Episode 23 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. There are eight places in the quarterfinal stage of this

competition, and six of them have already been claimed.

The seventh will go to whichever team wins tonight,

but it's sayonara to the losers.

Now, the first round matches saw the team from the University of Bristol

pull off a comfortable win against Sheffield University,

winning by 210-130.

Impressive areas of knowledge on that occasion included

eclectic architecture, amino acids,

Australian cricket and earthworm poo.

With an average age of 24, let's meet the Bristol team again.

Hi, I'm Joe Rolleston, I'm from Tamworth in Staffordshire,

and I'm training to teach history.

Hi, I'm Claire Jackson, from Carshalton in south-west London,

and I'm studying for an MSci in palaeontology and evolution.

And this is their captain.

Hi, I'm Alice Clarke, I'm from Oxford, and I study medicine.

Hi, I'm Michael Tomsett, from Hinckley in Leicestershire,

and I'm doing a PhD in organic chemistry.

APPLAUSE

Now, Oriel College, Oxford won their first round match against

a somewhat off-message team from Manchester University,

and had 150 points at the gong against their opponents' mere 95.

A kinder competition than this one

would gloss over their confusing Bo Diddley with Cole Porter,

and their startling ignorance of popular music, but they were

on safer ground answering on Germanic tribes, Monet and Kurosawa.

With an average age of 23, let's meet the Oriel team again.

Hi, I'm Owen Monaghan, I'm from Banbridge in Northern Ireland,

and I study philosophy, politics and economics.

Hello, I'm Alex Siantonas.

I'm from Cambridge, and I study philosophy.

Their captain.

Hi, I'm Nathan Helms, I'm from Dallas, Texas,

and I also study philosophy.

Hello, I'm Tobias Thornes, I'm from Hadzor in Worcestershire,

and I'm studying for a DPhil in atmospheric physics.

APPLAUSE

OK, the rules haven't changed

since the last time you were on this contest,

so let's just get on with it.

The metallic portion of what object consists of

a cross pattee of bronze, 3.8 centimetres in diameter,

with the Royal Crown surmounted by a lion in the centre,

above the inscription, "For valour"?

BELL RINGS

The Victoria Cross?

Correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get the first set of bonuses, Bristol.

They're on modern languages.

Of which modern European language

did the Irish novelist Flann O'Brien say,

"Waiting for the verb is surely the ultimate thrill"?

German.

Yes. JRR Tolkien likened his discovery of which language to, quote,

"A wine cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine

"of a kind and flavour never tasted before.

"It quite intoxicated me"?

Finnish.

Correct. The name of which language completes this statement from

a work of 1784, given here in translation?

"What is not clear is not..." what?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-They said in translation.

-Maybe French?

THEY CONFER

-I don't know, I haven't got a clue.

-What is a famous one?

-French?

-French?

Is not French.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Right, fingers on the buzzers. Another starter question.

From 1850, the German physicist Rudolf Clausius formulated

which concept in thermodynamics?

Regarded as a measure of the disorder of a system...

BELL RINGS

Entropy.

Entropy is correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on marine mammals, Bristol.

The sea mammals classed as "cetaceans"

include whales, dolphins and which other major group?

Its species include harbour, finless and Burmeister's.

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

Porpoises?

Correct. After a physical characteristic,

what two-word name is given to the suborder Odontoceti?

It includes river dolphins, porpoises and beaked whales.

-That's toothed whale.

-Toothed?

-Yeah.

-Too...

-No, cos it's two words.

-Yeah, toothed whale.

-Oh, toothed, OK.

Toothed whale.

Correct. Monodon monoceros is a small toothed whale

with what common name?

Males have a long, straight tusk

that projects forward from above the mouth.

Narwhal.

Narwhal is correct, the so-called sea unicorn.

APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this.

"Life is what happens when we're not checking facts".

These words from The Huffington Post allude to which musician?

He's often hailed erroneously to have originated the expression,

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

BUZZ

John Lennon?

Yes. APPLAUSE

So your first bonuses, Oriel, are on middle names.

What was the middle name of the science fiction writer Philip Dick?

It is a seven-letter word meaning "related by blood or descent",

or "allied in nature or character".

-Something like kin?

-It could be kindred.

Kindred.

Correct. What was the middle name of Leslie Hartley,

the author of The Go-Between?

As a plural noun, it means the two points in the celestial sphere

about which the stars appear to revolve.

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

What? What is it?

The...

..pole star?

-Erm...

-Zenith?

Zenith.

No, it's Poles. What was the middle name of

the author of the Narnia books Clive Lewis?

As a plural noun it can denote a form of fastening.

-Staples.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE 10 points for this.

Thanks to a large number of boroughs enfranchised during Tudor times,

which English county had, in the early 19th century,

almost as many parliamentary seats as the whole of Scotland?

Among its boroughs... BELL RINGS

Wiltshire?

No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

Among its boroughs disenfranchised in 1832 were

Callington, Camelford and St Germans.

BUZZ

Oxfordshire?

No, it's Cornwall. 10 points for this.

From the Greek for "naked seeds", what term denotes plants

such as conifers that reproduce by means of an...?

BELL RINGS

Gymnosperm.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Right, Bristol, these bonuses are on words that differ by

a single letter from those in the NATO spelling alphabet.

That's the one where BBC is "Bravo Bravo Charlie".

In each case, I want the word that is defined and the word it

resembles in the spelling alphabet.

For examples, "rodeo" and "Romeo" or "brave" and "bravo".

First, a rude, miserable or squalid dwelling place.

Hovel and hotel.

Hovel and hotel.

Correct. Second, a simple sum in Spanish. Cinco plus tres.

I don't know what the Spanish is.

Night? Is that one?

It's 11, 12, but I don't know.

I don't know.

THEY WHISPER

Come on, let's have it, please.

Eight and night.

No, it's ocho and echo.

And finally, the chief helmsman of the Starship Enterprise

played in the original 1960s television series by George Takei.

Sulu and Zulu.

Yeah, Sulu and Zulu.

Correct. APPLAUSE

We're going to have a look at a picture round now.

For your picture starter you'll see a map of the Netherlands with

one of the provinces highlighted.

10 points if you can name the highlighted province.

BELL RINGS

Friesland?

Friesland is right.

APPLAUSE

So you're going to see, for your picture bonuses,

three more provinces of the Netherlands highlighted.

Five points for each you can identify.

Firstly, the province labelled A.

Is Gelderland a province?

Do you know any more?

Er, well, two of them are Holland

but I don't think either of them are, any of them are, so...

Well, one of them... There's Zeeland as well, isn't there?

-There's Zeeland, yeah.

-Go with that.

-Zeeland.

Correct. Secondly, the province labelled B.

That's, like, where Maastricht is.

I don't know if it's named after Maastricht, we could try.

-No better guess?

-Gelderland?

-All right.

-Go on.

Gelderland.

No, it's Limburg. And finally, the province labelled C.

Try one of the Hollands for that.

-If we don't have anything else.

-What's your preferred option?

-Noord-Holland?

-Noord-Holland?

Correct, North Holland is right.

APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this.

In which novel of 1815 do these words appear?

"One has not great hopes from Birmingham.

"I always say there's something direful in the south..."

BUZZ

Emma?

Emma is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Oriel College, these bonuses are on a writer.

In 1850, which writer became

the first editor of the magazine Household Words?

He used it to serialise his non-fiction work,

A Child's History Of England.

THEY WHISPER

Dickens?

Dickens?

Don't think so.

-Thackeray?

-What?

-Thackeray?

-Thackeray.

No, it was Dickens! Charles Dickens.

The periodical Master Humphrey's Clock, written and edited

entirely by Dickens, saw the first publication of two of his novels.

One was Barnaby Rudge.

What was the other, concerning Nell Trent and her grandfather?

Nell...

-(The Old Curiosity Shop?)

-Yeah.

-What was it?

-The Old Curiosity Shop.

The Old Curiosity Shop.

Correct.

Which was the second of Dickens's novels to be published,

appearing as monthly instalments in the periodical

Bentley's Miscellany from 1837?

-Pickwick Papers?

-Oh, Pickwick Papers.

-Pickwick Papers?

-Yeah.

-The Pickwick Papers.

No, it was Oliver Twist.

10 points for this.

Born in 1839, Joaquim Machado de Assis gives his name to

a prestigious literary prize in which South American country?

BELL RINGS

Argentina?

No. BUZZ

Brazil?

Brazil is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, these bonuses are on physical principles.

In each case, identify the scientist after whom the following are named.

Firstly, after a Swiss mathematician,

a principle in fluid dynamics that relates the pressure drop in

a fluid to the increase in its flow speed.

THEY CONFER

-Fibonacci's Swiss too, right?

-No.

-I don't think so.

-Bernoulli?

-Bernoulli, right. Bernoulli.

Correct.

After a French physicist secondly, born 1794,

the diffraction pattern created by an opaque object is identical to

the diffraction pattern from a hole of the same shape and size.

THEY WHISPER

Couldn't be Pascal, it's too late.

Too late for Pascal, another French physicist from the period.

Erm...

Gay-Lussac.

No, it's Jacques Babinet. Babinet principle.

And finally, after an ancient mathematician, the weight of

liquid displaced by a floating body is equal to the weight of the body.

-Archimedes.

-Archimedes.

Yes. APPLAUSE

10 points for this.

A leading proponent of humanism and secularism,

which British academic's works include What Is Chemistry?

Molecules, and Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas Of Science?

BELL RINGS

Atkins?

It is Peter Atkins, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on the Lake District, Bristol.

One of the steepest roads in England, with a maximum gradient

of 33%, which pass links Eskdale with the Duddon Valley?

Near the summit are the remains of a Roman fort.

THEY WHISPER

-Let's have an answer, please.

-We don't know.

It's Hardknott Pass.

Setting a new UK record for any 24-hour period,

how many millimetres of rain fell at Honister Pass in the

Lake District in the 24 hours up to 6pm GMT on the 5th of December 2015?

You can have 10% either way.

THEY CONFER

160...?

Doesn't seem... In 24 hours...

16 centimetres, that's a lot of rain!

-Yeah, it is!

-I don't know. Yeah, go on.

-16 centimetres.

-160, it's a guess.

-Yeah?

160 millimetres?

No, it's much wetter than that, it was 341.4 millimetres.

Newlands Pass links Buttermere with which town to the north-east

on the shores of Derwentwater?

THEY WHISPER

Come on, let's have it, please.

-I don't know.

-Coniston.

No, it's Keswick. Right, we're about halfway through the contest,

we're going to take a music round. For your music starter,

you'll hear a piece of classical music by a German composer.

For 10 points, simply identify the composer.

MUSIC: Violin Concerto in D Major

BELL RINGS

Beethoven?

It is Beethoven, yes. His Violin Concerto in D Major.

APPLAUSE

It was his only violin concerto,

which was identified by the 19th century violinist

Joseph Joachim as one of the four great German violin concerti.

For your music bonuses you'll hear the other three,

and I want you to identify the composer of each.

Firstly, for five, according to Joachim,

"the richest and most seductive" of the four.

VIOLIN CONCERTO PLAYS

No objections? Haydn?

No, that's Bruch.

Secondly, this one,

which "vies in seriousness" with the Beethoven, he says.

VIOLIN CONCERTO PLAYS

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-Come on.

-Pass.

That was by Brahms.

And finally what Joachim named "the heart's jewel".

VIOLIN CONCERTO PLAYS

This is Haydn, isn't it?

Oh, no, this is definitely Mendelssohn.

-This is definitely Mendelssohn?

-It is, yeah.

Mendelssohn.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this.

Popularised by George Orwell in 1984,

what two-word term denotes a mechanism for the disposal

of inconvenient or embarrassing information?

-Memory hole.

-Memory hole is correct.

APPLAUSE

Bristol, these bonuses are on the novels of Virginia Woolf.

In each case, identify the novel from its characters.

Firstly, Minta Doyle, Charles Tansley,

Lily Briscoe and James Ramsay.

-To The Lighthouse.

-To The Lighthouse is correct, yes.

Secondly, Bernard, Percival, Rhoda, Susan and Dr Crane.

(Percival - would that be Orlando?)

THEY CONFER

(Yes, could be.)

Orlando.

No, that's The Waves.

Lastly, Sasha, Shel, Archduke Harry, Mr Pope and Queen Elizabeth I.

(Yeah.)

-Orlando.

-That is Orlando. Yes.

Right. 10 points for this.

In which novel of 1988 do three publishing editors invent

a conspiracy theory that moves beyond their control?

It shares its name with a device

designed by a 19th-century French physicist...

-Foucault's Pen...Pendulum.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, these bonuses, Bristol, are on chemistry.

Born in Massachusetts in 1875, which physical chemist gives his name

to the dot diagrams that show the electronic structures of molecules?

THEY CONFER

THEY WHISPER

-Newman.

-No, it's Lewis.

Lewis is noted for his work on which chemical bond,

formed by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms?

Covalent.

-Covalent bonding.

-Correct.

Which US Nobel Laureate developed Lewis's work

on electron-paired bonding, making it the subject of his 1939 work,

The Nature Of The Chemical Bond?

I think that might be...

No...

Who's the orange juice obsessive, what's his name?

THEY LAUGH

It begins with P.

THEY CONFER

Pauling, yes, that's the one.

-Linus Pauling.

-Linus Pauling is correct.

APPLAUSE 10 points for this.

"Words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits,

"as monies are for values."

Who wrote this in the 1605 work The Advancement Of Learning?

The... Francis Bacon.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Oriel College, are on 20th-century China.

During World War II, which Chinese leader was nicknamed Cash-My-Cheque,

because of his constant demands for Western aid?

-Chiang Kai-shek maybe?

-Yeah.

-Chiang Kai-shek.

-Correct.

Chiang reportedly said that the Japanese were a disease of the skin.

Which grouping did he describe as a disease of the heart?

THEY CONFER

I suppose the Americans.

It wouldn't be the Americans, would it?

No, it's the Communists.

LAUGHTER

From 1979 to 2006, the airport

of which major city was named after Chiang Kai-shek?

-Taipei?

-Sure.

-Taipei.

-Correct.

You get to take a second picture around. For your picture starter,

you'll see an actor in a Shakespearean role.

10 points if you can identify both the actor and the role.

-Kim Cattrall as Cleopatra?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

So, for your picture bonuses, three more actors in the same role,

five points for each you can identify.

Firstly for five.

THEY CONFER

I think we'd better have an answer, please.

-Judi Dench.

-SHE GIGGLES

No, it's Glenda Jackson in 1978.

She looks really cool, but I don't know who she is.

THEY WHISPER

Maggie Smith?

No.

Come on.

Pass.

That's Vanessa Redgrave in a 1995 production.

And finally.

-That's Helen Mirren.

-Yeah.

-Helen Mirren.

-That is Helen Mirren in 1982.

APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this starter question. Fingers on the buzzers.

Used as an electrolyte in dry cells

and as a flavouring in salty liquorice,

what chemical compound has the formula NH4Cl?

Ammonium chloride.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Bristol, these bonuses are on Northern Ireland.

The first five letters of the name of which Northern Irish County

spell an Italian word meaning "stop"?

Antrim...

(Is it "ferma"? Ferma?)

THEY WHISPER

-Fermanagh.

-Correct.

The first four letters of which county's name spell the first word

of Virgil's Aeneid in the original Latin?

THEY WHISPER

Come on!

(Go with Antrim.)

-Antrim.

-No, it's Armagh.

"I sing of arms and the man."

And finally, the first three letters of the name of which Northern Irish

County spell a short word, whose Italian translation is "formica"?

(Formica is ants, termites.)

-Antrim.

-Correct.

Five minutes to go. 10 points for this.

The northernmost province of South Africa is named after...

-Limpopo.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Bristol, these bonuses are on British national parks.

Firstly, the closest National Park to Glasgow

is named in part after which body of water?

Loch Lomond?

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

-Both?

-Yes.

-Nominate Tomsett.

-Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

-That's correct.

I just needed Loch Lomond.

Secondly, which English National Park lies less than 40 miles

south-west of Cardiff, across the Bristol Channel?

By road, it's around 100 miles.

THEY CONFER

-Ex...?

-< Yeah.

-Exmoor?

-Correct.

Established in 2011, what is the nearest National Park to London?

South Downs?

-Yeah.

-South Downs.

-Correct.

There's four minutes ago. 10 points for this.

Comprising 44 volumes and taking more than half a century

to be completed, the work known as the Histoire Naturelle was written

primarily by which French naturalist...?

Diderot, but it's not.

It's not, I'm afraid. You lose five points.

..Which French naturalist, born 1707?

One of you may buzz from Bristol.

Lamarck.

No, it's Buffon.

10 points for this. Of the six flavours of quarks

in the standard model of particle physics,

which comes last in the dictionary?

Strange?

Up.

Up is correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on astronomy, Bristol.

What precise seven-letter term

denotes the passage of Mercury or Venus across the disc of the Sun,

a phenomenon similar to a lunar eclipse?

-Transit.

-Transit.

-Correct.

Transits of Venus occurred in 2004 and 2012.

In which year will the next one occur?

You can have ten years either way.

It's a long way off.

THEY CONFER

2090?

Ten years either way.

2090?

No, it's 2117.

And finally, which navigator commanded the British expedition

that observed the transit of Venus from Tahiti in 1769?

THEY CONFER

-Cook.

-Captain Cook is correct.

APPLAUSE Two and half minutes to go, 10 points for this.

World Heritage sites in which country include

the historic centre of Evora, the cultural landscape of Sintra,

and the Alto Douro wine region.

-Portugal.

-Portugal is correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on an Italian republic, Bristol.

Between 1256 and 1381, four wars took place

between the Republic of Venice and which other

Italian republic for supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea?

-Genoa?

-Oh, yeah.

In terms of the other...

-Come on.

-They're in the wrong side.

Yeah, but, the Mediterranean.

What are you thinking of?

Dalmatia. But go with Genoa.

Come on.

Genoa.

It's Genoa, that's correct.

Which mountainous island to the west of the Italian mainland

was annexed to the state of Genoa in 1284

and ceded to France by the Treaty of Versailles in 1768?

-Corsica.

-Correct.

Genoa was occupied by Napoleon and then annexed by France,

but the Congress of Vienna gave it to which dynastic family,

the kings of Sardinia and later of Italy?

THEY CONFER

Let's have it, please.

-Come on.

-Pass.

The House of Savoy.

Right. 10 points for this. Fingers on the buzzers.

Its name derived from the Greek for visible light,

what is the current geological aeon?

-Phanerozoic.

-That's correct.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses this time on art and music, Bristol.

Inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya,

the opera and piano suite known as the Goyescas,

are works by which composer, born in Catalonia in 1867?

Any Spanish composer...?

Let's have an answer, please.

-We don't know.

-It's Granados.

Which Russian composer wrote the 1909 tone poem Isle Of The Dead,

based on a work of the same title by the Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin?

-It's Rachmaninov.

-Rachmaninov.

-Correct.

Which opera by Igor Stravinsky, with a libretto by WH Auden,

is based on a series of paintings by William Hogarth?

Did he...

GONG

And at the gong, Oriel College, Oxford have 70,

Bristol University have 265.

APPLAUSE

Well, I don't know what happened to you chaps from Oxford,

but you seemed to be asleep most of the time.

You were certainly beaten by a very strong team, though,

they're pretty good.

That's a very, very impressive score, 265, Bristol.

Many congratulations to you.

We look forward to seeing you in the quarterfinals. Congratulations.

I hope you can join us next time

for the last of the second-round matches, but until then,

-it's goodbye from Oriel College, Oxford...

-Goodbye.

-..it's goodbye from Bristol University...

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.