University Challenge Quarter Final Elimination Manchester v. UCL

The Teams

Manchester

Ray Power

Kirsty Dickson

Kai Madgwick (Capt)

Rob Faulkner

UCL

Zak Lakota-Baldwin

Alice Lee

Michael Doherty (Capt)

Manny Campion-Dye

Howdy there pardners. Pull up a bar stool and let’s join Manchester and UCL in their visit to the last chance saloon. No more messing about – lose this one and you’re out.

Kai Madgwick won the first starter on Dio Cassius’ celebrity profile of Boudica. Bonuses on Transnational UNESCO world heritage sites weren’t easy but Manchester took two of them. I didn’t know the play Kyoto but Michael Doherty the UCL skipper did. Alliterative psychologists supplied me with a rare psychology bonus with Alfred Adler. UCL didn’t score. The ridiculously long next starter required you to keep your nerve. Kai Madgwick didn’t and lost five. By the end of the question, several weeks later, it became clear that the answer was perfect, as both Zak Lakota-Baldwin and I knew. Historian Timothy Snyder brought us both just the one bonus. No marks for either team for not recognizing the location of the city of Newport for the picture starter. Michael Doherty recognized the description of a couple of films with the word Desire in the title. Map locations of various Chartist riots or protests brought a single bonus. This was enough to give UCL a 40 – 15 lead on ten minutes.

For the next starter nobody knew the Sorbs. I remember them for their early 70s hit Part of the Union. Manny Campion-Dye was the first to recognize a description of work by David Hockney for the next starter. Terms coined by William Whewell – yes, I know, should be William Whothe’ell – brought two bonuses and it looked as if UCL might be starting to pull away. Neither team knew that the women’s 800 metres was not run between the Amsterdam and Rome Olympics because of the supposed state of the finishers at the end of the Amsterdam race. Michael Doherty knew the term colostrum for the next starter. Two bonuses on pastels (bet you can’t put one in your mouth without chewing it) were taken. In one of his less dramatic but more effective buzzes, Kai Madgwick identified fictional Methodists for the next starter. The immortal Kind Hearts and Coronets brought just one bonus but it’s always nice to see my home borough getting name-checked. So to the music round. Kai Madgwick’s free arm leaped skywards, but he was still beaten to the buzzer by team mate Rob Faulkner who very quickly identified the stylings of Fonatines DC. Me neither. Three more indie bands brought our first full house of the evening. Thales of Miletus – who was a Doctor Who villain during the Jon Pertwee era – fell to Manny Campion-Dyer for the next starter, and earned bonuses on the Weimar Republic’s second most popular jazz combo, the Gottingen Seven. One bonus followed. A very prompt buzz from Michael Doherty identified nopales as leaves of a cactus. The book Green Chemistry did not bring anything more to the table. So at just past 20 minutes UCL still led by 100 – 55.

I guessed that the list given at the start of the next question were all Maglev trains and so did Kai Madgwick. Low- or un-seeded tennis players recently successful in major tournaments brought just one bonus and took us to the 2^nd picture starter. Kai Madgwick recognized a photo of Sir Roger Bannister, runner up in SPOTY in 1954. More runners up in SPOTY brought two bonuses, and narrowed the gap to 10 points. The Manchester skipper’s head was now well and truly in the game and he levelled the scores with Tajikistan for the next starter. Northeast Caucasian languages brought a single bonus, but it also brought the lead. UCL immediately took it back as Zak Lakota-Baldwin knew the derivation of the musical term sonata. Songs inspired by the 1992 LA riots gave them two correct answers and a fifteen point lead. Kai Madgwick knew the film trilogy The Human Condition and one maths bonus levelled the scores. Kai Madgwick buzzed to identify a former president of Guatemala. A full house would surely mean Manchester couldn’t be beaten in ordinary time. Two bonuses meant that the game was not yet over. Kai Madgwick took the next starter with deuterium and tritium and then it was. Manchester gilded their score a little with a bonus on Schiller, before the gong ended the match with the score at 150 – 120 to Manchester.

An enjoyable match of fluctuating fortunes. For the record UCL’s BCR was 37.5% to Manchester’s 50%. Had UCL converted more of their earlier bonuses, I think we would have seen a different result.

Amol Watch

I can forgive Amol for pointing out that Kai Madgwick nearly jumped out of his seat for the music starter, because he did.

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

William Whewell was the first person to coin the term scientist

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In mathematics what  seven letter adjective can precede all of the following- “graph” to indicate a graph where every induced subgraph the clique number equals the chromatic number, “group” to refer to a group (incorrect buzz) equal to its commutator subgroup, “information” to refer to a class of game in which players move alternately and each player is completely informed of all previous groups and ‘number’ to indicate a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper divisors?