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Jessica was question master in the quiz I the rugby club on Thursday. In case you haven’t been with me for long, Jessica is my youngest daughter. She is part of my team in the quiz in the rugby club along with my son in law Dan, our friend Adam, his fiancée Fran, and new recruit, my mother-in-law Jen. Fran couldn’t play on Thursday, and Jen is back in Spain sorting out business. Okay – so, we’re the only team in the quiz where four members of the team set quizzes. And Thursday was Jess.

The little tinker blindsided us. I mean alright, I’m her Dad and that’s bad enough. But to do it to her own husband! She had told both of us that she couldn’t find enough connections so she wasn’t going to do any. Then she did this. We got to the last four questions of round one – they were

-        Whose last album ‘Blackstar’ was released posthumously in 2016, the year of his death?

-        Which electrical device was invented by John Logie Baird?

-        Who was the first footballer to be transferred for £1 million?

Then she said,

-        What is the connection between your last three answers?

Blindsided completely. Sometimes I can spot a connection as the questions are asked. This one I did not see coming and it hit me right between the eyes. Part of the problem was that we’d answered

-        David Bowie

-        Television

-        Trevor Francis

The key to it was answering TV to the second of them. When it finally occurred to me to try TV, then the lyric – ‘TV’s, deep freeze and David Bowie LPs’ gave me it. For some reason I didn’t recall Trevor Francis in the lyric, but of course it is – altogether now – “Trevor Francis tracksuits from a mush in Shepherd’s Bush”.

Nice connection, and to be fair Jess’ quiz seemed to go down really well on Thursday. I should bloody think so too. She’d gone out of her way to cater for the audience. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I turn fifty nine next week, and I’m still one of the young whippersnappers in the quiz. Even if they did shout at Jess at one point when she did a round of (largely) 70s and 80s catchphrases. Now, the traditional Welsh pronunciation of the surname Mainwaring is Main – Wearing, rather than Mannering. Jess has never watched Dad’s Army, so understandably when she gave the answers, she said that ‘You stupid boy’ was the catchphrase of Captain Main Wearing, several of them all shouted at once ‘MANNERING!” The irony of this is that in years gone by Aberavon RFC’s most famous supporter was called Mrs. Mainwaring (mother of Billy) pronounced Main Wearing.

Well, she didn’t let it put her off her stride, and I got the feeling that she was enjoying it as much as the teams were. I rather liked her handout – photographs of twenty five board games. We had 23. I couldn’t dredge up Articulate, and I’ve never actually played Sorry. (Sorry, Lawrence – and if you understand that reference you must be at least as old as me) I’ve never played the Game of Life either for that matter. Or Risk. I never knew I’d led such a sheltered life.

Connections do take time and trouble

I have a feeling that this is going to be a bit of a curmudgeonly post, 28 years ago I introduced the connections quiz to the rugby club. You know what I mean by this – you ask 3 or more seemingly unconnected questions, then ask people to say what the connection is between the answers. Now, I didn’t invent it. I played in a quiz in Neath which did it and thought – ‘I like this, I’m going to steal this idea.’ – so I did. Which means that I’m not going to get on my high horse about someone stealing my gimmick – for one thing it was never mine in the first place.

Jess and Dan have both used connections in their quizzes before, and it’s worked really well. Then there’s another regular setter, who does it. . . and he just doesn’t get it. Or rather he gets it, but still deliberately chooses to do it badly. Not, I hasten to add, in every round. But in pretty much all of his quizzes there’s at least one round where the connection just doesn’t work. Let me give you an example from Thursday night.

In the film “Calendar Girls” which actress spoke the famous line “We’re going to need considerably bigger buns?”

Which castle is nicknamed The Gateway to England?

- And I can’t remember the next question, but the answer had the wod ‘little’ in it.

The connection? American state capital cities. Now, being expected to get Little Rock from just little is bad enough. But Helen Mirren to give us Helena Montana!!!! That’s just bloody lazy. The setter knew that Helena is the capital, but just couldn’t be arsed to work on it to get a question to which the answer was, for the sake of argument, Helena Bonham Carter. I know that Jess and Dan feel the same as I do, that if you do a set of connections, then the connection should be clear if you get all of the answers which are connected. This seems obvious to me.

Now, when I do a connections quiz, for the last round I always do a nine part connection. So did last Thursday’s QM. Well, we had all nine answers, but we couldn’t get it. Neither could any of the other teams. When he realised this the QM was like a dog with two coc tails. Which is another mistake it’s too easy for a question master to make. Because, it really isn’t you, the QM, versus all the teams. I don’t always achieve it, but whenever I make a quiz for the club I try to make something where people will come away thinking – I didn’t know that I knew all that – rather than rubbing in I know something that you all don’t. As for the connection, well, if you took he first letter of each of the answers, it spelled out goodnight. Hat’s actually quite clever but is not without problems. For question 8 we were asked which fictional detective lived in Whitehaven Mansions. Straightaway I wrote down Poirot. Well, there’s no P in goodnight! There is an H, so Hercule Poirot would have done the trick. All it would have needed would be for the QM to say = you need first name and surname for this one -.

Putting together a social quiz for no reward other than a couple of drinks isn’t quick or easy to do. But, I don’t know, you want people to enjoy it as much as possible, and sometimes this means just giving it a little bit more thought, and taking a little bit more care.

University Challenge 2023 Grand Final - Durham v. Bristol

The Teams

Durham

Harry Scully

Chloe Margaux

Alex Radcliffe (capt.)

Bea Bennett

Bristol

Sam Kehler

Jacob McLaughlin

Tess Richardson (capt.)

Alejandro Ortega

JP, in this, his final introduction to a University Challenge match, paid tribute to the fact that the final brings us full circle. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that these two teams have proven to be the best in the competition, and promised an intriguing battle of the buzzers.

I surprised myself by getting a Science question right with the very first starter, knowing that the world’s first nuclear reactor was built on an unused tennis court in the University in Chicago. While I was setting off on my final lap of honour of the series Harry Scully won the first buzzer race to give the same answer. Very early examples of Science Fiction only provided one correct answer, but Durham were up and running. A sort of backhandedly complimentary description of Charles II gave Bea Bennett the next starter. The Turner Prize in 2021 promised little and delivered less for Durham. Encouraged by their buzzer success thus far, skipper Alex Radcliffe was in very early for the next starter, to which the answer was cat. To me, a family of proteins would be Mummy protein, Daddy protein and Baby protein, but funnily enough none of these were the answer to the bonuses. Durham managed the one. You could say that Bristol were fortunate that Durham were having little joy with the bonuses – despite having taken the first three starters consecutively they had only accrued 40 points. But this would be more than enough if Bristol could not challenge their dominance of the buzzer. For the picture starter we were shown a map with the site of a battle and its date. Sam Kehler broke Bristol’s duck by buzzing in to identify that the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI had been killed in the battle. More battles and dead royals brought a full house, which meant that for all Durham’s good work the gap now stood at just fifteen points. The next starter was an example of one with a long preamble where the answer suddenly becomes clear, and as JP mentioned the titles of the movies Roma and Satyricon, Harry Scully won the buzzer race to answer Fellini. A good full house of bonuses on literary criticism followed, which meant that Durham led by forty again at the ten minute mark, by 65 – 25.

If Scully don’t get yer, Radcliffe will. I certainly seemed that way as the Durham skipper won the buzzer race to answer that several definitions given us by JP all referred to protocol. Only 1 bonus followed on the B-52’s – hardly surprising considering the youth of all the participants. Finally Jacob McLaughlin took his first starter, recognising several things all beginning with r-o-s-e-n. Triangular countries according to the calculations of Tom Alps were the subject of the next set of bonuses. No, I didn’t get it either. Bristol did, they took a full house to reduce the gap to thirty points. So to the music starter. A quick blast on an organ was enough to allow Alex Radcliffe in with Saint-Saens. More organ heavy works provided nowt for any of us. Still the Durham buzzer onslaught continued with the next starter. This time it was Harry Scully in with the word lumen. I didn’t really understand what the next set of bonuses meant, but they were all about notable American academics and their works. Durham took one, which took their lead to fifty five. Jacob McLaughlin took the next starter for Bristol with the Isle of Arran and Andorra. Effects in Physics yielded just one bonus, at a time when Bristol desperately needed another full house. Alex Radcliffe came in too early for he next starter and lost five, but none of us knew that MOBA stands for Museum of Bad Art. Sam Kehler recognised the colours and description of the flag of Belgium. Ignatius Sancho, an 18^th century man of letters, brought a further ten points. This mean that at the 20 minute mark the score stood at 100- 85. Durham led, but the gap was back down to 15.

So it was that Durham did what they’d done before when Bristol threatened- buzzed early and took the next starter, with Harry Scully identifying the work of Kandinsky for the second picture starter. Three more paintings of rowers yielded one bonus. Harry Scully struck again for the next starter, recognising parts of the eye. Durham then took two bonuses on, literally, rocket science. It was funny they knew Tsiolkovsky but not Goddard. So, with Durham now leading by 55, surely the title was in the bag? Nobody knew the work Learning from Las Vegas for the next starter. Sam Kehler knew that Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite Empire. Two bonuses on philosophy narrowed the gap to 35. Sam Kehler took a double knowing of an experiment that simulated a prison environment. Two bonuses on world events of the 1060s narrowed the gap to 15. With little time left, bearing in mind we needed a few minutes for the presentation formalities, suddenly the next starter became of paramount importance. Asked which distance was the race in the medal ceremony for which John Carlos, Peter Norman and Tommie Smith made one of the most famous Olympic photographs of all time, Sam Kehler won the buzzer race. But. He answered 400m, losing 5 and allowing Harry Scully to answer 200m. On such small margins, and his was cruel luck for Sam Kehler, whose buzzes had kept Bristol in the hunt. Here was time for one bonus on refrigerants before the gong. Durham won by 155 – 120.

I predicted that it would be a close contest, and it was, even though a times it really didn’t feel as close as it was. I can only apologise to Bristol for cursing them with the Clark tip. As JP said, they should take a great deal of pride from the way that they have played the series. So should Durham, who were presented with the trophy by Jung Chang – among other distinctions she is the author of the excellent Wild Swans, a book I can recommend. Worthy University Challenge champions, 2023.

A final word of thanks, though to Jeremy Paxman. Since 1994 he has made the show his own, so much so that it is difficult to envisage anyone else in the chair.

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

Sunday on the Pot With George is an exhibit in the Museum of Bad Art

University Challenge 2023: Grand Final Preview

I warn you now, I don’t have much conclusive to say in this preview. But let’s look forward to this, the last University Challenge  Grand Final of the Jeremy Paxman era, an era which began more than a quarter of a century ago.

The great irony of this 2023 season is that the Gand Final is a replay of the very first match of the series. Yes, Durham and Bristol met in the first match of the first round. What a match it was too, with Durham winning 195-185. So, it’s Durham to win again, is it? Well, hang on.

The first match came down to just one starter questions, which might have fallen either way,

Bristol have won every match since and won each of them comfortably.

Both teams have played 6 matches. Bristol have an average score of 197 per match. Durham have an average score of 170. Bristol have conceded an average of 114 points per match, and Durham have conceded an average of 117 points per match.

There are two teams that both finalists have played during the series. Let’s look at the two teams’ comparative performances against them:-

Comparative performances

 v. Southampton

Durham      165 - 135

Bristol         200 – 70

v. UCL

Durham      160 - 145

Bristol         205 – 70

So it is certainly not a foregone conclusion that Durham will beat Bristol again. They clearly had an easier time than Durham against both of these teams.

So what about a prediction, Dave? Well, I think it’s going to be very competitive. Looking at the strengths of both teams – Durham have good buzzing throughout the team, especially in the shape of Harry Scully and skipper Alex Radcliffe, who are well supported by Chloe Margaux and Bea Bennett. There doesn’t seem to be many gaps in heir knowledge. However they can be rattled. We saw this when the penalties for early incorrect interruptions mounted up in their losing match against Royal Holloway in their second quarter final. As for Bristol, well they have possibly the finest buzzer in the whole series in the shape of Jacob McLaughlin. Looking back, the lowest number of starters he has accrued in a single match was the 4 he took in the first round against Durham. Does this mean Durham are better buzzers, or does it mean that he has become better, more assured and quicker on the buzzer since a nervy first match? Personally, I think it’s the latter. Captain Tess Richardson always weighs in with a few starters, and Sam Kehler and Alejandro Ortega have also provided valuable contributions. They will probably hate me for saying this, but I’m tipping Bristol and lumbering them with the curse of the Clark tip. The statistics, as well as my own gut feeling, give them a slight edge, but as I say, I am expecting a close match.

Something in the Air

There was something in the air last Thursday evening and I’m not talking about the smell of the steelworks, either. To be fair it’s been quite a long time since the steelworks left the town smelling like an open sewer, however I digress, and back to the subject. It was my turn to be question master on Thursday evening. Actually that’s not true. I’d actually been asked to do it this coming Thursday, but Howard whose turn it was asked me to swap. I couldn’t think of a good reason why not – and believe me, I tried.

Now, up until last Thursday my team had never won one of my general knowledge quizzes, only my end of year quizzes. However, they’d been getting closer and closer each time. I haven’t been surprised about this. Dan, Jess and Adam all set quizzes for the club now and I’ve told you before how becoming a regular question master made me a much better quizzer. Now, maybe this is just hindsight talking, but I couldn’t help wondering on Thursday evening whether this was going to be the night.

It didn’t look more likely than normal in the start as they were a point or two behind. But then it turned out to be nip and tuck through the first half, and indeed here was never more than a few points between all four teams during the question rounds. My guys were ahead for much of he second half, and at the end they tied on the questions wih one of the other teams.

However.

That was before the handout scores were added on. Now the fact is that my guys are pretty mustard on handouts, and Thursday evening was no different. They comfortably won, giving them he overall win.

Somehow, I feel a little like a parent bird, watching my fledgelings flying for the first time.

University Challenge 2023 - Semi Final 2 - Bristol v. Southampton

The Teams

Bristol

Sam Kehler

Jacob McLaughlin

Tess Richardson (capt.)

Alejandro Ortega

Southampton

Ethan Lyon

Magda Steele

Dom Belcher (capt.)

Elliot Miles

Well, dearly beloved, just two more shows to go this season. Last week we saw Durham secure their place in the final. By a quirk of fate both of last night’s teams incurred their only loss to Durham. Also, JP pointed out that whichever of these teams won would be making their first appearance in the final. My gut feeling was that Bristol were the stronger team and the more likely finalists.

For the first starter Bristol’s superbuzzer, Jacob McLaughlin identified a couple of Hamiltons. Classical music and riots seemed an unusual subject for bonuses, and Bristol managed to answer one of them correctly. Ethan Lyon struck back for Southampton recognising several quotes all referring to Love. Literary terms with Greek origins brought a couple of bonuses and the lead. Jacob McLaughlin struck a second time, recognising quickly a series of words beginning with a-z. Now, if I said I had the tiniest understanding of any of the three bonuses on cell biology, you’d know I was lying, but as it happened Bristol didn’t manage to answer any of them either. Nobody identified the wheel of Dharma symbol for the picture starter. Jacob McLaughlin came in early for his third starter with the Sinatra Doctrine – which surely was make them an offer they can’t refuse, wasn’t it? Three more symbols from religions originating in India provided two correct answers. I can’t say that I really understood the next starter, but Ethan Lyon knew that the answer was Blast. The pioneering sculptor Edmonia Lewis provided a couple of bonuses which meant that the score at just past the ten minute mark stood at 45 – 35 to Bristol.

Tess Richardson opened her personal account with the next starter, with the Battle of Bosworth. A UC special set, on words whose first three letters are repeated, brought a useful full house. Jacob McLaughlin took his fourth starter, knowing that the capital city of Turkey ends in a-r-a. AT the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I did not understand any of the questions on Vector Geometry, but they brought Bristol a second consecutive full house. Asked for the two word name of a religious book, as soon as JP said Oppenheimer I said Bhagavad Gita, at the same time as Sam Kehler buzzed in with the same answer. This took Bristol into triple figures, and took Southampton into the doodoo. Horace’s Ars Poetica brought a single bonus. This then led to the music starter. None of us recognised Faure’s Pavane. Jacob McLaughlin took starter number  knowing of the travels of Ibn Battuta which brought Bristol the dubious benefit of the music bonuses. They took one. Jacob McLaughlin took his sixth starter by working out that Ajaz Patel of New Zealand became only the third cricketer to take ten wickets in an innings of a test match. English towns ending with -bury brought a single bonus. Sam Kehler came n too quickly for the next starter, allowing Elliot Miles to answer that the capital city taking its name from the Greek for wisdom is Sofia. Polish History provided Southampton with one bonus. This slightly ameliorated Southampton’s position, but they had a real mountain to climb, trailing 135 – 50.

Jacob McLaughlin took his 7tth starter, knowing that Guy de Maupassant was the ‘father of the short story’. Actresses of the silent film era whose surnames began with the letter B all passed Bristol by, but such was their lead that this was only a minor impediment to their progress. Nobody recognised a photograph of Andre Breton for the second picture starter. That man McLaughlin took an 8^th starter , on some Maths thing. This earned the picture bonuses on photo montages which brought two bonuses. Sam Kehler recognised the names of two of the ruling houses of Sparta. Two bonuses on the Africa Cup of Nations pushed them closer to 200. Elliot Miles knew that the year 1660 fell during the lifetime of Matsuo Basho. Works in French brought them a single bonus. Jacob McLaughlin earned a 9^th starter knowing that Margarita Cansino was better known as Rita Hayworth. The Nilotic Language Group of Eastern and Central Africa took the Bristol score to the magical 200. The next starter mentioned N People – search for the hero inside yourself? – and the answer, which Dom Belcher provided was 23. No, me neither. The International Space Hall of Fame brought no points and the contest was gonged. Bristol ran out comfortable winners by 200 – 70.

Hard lines to Southampton. Congratulations on reaching the semi final in a pretty competitive series, though. Many congratulations to Bristol. This gives us a final with Durham. Thus the last match of the series turns out to be a replay of the very first match of the series. That’s a pleasing irony. Will the result turn out to be the same? Well, it was a very close run thing first time round, and it will take a braver man than me to call a winner. I will post a few observations ahead of the final, though.

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

Ajaz Patel of New Zealand became only the third cricketer to take ten wickets in an innings of a test match.

So farewell, then The Tournament.

I’ve seen reports today that the BBC has pulled the plug on The Tournament. I’m sorry to hear this, although not necessarily all that surprised. I rather liked it although after the first series I made a number of suggestions for tweaks to improve the show. I’m sorry to say that none of these suggestions were incorporated into the second series. It’s not for me to say that this was the reason why the second series is the last, but you could be forgiven for reaching that conclusion for yourself. In all seriousness, though, it’s a shame that this is it for the show. Mind you, one thing I won’t miss is the cringe-making god-awful battle cries at the start of the show. It didn’t matter how many times Alex Scott said ‘Great battle cries guys!’ – I hated them.