Episode 20 University Challenge

University Challenge! Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman!

Hello. There are eight places in the quarter-final stage of this contest,

and three of them have been taken by a couple of Cambridge colleges, Clare and Homerton,

and the University of Newcastle.

Whichever team wins tonight will join them.

Now, the team from Queen's College, Oxford have the second

highest score from the first round matches, earned with a very

comfortable win over Kings College, Cambridge by 280-195.

On that occasion, they showed an encyclopaedic knowledge of pioneering women

and sporting venues, and took in their stride a set of questions of inhuman complexity,

requiring them to spell the names of fruit and vegetables using chemical symbols.

Let's meet them again.

Hi, I'm Peter Sloman, I'm from Garstang in Lancashire,

and I'm reading for a DPhil in History.

Hello, I'm James Kane, I'm from Manchester, and I'm reading Japanese.

Their captain.

Hi, I'm Matthew White, I'm from Pershore in Worcestershire,

and I'm studying for a DPhil in Maths.

Hello, I'm Leila Hill from Sale in Cheshire, and I'm studying Chemistry.

APPLAUSE

Now, the team from Worcester College, Oxford lost on their first appearance,

but were able to return as one of the four teams with the highest losing scores from round one.

They then earned their place in the second round by beating St Andrews convincingly in their play-off,

impressing us with their knowledge of Abbey Road and the Primrose Path,

while giving the strong impression that Mr Knapp must have been assigned the task

of boning up on world geography.

Let's meet the Worcester College team again.

Hi, I'm Dave Knapp,

I'm from Woking in Surrey,

and I'm studying Engineering.

Hi, I'm Jack Bramhill, I come from Colchester in Essex,

and I'm studying Chemistry.

And their captain.

Hi, I'm Rebecca Gillie, I'm from Weymouth in Dorset,

and I'm reading French and Italian.

Hi, I'm Jonathan Metzer from London, and I'm reading Classics.

APPLAUSE

Usual rules, ten points for starters, 15 for bonuses.

Fingers on the buzzers, here's your first starter for 10.

Johannes Vermeer, Jack Worthing, Lord Henry Wotton, Professor George Falconer, Fitzwilliam Darcy

and King George VI are among the screen roles of which British...

Colin Firth.

Correct, yes.

Your first bonuses, then, Worcester College, are on an African river.

The Zambezi is the longest African river to drain into the Indian Ocean.

What is the second longest, rising as the Crocodile River in central southern Africa,

and draining into the Indian Ocean after a series of rapids in Mozambique?

I think it's the Limpopo.

-Limpopo?

-He has been boning up on world geography! Yes.

For much of its course, the Limpopo forms the border between South Africa

and two other countries. One's Zimbabwe, what's the other?

-Erm...

-Botswana?

-Yeah, try that.

Botswana?

Correct, yes. The Limpopo borders which national park

at the north-eastern corner of South Africa?

In 2002,it became part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Game Park.

-I think it's the Kruger.

-Kruger?

It is the Kruger, yes. Right, ten points for this.

What five-letter word links the highest mountain of Switzerland,

a game played with three cards, often fraudulently,

a major tourist attraction of Monaco, and a Benedictine

monastery to the south of Rome, destroyed in a battle of 1944?

Monte?

Monte is correct, yes.

Now, your first bonuses, Queen's College, are on mottos.

Multum in parvo, meaning much in little,

is the motto of which small English county that's home to

one of the largest reservoirs in Western Europe?

Rutland?

Correct. Associated with the engineer noted for his work in draining the Fens,

the motto of South Cambridgeshire District Council

translates as "nothing without effort",

and is thought to be the only British civic motto in which language?

Dutch?

Correct, and the city of Exeter and the town of St Malo in Brittany

share what Latin motto meaning "always faithful"?

Nominate.

Semper fidelis?

Correct. Also the US Marine Corps, of course.

Right, ten points for this starter question. Similar in appearance, what two seven-letter words mean

respectively - person considered to have powers such as telepathy or clairvoyance,

and science dealing with the properties...

Psychic?

I'm afraid you lose five points. ..with the properties and interactions of matter and energy?

-Psychic and physics.

-Correct.

Right, your bonuses this time, Worcester College, are on explorers.

Which two British explorers became, in February 1858, the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika?

-Stanley and Livingstone.

-Stanley and Livingstone?

No, it was Burton and Speke. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

led the first US expedition across the American interior to the Pacific Northwest in 1804.

What two-word term denotes the major territorial acquisition that they were to survey?

-Louisiana Purchase?

-Correct.

What were the surnames of the two explorers who led an expedition

of 1860-61 across Australia from the south to the far north?

Both of them died on the return journey.

My guess is...Wallace. I think one's Wallace.

-Who?

-I think one's Wallace. Wallace...and Edwrads, or something.

Wallace and Edwards?

No, it's Burke and Wills. Ten points for this. Which language did the philologist Sir William Jones

describe in 1786 as "More perfect than the Greek, more..."

Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is correct, yes.

Your bonuses, Queen's College,

are on Chemistry. Meaning "becoming salt", what term denotes the group of elements

in the periodic table that form a salt by direct union with a metal?

Halogens?

Correct. Which of the halogens is a radioactive element with a short half life,

and therefore rare in nature?

It's the heaviest element of the group, and has the symbol At.

Astatine.

Correct. Which pale yellow gas is the least dense and chemically the most active of the halogens?

It displaces the other halogens from their compounds, and displaces oxygen from water?

Fluorine.

Correct. We're going to take a picture round, now.

Your picture starter is a diagram.

For ten points, simply tell me

the person who created it.

Florence Nightingale?

Yes, it is. It's the causes of mortality of the Army in the Crimean War.

That was one of the earliest examples of a pie chart.

For your bonuses, three more historically significant diagrams.

In each case, name the scientist who drew it. Firstly, who drew this?

Copernicus?

Correct. Secondly, who drew this?

-Darwin?

-Darwin's first diagram of an evolutionary tree, yes.

Finally, who drew this?

Isaac Newton?

Correct, yes.

Another starter question. Sociable, masked and yellow-wattled

are three species of which bird of the plover family?

The northern species, sometimes called...

Lapwing.

Correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on the names of railway stations, Worcester College.

The full name of which English railway station refers to

the meadows within the parish of a nearby church,

established by the Knights Templar in the 12th century?

Bristol Temple Meads?

Correct. Which London railway terminus derives its name from a church

built on the bank of a small stream, then called the Tyburn?

Marylebone?

Correct. In which British city is the main railway station named after

a series of novels published between 1814 and 1831?

Hull?

No, it's Edinburgh, Edinburgh Waverley being the station in question.

Right, ten points for this. When denoting an alloy used to enclose uranium fuel elements

in some nuclear reactors, for what does the abbreviation magnox stand?

-Manganese oxide?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Queen's College?

It's magnesium non-oxidising. Ten points for this.

Chevalier, Officer, Commander, Grand Officer and Grand Cross are

the five grades of which award for civil and military service...

-The Legion d'honneur.

-Correct.

Your bonuses, Queen's College, are on pairs of words whose spelling differs by the substitution

of a double "o" for a single "o" in the middle.

For example, cop and coop.

In each case, give both words from the definitions provided.

Firstly, for five points, the bouquet of wine or whisky,

and a loop with a running knot, sometimes used to symbolise marriage.

-Let's have an answer, please.

-Pass.

It's nose and noose.

Secondly, built with a hemispherical vault, and destined for catastrophe.

Domed and doomed.

Correct. One with an unusual fondness for alcohol, and carbonaceous deposit in chimneys.

Sot and soot.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Answer as soon as you buzz. At 248 metres, Ditchling Beacon, near Brighton,

is higher than the highest point in five US states.

One of them is Rhode Island.

For ten points, name two of the other four states.

Delaware and Florida.

Correct, the others are Louisiana and Mississippi.

Right, your bonuses this time, Worcester College, are on the Pulitzer Prize.

Which political figure won the 1957 prize in biography for Profiles in Courage,

recounting acts of bravery and integrity by US senators?

Eisenhower?

No, it was John F. Kennedy. Secondly, which trumpeter became

the first jazz artist to win the prize for music,

when he won the award for his 1997 performance piece Blood On The Fields?

-Nominate Knapp.

-Herb Alpert?

Herb Alpert?! No, it's Wynton Marsalis.

In April 2010, the cartoonist Mark Fiore became the first journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize

while working solely in what medium?

Television?

Photography?

-I don't know.

-Shall we go with that?

-Go with that.

Photography?

No, it's online, or on the Internet. Ten points for this.

Hydrogen has three isotopes - protium, tritium and which other?

Deuterium.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on galaxies, Worcester.

The Whirlpool and Andromeda galaxies are among those objects which

have designations referring to which French astronomer,

who catalogued the first of them in 1774?

-It begins with an M, I think.

-No idea!

-Messier?

-Yeah, Messier.

Messier?

Messier is right. Which US astronomer's name is given to the spiral galaxies with

brilliant nuclei and faint arms, first described by him in 1943,

and also to a specific series of six galaxies?

Hubble?

No, it's Seyfert. And finally, in Markarian galaxies, named after an Armenian astrophysicist,

emit excessive amounts of what form of radiation?

X-rays?

No, it's ultraviolet. Right, we're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter, you'll hear an extract from an opera.

Ten points if you can name the opera.

Is it La Boheme?

It's not. Queen's College, you can hear a little more.

Lakme?

It is Lakme, yes.

-I'm amazed it took you so long!

-Yeah!

Right, that was the Flower Duet, of course, from Lakme.

Your music bonuses, three more operas set in Asian countries.

Five points if you can name both the opera and the Asian country where the opera is set.

Firstly, for five, a work which premiered in 1987.

SPEECH INAUDIBLE OVER MUSIC

-Pass.

-LAUGHTER

After all of that? Oh, dear!

It's Nixon In China, of course, it's China, then.

Secondly, this Italian opera premiered in 1898.

I'd like the country it's set in, please.

Japan?

Yes, and the opera?

Madame Butterfly.

No, it's Iris. And finally...

Pass.

That's from The Pearl Fishers, which is set in Ceylon, or Sri Lanka.

Ten points for this. "The worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence

in our English." Those words, by William Caxton, described which poet, born around 1343?

Chaucer.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on architecture.

New York's Seagram Building and Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois

were designed by which German architect who declared, "less is more"?

-Nominate Sloman.

-Mies van der Rohe.

Correct. What did Adolf Loos, the designer of the Steiner House in Vienna,

describe as a crime in an article of 1908?

Fountains?

No, ornament! They'd probably be included, though.

In his 1923 work Toward an Architecture,

which Swiss-born architect stated that "the plan is the generator",

meaning one should always start from the floorplan?

Busier?

-Le Corbusier.

-Le Corbusier?

No, I'm afraid I have to take your first answer, and you misheard it.

He had it right, it's Le Corbusier. Right, ten points for this.

"All things are from water, and all things are resolved into water."

These words are attributed to which pre-Socratic philosopher,

born in Miletus around 625BC?

Parmenides?

No. Worcester?

One of you buzz.

Anaxagoras?

No, it's Thales. Ten points for this.

Which conflict of July 1969 is so named because troubles...

The Football War?

Yes, well done!

If you get these bonuses, you'll take the lead, Queen's College.

They're on Nobel Laureates. In each case, I'll give you the name of the first woman

to win the Nobel Prize in a specific field.

For five points each, you have to name the prize and the decade in which they won it.

Firstly, for five points, Bertha von Suttner.

Come on, let's have a guess.

THEY CONFER

-Medicine?

-Maybe.

-In what decade?

Come on, then.

Er, medicine, 1960s?

No, it was Peace, and it was between 1900 and 1910, she got it in 1905.

Second, Gerty Theresa Cori.

It's not Peace.

-Not Peace, so we've got it down to five!

-I don't think it's Economics.

-Medicine?

-Yeah, well done.

Medicine, 1920s?

No. It was Medicine, but it was the 1940s. And finally, Elinor Ostrom.

-Physics. The '70S?

-Curie got Physics.

-Curie was the first one for Physics?

-Yeah. Well, I don't know,

-but it won't be the '70s.

-OK.

-What decade, any idea?

-'60s.

Economics, 1960s?

No, bad luck. It was Economics, but it was in 2009.

Ten points for this.

The name of which chemical element links the mammal vulpes fulva,

the trees abies alba and betula alba...

Tungsten?

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

..and Roman authors including Martial, Tacitus and Pliny?

Silver.

Silver is correct, yes.

OK, these bonuses, Worcester College, are on New York.

Which major city of New York state derives its name from an honorific title

originally bestowed on young, male members of the Dutch nobility?

Yonkers.

Correct. Which district of New York City derives its name

from a Dutch word meaning farm, because it was built on

the site of that owned by the governor, Peter Stuyvesant?

-The Bronx?

-No, it's Bowery.

And finally, which borough of New York became an independent city in the 1830s,

but reverted to being part of greater New York in the 1890s,

after the construction of a bridge linking it to Manhattan?

Long Island?

No, it's Brooklyn. We're going to take our second picture round.

Your picture starter is a photograph of a sculpture.

Ten points if you can give me the name of the artist.

Anish Kapoor?

It is Anish Kapoor, yes.

That's his Cloud Gate in Chicago.

Picture bonuses, three more works of public art, this time in the United Kingdom.

Five points each if you can give me the name of the artist. Firstly...

Moore?

Henry Moore is correct, yes. Secondly...

Mark Wallinger?

No, it's not. It's Andy Scott, I'm afraid, his Heavy Horse. And, finally...

-Nominate Knapp.

-Antony Gormley.

Yes, Another Place, well done. Ten points for this.

Differing only in the order of their initial two letters,

which two terms mean "height above sea level" and "distance from the equator"?

Er, elevation and...

No.

Altitude and latitude.

Correct.

Right. Your bonuses, this time, are on words that begin with the same letters.

In each case, give the word from the description.

Firstly, a toroidal apparatus used for producing controlled fusion reactions in hot plasma.

Torus Reactor?

No, it's a tokamac. The last shogunate of Japan, founded in the early 17th century

and overthrown in 1867.

Nominate Metzer.

Is it Tokugawa?

Correct. And finally, a sweet, aromatic wine made in north-eastern Hungary.

Tokaji.

Tokaji is correct, yes. Another starter question now.

"Colourless green ideas sleep furiously."

That sentence was devised by which US linguist...

Noam Chomsky.

Correct.

Your bonuses this time, Queen's College, are on cruciferous plants.

Armoracia rusticana, used in cooking, has a root which,

when cut, produces an oil that irritates the eyes and sinuses,

and has what common name?

-Oil? It's not Arnica, is it?

-No.

-Which oil?

-I was going to go for some sort of herb, but...

Go for it.

Rosemary?

No, it's horseradish.

Lunaria is cultivated for its flat, translucent seedpods,

sometimes known as moonpennies, and has what common name?

Almond?

No. Honesty. Isatis tinctoria, a cruciferous plant that's been used to produce an indigo dye,

has what common name?

Mada?

No, it's woad. Five minutes to go, ten points for this.

Which historical term for a public stagecoach is also an abstract noun,

meaning "persistent application and endeavour"?

Diligence.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on the films of David Lean this time.

In each case, identify the film from its description. Firstly, based on a novel

by the French author Pierre Boulle, a 1957 Oscar-winning film starring Alec Guinness.

-Gigi?

-No, it's Bridge over the River Kwai.

Based on a play by Noel Coward, a 1945 film starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

Brief Encounter.

Correct. Based on a novel by Charles Dickens, a 1946 film starring John Mills and Valerie Hobson.

Oliver Twist?

No, it's Great Expectations.

Ten points for this. Who, at Pebble Beach Links in California in June 2010,

became the first UK winner of the US Open since Tony...

Graeme McDowell?

Graeme McDowell is correct.

Right, your bonuses, Worcester College, are on Greek prefixes.

What prefix, derived from the Greek for stranger, forms part of one word meaning a fragment of rock

incorporated in magma, and another meaning a dislike of foreigners?

Xeno?

Xeno is right. The prefix "xyl", that's X-Y-L,

denotes objects or substances derived from what material?

Wood.

Correct. What is the literal meaning of the prefix "xero",

that's X-E-R-O, found in words such as xerocopy and xerophyte?

Copying?

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

In Greek mythology, Geryon, the three-bodied giant of Erytheia,

is killed and has his cattle stolen by which divine hero?

Hermes.

No. Anyone like to buzz...

Heracles?

Heracles is correct, yes.

The tenth of his labours. Your bonuses, this time, are on the Pacific Theatre in World War II.

In each case, give the present-day country in which the following battles took place.

Firstly, the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943.

Papua New Guinea.

No, it's Kiribati. Secondly, the Guadalcanal campaign from August 1942 to February 1943.

Philippines?

No, it was in the Solomon Islands. And finally, in the Battles of Bataan and Corregidor in early 1942.

Philippines?

That was the Philippines, yes. Ten points for this.

In ecology, the terms photo, geo, helio and hydro can all prefix what word...

-Tropism.

-Tropism, or tropic, is correct.

Your bonuses, this time, are on exiles, Queen's College.

St John is said to have written the book of Revelation

while in exile on which Greek island in the Aegean?

-Nominate.

-Patmos.

Correct. Which Spanish painter and engraver, whose etchings

"The Disasters of War" depicted the horrors of the French invasion of Spain,

spent his last years in voluntary exile in Bordeaux?

Goya.

Correct. In 1960, after leaving Tibet, at which hill station in northern India

did the Dalai Lama set up his government in exile?

-Nominate.

-Dharamsala.

Correct. Ten points for this. During the 20th century,

there were two years in which two general elections were held...

1910 and 1974.

That's correct, yes.

Your bonuses, this time - if you get any, you'll be on level pegging - are on anagrams of the word "omen".

Firstly, "nemo me impune lacessit" is a Latin motto,

principally associated with which flowering plant?

Thistle.

Correct. Meno is a Socratic dialogue that attempts to define what

general ethical concept, known in Greek as arete?

Virtue?

Correct. Nome, a town situated on an inlet of the Bering Sea,

was formerly the largest settlement of which US state?

Alaska.

Correct. That gives us level pegging. Ten points for this starter question.

Published in 1850, Rebecca and Rowena, by William Thackeray, is a humorous sequel

to which novel by Walter Scott?

-Ivanhoe.

-CHEERING

Correct. Your bonuses, this time, are on seaside settings in fiction.

Firstly, for five, in which novel of 2007 by Ian McEwan do Edward and Florence spend their wedding night

at a hotel on the Dorset coast?

On Chesil Beach.

Correct. Dickens's David Copperfield describes which town on

the Norfolk coast as "rather spongy and soppy",

only to be told that it was "upon the whole, the finest place in the universe"?

-Come on, let's have it, please.

-Pass.

-Cromer.

No, it's Great Yarmouth. Set in a Sussex seaside town,

which the entrepreneurial Mr Parker hopes to develop into a fashionable resort,

Sanditon is an unfinished novel by which author?

Let's have it.

Anthony Trollope?

-No, it's Jane Austen. Ten points...

-GONG

And Queen's College, Oxford have 185,

Worcester College, Oxford have 200.

Well, it was a great match, and very, very closely fought indeed.

We'll have to say goodbye to you, Queen's,

but it was a terrific performance. To go out on 185 is pretty distinguished,

so you'll be fine in the bar when this is transmitted!

And, Worcester College, 200, another great performance from you.

We shall look forward to seeing you in the quarter-finals.

-I hope you can join us next time. Until then, it's goodbye from Queen's College, Oxford.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Worcester College, Oxford.

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]