University Challenge Round Two Emmanuel, Cambridge v. Christ Church, Oxford

The Teams

Christ Church, Oxford

Eliza Dean

Melika Gorgianeh

Arthur Wotton (capt)

Elliot Lowe

Emmanuel, Cambridge

Jerry Chen

Alex Sutton

Jaya Alagar (capt)

Alexander Harrison

How are we, then? Oxbridge derbies are always of interest and Monday night’s was no exception. We kicked off with this week’s baby elephant walk inducing moment with the very first starter. You can find it further down this review. What the hell it meant I couldn’t begin to tell you, but Amol would probably still be reading it out now if Jaya Alagar had not put us out of our misery by buzzing in with the correct answer of RNA. The bonuses on artists with works in the Musee d’Orsay were much more to my taste, giving me a full house and Emmanuel 2. Eliza Dean kick started Christ Church’s campaign, knowing the number 7 for the next starter. I misheard the bonuses as being about Mary, Mungo and Midge, rather than Mary Midgely. Maybe that was why I only got the last one right. CC took 2. Alex Sutton took the next starter, knowing the psychological term attention.18^th century treaties sounded promising. However they proved to be a weakness for Emma, as they scored zilch on them. Arthur Wotton knew that the Kivu region is part of the Dem Rep of Cong. This brought CC chemical elements named after people. Yum yum – thought I – lap of honour coming up. Well, apparently there is not an element named after lesser known music hall performer Albert Astatine. Fermium saw me off on my lap though, and it also provided CC with their answer. So to the picture starter. The outline of what was clearly Lady ‘that naked woman on the nag’ Godiva could only be the emblem of the city of Coventry, so I felt both teams dwelt a little on the buzzer before Arthur Wotton supplied the right answer. More flags featuring horses made up the bonuses. I knew that Lower Saxony has a horse which rather resembles Kent’s so had both of those but didn’t get Tuscany. CC took a full house there. Jerry Chen recognised characters from The Handmaiden for the next starter. Books that have won the Newbery Medal brought the two bonuses that meant that Emma were only five points behind – 55 played 50.

Alexander Harrison had been singled out by Amol at the start of the show for scoring 9 starters in the first round heat. I don’t know if it was the pressure this put on him, but he’d had a quiet evening to this point. Now he took his first starter with FDR’s Four Freedoms speech. Emma failed to build on the lead this gave them by failing to identify any of the East Asian cities that made up the bonus set. The next starter was one of those where you wait and wait and suddenly it becomes obvious. The mention of the 1986 Paul Simon album obviously meant Graceland and Alexander Harrison won the buzzer race. Academic works written between the late 30s and early 80s brought just a single bonus. One couldn’t help worrying that now that they seemed to have the upper hand on the buzzer, Emma needed to be capitalising with the bonuses more than they had done. A timely interruption from Arthur Wotton identified the mass extinction event more than 200 million years ago was at the end of the Permian period. Exoplanets provide the two bonuses which put both teams on the same score. For the music starer Eliza Dean recognised the work of Caardi B, a popular musician of the day, so I believe. 3 more pieces of music with videos directed by Tanu Muino brought a further 10 points. Making up for lost time Alexander Harrison took his third starter, recognising clues to the colour green when he heard them. Byron’s Don Juan brought just the one bonus for Emma. Nobody knew Zealand for the next starter. Eliza Dean recognised various poetic descriptions of the sky. CC failed to take any of the bonuses on polka. Surprisingly nobody knew that Britain’s first qualified female doctor was Elizabeth Garret Anderson. Once again it was CC’s captain who got them moving again, coming in early to say that the Francis who married Mary Queen of Scots and the Alexander who sold Alaska to the USA were both seconds. Huh, those sequels, eh? Queen Amanirenas (who?) gave CC a lead of 120 – 90 at the 20 minute mark.

Alexander Harrison took a bite out of the deficit by recognising a masterful Goya painting. The bonuses were on other paintings of giants and we both took the first and the third. Captain Jaya Alagar came in too soon for the next starter, which allowed Eliza Dean to get CC moving again with bat. Bonuses on bird calls did hem no favours, and Emma could tie by taking a full house. A UC special saw captain Arthur Wotton quickly worked out that a series of capital cities start with Ba, the symbol for Barium. Paradoxes in Science were no more forthcoming than the previous set of bonuses. Alexander Harrison knew that clutching at and poll suggest straw. A full set on films meant that Emma were now just one starter behind. Alexander Harrison chanced his arm with geometry, but it was Eliza Dean who took the correct answer with trigonometry. And that was Emma’s chance gone. There was time for a couple of bonuses but the contest was gonged with the score at 130 – 155 to Christ Church.

Maybe not the highest scoring match but an exciting one for all that with virtually nothing between the teams. CC’s BCR was 43 while Emma’s was a slightly better 46.

How is Amol Doing?

Channelling Jeremy Paxman at times, I felt. His “Yes, it’s usually pronounced PlotEINus” was straight out of the Paxman book of put downs. Then there was the correction, telling Emma that Witttgenstein ‘he’s Austrian, actually’

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

The Polka actually originated in Bohemia

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In 1989 the US scientists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering that which biological macromolecule can also catalyze cellular reactions, thus showing that catalysis is not exclusively a function of proteins. It has been hypothesised that there was a stage during evolution when this macromolecule both catalysed reactions and stored genetic - (thank God Jaya Alagar buzzed in at this point).

I mean, come on. I was even hearing the Baby Elephant Walk when I was typing this one!

Mastermind 2024: Round One heat 13

Look, I’m sorry. I’m at a bit of a low ebb at the moment, and motivating myself to do anything is proving hard. Bu I really must post about last night’s Mastermind, which was a good ‘un.

Had I made a prediction about my specialist aggregate, then it would have been a case of dividend forecast – very low. I only thought there was one subject I might get answers on. The Films of Martin McDonagh was not it. This was the subject being offered by first contender Oli Hanson. I did think that he was on he way to a double figure round for most of it, but a couple of stumbles on the home straight saw him breast the tape on 9. Based on the evidence of the last few weeks this looked likely to be competitive.

Angela Hawke was next and she was answering on one-woman witticism industry, Dorothy Parker. The Algonquin was an absolute gimme, and gave me my first point of the show. As regards this particular round it turned out to be an only child. Heaven alone knows how I’d never hard about her involvement in A Star Is Born, but there we are – I’m just an ignorant old sod when you get right down to it. Angela hit respectability with 7, but I dare say that she knew more than she could find answers to. It’s not just what you know, but what you can snap out when you need it.

Scott Dalgleish was answering on the only subject I could see yielding me up a couple of points. This was US Presidential elections from 1948 – 2000. I actually got three. With no points coming from the final SS round, this left me with my lowest aggregate for a long time – a measly four. Scott, like Oli before him, looked fair set for double figures, but just failed a little on the run in. It didn’t seem likely to matter that much, as he was still join leader with 9.

So I had been stymied by the first specialist, and this was repeated with the last – the Music of Tom Waits. Tom Waits for no man, apparently. Nothing against the man, just somehow I don’t recall listening to his work. Tom De Salis knew his subject, but just fell one answer short of the lead. So this meant that just 2 points separated all four contenders. It looked like we were going to be in for a close result. Just how close would soon be seen.

Angela was first back into the chair. If she could get a double figure score this might open the door to the corridor of doubt for the other three contenders. Sadly for her she didn’t manage this, having to be content with another respectable 7 for a total of fourteen. She was followed by Tom de Salis. Now, this round was something different  - it looked like double figures all the way, and indeed he put on another couple of points once he got into double figures. All you can do when you take part in a GK round is do your best, answer as many as you can, and hope that this will open the corridor of doubt for those contenders yet to come.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t, for a long time, think that Oli Hanson was going to make it. It was dashed close all the way to the line, but by the end of the round Oli too had scored 12. However, he was already a point to the good from the specialist round, so took the outright lead on 21 and no passes.

Throughout Scott’s round I was convinced we were heading for a tie break. He had no passes from the first round, and he had no passes in his specialist round. By the end of it, he had scored . . . another 12! I was right, and the tie break was on.

Sometimes tie breaks are rather anticlimactic. Not this one. Both contenders rather did themselves proud. They were by no means a set of gimmes, and both got over half. In the end, Oli just got his nose ahead with 4 to Scott’s 3. Well played both. Very bad luck Scott, but well done Oli, and best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Oli Hanson	The Films of Martin McDonagh	9	0	12	0	21	0	4
Angela Hawke	Dorothy Parker	7	0	7	0	14	0
Scott Dalgleish	US Presidential Elections 1948 - 2000	9	0	12	0	21	0	3
Tom De Salis	The Music of Tom Waits	8	0	12	0	20	0

This week's moan

I have a bad habit. I can’t help trying to get inside the mind of a question setter when I’m playing in a quiz. For the most part, it’s just to help decide between two possible answers. For example, last night we were asked ‘In Celtic mythology, what is the name of the island of Blessed Souls? NowI have never heard this question, but two names which kind of vaguely fit the bill occurred – Lyonesse and Avalon. I thought that the most likely one other teams would know would be Avalon, so picked it, thinking no quiz master should knowingly ask a question where they think none of the teams would know the answer. I’ve discussed whythe’ells before. You remember – whythe’ell is he/she asking that question?

Well, Avalon turned out to be the right answer. But there were quite a few whythe’ells in the mix too. An example of the kind of whythe’ell that I particularly hate would be something along the lines of ‘How much did a UK TV license cost in 1964?”  I don’t know. There is no reason why I would know, and no reason why I would ever go to the trouble of researching it. There would be no benefit to me if I did know it. Well, and example were asked last night was ‘When did 405 line TV transmission end in the UK ?” I thought it would be late 60s, when 625 was coming in. No, it was 1985. Try as I might, I just can’t imagine why a question master would want to ask it. It’s obscure. It’s not the least interesting. There’s nothing in the question to help you get it. It’s the sort of question which should only be asked if you give multiple choice answers to pick from.

Teacher QMs

If you saw my review of Monday’s UC match between the OU and UEA, you might have read my comparison of Jeremy Paxman to Amol Rajan, both of whom I described as two contrasting types of schoolteacher. This was tongue in cheek. Apart from anything else, the two endeavours of teaching and presenting a quiz are pretty different in my experience.

In some way’s being QM down the club has been hard, inasmuch as I have had to fight to control myself over the teacher’s instincts. When you’re a teacher you learn pretty soon in your career that no matter how carefully and clearly you explain something, somebody in the class is not going to understand it and is going to ask you a question you’ve just answered. That even happens when all of the kids have been listening and it’s far worse when some of them haven’t. So you learn that it’s important to have them be quiet and listen. So whenever I ask a question in the club, and I can see the teams still talking to each other while I’m asking it, I have to fight my instincts to tell them off and order them to be quiet. And when someone asks me to repeat a question, I have to bite my tongue to stop myself saying – you should’ve been listening to me, or some such. It’s the teacher in me which makes me sometimes burble on about why a particular answer is wrong, and why my answer is right. Mind you, in my eyes that’s better than saying my answer’s correct because I’m the question master and the question master is always right.

I’ve written about this on more than one occasion in the past, but I don’t think school teachers automatically make good quizzers. It’s 15 years since the last schoolteacher won a series of Mastermind (modesty forbids).

Prize Surprise

You know what I’m talking about. That moment when you get given something really nice and thoughtful which you have absolutely no use for? I’ll explain what that has to do with the quiz in the Gwyn Hall in Neath on Wednesday.

Once a month the Hall runs a themed film quiz. Me? Absolutely useless, out with the washing most weeks, but the rest of our team are so good that out of 10 quizzes so far this year (no quiz in August) we’ve outright won 7, been joint winners in 2 and second place in the other. Now the usual prize is a free cinema ticket for each member of the winning team. And I really like that – I’ve seen some great films with it, some good and some just ok. Well, in this Wednesday’s quiz it was announced that there was an extra prize for the winners. It was (drum roll please) two weeks’ free gym membership!

I’m sorry, but a couple of horrible PE teachers at school when I was a kid put me off this sort of thing for life. If I ever feel the need to exercise, then a good, stiff hour’s walk usually does the trick. But, it was certainly a kind thought, and so while other team members have made plans aout how they’re going to take advantage, I just sat and smiled politely.

You know, it’s been a while since I won a prize that I have absolutely no use for. Back in the mists of time, I gave up alcohol. Not because my father was an alcoholic – although I can attest to the fact that growing up with an alcoholic is enough to put you off the stuff for life. Not just because if I had more than two pints on an evening then I would be tired, sluggish and grumpy the next day in school. No, the main reason is, that not that long after my 35^th birthday, it suddenly occurred to me that when you get right down to it, I don’t really like the stuff very much. To my little kid’s palate, all wine tastes like vinegar, and beer not much better. Sorry. So for many years I was going out on a Sunday, often winning a bottle of wine I had absolutely no use for.

In the quiz my son Mike goes to in Bridgend, the main prize tends to be a box of sweeties, Celebrations or the like. Now this is much more palatable to my little kid taste buds – but I’m diabetic, so that’s no good! Come to think of it, this has been much the same over the years at work. I’ve asked various heads of department not to bother getting me a Christmas present, because I don’t drink alcohol and I can’t eat sweet stuff.

On the other side of the coin, in terms of unexpected prizes that I liked, I think that top of the list might well be a very fine snooker cue I won in a sports quiz once. Alright, I don’t play snooker at all now, and didn’t play it much then, but there you go.

University Challenge 2024 Second Round Open University v. University of East Anglia

The Teams

UEA

Melissa Shiress

Bryony Yates

Owen Tobin (Capt.)

Matthew Jennings

Open

Ellie Romans

Mike Holt

Anne Gavaghan

James Davidson

Already we’re on the second match of the second round. Last night the University of East Anglia, who gave Strathclyde a wee bit of a hiding last time out, played the Open University, comfortable winners of the second repechage match. The winners of the first repechage went through to the quarter finals last week. Were we going to see lightning striking in the same place this week?

In their last match the OU were much sharper on their buzzer than their opponents. James Davidson showed that he hasn’t lost any of that sharpness on the buzzer, coming in early for the first starter to give the answer of “The Silent Spring”. WD40 can help you get one of those. Two bonuses on blue plaques in Birmingham took their score to 20 for their first visit to the table. That man Davidson knew the next starter, that the Babadook (Babawhat?) was inspired by The Man In the Beaver Hat (Beaverwhat?) This brought them bonuses on the 2022 Mercury Music prize and they gratefully took a full house. UEA Skipper Owen Tobin did what you have to, and tried to come in early for the next starer before Open went for their buzzers. He guessed the latin American country referenced would be Peru, and sadly lost five for his pains. Give the cities Leon and Guadalajara I was surprised that OU didn’t get Mexico. “Keep still you little devil or I’ll slit your throat! – are the first words of . . . ” No, funnily enough it’s not Pride and Prejudice. I shouted Great Expectations just as James Davidson buzzed in with the same answer. Bonuses on computation brought OU another two correct answers and me nowt. Finally UEA got started when Matthew Jennings recognised various uses of the word classical. The bonuses on films with the word ‘tree’ in the title saw an always welcome name check for The Singing, Ringing Tree, some really weird shit  enchanting fantasy made in 1957 in East German and still being regularly shown on BBC children’s TV when I was growing up in the 70s. UEA managed 2 of these. The picture starter was a real UC special. We were shown a map of English postcode areas with one highlighted in red. Not only did the teams have to work out the postcode, but then they had to name the chemical element with the same symbol. Impressively quickly Bryony Yates worked out that it would be Lanthanum, for the Lancaster postcode area. Great work. UEA took two of the bonuses on other areas, but missed out on the Portsmouth Polonium pair. When Mary Anning was name checked in the next question, Bryony Yates zigged with Geology, allowing James Davidson to zag with Palaeontology. Bonuses on Virginia ‘Big Bad’ Woolf gave OU a lead of 80 – 30 as we closed in upon the 10 minute mark.

Now, if it’s a design and a Renfrewshire town, then it’s got to be Paisley. Melissa Shiress won the buzzer race for that one. One of a set on Plains was taken. Mike Holt recognised a description of the flag of Austria . 1 correct answer on the unpromising subject of pollen was given. James Davidson took another starter, recognising the title of a novel by Eleanor Catton. British Prime Ministers who all died in office in the 19^th century brought a full house, and stretched the lead so far that I felt it wouldn’t be long before Amol felt the need to encourage UEA. Without that though Matthew Jennings took the next starter with Friedrich Hayek. Marie ‘Qui?’ Laurencin yielded nothing for any of us. This was followed by the music set, and it was James Davidson who won the race to identify the work of Ludvig Van. Other composers who made symphonies with five movements brought a further two correct answers. With the lead beginning to approach close to triple figures Amol couldn’t hold himself back any more, and issued the exhortation to UEA, and the encouragement that there was plenty of time left. Owen Tobin found his range with the next starter, knowing that all the examples in the question could be symbolised by Tau. People whose initials are/were DD provided a brace of bonuses. James Davidson knew that a plaster and wood statue of an elephant used to stand in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Physics questions I didn’t even begin to understand brought just the one correct answer. Nobody knew the term first principles for the next starter. Now, if a question references an album by the Clash, slam the buzzer through the desk and answer London Calling. Matthew Jennings did just that. Novels inspired by Don Quixote sullenly refused to relinquish any points to either of us. Surprisingly nobody knew the old quiz chestnut of the Chiltern Hundreds for the next starter. Melissa Shiress came in just too early for the next starter. Given that the surmae required also belonged to a New Zealand born Nobel prize wining scientist, Rutherford always looked like a good shout. Captain Anne Gavaghan took that one meaning that all of the OU team had answered at least 1 starter.. The writer Abu-Lughod brought us both a single correct answer. It was enough to ensure that OU now led by 170 – 80 at the 20-minute mark.

All over bar the shouting? Well, not necessarily but it was asking a lot of UEA to come back from this. Ellie Romans won the buzzer race to say that the two football clubs on either side of Stanley Park are Liverpool and Everton. One bonus on African leaders kept the ball rolling. So to the 2^nd picture starer – which was clearly Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows. I just love Van Gogh’s work. James Davidson too recognised the work of Vincent Van. Other works cited in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing provided two more correct answers, after a misunderstanding about the first. Melissa Shiress correctly guessed that a Munsell Chart related to colour. Disaccharides – gesundheit – gave a full house that took UEA into tiple figures. They deserved that. But it was all too easy for Jams Davidson to take the next starter, answering that Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was none other than Moliere. Planet Earth and Middle Earth provided a UC special set which rather stretched the idea of similarly sounding names a little too far for my liking. What the hell, OU still took a full house. Owen Tobin recognised various things called Flint – would James Coburn have been mentioned if we’d had the full set? Writers associated with the BBC World Service Caribbean Voices programme brought nowt to UEA. I was delighted to see Sam Selvon getting a namecheck. I read his excellent “The Lonely Londoners” a couple of years ago. Finally I got a Science starter to award myself a lap of honour. Yeah, I know Brownian Motion was a gimme, but I gotta take it where I can get it. Matthew Jennings had that one. Names of bicycle parts provided an interesting set which should have been a full house for UEA. Ellie Romans knew that Reading is at the western end of the Elizabeth Line for the next starter, and compounded it with a bonus on CERN. Nobody knew that 264 is the perfect square of a perfect square. The moment that Dwitt Wallace was mentioned it was clear that the next answer would be Reader’s Digest. One of my prouder achievements is managing to cancel a Reader’s Digest subscription that I had never actually taken out in the first place. It took a while to get to the end of the question and then Anne Gavaghan won the buzzer race. Okants mentioned in the Lady of Shallot – other than Shallots – allowed OU to give two correct answer just as the gong sounded. OU had won by 260 to 130.

A fair result, one thought. James Davidson scored a massive 9 starters, worthy of the Mastermind finalist that he is. They had a BCR of 62 while UEA who were having to live off scraps with some very tricky bonus sets had a BCR of 40.  Another great show, even if it wasn’t that close a contest.

How is Amol Doing?

I’m going to have to change the title for this section of the reviews, because you all know the answer – very well, thank you. I think I’ve worked it out now. While Jeremy Paxman was always the stern public schoolmaster who gave you a metaphorical six of the best if you didn’t do your prep, Amol is more the laid back, comprehensive school teacher who’s not that long ago completed his PGCE, and finds it easy to make friends with the kids, share a joke in class, lets you take five minutes off at the end of the lesson, and is not averse to having a quick puff of your ciggie behind the bike sheds.

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

The U shaped slots at the end of a pair of front forks that a bicycle wheel slips into are called dropouts.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

When the force driving a harmonic oscillator approaches the natural frequency of the oscillator what phenomenon occurs whereby the amplitude of the oscillations increases significantly? That ain’t English! Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind First Round Heat 12

Good afternoon. Yes, it’s another Tuesday review for Mastermind this week. Apologies.

In my preview I noted that of all last night’s specialists, Peter the Great was looking like my best. Well, I was sort of right about that. I don’t know if the 2 points I gained particularly merit the use of the word best, but I didn’t score higher in any of the others. Seb Dwyer, who was answering in the chair put on a fine performance, getting into double figures with 10. Anything double figures nowadays puts you in with a shout in the GK round.

Caryn Ellis followed with questions on Exmoor National Park. As I hoped might happen I fluked a guess for a single point to add to the aggregate. Cary, like Seb before her, did an awful lot better. She too scored 10 points, a notable achievement considering just how wide ranging this sort of specialist round will often turn out to be.

Jonathan Paxton offered us the films of Quentin Tarantino. Considering that I’ve never watched any of the films, I thought that guessing two answers correctly as I did wasn’t bad going at all. Jonathan of course did better. He achieved respectability with a total of 7, but I’d guess that he maybe underestimate just how widely the net was going to trawl for questions in the round.

Last but not least Anne McElhinney. Now, I don’t dislike any contenders on Mastermind. However there are a couple of types I really, really like. First are the superstars, those who have prepared their subjects obsessively and then knock the GK out of the park. However I am also fond of those who just appear to be absolutely delighted to be on the show, and seem to thoroughly enjoy their turns in the chair. Anne was one of the latter – although her GK round is certainly worthy of mention shortly. She scored 5 on the Cicero trilogy, which didn’t seem to worry her in the least, even though it left her a whopping five points behind the leaders.

I have to be honest, though. Anne put it right with a storming GK roundin which she didn’t go particularly fast, but she did go accurately, seemingly conjuring answers out of thin air when she wasn’t sure. An excellent 13 took her running total to 18, and while I wasn’t sure she could win with that total, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be last.

Anne’s round had opened the door to the corridor of doubt for the other three contenders. Jonathan, although he managed a perfectly respectable 9, could not find his way out of the other end of the corridor. It must play on your mind when you’re looking at needing 11 and no passes just to draw.

This meant that Anne could finish no lower than  3^rd. Surely Seb Dwyer would get the 9 he needed to surpass her total? Well, for much of the round it looked as if yes, he would. Only, he passed a couple of times, which meant that he could not force a tie break. If he scored 9 he would go into the lead. However, he only managed 8, and this was not enough considering the passes. Anne was still leader on the road, with only one more contender to come.

It must be said that after the first four or five questions it looked pretty clear cut that Caryn Ellis was going to overtake Anne, and indeed she did with several questions still to spare. In the end she added another three points to take her GK total to a good 11 and her overall score to 21. I applaud Caryn for saying that she was prompted to apply when she was recently diagnosed with autism. Our understanding of neurodivergence is far from complete, so it’s quite possible that this has helped Caryn in MM as she suggested. Whatever the case, very well done to you, and best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Seb Dwyer	Peter the Great of Russia	10	2	8	4	18	6
Caryn Ellis	Exmoor National Park	10	0	11	4	21	4
Jonathan Paxton	Films of Quentin Tarantino	7	0	9	0	16	0
Anne McElhinney	Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy	5	0	13	0	18	0