was offered to us by Arvind Ramakrishnan. I say closest, but it was only close in the way that Uxbridge station is close to Cockfosters station. Yes, they’re both on the Piccadilly Line, but at opposite ends. So I was happy enough with my four. The subject seemed to be an especially narrow one – and the problem with a very narrow subject is that you have to know it in extreme detail. I won’t beat about the bush here. Arvind scored 2. I’d guess this was in part caused by nerves in the chair. While nothing was a gimme, they weren’t all bouncers either. There were enough slower balls in here too.

So Dan Payne came to finish the round with “The BBC Radio Series I’m Sorry I haven’t A Clue”. Now, If you’re a regular or semi regular listener than you have no need for me to describe the show while if you’re not then there’s no real point in me trying. I’ve never been a dedicated listener but I’ve dipped in and out enough over the years to take 3 points to leave me with a decent aggregate of 9 for the specialist rounds. Considering that the show has been running for decades I thought that Dan handled his round very well. A couple of errors left him just shy of double figures, but it meant that his fate was in his own hands, being just one point behind at the turn.

How do you force yourself to concentrate back in the chair when you’ve had such a disappointing specialist round? Well, in the case of Arvind the answer is with dignity and application. With a very respectable round of 8 points he managed to claw his way up to a double figure total.

Sadly, Tamara Hon did not quite reach Arvind’s total in her own GK round. She didn’t do very well, I’m afraid, adding four to take her own total to 9. Nerves, a reaction to her disappointment with her specialist round? Who knows? Altogether now – sometimes it just isn’t your night. Tamara, should you read this, try not to let it get you down.

So to the first of the runners in our two horse race. As we see with a lot of contenders, Dan started his round in very fine form. However it did seem to become more of a struggle as it progressed. In the end Dan gritted out a respectable 8 for a total of 17. He did incur another pass, to add to the one he’d taken in the specialist.

Just Aine remained. She needed a straight round of 7 correct answers and no more than one pass. Yes, it’s a relatively modest target, but funny things can happen when you’re in the chair. You can lessen the chances of anything happening by keeping your cool, though, which is something that Aine did admirably. She says that she runs a general knowledge club in her school – hey, I’m all for that – and this stood her in good stead as she put on 9 points to win with a little daylight between herself and Dan.

Well played Aine, best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Tamara Hon	George Washington	5	0	4	0	9	0
Aine McMenamin	Taylor Swift	10	0	9	0	19	0
Arvind Ramakrishnan	Name Derivations of Elements of the Periodic Table	2	0	8	0	10	0
Dan Payne	The BBC Radio Series “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”	9	1	8	1	17	2

 

University Challenge 2025 - Quarter Final - Imperial v. Christ's

The Teams

Imperial

Charlotte Stokes

Mattia Elkouby

Matthew Spry (Cap.)

Jaime Salamanca Camacho

Christ’s College, Cambridge

Anniko Firman

Brenda Bethlehem

Oscar Despard (Cap.)

Linus Luu

Well, be honest, you’d have put your money on Imperial for this one, wouldn’t you? It wasn’t just the cricket scores they’d racked up in both matches so far, but the BCR of over 70 too. Yeah, Christ’s looked a decent enough side, and they’d have a buzzer’s chance, but even so . . .

Well, if Christ’s were underdogs, nobody seemed to have told them. Both teams held their nerve with the first starter but when it became obvious that the Italian term for a long short story was novella Brendan Bethlehem won the buzzer race to give the answer. Ancient Greek theatres saw Christ’s take a full house in short time. Again both teams sat on their buzzers for the next starter which again played into Christ’s hands as Anniko Firman knew that the object being described in the question had to be an obelisk. As Amol might one day say, oodles of time left, still, if you were looking for omens. . . Extinct eastern Iranian languages promised but little, yet Brenan Bethlehem brought two of them to his team. However he came in too early for the next starter, just before it became obvious that the answer was leprosy. Matthew Spry tapped that one into the open goal. Old rocks and minerals brought two bonuses, and I was tempted to take a lap of honour for knowing that Zr is zirconium, but what the hell, I let it ride. So to the picture round. None of us could identify the Sinoatrial Node, who was one of the lesser known Doctor Who villains during the Peter Davison era if memory serves me right.  Matthew Spry earned the picture bonuses for knowing that Degas slashed one of Manet’s canvases once. Electrocardiograms saw me earn a bonus for saying tachycardia to each one until it was the right answer. Imperial got one bonus for the same answer. Mattia Elkouby knew about grape must for the next starter. Cinema brought Imperial just the one bonus but they had at least clawed their way into the lead. At the 10 minute mark the score stood 50 – 40 in their favour.

There were several clues to Wuthering Heights in the next starter and Oscar Despard was the first to buzz in. This earned them bonuses on old areas of Europe and they managed two of them. Amol had hardly had time to say a few words before Matthew Spry showed an equally swift buzzer finger to answer mass spectrometry. Bonuses on terms from French for ways of cooking potatoes – none of which was Le Mache - brought two bonuses. For the next starter Christ’s lost five while Jaime Salamanca Camacho recognised one definition of ellipsis. Gawd alone knows what the bonuses were all about but Imperial took a full house. Were they now starting to pull away from Christ’s? Well, no, because Brendan Bethlehem took the next starter, the music starter, with a wee bit of Schubert. More of Schubert’s lieder brought them two correct answer and kept the gap to a manageable 20 points. Following the lieder was the Mackenzie River, which fell to Matthew Spry. Fictional characters and the higher education establishments they attended brought two bonuses, but they zagged with Mr. Burns having attended Harvard when he really attended Yale. Still, the momentum remained with Imperial as Matthew Spry took the next starter with Parallel Lives and Parallel Lines. Bonuses on Indonesia brought just the one correct answer. Linus Luu made a timely early buzz with the concept of curvature for the next starter. Christ’s only took one bonus on works with very similar titles, but at least it meant that the score now stood at 130 – 90 at the 20 minute mark. Ominous, but still bridgeable.

Brendan Bethlehem recognised some vibraphone virtuosi to take the next starter. Energy storage in ecosystems brought two bonuses and the gap was down to 20. The second picture starter saw Jaime Salamanca Camacho identify a self portrait by Albrecht Durer. More youthful self portraits brought one bonus. Still, Christ’s were going to need at least two visits to the table now. It looked as if Jaime Salamanca Camacho’s buzz with Apollonius for the next starter might prove to be decisive. Bonuses on music saw them take just the one, missing out on an old quiz chestnut on Rule Britannia. All done and dusted? Well, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Oscar Despard buzzed early and accurately to give the answer of the well-known Decepticon, Synchrotron. Philosophy brought one bonus. But there was still hope for Christ’s as long as they could keep slinging buzzer. Brendan Bethlehem did so, taking the next starter with Sukkot. Historical figures in the plays of Shakespeare brought a correct answer, and the gap was down to 20. The Persian Sassanids saw Bendan Bethlehem strike again. Gap down to 10. Two bonuses on web design meant that the scores were level. All of the momentum was with Christ’s. Gastrulation sounds like a particularly nasty method of murder, but whatever it really means Oscar Despard knew it and took the lead back for Christ’s with it. Translators and languages brought two bonuses. Was there time for a last starter?

No. This meant that Christ’s had won a terrific contest with 180 – 160.

For the record, Imperial achieved a BCR of 52 while Christ’s achieved 60. The result, though was in doubt right up until the last starter. Nobody will fancy facing Christ’s after this, but then Imperial aren’t finished yet either. Could we see these two sides meeting again in the final? Well, there’s a long way to go yet.

Amol Watch

“Four minutes to go. Plenty of time, Christ’s, for you.” When Amol said this there was a gap of fifty points between the teams. Amol, when you’re making predictions like this I wish you’d give us the name of this year’s Grand National winner.

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

One of those rare occasions when nothing especially struck me.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment.

The eigenvalues of a matrix are usually represented by the lowercase form of which Greek letter? Elsewhere it is used to represent Lagrange multipliers and the radioactive decay constant.

Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2025 First Round Heat 19

Hey there, how’re you doing? Me? Mustn’t grumble. I made a list a couple of days ago consisting of things I really like which make life better. I left out family and friends because that they would head the list goes without saying. I was surprised by just how much was on the list, though, and yes, Mastermind was there too.

Royal Navy officer Krish Hook kicked off proceedings in last night’s show. He was answering on The Masters snooker tournament, a subject that I expected to bring me nowt. I actually got two which left me surprisingly satisfied with my round. Krish looked calm and confident – well, he’s a navy man after all – and didn’t seem to have much trouble knocking off 9. In fact in all respects other than the score, this was pretty much a double figure round.

Barrister Laura Knightly came second. I’m afraid that her round on Emmeline Pankhurst only serve to confirm to me that I know even less about Emmeline Pankhurst than I might have thought that I did. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get any of them. Laura on the other hand knew her stuff pretty well and it was a bit of a surprise that she only managed 7 of them. I say ‘only’ – in the current era 7 is a perfectly respectable specialist performance. However it would leave her with at least a little bit of catching up to do in the GK.

Right. The next two specialist rounds were the kind that should be ‘fill yer boots, Dave’ subjects. Laura Playle offered us “Doctor Who:The David Tennant Years,” Doctor Who also made it onto my list of happiness-inducing things. I did okay, with five correct answers. Incidentally this was the same number that Laura achieved, although we didn’t do it on all of the same questions. It was a respectable performance, but Laura suffers basically because I know the subject well enough to know that there were a fair few she missed that were distinctly gettable. Hey, it happens.

My other fill yer boots subject was Henry VII, offered up by our final contender Anthony Thomas. Well, my boots stayed resolutely unfilled as I managed just the three. I didn’t think that this was an easy round at all. Yes, you’re right, of course it’s all in the eye of the beholder and the ear of the behearer. Anthony too scored a respectable five, but since, like Flora, he was four points behind when the half time oranges were being doled out you had to fancy that the contest had become a two horse race.

There seemed to be something in the air in the show last night. There were several times when I felt that a round had actually seemed to be a bit better than the score that it earned. Such a round was Flora Playle’s GK round. You’d have forgiven her for being daunted by lagging behind the leader to the tune of four and yet she showed no signs of this. She gave the round a good old lash, added 9 to her score and was maybe just a little unlucky not to get double figures. Anthony Thomas came close to tying the scores but his round never felt to me to be quite as good as Flora’s and he fell a point short.

Laura Knightly provided us with a round of two distinct halves. She seemed a little unsettled when the first question asked her the letter which a number of given words ended in. It seemed a case of her thinking – really? I can’t believe you’re asking something quite so simple.- To be fair, that was my reaction to the question too. There were a couple of long pauses too. Then, about halfway through, something clicked and Laura began to motor a bit. She rallied to finish with 8, which gave her 15 and the lead.

So Krish needed a modest 6 to tie and 7 to win outright. No, it’s not a huge target but then you still have to go back to sit in the chair and actually answer the questions. Funny things happen from time to time. Fair play to Krish, he wasn’t going to let them happen last night. Now, as I’ve said earlier, it was a funny old show and there seemed to be something in the air since none of our 8 rounds produced double figures. Krish did the next best thing though, scoring 9 to end with 18.

Well done, sir. Best of luck to you in the semi finals.

The Details

Krish Hook	The Masters Snooker Tournament	9	0	9	0	18	0
Laura Knightly	Emmeline Pankhurst	7	0	8	0	15	0
Flora Playle	Doctor Who: The David Tennant Years	5	0	9	0	14	0
Anthony Thomas	Henry VII	5	1	8	0	13	1

University Challenge 2025 Round Two - Warwick v. Oriel

 The Teams

Warwick

Ananya Govindarajan

Thomas Hart

Oscar Siddle (Capt.)

Benjamin Watson

Oriel,Oxford

Samin Taseen

Theo Sharkey

Danaan Kilburn (Capt.)

Tom Armstrong

Here we are dearly beloved at the last of the second-round matches. You see that’s what happens when a proper quiz show keeps the celebrity (well, academic celebrities in UC’s case) Christmas specials confined to Christmas rather than dragging them on throughout January – I’m looking at you, Mastermind.

Thomas Hart took his first starter of the night with various applications of the adjective alien. A lovely UC special set on golfing terms found in Shakespeare - “Is this a niblick I see before me? Nay, sirrah, for ‘tis Birnham 3 wood.” Neither of these was mentioned, but the set brought a single bonus from a gettable trio. For the next starter Thomas Hart identified a Ingmar Bergman quote about his film ‘Persona’. Slavonic epic paintings brought us both just the one bonus. Pioneering figures in palliative care gave Benjamin Watson his first starter. Now, I thought that kinematics were old films, but sadly no. Still, it did at least give us the answer ‘jerk’ with a question that wasn’t actually – how would you describe Piers Morgan? So that’s something. The picture starter showed us a description of a croissant in French. Tom Armstrong took that one to get his team into the black. More baked goods of French origin described in French brought just a single bonus for éclair. Works illustrated by Leonora Carrington fell to Oscar Siddle for the next starter. Composer Gerald Barry brought Warwick a full house. This meant that they led by 80 – 10 at the ten minute point.

Theo Sharkey came in too soon for the next starter on a city in Northern Ireland and thus missed the clinching information that it shared its name with towns and cities in Maine and Wales. Thomas Hart snapped up that piece of low hanging fruit. Video games set primarily underwater brought a brace of bonuses. Gawd alone knows what the chemistry starter that followed was on about but Samin Taseen knew the answer was kinase. Honestly, it’s a different language. Names of cities in the multilingual Austro-Hungarian Empire brought only the 1 bonus. Thomas Hart knew the Kimberley Diamond Mine for the next starter. Bonuses on the Torch Complex – me neither – brought a single correct answer. For the music starter Tom Amstrong recognised All Shook Up. Other original songs that Elvis would later make cover versions of brought Oriel 2 bonuses. I personally did not know that Elvis covered Tutti Frutti. Ate a lot of it, yes, but recorded it? Nobody knew the next starter about the word tower. Now, I’m very sorry, but knowing that astatine is directly below iodine in the periodic table was above and beyond the call of duty for me and thoroughly deserving of my lap of honour. Samin Taseen took that one as well. 19^th century French monarchism brought two bonuses for Oriel. With the next starter it became increasingly clear that it was referring to Poundbury and Benjamin Watson won the buzzer race to give the answer. Trickster animals in folklore brought a pleasing full house. Thomas Hart knew works either beginning or ending with Yes. I’ll be honest I missed much of the bonuses that followed, but Warwick had the lot of them. This meant that on twenty minutes they were sitting pretty, leading 170 – 60.

Phillippa Foot fell to Benjamin Watson for the next starter. Indian physicists proved very much to Warwick’s collective liking and they took a full house. Inexplicably I knew Bose for the last, but I have no idea how I knew it. I think that Thomas Hart mistook the Clifton suspension bridge for Telford’s Menai Bridge for the next picture starter. Theo Sharkey tapped that one into the open goal. More of IKB’s engineering works brought just one bonus. Still, at least Oriel had some momentum as Theo Sharkey identified the Hadean Aeon. 20^th century archaeological historian Sir John Summerson saw them take one, although failing a mispronunciation it would have been two. Theo Sharkey took another starter knowing the language Occitan. St, Teresa of Aston Vila did not provide any bonus points. Neither did St. Teresa of Avila for that matter. Oscar Siddle won the buzzer race to answer that the Trucial States were now known as the United Arab Emirates. Good old quiz chestnut, that one. The bonuses on the old adjective darkling meant I was able to predict Dover Beach and Ode to a Nightingale would feature. Warwick did not add to their score. They didn’t need to. They already had 200.Theo Sharkey was on the right lines with his early buzz for the next starter, which did refer to Bodyline, but he lost five because the answer required was Douglas Jardine, which Warwick could not dredge up. Thomas Hart recognised meanings of the word curl and this brought up bonuses on scientists who gave their name to pathogens. 2 bonuses added a little more gilding to the Warwick score. Tom Armstrong identified the trail of tears for the next starter. There was just the time for one correct bonus, then the gong ended the competition. Warwick had won by 215 – 110.

Warwick achieved a BCR of 70, to Oriel’s 41, so it wasn’t just down to superior buzzing. But from early doors Oriel were playing catchup, and Warwick were deserved winners.

Amol Watch

Amol’s ‘plenty of time Oriel’ was timed at 11:36 this time. There was no mention of BCRs this time, but I was pleased to see Amol insisting on the first answer rule. Harsh but definitely fair.

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

I loved the idea of alien priories, mostly for the mental pictures the phrase gave birth to.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In biochemistry, serine, receptor tyrosine and cyclin-dependent can all be followed by what word to give – yeah, it’s short. But my God, it’s soporific. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.