Episode 10 University Challenge

University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello.

Another first-round match tonight between two teams

enjoying their salad days.

There's a place in round two for whichever one of them doesn't wilt.

University College, UCL, is the largest of the constituent colleges of the University of London

and it was founded in 1826 with the aim of opening up

education in England to students of any race, class or religion.

Today, about 140 countries are represented in its student body

of around 22,000 of whom something like 40% are postgraduates.

UCL boasts at least one Nobel Laureate for every decade

since the prize was established in 1901, and among its former students

are Ricky Gervais, AA Gill and the film director

Christopher Nolan who shot parts of both The Dark Knight

and Inception there.

The team have an average age of 22 and a captain

chosen for the impeccable credential of having the best hair.

Let's meet them.

Hi, I'm Hywel Carver from East Devon

and I'm doing a PhD in Modelling Blood Flow.

Hi, I'm Patrick Cook from the Texas Hill Country

and I'm reading for a BA in History.

And their captain.

Hello, I'm Jamie Karran, I'm from London and I'm studying Medicine.

Hi, I'm Tom Andrews, I'm from North Somerset and I'm studying Genetics.

APPLAUSE

Now, the University of York traces its origins to a petition

drawn up in 1617 and sure enough, 346 years later,

it opened its doors to 230 students.

A body now swollen to around 13,000.

York is one of the so called plate-glass universities

and sits on a landscaped park apparently so abundant

in wildlife that students have been ordered not to hunt the rabbits.

Ha! Wait until the new fees kick in!

Alumni include authors Helen Dunmore and Yung Chang,

the politicians Harriet Harman and Oona King

and Greg Dyke who is its current Chancellor.

With an average age of 20, let's meet the York team.

Hi, I'm Rob Miller.

I'm from the Vale of Glamorgan and I'm studying Astrophysics.

Hi, I'm Greg Melia. I'm originally from Sheffield

and I'm studying for a PhD in Computational Electromagnetics.

And their captain.

I'm Andrew Rose from Bushey Heath in Hertfordshire and I'm reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

I'm Heather Powell from Evesham in Worcestershire. I'm studying Chemistry.

APPLAUSE

Well, you all must know the rules or you wouldn't be here.

Here's your first starter for 10.

Around 100,000 light years in diameter,

1,000 light years in thickness and thought to contain between

100 and 400 billion stars, what, until the 1920s,

was thought by many astronomers to constitute the entire universe?

-The Milky Way.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on quotations about history.

Identify the author, or authors, in each case.

Firstly for 5, both authors of these words -

"The history of all hither to existing society is the history of class struggles."

-Marx and Engels.

-Correct.

"The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

(Churchill?)

-Churchill.

-No, that was Thomas Carlyle.

And who reportedly said,

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it"?

(That's Churchill.)

-Churchill.

-That was Churchill. Another starter question.

"Until you understand a writer's ignorance,

"presume yourself ignorant of his understanding."

These words appear in the 1817 Biographia Literaria

of which poet whose works include

Frost At Midnight, Dejection: An Ode, and Christabel?

It's Coleridge. 10 points for this -

primarily concerned, according to its author,

with the durably improved condition of the human prospect,

which work of 1958 by the economist JK Galbraith introduced the phrase "conventional wisdom"?

-Is it The Affluent Society?

-It is indeed, yes.

Right, UCL your first bonuses are on a commodity.

The term Seidenstrasse was coined by the German geographer

Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to describe the ancient routes

connecting Europe with Africa and Asia, enabling the trading of what commodity?

(Silk?)

-The word in German is Seiden, so.

-Huh?

-The word of the commodity in German is Seiden.

-OK, that doesn't help.

-Spices? Spices is good.

-OK.

-Spices.

-No, it's silk.

Secondly, what surname is that of a 15th Century

merchant of Lucca who amassed a fortune trading in silk

and who's believed to appear with his wife in a double portrait

by Jan van Eyck, now in the National Gallery in London?

-No idea.

-It's Arnolfini, as in the Arnolfini Marriage.

And finally, in the short verse Upon Julia's Clothes,

which of the cavalier poets wrote,

"When as in silks, my Julia goes then,

"then methinks how sweetly flows that liquefaction of her clothes"?

"Liquefaction of her clothes?" At a guess I'd say Richard Lovelace.

-Richard Lovelace.

-No, it was Herrick. 10 points for this starter question.

Give one of the any three five-letter anagrams whose

meanings include end an employment contract, carry out duties,

for example in the armed forces, and metrical composition

-Serve.

-Serve is right. The others are sever and verse.

So, the bonuses now are on memorable film quotations.

In each case listen to the pair of quotations and give me

the year of release of the two films of which they appear.

You can have a year either way.

Firstly - "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

And "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

-The 1930s.

-Yeah?

-But I don't know when in the 1930s.

-I think they're quite late.

-'37?

-Yeah, '37.

-1937.

No, I would have accepted '38, but it was in fact '39.

It was The Wizard Of Oz and Gone With The Wind.

Secondly - "What we've got here is a failure to communicate" and,

"Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me, aren't you?"

-Cool Hand Luke.

-And The Graduate. Late '60s, so I'd say '68.

-1968.

-I'll accept that.

Yeah, it was 1967 - Cool Hand Luke and The Graduate.

And finally - "I'll have what she's having"

and "Carpe diem - seize the day, boys, make your lives extraordinary."

-1989.

-Correct. When Harry Met Sally and The Dead Poets Society.

10 points for this.

Which US scientist claims that he has set himself the modest task

of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history

and is the author of Guns, Germs...

-Jared Diamond.

-Correct.

UCL, your bonuses are on an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Firstly for 5, designated an AONB in 1964 which moorland region of

fells and valleys covers about 300 square miles mostly in Lancashire?

(In Lancashire? I thought that was more southern.)

It was in Nick Clegg's political constituency.

-OK, the Peak District.

-No, it's the Forest of Bowland.

Secondly for 5, following his defeat at Hexham, which monarch was living in secret at Waddington Hall

in the Forest of Bowland when he was betrayed and taken into custody?

-Charles I.

-Charles I.

-No, it was Henry VI.

Reaching over 1,800 ft above the eastern part of the Ribble Valley

which hill of Bowland is detached from the forest and was the home of

around a dozen people tried in 1612 on charges of murder by witchcraft?

THEY CONFER INAUDIBLY

We can try it.

-Tolpuddle.

-Tolpuddle?! That's the other end of the country! No, it's Pendle.

Right, we're going to take a picture round now.

For your picture starter you'll see a diagram with the skeleton

of a dinosaur which lived 65-67 million years ago.

10 points if you can give me its name.

-Tyrannosaurus rex.

-Correct.

Following on from Tyrannosaurus rex your bonuses are on three more

dinosaur skeletons.

5 points for each dinosaur you can name.

Firstly, this Upper Cretaceous dinosaur found in Asia.

-It looks like...

-A velociraptor.

-I reckon it's a Compsognathus, possibly.

-Mm.

-As in Jurassic Park 2.

Go on.

-Is it a Compsognathus?

-No, it's a Velociraptor.

Secondly, this Lower Cretaceous dinosaur which has been found in England.

Is that an Iguanodon?

-Iguanodon?

-Yes!

And, finally, this Upper Jurassic dinosaur found in the United States.

-ALL: Stegosaurus.

-Stegosaurus.

-Correct.

Another starter question now.

Designed for applications requiring real-time computerised control systems

such as those used in military aircraft,

which high-level computer language was developed by the US Department of Defence in the 1980s...

-Ada.

-Ada is correct, after Lady Ada Lovelace.

You get a set of bonuses now on a metal, York.

Which soft metal, atomic number 78, has a high melting point

and is used for electrodes and for dishes in which materials can be

heated to high temperatures as well as in jewellery and dental alloys?

-Platinum.

-That is correct.

The Ostwald Process, used in the production of fertilisers,

is the oxidation of ammonia over a platinum catalyst to manufacture which acid?

(Nitric acid.) (Nitric acid.)

-Nitric acid.

-Correct.

The international prototype kilogram that is the standard

unit of mass is made of platinum and which dense metal

which it is often alloyed to increase its strength and hardness?

(Iridium, I don't know, try it.)

-Iridium.

-Correct.

Another starter question, now.

How many years separate the passing of the Bill Of Rights

by the English Parliament after the Glorious Revolution

and the introduction in the US Congress of the Bill Of Rights,

that is the first ten Constitutional Amendments?

-100.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on the Nobel Prize For Literature.

Which Irish writer won the award in 1969 being commended by

the judges for writing which, "Rises like a Miserere from all mankind.

"Its muffled minor key sounding a liberation to the oppressed and comfort to those in need"?

-Seamus Heaney?

-No, it was Samuel Beckett.

Which writer was praised by the 2006 committee for making Istanbul

"An indispensable literary territory,

"equal to Dostoevsky's St Petersburg, Joyce's Dublin

"or Proust's Paris"?

-We don't know.

-That's Orham Pamuk.

And finally, on winning the 1982 prize, which Colombian writer

in his Nobel Lecture talked of "A new and sweeping utopia of life,

"where the races condemned to 100 years of solitude will have,

"at last and forever, a second opportunity on Earth?"

(His name! He wrote 100 Years Of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez!)

-Marquez.

-Yes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is correct.

Another starter question. In 1832 which Swiss crystallographer first described

the drawing of an apparently three-dimensional transparent

wire cube that is seen as an optical ambiguity?

Its back face appearing to reverse spontaneously with the front.

-Necker.

-Necker is right, yes.

You retake the lead and your bonuses this time are on zoology, UCL.

So called because they lack a tail, Anura is an order of amphibians known by what common name?

-I think newts have tails.

-Salamanders don't.

Shall we try salamanders? OK.

-Salamanders?

-No, they have tails - it's frogs or toads.

Secondly for five points, unusual in that the male protects eggs by carrying them

on its back, the toad Alytes obstetricans has what common name?

-Nurse toad?

-Do you reckon? Do you have any idea?

I think that's a good, obstetricians is midwife, isn't it?

-The nurse toad.

-It's the midwife toad.

Native to heathland areas of northern Europe

and distinguished by the yellow stripe on its back,

what is the common name of Epidalea calamita?

That's the poison dart frog.

Could it be the natterjack? I don't know.

-I thought that was American.

-OK, don't go with that.

-OK. The natterjack.

-Correct.

Another starter question. Harold Macmillan's description

of the resignation of all his Treasury ministers in 1958

as "a little local difficulty"

is an example of which rhetorical device...

Euphemism.

Uh, no, and I'm going to fine you 5 points cos I was only halfway through the question.

..is an example of which rhetorical device, its name

derives from the Greek for lessening and it employs understatement

for dramatic effect or to underplay the significance of the subject?

Does anyone know it, York?

Satire.

No, it's not. It's meiosis. Ten points for this.

A phonetic rendering of a French phrase that denotes eagerness for money, Avida Dollars,

was a derogatory anagram devised by Andre Breton

from the name of which Surrealist artist?

Salvador Dali.

-Correct.

-APPLAUSE

UCL, your bonuses are on Italian buildings.

Firstly, for five,

the extensive monument in Rome's Piazza Venezia,

known locally as "the wedding cake", or "the typewriter",

-is dedicated to which Italian monarch?

-THEY CONFER

-HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

-Victor Emmanuel II.

Correct. Victor Emmanuel II is buried in which Roman building,

also the last resting place of the artists Raphael and Annibale Carracci?

-The Pantheon.

-Correct.

The four-storey arcade or galleria named after Victor Emmanuel II, designed by Giuseppe Mengoni,

and completed in 1877, is in which Italian city?

Milan, I think, but I'm not sure.

Anyone else?

-Milan.

-Milan is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, we're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter you'll hear a piece of classical music,

all you have to do to get ten points is to name the composer.

MUSIC PLAYS

Leonard Bernstein.

Anyone like to buzz from UCL? You can even hear a little more I think.

MUSIC PLAYS

Chopin.

No, it's Liszt. It's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

Musical bonuses shortly, another starter question in the meantime.

Answer as soon as you buzz.

What is the sum of the two decimal numbers represented by the digits 1-1-1

in binary and ternary respectively?

20.

-Yes!

-APPLAUSE

Right. You heard Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 for your music starter,

which no-one managed to get.

It featured in the 1947 Academy Award-winning cartoon, The Cat Concerto,

part of the Tom And Jerry series.

Your bonuses are three pieces of classical music

which also featured in popular cartoons of the '40s and '50s.

In each case, I simply want the name of the composer.

Firstly, for five points, the composer of this piece,

included in a 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon.

MUSIC PLAYS

I was thinking Tchaikovsky myself.

Isn't this the one that goes, "Figaro, Figaro"?

This is Rossini.

-The Barber of Seville?

-Yeah, I think it's Rossini. Yeah.

-OK.

-HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

-Rossini.

It is. It's from The Barber Of Seville, or The Rabbit Of Seville.

Secondly, the composer of this piece,

included in the 1947 cartoon Pigs In A Polka.

MUSIC PLAYS

Sounds like Brahms' Hungarian Dances, doesn't it?

-I mean...

-You can try it.

Well, we'll wait. Let's listen to more.

-Are polkas Hungarian?

-Yes.

-OK.

Brahms.

It was Brahms. Yes, Hungarian Dance No. 17.

And finally, the composer of this piece,

included in the 1957 cartoon, What's Opera, Doc?

MUSIC PLAYS

-That has to be, um... What's he called?

-Wagner.

-Yeah?

-Oh, cos he wears a bra and he's a valkyrie.

-Wagner.

-It is. Part of The Flying Dutchman Overture.

-Ten points for this.

-APPLAUSE

Literally meaning "public proposal",

what short term derives from Japanese zen

and means a riddle or paradoxical statement...

A koan.

-Koan is right, yes.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on dancing in fiction, UCL.

What name is supposedly that of an English squire

and is given to a country dance

mentioned in Dickens' A Christmas Carol,

Eliot's Silas Marner and Lawrence's Sons And Lovers?

I mean, a ceilidh is a dance, right?

It's a Scottish dance, though.

-Let's have an answer, please.

-A ceilidh.

A ceilidh... It's a bit more elegant than that. No, it's Sir Roger de Coverley.

Named after the French for "petticoat", which lively dance with varied steps,

was popular during the Regency period,

and is the title of an historical novel by Georgette Heyer?

A foxtrot is a lively dance...

That's not French.

-A jig?

-That's not French.

-Em...

-But "gigue" is French.

Let's have an answer.

No-one? A jig.

No, it's a cotillion. And finally, in which novel by Jane Austen

does the heroine's mother recount with delight the various dances of a ball,

noting that Mr Bingley danced a Boulanger?

-Pride And Prejudice.

-Pride And Prejudice.

Correct. Another starter question.

Developed by the US psychologist Arthur Janov,

what form of psychotherapy encourages patients to relive and re-enact disturbing past experiences

by shouting and yelling?

Primal scream.

-Primal scream therapy is correct.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time, UCL, are on oil companies.

Shell, the global group of petrochemical companies formed by a merger in 1907,

has its registered office in London,

but its headquarters in which European city?

(The Hague.)

OK. The Hague.

The Hague is correct. The American Bob Dudley took over as BP's chief executive in autumn 2010,

after the resignation of which Briton?

(Hayward...)

-I'm just going to say Hayward.

-Tony...

Hayward.

It was Tony Hayward, yes.

Having its headquarters in Dhahran,

Saudi Aramco is one of the largest oil corporations in the world.

For what does the acronym "Aramco" stand?

Arab...

Making Oil Company?

THEY CONFER

-I don't know.

-Come on.

-Uh, no, pass.

It's the Arabian American Oil Company.

Right, time for another picture round, I think.

Your picture starter is an unfinished Renaissance painting of a biblical scene.

Ten points, if you can give me the name of the painting.

Presentation In The Temple.

Anyone like to buzz from York?

Come on, let's have it. I need an answer now.

INAUDIBLE

It's not. It's the Adoration Of The Magi by Da Vinci.

We will come to the picture bonuses shortly,

but another starter question.

What two-word term is used to denote the ethical principle found in the Analects Of confucius,

the writings of Philo Of Alexandria, and the Gospel Of Matthew,

where it is expressed as,

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so unto them"?

The golden rule.

-The golden rule is correct, yes.

-APPLAUSE

The picture bonuses are more paintings

on the same theme as the starter -

the Adoration Of The Magi, in other words.

Name the artist. Firstly...

Michelangelo.

No, that's by Filippino Lippi. Secondly...

THEY CONFER

-Rembrandt.

-No, that's by Tintoretto. And finally, who's this by?

Michelangelo.

No, that's by Botticelli. Another starter question.

What five-letter word, repeated five times,

constitutes the line exalted by Professor Tony Tanner as,

"The most appalling in literature"?

It was given by Shakespeare to King Lear in the final scene of the play.

Misery.

Misery, mis...

No.

York, come on, one of you buzz, quickly.

Well, I'll tell you then.

It's "never". "Never, never, never, never."

Ten points for this.

Composed of nine small coral islands,

which Pacific Ocean country has its capital on Funafuti Atoll

and was formerly a part of the Gilbert And Ellice Isl...?

Fiji.

You lose five points. ..The Gilbert And Ellice Islands Colony.

Kiribati.

No, it's Tuvalu.

Ah, ten points for this.

During World War II, German submarines were known as U-boats.

What alphabetic prefix did the allies give to the fast German torpedo boats...

E-boats.

E-boats is right. Your bonuses come now on English words from Asian languages.

From Japanese characters meaning, "great lord",

what term was formerly used as a title of the shogun,

but now describes a business or industrial magnate?

THEY CONFER

-Tycoon.

-Correct.

From the Mandarin for "work together",

what phrase means excessively or unthinkingly eager,

especially in the context of patriotism and military aggression?

Jingoism.

No, it's "gung-ho".

Jingoism came from music-hall song.

The word "paddy", meaning rice field,

derives from the word for rice plant

in which major Southeast Asian language?

THEY CONFER

Come on.

-Thai.

-No, it's Malay. Three and a half minutes to go, ten points for this.

Made with white wine, or more traditionally, verjuice,

which pale, smooth mustard

is named after the capital of the Cote d'Or...

Dijon.

-Dijon is correct.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, UCL, are on Europe.

Give the smallest European countries, by land area, in each of the following categories.

First, for five points, the smallest country bordering Germany?

Lichtenstein?

-I think it borders Austria and Switzerland.

-Oh.

Luxembourg.

Luxembourg.

Correct.

Secondly, the smallest country with a coastline on the Adriatic Sea?

Slovenia... Or Montenegro.

Montenegro's smaller, I think.

Montenegro.

Correct. And finally, what is the smallest European country on the Prime Meridian?

-Em... Is Andorra on the Prime Meridian?

-It totally is.

-Andorra.

-Andorra.

-No, it's England.

Ten points for this. What activity is described as,

"So like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt",

in the Epistle To The Reader in a work of 1653 by Izaak Walton.

Is that music?

No, anyone want to buzz from UCL?

Physics?

No, it's angling, or fishing. Ten points for this.

Constructed between 1816 and 1830, the Glyptothek Museum

was founded to house King Ludwig I's collection of sculpture

and is located on the Konigsplatz of which German city?

Munich.

Correct. Your bonuses now are on dental pathology, York.

The Silness-Loe index, first published in 1964,

is used in dentistry to measure levels of which substance?

Plaque.

Correct. Present in plaque,

mutans and sanguis are species of a genus

of which spherical gram-positive bacteria belonging to the phylum "firmicutes"?

THEY CONFER

-We don't know.

-That's streptococcus.

The calculus that forms

when plaque hardens above or below the line of the gums

is commonly known by which name?

-Tartar.

-Correct.

Another starter question now. Examples being DNA and RNA,

what is the generic two-word term for the group of macro-molecules consisting...

Nucleic acids.

Correct. You get a set of bonuses now...

on adjectives that end in the letters "TORY", T-O-R-Y.

In each case, give the single word from the definition.

Firstly - imperious, dogmatic,

admitting no denial, refusal, appeal or challenge?

Come on, let's have it, please.

Pass.

It was "peremptory."

Rambling, aimless,

skipping from one thing to another in a half-hearted, unmethodical way.

-Circumlocutory.

-No. It's "desultory."

And finally, done merely as a token, for form's sake, hence superficial, or careless.

Perfunctory.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Which work of 1902 ends with Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail having...

-GONG CRASHES

-And at the gong,

the university Of York have 105, the University Of London have 185.

You did well on things you didn't expect to do well on,

like dentistry and so on, York.

105 is a perfectly respectable score with which to leave.

We'll have to say goodbye to you, I'm afraid.

UCL, very entertaining team, thank you for joining us.

We look forward to seeing you in round two.

I hope you can join us for another round one match.

-But until then, it's goodbye from York University.

-ALL: Goodbye!

-It's goodbye from UCL.

-ALL: Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.

APPLAUSE

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