University Challenge 2024: First Round - Sheffield v. Loughborough

The Teams

Sheffield

Safia Rujack

Joseph McGough

Cameron Colclough (Capt.)

Matthew Nail

Loughborough

James Jones

Rachael Alvey

Tudor Simmons Capt)

Milan Campion

How you doing? Me? Well, I shan’t be going to Aberdare tonight, that’s for sure, no disrespect intended. But let’s get to the job in hand. The first starter asked about a word linking several things. It was obvious the second was the Giants Causeway and the third the James Dean film Giant. Well, neither team quite got it. The second starter was clearly about Around the World in Eighty Days and fell to Safia Rujak, who was to have a good night on the buzzer. Bonuses on Caribbean countries and airports brought a couple of correct answers. Captain Tudor Simmons came in too early for the Cavalier Parliament on the next starter, allowing Joseph McGough to steal. Questions on Arabic brought a bonus. Matthew Nail knew that Pac Man was released in 1980. I thought he just escaped. A nice UC set on works of art and the US president in office when they were made brought just the one bonus. Nonetheless Sheffield had established buzzer dominance and were forging ahead. The picture starter highlighted an SSSI which was clearly the Wash. This brought first points for Loughborough, and a further two bonuses. Cameron Colclough worked out that vanilla was the species of cultivated orchid referred to in the next starter. Apples in biology brought a single bonus on a gettable set. The Woodland Trust brought a correct answer to Milan Campion and a full house on football related terms that entered the OED in 2022 meant that they trailed by 65 – 40 at the ten-minute mark.

Safia Rujak new that if you put a a spoon made of gallium in a hot cup of tea it would seem to disappear. Rock and pop musicians from the Nordic countries brought a full house to Sheffield. My Goldsmiths College contemporary Damien Hirst was the answer to the next starter, provided by Joseph McGough. Classical languages of India brought another couple of bonuses. Cameron Colclough worked out that Surrey was the answer to the cricket questions that followed. A set of bonuses on film and TV adaptations brought another full house. In the space of just a few minutes the lead had almost grown to a hundred. The music starter brought an early buzz from Safia Rujak with Girl in Red. More examples of bedroom pop brought another full house. This was proving to be a real power play from Sheffield, who were swiftly heading for the event horizon. Itt was somehow inevitable that Matthew Nail would push them further by buzzing in early to identify that the people mentioned in the next starter had all been subjects of movies by Steve McQueen. Shorter words that can be formed using the letters of anticlimax were a nice UC special set. I awarded myself a lap of honour for axial – especially considering that Sheffield missed it. Joseph McGough knew that the capital of Burkina Faso begins with OU – Ouagadougou (all together now – Too shy, shy – hush, hush, eye to eye. Ask your grandparents.) Bonuses on curries saw Sheffield miss out on the old quiz chestnut dopiaza, and also the even older quiz chestnut on Balti. An unfeasibly long Science question flummoxed all of us for the next starter. Safia Rujak knew the musician Sophie for the next starter. Eve, the 2019 album by US musician Rapsody saw a welcome name check for my favourite Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who so rarely comes up in conversation nowadays, more’s the pity. I had a full house, while Sheffield managed the other two. Matthew Nail knew that St. Francis and two others are associated with Assisi. World heritage sites in France brought two more correct answers. This meant that Sheffield led by almost 200 points at the 20 minute mark – 230 – 35. It would need more than the Force to being Loughborough back now.

Still the onslaught continued. Safia Rujak recognised a still from ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’. They didn’t mention the less successful sequel ‘The Bleedin’ Tube was on strike and the bus was Cancelled.’3 more ‘post-horror’ films brought a full house, and the distinct possibility that Sheffield might reach the rarely achieved score of 300. Matthew Nail took another starter next to push them closer knowing Caroline of Anspach was consort to George II. Riz Ahmed brought a couple of bonuses. Sheffield were just a ful house away from 300. It was this point that Amol’s Jedi encouragement a few minutes earlier began to take effect. Milan Campion weighed in with the term ‘machine learning’. I liked the idea of aptronyms and Loughborough took two of them. Halfway through the next question captain Tudor Simmons weighed in with null hypothesis. Glass production only brought a single bonus. Milan Campion won the buzzer race to identify Brazil s the only country through which both the Equator and Tropic of Capricorn pass. Algebra questions were meat and drink to James Jones and Loughborough took a full house. And Loughborough charged onwards, with Milan Campion identifying the Zulu people for the next starter. Musical works and the decades of their composition kept the score moving along. Surely they couldn’t sneak a repechage slot at this late stage? Well, no, not when the Sheffield skipper decided enough was enough and took the next starter recognising stages in the production of paper. Literature and writing in 1522 gave just time for one correct answer before the gong struck.

Sheffield won by 290 – 115. In his comments to the team Amol kindly pointed out that Loughborough were going for the buzzer but being beaten in the race many times. Loughborough did achieve 72 percent conversion rate on their bonuses, however there weren’t a huge number of them to judge from. Sheffield’s 67 percent conversion was impressive considering just how many bonuses they answered. One to watch? Most definitely.

How is Amol Doing?

It wasn’t until just after the 15 minute mark that Jedi Amol dropped the ‘plenty of time in it’ bomb. For once there was. It didn’t seem to work, though. In fact it was not more than 4 minutes later that he redoubled his efforts with ‘see if you can get going with this.’ It did kick in a few minutes later, but too late for Loughborough. The jedi council will be looking into this, I’m sure.

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

Pac Man was released in the same year that Small Pox was announced as eradicated.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Try this one for size – “Which law of electromagnetism is mathematically expressed solely by the minus sign in Faraday’s Law of Induction? Stated qualitatively, it states that an induced current will flow in such a way that it opposes the flow that induced it.” Altogether now – dum de dumdum dumdum dumdum dum dum.

Mastermind Round 1 - Heat Four

Good evening, Dearly Beloved. Yes, I’ve pulled my finger out and finally managed to post a Mastermind review on the same evening in which it was broadcast. And a very interesting Mastermind it was.

So, let’s kick off, should you pardon the pun, with Anna Lister and Chelsea FC in the Premier League. Now I’ve never been a Chelsea fan, which is maybe surprising considering I’m a born West Londoner, but there we are. So, I was not too upset that I only managed the one point. Anna did quite a bit better, but she did seem rather nervous throughout the round. A fair number of the questions passed her by. She managed 7, and I dare say that you really needed to know your stuff to get that much on that round. However, she must have returned to her chair knowing that she would have ground to make up in the second half.

Arijit Goveas who was next into the chair was answering on one of my ‘problem’ authors, Franz Kafka. What I mean by that is Kafka’s work is something that I appreciate when I read it, and I can see why others like it, but I can’t say that I enjoy it. I’ve no doubt that Arijit enjoys it. He racked up 9 to lead at this stage by 2 points. Again, it was the kind of round where you really needed to know your stuff even to get that many points, but again, you had the feeling that there was still a little room on the top in this round.

I’d scored one on Chelsea and 2 on Kafka (imagine them reading out that score on Grandstand – Chelsea 1, Kafka 2 – away win). George Twigg, who already had appearances on Only Connect and UC under his belt, was answering on Anglo Saxon England. This was my banker for the show and for once it actually yielded me a decent crop of points – 6 to be precise. Which paled into insignificance alongside George’s perfect 13 from 13. This put him well ahead of the chasing pack with only one contender still to come.

This contender was Sharon Malley. She was answering on pop performer and actor, Harry Styles. Now, I will admit that I am really not familiar with Mr. Styles and his work. I’m more familiar with the work of Mr. Styles, the man who used to come round every week to collect  insurance payments from my Mum back in the late 60s. However I only needed 1 point to give me a double figure aggregate on specialist so I gritted my teeth and fluked a guess. I’m sure that Sharon wasn’t guessing on any of the 10 questions she answered correctly to put her into second place, albeit three points off the lead.

You’d have been forgiven for writing Anna Lister off at half time. What followed when she returned to the chair was a very interesting GK round. On the surface she seemed to be going very slowly. She was going quite slowly, but she was getting a large number of the questions right. Despite never seeming less nervous than before, she added 13 to take her score to a highly respectable 20. Good round.

If Arijit was daunted by Anna’s high scoring performance he didn’t show it. His style contrasted to Anna’s. He was answering a good deal more quickly, although not quite as accurately. The two point lead over Anna that he’d held at half time came into its own, as he managed to add 12 to his score. This raised the bar to 21.

Sharon Malley then needed a double figure score on GK to give her any chance at all. Sadly, it was not to be. Sharon had one of those rounds where the contender suddenly gets stuck in the mud in the second minute and just can’t build up any momentum. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and accept that it just ain’t your night.

So George returned to the chair, knowing that 8 and no passes would be enough. Not a massive target, no. Nonetheless, whatever the target you still have to find the answers. Which is what George did. His round was not as good as Anna’s. nor as Arijit’s either. But it didn’t need to be. He was over the line with questions to spare, and he finished with 10 points for a total of 23. Well done, sir, clearly the strongest all-round performance of the night. Best of luck in the semifinals.

The Details

Anna Lister	Chelsea FC in the Premier League	7	0	13	1	20	1
Arijit Goveas	Franz Kafka	9	0	12	1	21	1
George Twigg	Anglo Saxon England	13	0	10	0	23	0
Sharon Malley	Harry Styles	10	0	8	1	18	1

Quiz in Aberdare

What, me? No, I don’t. I’ve done it once in the last five years, and that was a couple of years ago. Hey, stop that. Wash your minds out with soap. What I mean is going to a new quiz I haven’t played in before, as a ringer.

I wasn’t planning to do so on Tuesday night, either. This is how it all came about. A few weeks ago my middle daughter Zara moved to Aberdare where she was moving in with her partner Matt. On Tuesday afternoon she rang up Jess and asked if her and Dan wanted to go to try out a quiz in Zara and Matt’s. Poor old Dan is suffering from a nasty cold at the moment, and he’s trying to make sure he is well enough to come to the quiz tonight. I hope so. It won’t be the same without him. Jess doesn’t drive, so to cut a long story short she asked if I wanted to go.

Now my answer should probably have been – lovely idea, but not on a school night. There was a time when I could get to bed as late as 11:30 on a school night and be fine for a day’s teaching afterwards. Not now. I figured out quite a few years ago now that this particular kite ain’t going to fly no more. Or to put it another way, I need to be in bed by 10:30 on a school night, and 10 pm is even better. It’s one reason why I stopped going to the rugby club. Then they moved the start earlier, and away we went.

However, it is a long time – probably a couple of years – since I played in a quiz which is completely new to me. And what can I tell you – I fancied having a go. So off we went. Now, it may be that you’re not familiar with Aberdare. With the state of the road network between Neath and Aberdare being in a bit of a state of flux at the moment, it currently takes about 40 minutes to get there from Port Talbot. It’s worth going, because the centre of Aberdare really is rather charming. (Cut the travelogue and tell us about the quiz, Dave.)

So the quiz started at 8:30 in the Bute Arms in Aberdare. Lovely pub. I think that the question master probably put it together himself. We began with 5 in the news questions, then 15 general knowledge. Then a music round of 15 questions took us to half time. I have to be honest, I thought that the QM did a good job with the music round, having pop questions a few of which went back as far as 1960, and even a couple on classical music.

By half time we had 29 out of 35. The QM announced the scores from 5^th upwards. Third place was on about 19. Then he announced the second place team were on 28. This caused them a little bit of consternation. Jess went to the bar to get a round, and one or two of them gave her a wee bit of an inquisition. Jess is a bit of an old hand at this game now, and she gave them the ‘no, we just had a couple of lucky guesses (we didn’t, there was no luck involved in them at all) we’ll probably crash and burn in the second half’ you know the sort of thing. Obviously I don’t know, but I’d guess that judging by their score they probably win every week and aren’t used to facing a real challenge.

After the break then, round four consisted of 15 on Film and TV. We took 14. Then the QM announced that this week’s ‘guest’ round was – drum roll please – food and drink. Apparently the first four rounds are always the same category but the last could be anything, it changes each time. It really isn’t our best subject, but thankfully many of them were obvious or were old quiz stagers and we took 12. Which gave us a grand total of 29 and 25 for 54.

The QM lost a little of my sympathy for drawing out the announcing of the results. After all we all knew it was a two-horse race. The third placed team’s score was announced – low 40s I think. Then in second, with 50 and a half points, the team which we had christened The Hairy Bikers. Alright, we didn’t know if they actually were bikers, but they were certainly hairy enough. So we had won. Which meant that Zara and Matt now have a tab behind the bar of £40 to spend howsoever they wish.

I can kind of see why the hairy ones were upset, which they were. After all, it’s a heady thing is being the top dog in the quiz in your own backyard, and you get used to it. When a team comes from nowhere and knocks you off your perch at the first attempt it can be hard to take, especially if you’ve already mentally spent the £40 prize. It can make you start questioning the legitimacy of the winners’ performance. Now, we were in plain sight of all the other teams and the QM for the whole quiz so they could all see that we weren’t using phones. I have to say though, the way that one of the Bikers bellowed at the QM “What was their score ? WHAT WAS THEIR SCORE ?!” was not in the best traditions of sportsmanship.

We had a brief chat with the question master before we left. He said how nice it was to have a new team come, and said he hoped we’d come again. Oh dear. There’s no way that I could do this again during term time. Honestly, I was like a dishrag all Wednesday – and not in a good way either. It was just gone 11pm when I got back, and I’ve been paying for it since. Not only that though. Even if it was an option, I know what would happen if we did start coming on a regular basis. I’m not saying that we would win every week. I think we’d probably win enough though that within a few weeks the comments about ‘only come here for the quiz’ ‘bloody quiz professionals’ and the like would start, and a really rather nasty atmosphere would develop. I’m not just saying this, it is something I’ve had too much experience of over the last few years.

So there we are. A one off it will remain. Thanks Bute Arms, but trust me, it’s better that it ends this way for both of us, in the long run.

University Challenge 2024: First Round - Balliol, Oxford v. Imperial

The Teams

Balliol, Oxford

Elise Cox

Oliver Ellingham

John Maier (Capt)

Nikita Trojanskis

Imperial

Justin Lee

Adam Jones

Suraiya Haddad (Capt)

Sourajit Debnath

Another Monday, another UC. For the first starter neither team could dredge up Starboy, an alter-ego of The Weeknd, a popular musical artiste of these strange times. Various people linked by the initials KC gave Imperial first blood through Adam Jones’ buzzer. Poems with questions for opening lines brought two correct answers for both of us. Justin Lee, who would have an excellent night on the buzzer, took his first starter knowing that Rosilia de Castro was a leading exponent of poetry in Galician. Connective tissue in human beings brought a single bonus. Me? Kleenex, every time, although other tissues are available. Balliol skipper John Maier came in too early for the next starter, allowing Justin Lee in with corals. Haitian film maker Raoul Peck brought two bonuses – Imperial could have had three apart from a slip of the tongue. We saw a quotation in its original language for the picture starter. I never studied German, but ‘Opium des volks’ screamed Karl Marx to me, so I screamed it at the telly. John Maier thought so too, and this earned Balliol their first set of bonuses. More quotes from political philosophers. We both got Cicero and Machiavelli, but missed out on Montesquieu. Not a sentence I think I’ve ever used before in any other context, that. Sourajit Debnath recognised various films whose titles contained the word Drive. Literary characters with names ending in - io brought a full house. Sadly Lurkio was not one of them. Oliver Ellingham knew that the only flower mentioned in my favourite Keats’ poem, Ode to Autumn, is the poppy. Events that only lasted 44 days – just like Liz Truss Premiership – made me certain Brian Clough at Leeds Utd. would come up. It did too, as the 3^rd question. Balliol had the other two. So as we reached the 10 minute mark the score stood at 30 – 80 to Imperial.

Nikita Trojanskis knew the answer to a Science question for which I certainly did not earn a lap of honour. Incidentally Nikita is from Riga, a really very lovely little capital city that I discovered for myself at Easter this year. Italian iced deserts – no, justonecornetto wasn’t one of them – brought a full house. Benin bronzes! I yelled in response to the next question, just before Justin Lee set Imperial moving again with the same answer. (Sorry, but as much as I love the British Museum, which I will always applaud for never charging entry during the Thatcher years, I’m very much a give-them-backer.) Later additions to classical works of sculpture followed. Then came the music starter. Adam Jones was first in to recognise the work of Rachmaninoff. Bonuses consisted of three pieces composed in or  around 1853, the year of Sergei R’s birth brought a relatively rare full house. Amol was impressed. A really simple WWI question led to a buzzer race that Justin Lee won to identify Serbia as the recipient of the ultimatum that led to the outbreak of war. History bonuses, on short words with U in the middle were a gentle set that quite rightly yielded another full house. Adam Jones had a rush of blood to the head and came in far too early on the astronomy starter that followed, losing five points for his pains. Given a full run up Oliver Ellingham gratefully snapped up that particular trifle knowing a list of names and characters from Tolkien. That’s what I’m Tolkien about. Measurement scales brought me a lap of honour. Let me tell you, I’m all over the 1954 Nobel Prize won by Linus Pauling. Then – Gawd Blimey – I got one that Balliol didn’t. What do you have to add to Kelvin to convert it centigrade? Well, come on. Kelvin starts at absolute zero, so it’s got to be 273 to the nearest whole number, hasn’t it? Well, yes, it had. Then the last bleedin’ question of the set started talking about logarithms and deltas and bravos, and the internal orchestra struck up with the Baby Elephant Walk. I think that all you had to do was work out that Db stood for decibel, but I’d switched off by then. There was a bit of a long preamble to the next question, but as soon as Ford Maddox Brown (which incidentally was the only shade that the very first Model T’s were available in. Nah – it was actually Brewster Green. ‘So long as it’s black’ came a little later.)As soon as Ford Maddox Brown was mentioned Adam Jones won the buzzer race with perennial UC favourites The Pre-Raphaelites. Questions on Cameroon brought two more correct answers, and that Imperial juggernaut was steaming on towards the event horizon. It was Adam Jones who also knew the good old quiz chestnut that URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. I was amused by the next set on people who share their names with currencies. Sadly the Russian Music Hall duo of Rouble and Kopek did not get a namecheck. Adam Jones took his hattrick recognising a description of the term hermeneutics – gesundheit. Fictional characters who share initials with their creators brought a full house in double quick time. As we passed the twenty-minute mark Imperial marched on with a lead of 21 – 75.

In simple terms, Imperial had probably won. But could Balliol reach the 155 target for any hope of a repechage slot? Amol, to be fair, had not used the magic words on them yet. So to the picture starter, and obviously the work of Egon Schiele. Suraiya Haddad had that one to add to Balliol’s woes. More paintings of artist’s families brought just one correct answer, but the answers they offered for the other two were sensible. BAM! “Plenty of time available’ offered Amol. Allowing for the forgiveable inaccuracy of the statement, he was leaving it late this week. It didn’t seem to slow Imperial this time. Justin Lee knew that Geoffrey of Monmouth thought that Britain was named after Brutus from the Popeye comic strip in TV comic. A full house on Irish history raised the distinct possibility that Imperial might just reach 300. However John Maier knew that merry, cheerful and lively are all ways of describing the musical instruction allegro. My uncle had an Allegro, and it was not cheerful, not merry and not in the least bit lively. When it actually worked, that is. Bonuses on town planning yielded just one correct answer. Justin Lee knew his onions about Quiche Alsace for the next starter. Particle accelerator bonuses did nothing for any of us. Oliver Ellingham picked out the word monsoon for the next starter. The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad of the Kill Bill movies brought us both two bonuses. Balliol were now in triple figures, but some way below the board. Oliver Ellingham knew the Christie novel The ABC Murders for the next starter. Two bonuses were taken on concerts. A full set would put Balliol onto 155 now. Sadly John Maier interrupted incorrectly on the next starter and lost five, allowing Justin Lee to identify John Roberts as the US Chief Justice. A great UC set on giga timescales yielded one bonus – the Cretaceous period was a whole gigamonth ago. John Maier wasn’t finished though. He buzzed early and buzzed well to identify Yves ‘Who?’ Klein. Languages that feature in the national anthem of South Africa brought no points. But Oliver Ellingham knew the next starter, putting vectors with scalars. Oh, but that naughty gong ended the competition, leaving Imperial with 285 to Balliol’s 145.

That was a good match, wasn’t it? Imperial impressed with strong buzzing and a bonus conversion rate of 71 percent, to Balliol’s 66 percent. Sadly, Balliol won’t be back this year, but have nothing to be ashamed of.

How is Amol Doing?

I think that Amol must have realised that people (me) are starting to suss out his status as an undercover Jedi, because he seemed to keep his powers more under wraps in this match. He left it very late to encourage Balliol. I thought that Amol’s correction of the pronunciation of Laocoon was a little unnecessary. Likewise, I think that commenting ‘Got there in the end, didn’t we’ was just a little condescending for the Tolkien question.

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

The hills and mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan have ames taken from the works of JRR Tolkein (although not from Fly Fishing.)

Baby Elephant Walk Moments

A new category for questions that set my mind wandering.

This little beauty I had to watch several times before I could even get to the end of it.

“He described his eponymous thermodynamic potential as “the greatest amount of mechanical work from a given quantity of a certain substance in a given initial state without increasing its total volume or allowing heat to pass to or from external bodies.” Dum de dumdum dumdum dumdum dum dum.

Mastermind Round 1 Heat 3

Hello, and good morning. Yes, sorry, late again. I’ll always try to post about MM on the same day, but for the second week running I was just too tired. Not an excuse, not much of an explanation for that matter, but it’s true.

Kicking us off was Peter Wilson, who was answering on Roger Federer. Running my eye quickly down the list of subjects, although there was one okay subject for me, for the most part I reckoned I’d be doing well to pick up more than a point on the other three. Double figures? Probably out of the question for me. Despite being interested in sport, and enjoying tennis, for some reason I just don’t seem to have connected with the great Swiss player’s career and managed a measly single point. Peter on the other hand put on a performance worthy of the great man and scored a round dozen, in a manoeuvre which might be called the laying of the gauntlet.

Almost as good as Peter’s was the round provided for us by Madeline Roper on the subject of Gavin and Stacey. Yes, gentle reader, this was the closest thing I had to a banker subject on this show. I’ve watched and enjoyed every episode. Nonetheless, I said the same about last week’s Royle Family round and I certainly didn’t pull up any trees on that round. Likewise last night, three points was all I could manage. Madeline on the other hand did considerably better. Her knowledge of the show seemed secure throughout the round, and she put on 11 points. She was definitely in with a shout.

Bernie Morgan was answering oon Bronislawa Nijinska. She was the sister of the more famous Nijinsky – the dancer and not the racehorse, I’m sure – and a world famous choreographer in her own right. Oh, what can I say? Bernie scored 2 points. General knowledge brought me 1 point for guessing that Diaghilev must be the impresario one question referred to. Look, I don’t know any more than you what happened in this round. There’s any number of factors which might have conspired against Bernie. All I can say with certainty is that my heart went out to her.

Following on then was the fellow teacher, Thomas Nelson. Thomas was answering on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. I have never been a fan of westerns. My dad loved them and that was enough o put me off for life. Still, if I had to watch one I’d rather watch one starring Clint Eastwood than any other. So yes, I got my single point from this round to take me to an aggregate of 6. Thomas did pretty well, getting into double figures with 10.

Well, paraphrasing Kipling, Mastermind is often a test of whether you can treat those two imposters, success and failure just the same. So I was very heartened when Bernie returned to the chair with a smile on her face. And she went on to produce a good general knowledge round, which showed that she had earned her place on the show. It wasn’t quite a great round, as kind Clive Myrie suggested, but following on from the specialist, it was a very good performance.

Not as good, though, as Thomas Nelson’s round. Maintaining an excellent pace, Thomas ripped through his own set of questions, adding 16 correct answers to take his score to a fine 26. Now, I’m an old hand at this game and I know that nothing is certain until the winner is announced, but I’ll be honest, I was already assessing Thomas’ chances of taking my crown as the last schoolteacher to win a series. With GK like that, many things are possible.

But the show wasn’t over yet. Madeline returned to the chair, and the first minute or so of her round was a classy performance. I had her up with the clock. Sadly, though, a couple of wrong answers robbed her of momentum, and she never quite found her way in the round again. She tried, no doubt about that, but her aim was wide of the mark for a lot of the remaining questions, and in the end she had to settle with 8 for 19.

Only Peter Wilson now stood between Thomas and a place in the semis. And when the round started, he was answering with the same kind of econo9my and accuracy that Thomas had. This could be close – I said to no one in particular. Then Peter passed on one and suddenly the odds tipped slightly in Thomas’ favour. It wouldn’t be enough for Peter to score 14 for 26. He had to score 15 at least or lose on countback. Well, to cut a long story short, he did it. 12 and 15 is a fine all round performance. Peter, congratulations. You deserved your win, and I wish you well in your semi-final. Madeline, that was a great specialist performance and 19 is a good score, well done. Bernie, well, as the great Magnus Magnusson used to say, it’s only a game. Sometimes it’s not your night. Thomas, you deserved better. You are good enough to be in the semis, and I’m sure you would have been if we still had the repechage slots. Not much consolation, I know.

 The Details

Peter Wilson	Roger Federer	12	0	15	1	27	1
Madeline Roper	Gavin and Stacey	11	0	8	0	19	0
Bernie Morgan	Bronislawa Nijinska	2	0	11	0	13	0
Thomas Nelson	Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns	10	0	16	0	26	0

 

University Challenge Round 1 - Open University v. Hertford, Cambridge

The Teams

Open University

Ellie Romans

Mike Holt

Anne Gavaghan (Capt)

James Davidson

Hertford, Cambridge

Ollie Sourbut

Omer Keskin

Daniel Whittle (Capt)

Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju

Here we go, then, eyes down for another UC first round match. The words lambda calculus brought on the first blast of the Baby Elephant Walk from my internal orchestra. Not for the last time in this contest Omer Keskin beat the rest to the buzzer and gave the correct answer – this being Alonzo Church. Recent winners of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction brought Hertford a full house. That’s how to make a statement of intent. Omer Keskin was in very early again with the next starter, the answer to which was male gaze. Universities named after prominent thinkers did not, strangely include Rab C. Nesbitt University, but they brought a second consecutive full house. We’d hardly warmed up and Hertford were already fifty points to the good. The next starter soon seemed as if it could only be Benedictine or Chartreuse. Mike Holt zigged with Benedictine and lost five. Given the useful information that the answer could also refer to a shade of green Hertford didn’t get that it was Chartreuse. Omer Keskin took his third starter out of four knowing references to John Singer Sargent, although the question didn’t mention about him inventing the sewing machine or taking over the role of Darren in Bewitched. The zoology bonuses saw a welcome name check for Przewalski’s Horse. It’s a name I’ve always wanted to use more in casual conversation. Hertford took two of them. For the picture starter nobody recognised the ceremonial county of Middlesex. Ollie Sourbut was the first to identify the chickenpox virus for the next starter, earning the map bonuses. These highlighted places sharing their names with novels. None of which were identified correctly.

Cometh the hour cometh the man. It was at this point that the Force began to crackle in the air, and Amol issued the challenge “Plenty of time,Open’ . Omer Keskin buzzed early with Cyberpunk, allowing  Open to get off the mark with Steampunk. Scores by Hildur Gudnadottir (er. . . gesundheit?) brought a full house, and meant that the score was 75 – 25 to Hertford at the ten-minute mark.

For the second consecutive starter Omer Keskin buzzed in too early and lost five. However Open didn’t know Karachi and therefore could not capitalise. Indefatigable Omer Keskin buzzed early again for the next starter and this time was right with speciesism. A nice UC set the answers to which all shared names with members of the 2022 England European championship winning football team brought a very quick full house. Neither team knew Coleridge’s Christabel. Expressions beginning with au – pair, fait etc. fell to an early buzz from Ollie Sourbut. Bonuses on words or phrases beginning with – pil – brought two correct answers. Ollie Sourbut took the next starter as week, knowing a groyne when he kicked one. Vera Mukhina, who sounds like a character in a Cold War era political thriller but was actually a sculptor brought two correct answers. It seemed as if Amol’s Jedi exhortation had worn off early in this show. But Anne Gavaghan put the lie to this, buzzing in to identify the work of Joan Jett for the music starter. More female artists from the same era brought a full house. For once Omer Keskin lost a buzzer race as Anne Gavaghan identified Starman as the work of the great David Bowie. Open only took one bonus on astronomical catalogues, but they were at least putting a spurt on. For the next starter, if it’s about Tsars and not Russia, then it’s Bulgaria. Omer Keskin had that. Bonuses on North Macedonia followed. Omer Keskin won the next buzzer race, but unfortunately provided the wrong son of Priam. There’s no Hector in Romeo and Juliet. There is, as James Davidson knew, a Paris. A very gentle set on Tutankhamen provided a full house. When the next starter got as far as “nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy analysis” the internal orchestra struck up with the Baby Elephant Walk again. Whatever it meant Omer Keskin had it right. The theatre and plays within a play brought a full house. This meant that Hertford led by 185  - 80 at the 20.

Game over then. But not show over. There was still the question of a potential repechage slot for Open. It didn’t help them when Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju correctly identified Mount Ararat for the second picture starter. Two bonuses were taken on other sacred mountains. Ellie Romans  knew that .fk addresses are in the Falkland Islands. The video game series God of War (not Mario or Sonic) offered me but little, yet knowledge of Greek Mythology netted me two. Open also took two, although not both the same ones as me which pushed them into triple figures, and a opened the opportunity to get on the repechage board for now. They came even closer when skipper Anne Gavaghan knew that John Jacob Astor was one of the real life people portrayed in the film “Titanic”. Guy Debord brought us both just the one bonus. Ellie Romans recognised a description of 3x3 basketball, new  to the Olympics in 2021 and Open took a full house on the three film bonuses that followed. The gap was down to fifty five. Surely the Open, even with the lingering effect of Amol’s jedi boost could not pull this off. I couldn’t repeat the maths/physics starter that followed because the Baby Elephant thing was playing too loudly in my head again, but Omer Keskin said it was power and that was good enough for me. For Amol as well. Bonuses on the cell cycle in biology passed by without me troubling the scorer, and Hertford took just the one. Omer Keskin came in too early for the next starter, allowing Open to try but none of us knew Citium. Even the Waterloo and Citium. After being given ‘wabi, sabi and –‘ Rupavardhini Balakrishnan Raju correctly informed us that these were cultural values of Japan. I’d like to think that the complete list would have been wabi, sabi and Jimmy Tarby, but I’ve no great hope that it was. Matrilineal societies provided a brace of bonuses. Anne Gavaghan took the starter which put Open onto the repechage board, knowing that the only one of Switzerland’s four official languages unique to Switzerland is Romansch. Which was just as well because we were gonged before Open could add further to their score.

So, congratulations to Hertford. A fine score of 230 to the 155 of Hertford. A bonus conversion rate of 69 percent marks them out as very much a team to watch. As for Open, they managed a 73 percent rate. Extremely good, although they were too often second best on the buzzer. The repechage board currently looks like this –

Oxford Brookes – 205

Trinity, Cambridge – 175

Open University – 155

Southampton – 155

With King’s Cambridge having been pushed off the bottom. 

How is Amol Doing?

Amol flexed his metaphorical jedi muscles early last night. After 8 and three quarter minutes he said ‘these aren’t the droids your’e looking for Plenty of Time, Open. See if you can get going with this one.’. Disaster! Omer Keskin buzzed in with an answer. Ah, but the Force is strong in Amol, and Mr. Keskin’s answer was wrong. Mastermind 2023 grand finalist James Davidson swooped in for the points.

At the end, Amol paid tribute to Omer Keskin’s buzzing skills. Fair enough, but don’t underestimate the contribution of the others, Amol. You win or lose as a team.

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

Lake Ohrid is the deepest lake in the Balkans.

Mastermind 2024: Round 1: Heat 2

In my defence I think that I should point out that yesterday was our first day with the pupils back in school – mine was built in 2016 so no issue with RAC (or the R.A.C., for that matter) I’m glad to say. I was just very tired.

Still let’s make up for lost time now. Last night Karl Marx kicked us off with questions about Pete Rosser. Sorry, I’ll write that again. Pete Rosser kicked us off with questions about Karl Marx. He did pretty well too. As we’ve often observed, anything in double figures is good going in the current era of the show. I did think that I might get a couple. Well, to be honest it took a lucky guess just to get the one point.

My banker subject, “The Royle Family” followed. Katy Chambers, whose subject it was, really knows these shows inside out. I say that because I thought that I knew these shows pretty well, but I still only managed 4, a total that put my hopes of a double figure aggregate for the specialists into severe jeopardy. Incidentally, after UC I watched the first episode of the Royle Family, which was being shown on one of the cable channels, and three of the questions in this round were actually about this first episode! As I said, Katy did herself proud with a terrific score of 12.

Sadie de Souza was answering questions on Flags of British Counties. Now, this was a bit of an unknown quantity. I know more about the flags of countries than counties, but then I do know little bits about counties, and this was enough to bring me a further four points. Sadie’s knowledge of county flags is really impressive. She scored 13, and was worth every point, for my money.

So it fell to Eoin O’Connell to finish off the specialist round with Django Reinhardt. Sadly I used the unchained pun in my preview so can’t repeat it here. I know very little about the jazz musician, but all I needed was one point to take a double figure aggregate. Another lucky guess brought me this. Eoin obviously knows his stuff about Django, but there were a couple of questions where the answer refused to jump off the ti of his tongue and bearing in mind that everyone else had double figure scores, his 7 left him some way behind as the orange segments were passed around.

Eoin returned to the chair to kick off the GK round. His GK was a battling performance. It’s a funny old thing, is a Mastermind GK round. IF you get into a rhythm with it and build a momentum it can carry you all the way through, and you find answers just coming to you from the question void. If you just miss a couple of answers at crucial points though it can make the whole round an uphill slog, so credit to Eoin for taking a battling 8.

With all due respect to Eoin, the real contest was between the other three contenders and it began in earnest as Pete returned to the chair. Pete’s tactic was to answer each question as quickly as he possibly could. It’s a good tactic. If you can trust yourself that the answer which pops first into your head is your best chance at getting it right, you can really build up a head of steam. That’s what Pete did, and he was aided and abetted by Clive in this, as Clive got faster to match Pete’s speed of answering. His 13 was a fine total, and certainly opened the corridor of doubt to Katy and Sadie.

Katy gave it a lash, no doubt about that. Having a 2 point lead over Pete at half time, she could afford to go a little bit more slowly than Pete had. As the round went on though the finishing line was approaching rapidly, too rapidly as it turned out. Again, Katy reached double figures, but 10 was not quite enough, leaving her on 22.

Only Sadie remained, then. Her round was comparable to Katy’s in a way. Slower than Pete’s, certainly. However, Sadie had a three point lead at half time. Working on that principle, it was always a possibility that we could be in for a tie break. A possibility that looked more and more likely especially since Sadie was not passing. In the end, her 10 for 23 and no passes put her exactly level with Pete,

So we had the equivalent of a penalty shoot out. Both Pete and Katy were asked the same 5 questions. Neither deserved to lose, but Pete answered 2 correctly and Sadie answered 3 and that’s the bottom line. Well done, both, and well done all 4 contenders for an enjoyable match.

The Details

Pete Rosser	Karl Marx	10	0	13	0	23+2	0
Katy Chambers	The Royle Family	12	0	10	0	22	0
Sadie de Souza	Flags of British Counties	13	0	10	0	23+3	0
Eoin O’Connell	Django Reinhardt	7	1	8	2	15	3