Episode 22 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. As the second round continues, five places in the quarter-finals have been taken,

three remain and one will go to whichever team wins tonight.

University College London were matched at first by York in their first match,

but they hit their stride with starters on Necker's Cube, Salvador Dali and binary numbers.

They were 80 points ahead at the gong. Let's meet UCL again.

I'm Hywel Carver from Devon, doing a PhD in simulating blood flow.

-Hi, I'm Patrick Cook from Texas, reading History.

-Their captain...

Hello. I'm Jamie Karran from London and I'm a medical student.

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

APPLAUSE

University of Warwick had to work hard to keep Edinburgh in check in the first half of their match,

then their opponents fell asleep, giving them showing off time

which they used to show knowledge of the Andes, geophysics, the letter O and diseases of the eye.

Hi. I'm Martin Rixham from Sheffield and I study Mathematics.

Hello. I'm Celia Nicholls from Canada, reading for a PhD in Film.

-And their captain...

-Hi. I'm Thomas Hayes, from Shepperton, studying for a PhD in Physics.

Hello. I'm Sumukh Kaul from Oxford, reading for a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

APPLAUSE

OK, you all know the rules, so let's get on with it. Your first starter.

A double bind, a cleft stick and a Morton's fork are among expressions cited as precursors

of which phrase, now in common use, which originated as the title of a satirical novel...

-Catch-22?

-That's right.

Your bonuses are on an English poet, Warwick.

According to an elegy of 1640 by Thomas Carey,

who, "purged the Muse's garden of its pedantic weeds",

threw away, "the lazy seeds of servile imitation and fresh invention planted"?

-Any idea?

-Milton?

-Milton?

-No, it was John Donne.

"With Donne, whose Muse on dromedary trots, wreath iron pokers into true love-knots".

Which of the Romantic poets wrote those words?

-Come on.

-Byron.

-No, it's Coleridge. And, finally,

"Dr Donne's verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding."

To which monarch is that remark attributed?

-Charles I?

-No, it was James I or VI. Ten points for this.

Urging the Tory policy of peace with France, Dr John Arbuthnot's political satire of 1712

featured characters such as Humphrey Hocus, Lewis Baboon and Nicholas Frog...

-John Bull.

-John Bull is correct, yes.

Your first bonuses are on religious agreements.

What word is used in English Bibles for a contract with God,

such as that made at Mount Sinai, when Israel agreed to obey God's laws after He freed them?

-Covenant.

-In 1638, members of which Protestant Scottish church, named after their Council of Elders,

signed a "National Covenant" to protect their form of worship?

-Presbyterian.

-OK. Were these known as the Covenanters?

-Presbyterian.

-Yes. What four-word name was given to the agreement between the English Parliament

and the Scots in 1643 to strengthen their position against Charles I?

-I forgot the question.

-A covenant of the English Parliament and Scots.

1643, if that helps.

-No.

-No.

-Pass.

-That's the Solemn League and Covenant.

"I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'Pete thinks that he is the best actor in the world.'"

These words are attributed to which Warrington-born actor who died in 2011?

-Pete Postlethwaite.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on a conjunction.

"Anthologised to weariness," according to its author,

which poem of 1910 describes triumph and disaster as "two imposters"

and encourages the reader to treat them "just the same"?

-If.

-Correct. The 1969 film If, depicting life in a British public school,

and culminating in an armed insurrection, was directed by which film critic turned director?

-Lindsay Anderson.

-In the context of the cardiac pacemaker current,

what word is denoted by the letter F in the abbreviation upper-case I, lower-case subscript F?

-Frequency.

-No, it's Funny. 10 points for this. Meanings of what word include:

in chemistry, an acid or base related to its counterpart by loss or gain of a proton,

in biology, to become temporarily...

-Conjugate?

-Correct.

Bonuses are on the vertebrate ear.

In tetrapods, what canal connects the pharynx with the middle ear?

It permits equalisation of pressure on either side of the tympanic membrane.

-Auricular canal?

-No, it's the Eustachian tube.

The vestibular and cochlear nerves are branches of the cranial nerve denoted by what number?

-Five.

-No, it's eight. Which ossicle is attached to the tympanic membrane?

-Stirrup?

-No, it's the malleus. We'll take a picture round now.

For your picture starter, you'll see a photograph of a newspaper magnate. 10 points if you can name him.

-Pulitzer?

-It is Joseph Pulitzer, yes.

He gave his name to the Pulitzer Prizes. 2011 is the centenary of his death. You'll see three pictures

of female Pulitzer winners. 5 points for each you can name.

Firstly, this 1961 Fiction Prize winner.

-Agatha Christie...?

-No, the Pulitzer is for American literature.

-Oh, OK.

-I think we'll have an answer, please.

-No, we don't know.

-Perhaps we won't!

It's Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird. Secondly, this 1989 winner for Drama.

Not a very flattering picture.

-I'm afraid we don't know that one, either.

-Wendy Wasserstein. Finally, the winner in 1982 for Poetry,

awarded posthumously.

OK. "Caroline" Duffy?

Posthumously?! She's hale and hearty! It's Sylvia Plath.

10 points for this starter. In December 2010, scientific tests showed that a mummified head,

discovered as part of a private collection, was that of which French monarch, noted for his part

in ending the Wars of Religion?

-Henri IV?

-Henri IV is right. Henry of Navarre.

Your bonuses are on the novels of George Eliot.

What was George Eliot's first full-length novel, published in 1859

and based in part on a story told to her by her aunt of a child murder?

-Adam Bede.

-Correct. Given the epithet The Radical, who is the title character of the novel of 1866

set during the time of the Reform Act of 1832?

-Tess of the d'Urbervilles?

-That's Hardy. Do not say that.

OK, no. Nothing. Sorry.

-No answer.

-Very good. Well, it's terrible. It was Felix Holt.

Set in the years before the 1832 Reform Act, which novel features a brother and sister who grow up

by a river near St Oggs?

-The Mill On The Floss.

-Yes! Recent holders of which Cabinet office

share surnames with a major Australian river, Queen Victoria's residence...

-Chancellor of the Exchequer.

-Correct, yes.

You're on level-pegging again. These bonuses are on mineralogy.

What is the chemical name of the lead ore galena?

-Lead oxide?

-No...

-Lead oxide.

-No, it's lead sulphide. In the Goldschmidt classification of elements,

what term is used of elements with an affinity for sulphur? Their ores are usually sulphides.

-No idea.

-It's a chalcophile. Its name derived from the Greek word khalkos,

chalcocite is a sulphide ore of which metal, an important resource since prehistoric times?

-Copper.

-Correct. That gives you the lead. 10 points for this.

The solo exhibition Polaroids in New York in 1973,

a study of the bodybuilder Lisa Lyon in 1983 and the portrait for Patti Smith's album Horses in 1975

are among the works of which US photographer, who died in 1989?

-Man Ray?

-No. Warwick, one of you buzz.

-Er, Karen Elton?

-No, it's Robert Mapplethorpe. 10 points for this.

"To make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make it difficult to attain."

Referring to the hero's method of delegating the task of painting...

-Tom Sawyer?

-Tom Sawyer is right.

Your bonuses this time are on words that can be made from the letters of the title Das Kapital.

In each case, give the word from the description. The French word that begins the full name

of the residence of the President of the French Republic.

-Palais? P-A-L-A-I-S.

-Yes.

-Palais?

-Correct. A Hindi word for the red spot on the forehead

used to show sect affiliation or for adornment?

-I thought that was bindi.

-That's not in Das Kapital.

Let's be convinced by our wrongness. Is it a bindi?

-There's no B in Das Kapital.

-Well...

-No, it's tilak.

A Spanish word meaning cover or lid that has come to denote a variety of cuisine?

It's like a type of curry.

-Tajine?

-Come on.

-No, OK...

-No, pass.

-Tapas. 10 points for this.

"The attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience

"correspond to a logically uniform system of thought," was Einstein's definition of what general term?

-Quantum physics?

-No. UCL?

-Philosophy?

-No, it's science. What two-word Latin phrase is formed by concatenating the letters

that indicate the web domains from Bolivia, Namibia, Finland and Germany, respectively?

-Bona fide.

-Correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time, UCL, are on languages. Thought to derive from a corruption of the word "business",

-what term denotes a simplified language produced by contact between groups...

-Pidgin.

-Right.

From the Latin for "bring into being", what term denotes a pidgin that becomes the mother tongue?

Creole.

-Creole?

-Yes. A creole reckoned to have more than one million speakers,

-Tok Pisin is an official language of which...

-Papua New Guinea.

-Correct.

Set on a small Italian island, the 1994 film Il Postino tells the story of a fictional postman

who delivers fan mail to which exiled Chilean poet, diplomat...

-Pablo Neruda.

-Correct. You get a set of bonuses on Astronomers Royal.

Who was the first Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1676, the year the Royal Observatory was founded?

-Halley.

-Edmond Halley?

-No, it was John Flamsteed.

The Astronomer Royal from 1835, George Biddell Airy's use in 1851 of the transit circle telescope

established which point of reference, later acknowledged internationally?

-The Greenwich Meridian?

-Correct. Which Astronomer Royal in 1974

won the first Nobel Prize in Physics to be awarded for astronomical research?

WHISPERING

Russell?

-Russell?

-No, Sir Martin Ryle.

We'll take a music round now. For your starter, you'll hear part of the theme music to a US TV series.

Ten points if you can give me its full title.

THEME MUSIC PLAYS

-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

So your bonuses - three more themes from TV science-fiction series,

all of which are still in orbit on various satellite channels. Firstly, for five points?

THEME MUSIC PLAYS

-Space: 1999.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-Space: 1999?

-Indeed. Secondly?

THEME MUSIC PLAYS

It isn't Stargate, is it?

WHISPERING

-Stargate?

-No, that's Farscape. And finally?

THEME MUSIC PLAYS

- Lost In Space. - Yeah.

-Lost In Space?

-No, that's Blake's 7. Right, another starter question.

What name is both a city on the River Don east of the Sea of Azov

and in Tolstoy's War And Peace, the family name shared by Petya, Nikolai and Natasha?

-Makarova?

-No.

UCL, one of you like to buzz?

-Setrov?

-No, it's Rostov. Another starter question.

In Scandinavian mythology, what is the collective name of the Three Fates

who sit at the foot of the great tree, Yggdrasil?

-Is it the Norns?

-Yes, it is.

Right, your bonuses this time are on marine invertebrates.

What is the two-word common name of Holothuroidea,

a class of echinoderms that are prized in South Asian cuisine

and known in Indonesia as trepang?

It's a two-word term.

-Sea cucumbers.

-Indeed they are!

What is the two-word common name of Pleurobrachia,

a genus of oval-shaped comb jellies covered with rows of small cilia?

WHISPERING

Didn't he say it was a long thing?

Say "sponges", something like that?

-Sponges?

-No, sea gooseberries.

Often brightly coloured with long tentacles, what is the common name of the order Actiniaria?

-That's jellyfish.

-They're clear.

-What are those things in rockpools that have tentacles?

-Barnacles?

-No, like...

-Anemones?

-Anemones. Anemones?

-Yes, sea anemones is right.

Right, ten points for this.

Answer as soon as you buzz. The three highest capitals in the world are all in South America.

Name two of them.

Lima and Sucre?

No. Warwick, one of you buzz?

La Paz and Mexico City?

La Paz is one. Quito and Bogota are the other ones. Another starter.

Which British city links the songs Back Buchanan Street

and My Old Man's A Fireman On The Elder-Dempster Line

with the traditional songs Johnny Todd and Maggie May?

-Liverpool.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on things "rare", Warwick. "Rare earths" is a term applied to the series of elements

in the Periodic Table known by what name, derived from the element with atomic number 57?

-Lanthanides.

-Correct. "Rare bird", a phrase denoting something exceptional

or extraordinary, derives from the phrase "rara avis" in the satires of which Roman author?

-Nominate Kaul.

-Juvenal?

-Correct.

"Rare Ben", in this case meaning "remarkable", is part of the inscription on the tomb

in Westminster Abbey of which dramatist who died in 1637?

-Ben Jonson.

-Correct. Level-pegging again. Ten points for this. Answer as soon as you buzz.

What word of four letters can precede the words "brake", "harrow", "drive" and "jockey"

to form compound nouns?

-Disc.

-Disc is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on shipping firsts, UCL.

Launched in 1859, the French ship La Gloire was the first of what type of ocean-going warship?

It was followed by the British HMS Warrior a year later.

A destroyer or dreadnought?

- Aircraft carrier? - How about a cruiser maybe?

-Cruiser?

-No, they were ironclads.

The Soviet naval ice-breaker Lenin, launched in 1957,

was the first surface ship to be powered by what means?

-Nuclear power.

-Correct. In the early 1900s, Enrico Forlanini built the first of what type of vessel

which is lifted out of the water by a flat or curved, fin-like device, attached by struts to the hull?

-Hydrofoil.

-Indeed it is. We'll take our second picture round now.

For your starter, you will see a painting. Ten points if you can give me the name of the artist.

-Turner.

-It is Turner, yes.

His Stormy Sea Breaking On A Shore. Three more paintings for your bonuses, depicting seascapes.

Again I want the name of the artist. Firstly?

That's Hokusai.

-Hokusai.

-Hokusai is right. Secondly?

I do not know.

WHISPERING

-Caravaggio?

-I don't think it's Caravaggio.

-Caravaggio.

-No, that's... Caravaggio?!

It's Courbet, The Stormy Sea or The Wave. And finally?

Oh, no!

WHISPERING

If you don't say something, he'll say Caravaggio again!

Come on, let's have an answer, please!

-Pass.

-That's by Renoir.

Right, ten points for this. In pharmacology, a sialagogue is a drug

that promotes or induces the secretion of what?

-Saliva.

-Correct.

You get a set of bonuses this time, Warwick, on Queen Victoria.

"Such a cold, odd man." Of which Prime Minister did Queen Victoria say those words,

though she is said to have mourned him "as a father" when he died in 1852?

CONFERRING

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

-Melbourne.

-No, he died in 1848, I think. It was Peel.

Prime Minister for almost ten years, to whom did Victoria and Albert give the disparaging name of Pilgerstein?

WHISPERING

-Gladstone.

-It was Palmerston. Finally, "the Queen bowed down with this misfortune".

These words describe Queen Victoria's reaction to the death of which former Prime Minister in 1881?

-Disraeli.

-Disraeli is correct. Six minutes to go. Ten points for this.

In geology, gibbsite is the mineral of the hydroxide of which metal?

-Calcium.

-Warwick?

-Sodium?

-No, aluminium. Ten points for this. Answer as soon as you buzz.

South Carolina is one of only two US states whose name contains six vowels. What's the other?

-Louisiana.

-Yes.

Your bonuses are on astronomy this time, UCL.

The irregularly shaped Amalthea is a moon of which planet?

WHISPERING

Saturn?

-OK. Saturn.

-No, it's Jupiter.

Neptune's largest satellite is Triton. Name either its second or third largest.

CONFERRING

Let's have an answer, please.

-Calypso.

-Calypso? No, it's Proteus or Nereid.

Which satellite is Saturn's largest and the second largest in the solar system...

-Titan.

-Correct. Ten points for this. Which composer gives his name to a pistachio-flavoured nougat

and chocolate sweet, said to be a 19th century invention of Paul Furst...

-Mozart.

-Mozart is right. Your bonuses this time are on a river, UCL.

Rising in Burundi, the Kagera and Luvironza rivers are the most remote headstreams of which major river?

-The Congo.

-The Nile. What is the English name of the upper reach of the Nile

which rises in Ethiopia and merges to become the Nile proper at Khartoum?

-There's a Red Nile as well.

-The Blue Nile.

-The Blue Nile.

-Correct.

-Yeah!

The Nile enters which lake in Egypt, created by the Aswan High Dam, named after a former President of Egypt?

-Lake Nasser?

-Lake Nasser is right. Ten points for this.

"Forsaken hatreds" is an anagram of the title of which short novel of 1902, set largely in Central...

-Heart Of Darkness.

-Correct. Here are your bonuses. They're on ancient monuments and archaeological sites.

Give the present-day country in which the following are located.

Firstly for five, the Roman settlement of Conimbriga and the Temple of Diana at Evora?

CONFERRING

Come on, let's have it, please!

-Turkey.

-Portugal. The ruined cities of Leptis Magna and Cyrene?

-They're in Libya.

-Libya.

-Correct.

The Porta Nigra, the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps, and the Rhaetian Limes or Frontier?

- Germany? - Possibly the Czech Republic?

-His guesses are good.

-OK.

-Germany.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. The Bank of England was established to support the public debt

in the wars of which monarch?

-William III.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on female Nobel Laureates since 2000.

Give me the nationality of the recipient and the prize they won.

First for five points, Shirin Ebadi?

-Iran and Peace?

-Yeah.

-Iran and Peace.

Correct. Secondly, Elfriede Jelinek?

Literature and she's German, I think.

-Literature and Germany?

-Literature and Austria. Bad luck.

Finally, Ada Yonath?

Israeli and, er...

Come on!

-Literature?

-Israeli, Literature?

-No, it's Israeli and Chemistry.

Ten points for this. In physiology, which chemical element is present in the amino acid methionine,

but not in threonine?

-Sulphur?

-Sulphur is right.

Your bonuses are on measuring instruments, UCL.

From the Greek for "drink measure", name the instrument which measures the water uptake of a leafy shoot.

-A leaky shoot?

-Leafy.

-Oh.

-Hydrometer?

-Yeah?

-Hydrometer?

-No, it's a potometer.

A hydrometer measures relative density of a liquid. What does a hygrometer with a G measure?

-Humidity or something?

-Something that's hygroscopic absorbs water, right?

-Yeah.

Come on, let's have an answer, please!

-How well something absorbs water.

-No, humidity.

From the Greek for "path", what mechanical or electrical instrument measures distance travelled?

-Pedometer.

-What?

-Pedometer.

-As in P-E-D?

-Yeah.

-Pedometer.

-No, it's an odometer. Ten points for this. Hagfish and lampreys are members of Agnatha,

a class whose name suggests that they lack what physical feature?

-Jaws.

-Correct. Your set of bonuses this time, UCL, are on Middle Eastern cities.

Esfahan and Tabriz are major cities in which Middle Eastern country?

Iran or something?

WHISPERING

-Syria?

-No, it's Iran.

Which historic city in Eastern Kerman Province was devastated by an earthquake in December 2003?

-Syria?

-No, it's Bam.

Situated close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, what is Iran's second largest city?

-After Tehran?

-Shiraz?

-Is it still called Shiraz?

-OK, nominate Cook.

-Shiraz?

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

What was the nationality of Knut Hamsun and Sigrid Undset,

winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 and '28 respectively?

-Norwegian.

-Correct.

You get a set of bonuses on chemical elements. I will give a definition of a two-letter word.

You must answer with a chemical element that has those two letters as its symbol.

First, a denial, refusal or negative vote?

-No...

-Come on.

-GONG

-And at the gong, Warwick University have 150, UCL have 220.

You were on level-pegging for much of the contest, the first half anyway,

but you just seemed to fade towards the end, so we have to say goodbye to you, Warwick.

UCL, you're a very entertaining team, despite the vast number of passes you managed to utter.

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

-Join us next time for another of these matches, but until then, it's goodbye from Warwick.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from UCL.

-Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me.

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