Episode 2 University Challenge

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Another first-round match tonight - the winners go through automatically

and for the losers, the sting of defeat is tempered by the discovery

that they can take their name plates home with them.

Trinity College, Cambridge was founded by Henry VIII, but owes its existence

to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who persuaded him to establish a new college,

rather than suppressing two existing institutions to pocket the cash.

Alumni have included many pillars of the establishment including Balfour,

Tennyson, Edward VII, George VI, the present Prince of Wales and Kim Philby.

Trinity have twice been series champions, in 1974 and 1995,

and tonight's four with an average age of 20 were selected from a student body of around 1,000.

-Let's meet them.

-Hi. My name is Max Spencer.

I'm from Suffolk and I'm reading Computer Science.

Hi, I'm Lee Zhao, from Derbyshire,

and I'm reading for a PhD in Mathematics.

-Their captain.

-I'm Rosalind Lintott from Surrey and I'm reading English.

Hi, I'm Joshua Caplan, I'm from London and I'm reading Mathematics.

APPLAUSE

The team from the University of Birmingham, by comparison, have an average age of 21,

were selected out of a student body of 26,000

and have a captain chosen by the rigorous methodology of a game of "rock, paper, scissors".

The university began life in 1825 as the Birmingham Medical School

and became one of the earliest redbricks in 1900.

Its campus is the first in Britain to have its own farmers' market,

an odd inclusion for a clientele thought to dine exclusively on pizza and kebabs.

Alumni include the reality television star Ann Widdecombe,

the Thick Of It actor Chris Addison and Victoria Wood.

Let's see if tonight's team can be equally entertaining.

I'm Thomas Farrell from Essex,

studying Physics with Particle Physics and Cosmology.

I'm Kirk Surgener from Northampton and I'm studying Philosophy.

-Their captain.

-I'm Oliver Jeacock from Buckinghamshire

and I'm studying Chemistry.

I'm Eliott Rhodes from Sutton Coldfield. I study Mathematics.

APPLAUSE

Let's not waste time reciting the rules. Here's your first starter for ten.

Extending more than 1,500 kilometres south from the Arctic Ocean,

which range of mountains forms the conventional boundary between Europe and Asia?

-Urals.

-Urals is correct.

Your bonuses are on high stones, Birmingham.

Lying five miles north-west of the moorland slopes of the Long Mynd,

the Stiperstones are a ragged ridge of high hills in which English county?

-Shropshire.

-Correct. Carn Menyn, the jagged, rocky outcrops thought

to have been the source of the bluestones used in Stonehenge,

forms a part of which hills in West Wales?

-Mendips?

-In Wales? No, it's the Preseli Hills.

The ruin of an observatory built in 1883 and a war memorial to the dead of World War Two

are among man-made objects occupying the large stone plateau

at the peak of which British mountain?

-Ben Nevis.

-Correct. Another starter question.

"He was the greatest of all musicians. He taught me how to say profound things

"and at the same time remain flippant and lively."

These words of George Bernard Shaw refer to which composer, born 1756?

-Mozart.

-Correct.

So your first set of bonuses, Trinity, are on resignations.

Commenting on the terms of a government recapitalisation plan conditional on his resignation,

which British banker observed in 2008, "This was more of a drive-by shooting than a negotiation"?

It was the head of RBS.

-Fred Goodwin.

-Correct. Lord Triesman resigned as chairman of England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup

after being recorded in secret suggesting which two rival bidders might collude

to bribe referees at the 2010 finals in South Africa?

Russia and...

WHISPERING

-Russia and the US?

-No, it was Russia and Spain.

And finally for five points, after an enquiry in 2003 over financial mismanagement,

who resigned as chief executive of Hollinger International,

a global media empire that included the Daily Telegraph?

CONFERRING

-Pass.

-That was Conrad Black. Ten points for this.

Borrowdale in the Lake District was the site in the 16th century of the discovery of what mineral,

used locally for marking sheep and later in the manufacture of pencils?

-Graphite.

-Graphite is correct.

Second set of bonuses are on writers' opinions of Shakespeare.

Born 1885, which poet and novelist's poem When I Read Shakespeare includes these lines?

"And Hamlet, how boring, how boring to live with

"So mean and self-conscious, blowing and snoring

"His wonderful speeches, full of other folk's whoring!"

-George Bernard Shaw.

-No, it was DH Lawrence.

In his 1668 Essay Of Dramatic Poesy,

who described Shakespeare as "many times flat, insipid, his comic wit degenerating into clenches,

"his serious swelling into bombast, but he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him"?

-Johnson.

-Johnson?

No, that was John Dryden.

And finally for a possible five, in a letter of March 1814,

which poet wrote, "Shakespeare's name, you may depend upon it, stands absurdly too high.

"He took his plots from old novels and threw their stories into a dramatic shape"?

-Byron.

-Correct. Another starter question now.

"It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but 100 years may not produce another like it."

These words of the mathematician Joseph Lagrange refer to the death by guillotine in 1794

of which French scientist, regarded...

-Lavoisier.

-Lavoisier is correct.

This time, your bonuses are on spirals.

A spiral with the polar equation R equals A theta

is usually named after which Greek mathematician?

WHISPERING

-Euclid.

-No, Archimedes. What name is given to a spiral

in which the length of the radius vector is inversely proportional to its angle with the polar axis,

so that its equation is R theta equals A?

-Pass.

-That's the hyperbolic spiral.

Which Swiss mathematician investigated the logarithmic spiral that he called the "spira mirabilis"

and requested that one be carved on his tomb, although following his death in 1705,

an Archimedean spiral was inscribed instead?

Was Euler Swiss? Euler?

-Nominate Surgener.

-Was it Euler?

-No, it was Bernoulli. We're going to take a picture round now.

For your starter, you'll see a map featuring a river. Ten points if you can name the river.

Hudson.

No. Anyone like to buzz from Birmingham?

Yukon?

No, it's the Mackenzie River in Canada, so we'll take the picture bonuses shortly.

Another starter question in the meantime.

Formulated in a 1968 book of the same name,

which principle states that "in a hierarchy, every employee..."

-Peter Principle.

-Correct.

Everyone rises to their own level of incompetence.

So we follow on from the Mackenzie River picture starter. It flows north into the Arctic Ocean.

Picture bonuses - three more rivers that flow in a northerly direction,

contrary to the popular conception that rivers flow north to south.

Five points for each river you identify.

Firstly?

WHISPERING

-Pass.

-That's the River Bann in Northern Ireland. Secondly...?

WHISPERING

-Yenisei.

-It is indeed, yes. And finally...?

-Rhine.

-That is the Rhine, yes. Another starter question. Answer as soon as you buzz.

Give the three rhyming words that mean respectively: a playing card of the highest ranking suit in whist,

an ill-dressed or dowdy person

and a device for raising and moving fluids?

-Trump, frump and pump.

-Correct.

Your bonuses, Trinity, are on women in the ancient world in the words of the author Charlotte Higgins.

Identify the historical figure from her description.

"The first woman philosopher mathematician known to history,

"she attracted ire for her political connections and was murdered by fanatical Christians in AD 415."

-Hypatia.

-Correct.

"Hard not to think of Sian Phillips' chilling portrayal of her in the BBC series I Claudius,

"she poisoned every unfortunate who got in the way of her plan

"to have her own son Tiberius installed as Augustus's successor."

Agrippina?

-Is it Agrippina?

-No, it was Livia.

"Not until the Great Fire and the Blitz would London be visited by such destruction.

"A poster girl for anti-imperial resistance, she possessed more spirit than is usual among women,

"according to historian Dio Cassius."

-Boadicea.

-Correct. Another starter question now.

"So equal, yet so opposite are their merits that they may be balanced in endless controversy."

These words of Edward Gibbon refer to which two Greek philosophers?

-Aristotle and Plato.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on a British artist. Which Bradford-born artist once said that he emigrated

to California in the 1960s because it offered "sun, sea and sex"?

-David Hockney.

-Yes. Which Hockney painting was described as "a stunning diagram of '60s California,

"of blazing sunlight and cool water, of liquid blossoming into frozen chaos"?

The painting's title was also given to a 1974 film about the artist.

-A Big Splash.

-Yes, I'll accept that. It's A Bigger Splash.

What breed of dog are Stanley and Boodgie, the subject of a series of paintings by Hockney,

published in book form in 1998 entitled Dog Days?

-Yorkshire terrier?

-No, dachshunds. Ten points for this.

In geology, which portion of the Earth's interior lies

between the Mohorovicic and Gutenberg discontinuities,

extending from approximately 2,000 to over 35,000 kilometres below the surface?

-Mantle.

-Correct.

Your bonuses this time are on ballet dancers.

Which Cuban dancer joined the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden in 1998

and was the first westerner to dance the title role of Spartacus with the Bolshoi Ballet?

De Hoya?

-What's that?

-De Hoya?

-De Hoya?

No, it was Carlos Acosta. Margot Fonteyn declared which Australian dancer to be her favourite partner?

In addition to his many classical ballet roles, he appeared as the Child Catcher

in the film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

-Pass.

-That was Robert Helpmann.

Born in Kiev in about 1890, which dancer and choreographer was famed for his extraordinary elevation?

He retired at the age of 29 after suffering a nervous breakdown.

-Nijinsky.

-It was Nijinsky, yes.

Ten points for this. Its name thought to derive from the French for "nutmeg",

which grape variety is also known as "Melon de Bourgogne"

and is associated with white wines from the Loire region?

-Muscat?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Trinity?

-Pinot Grigio?

-No, it's Muscadet. Ten points for this.

What is the common name of Araucaria araucana?

The national tree of Chile, it's a popular tree in Britain with overlapping scale-like leaves...

-Monkey puzzle.

-Monkey puzzle is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on popular culture during the noughties.

In each case, identify the year in question.

Record producer Phil Spector was arrested on suspicion of murder,

Dido's Life For Rent was the best-selling album

and the Dixie Chicks received death threats after saying they were ashamed of the US President.

Which year?

CONFERRING

-2005?

-No, it was 2003.

Secondly, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley became the first single to top the UK charts on download sales alone,

the last weekly edition of Top Of The Pops was broadcast

and the best-selling album of the year was Snow Patrol's Eyes Open. Which year?

-2007?

-No, it was 2006.

Finally, the TV series Popstars appeared, Eminem was beaten to the Christmas No.1 by Bob The Builder

and Robbie Williams had the best-selling album entitled Sing When You're Winning. Which year?

-2002?

-Shall we go for '2?

-2002?

-No, it was 2000. I don't know why you should be expected to know that sort of stuff.

We'll take a music round now. For your starter, you'll hear a piece of classical music.

Ten points if you can name the piece and the composer.

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

-Is it Flight Of The Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsakov?

-It is indeed, yes.

APPLAUSE

So following on from The Flight Of The Bumblebee,

music bonuses - three more pieces of classical music associated with insects.

In each case, simply name the insect. Firstly...?

CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC

-A butterfly?

-No, that was Bela Bartok's From The Diary Of A Fly.

Secondly...?

LIVELY CLASSICAL MUSIC

Ant?

No, that was Ralph Vaughan Williams' Wasps Overture. And finally...?

OPERATIC MUSIC

We should know this. This is a famous one.

-Butterfly, Madame Butterfly?

-Yeah.

-Butterfly.

-It is, by Puccini, of course. Right, ten points for this.

Passed by the US Congress in 1932, the law that made kidnapping...

-The New Deal?

-No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

..the law that made kidnapping across state boundaries a federal felony is often named

after which public figure whose son Charles had been kidnapped and killed some months earlier?

-Lindbergh.

-Lindbergh is right.

Your bonuses are on the IUPAC systematic names of organic compounds

derived from ethane, C2H6.

What is the systematic name of the compound theoretically derived from ethane

by replacing one hydrogen atom with an OH group?

-Alcohol.

-No, it's ethanol.

What is the systematic name of the compound derived from ethanal

by replacing the final hydrogen atom on the substituted carbon with an OH group?

WHISPERING

-Pass.

-That's ethanoic acid.

Finally, what is the systematic name of the compound derived from ethanal by replacing the final hydrogen atom

on the substituted carbon with an NH2 group?

WHISPERING

-Pass.

-That's ethanamide. Ten points for this.

What term denotes the process carried out by symbiotic bacteria,

such as rhizobium living in the root nodules of clover and other leguminous plants,

resulting in an increase of...

-Nitrogen fixing.

-Correct.

Birmingham, your bonuses this time are on language and literature.

"The invention of languages is the foundation.

"The stories were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse."

Referring to a major novel of 1954, which author said those words?

WHISPERING

-Pass.

-It was JRR Tolkien. In an essay of 1955, Tolkien wrote

that the English phrase "cellar door" has great beauty, especially if dissociated from its sense,

and that phrases of comparable beauty are "extraordinarily frequent"

in which Indo-European language?

-French.

-No, it's Welsh. "It was like discovering a wine cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine

"of a kind and flavour never tasted before." These words refer to Tolkien's discovery

of which language, an official language of the EU since 1995?

-Finnish?

-No.

Hungarian...?

-Hungarian.

-No, it's Finnish.

Ten points for this. Which 16th century English composer's works include Gaude Glorioso Dei Mater,

the Christmas Mass Puer Natus Est Nobis

and the melody which inspired Vaughan Williams' Fantasia...

-Thomas Tallis.

-Correct.

Trinity, your bonuses are on so-called cognate anagrams,

that is, words that are both anagrams of and are suggested by the given word or phrase.

For instance, "moon starer" would give the single-word answer "astronomer". OK?

Firstly, for five points, "enraged" has what anagram that resembles it in meaning?

-Angered.

-Correct. The expression "terminal cut" has what single-word cognate anagram?

WHISPERING

-Pass.

-It's "curtailment".

Finally for five, "lithe acts" is a cognate anagram of a single-word term for what activity?

-Athletics.

-Correct. Another starter. Answer as soon as you buzz.

Three Latin American countries are among the G20 major economies.

One is Brazil. For ten points, name the other two.

-Chile and Argentina.

-No. Anyone want to buzz from Birmingham?

-Argentina and Peru.

-No, it's Mexico and Argentina. Ten points for this.

In vertebrate physiology, what term denotes the waves of contraction

and relaxation of the circular smooth muscles of the intestinal wall...

-Peristalsis.

-Peristalsis is right, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on social sciences.

Used in the subtitle of a 1985 work by the US sociologists Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge,

what term denotes the process by which religious institutions,

beliefs and practices lose their social significance?

-Cultify.

-Sorry?

-Cultification.

-Let's have it, please.

-Nominate Zhao.

-Cultification.

-No, it's secularisation.

Coined by the US sociologist Harold Garfinkel, what term describes the study of the methods

by which individuals accomplish their daily actions and make sense of their social world?

-Pass.

-That's ethnomethodology.

Explored by Homi K Bhabha as a legacy of colonialism,

what is the process by which individuals and social groups are made peripheral to the mainstream

by relegating them to the outer edges of society?

CONFERRING

-Ghettoisation.

-No, it's marginalisation.

We'll take our second picture round now.

For your starter, you will see a photograph of a comedian. Ten points if you can name him.

-Russell Kane.

-Correct.

Russell Kane won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for the Best Comedy Show in 2010.

Your bonuses are photos of three more acts who have won this award, previously called the Perrier Award.

Name each comedian or act and the decade in which they won. Firstly, this comedian and the decade he won?

WHISPERING

Rich Hall and the '90s?

No, it was Rich Hall and the noughties. Secondly...?

Jeremy Hardy and the '80s.

-Jeremy Hardy, the '80s?

-Correct. Finally, this act and the decade?

That's the League of Gentlemen.

Come on.

-League of Gentlemen, the '90s?

-Correct. Another starter.

What is being described? Composed of old red sandstone on a base of harder basalt

and close to Rackwick Bay in the Orkney Islands,

it is 137 metres high and 30 metres wide at its base and is the tallest sea stack in Britain.

Woodhenge.

No. One of you like to buzz from Birmingham?

It's the Old Man of Hoy. Ten points for this.

From the name of a Trojan prince, what word was defined by Dr Johnson

as a "blustering, turbulent, noisy fellow"? It's now used as a verb meaning to bully.

-Hector.

-Hector is correct, yes.

Now, these bonuses are on events of 1511.

In 1511, Spanish forces under Diego Velazquez and Hernan Cortes began the conquest of which large island?

CONFERRING

-Nominate Zhao.

-Tenochtitlan.

-No, it's Cuba.

Which humanist scholar published his Encomium Moriae or In Praise Of Folly in 1511?

-Erasmus.

-Correct. Henry, Duke of Cornwall was born in January 1511 and died a few weeks later.

Who were his father and mother?

Quickly!

-Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. Who described his conception of God as being

"something like a great, oblong, luminous blur"?

A Latvian-born American painter, his later work is characterised...

-Mark Rothko.

-Correct. Your bonuses this time are on botany.

What term denotes the pores in the epidermis of the leaves and stems of terrestrial plants

that allow gas exchange between the spongy layer and the atmosphere?

-Cuticle.

-No, the stoma or stomata.

What name is given to the two specialised curved cells surrounding the stomata?

-Guard cells.

-Correct. The release of water from a plant via the stomata is known by what precise term?

-Evapotranspiration.

-I'll accept that. Transpiration is correct.

Another starter question. The Bizone, which was extended to become the Trizone in April 1949,

was an economic area that was the precursor of which European republic established later that year?

-West Germany.

-West Germany is right, the Federal Republic.

Your bonuses are on disputed territories in Asia.

Name the country that lays claim to the following.

The Southern Kuril Islands, which are around the size of Skye and the Western Isles,

under Russian administration since 1945.

Russia and Japan.

-Japan.

-Japan is correct, yes.

The Aksai Chin, a high altitude desert around the size of Belgium,

over which China built a strategic highway in the early 1960s.

WHISPERING

-Mongolia.

-India. The larger part of the Golan Heights,

around the size of Greater Manchester, it was occupied by Israel in 1967.

-Syria.

-Syria is right. Ten points for this.

In meteorology, what general type of land form is associated with orographic precipitation?

-Hills.

-Hills or mountains is right. Your bonuses now are on place names in County Durham.

Firstly, which town shares its name with the family name of the Earls of Derby

and both the main town of the Falkland Islands and a North American ice hockey trophy?

-Stanley.

-Correct. Which new town is named after a miners' leader who died in 1935?

Don't know.

-Pass.

-Peterlee. Finally, which town has a name meaning "Roman fort on the Roman road"?

-Pass.

-Chester-le-Street. Ten points for this.

In which European capital are the Vondelpark, the Jordaan quarter...

-Amsterdam.

-Amsterdam is right. Your bonuses are on classical music cataloguers.

Firstly for five, assigning each piece a BWV number,

in 1950, Wolfgang Schmieder compiled the thematic index for the work of which German composer?

-Bach.

-Correct. The Viennese musicologist Otto Deutsch gives his initial to the D numbers used

in the 1951 catalogue of the works of which Austrian composer who died in 1828?

-Haydn.

-No, Schubert. A specialist in baroque music,

the US musicologist Franklin B Zimmerman compiled a 1963 catalogue of the works

of which 17th century English composer?

-Purcell.

-Purcell is right. Another starter question.

The Voyage Out and Night And Day were the first two novels

of which 20th century author and member of the Bloomsbury Group who died in 1941?

-Virginia Woolf.

-Correct. Another set of bonuses for you then.

-They're on films about poets...

-GONG

At the gong, Trinity College, Cambridge have 105, Birmingham University have 225.

Bad luck, Trinity. We say goodbye to you, but thank you for playing.

Terrific score, 225, Birmingham. We look forward to seeing you in the next stage.

-Join us next time for another first round match, but it's goodbye from Trinity College.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye from Birmingham University.

-Goodbye.

-And goodbye from me.

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