Episode 31 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. We've seen the team from Worcester College, Oxford,

become the first to qualify for the semi-finals by winning the required two quarter-final matches.

They'll be joined by whichever team wins tonight because both have already one win behind them.

The losers will play again and get one final opportunity.

The team from Pembroke, Cambridge, beat St Anne's College, Oxford, Nottingham University

and then Balliol, Oxford, in their first quarter-final.

Their simple, but effective strategy was to build up a strong lead from the word go

and hang on to it until the gong. With an average age of 20, let's meet them for the fourth time.

My name's Edward Bankes, from Sevenoaks, reading English.

-I'm Ben Pugh from London, reading German and Russian.

-Their captain...

I'm Bibek Mukherjee from Canterbury and I'm reading Economics.

Hi, I'm Imogen Gold from London and I'm reading Engineering.

Clare College, Cambridge, scraped a win against Worcester, Oxford, by only 10 points in the first round,

then pounded Leeds University, coming away with a winning margin of 255.

They then beat Homerton, Cambridge, in their first quarter-final, despite trailing near the end.

With an average age just over 20, let's meet them again.

Hi, my name's Kris Cao, from Oxfordshire, reading Mathematics.

-Hi, I'm Daniel Janes, from London, studying History.

-Their captain...

Hi, I'm Jonathan Burley from Bourne End and I'm reading Physics.

Hello. I'm Jonathan Foxwell from Farnham, reading Natural Sciences.

OK, the rules are the same as ever. Here's your first starter for 10.

Who stood as the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour seat of Dartford at the General Elections

of 1950 and 1951 before being elected...

-Margaret Thatcher?

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on a country, Pembroke College.

Mario Vargas Llosa, the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature,

stood for the presidency of which country in 1990?

-Peru.

-Correct. Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima is named after the pilot who, in 1910, flew from Brig

to Domodossola over the Simplon Pass, making the first air crossing of which mountains?

-Er, Alps?

-Correct. Although known by an English name following his arrival in London,

which figure in children's fiction was known as Pastuso in Peru?

-Paddington Bear.

-Yes. 10 points for this.

What initial three letters link a city in North China that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1976,

the lake in Ethiopia...

-Is it...TIA?

-No. Next time if you buzz you must answer straight away.

You get a 5-point penalty.

..the lake in Ethiopia that is the source of the Blue Nile and a sea port in Morocco...

-TAN.

-TAN is correct, yes.

Right, these bonuses are on the humours.

A choleretic increases the secretion of what fluid from the liver?

It was one of the four humours of early physiology and called choler.

-Bile.

-Correct. Which humour, characterised as cold and moist,

was a secretion of the mucous membrane and is the source of an adjective meaning calm?

-Phlegm.

-Correct. Meaning hopeful or confident, what adjective is derived from the name

given to the complexion or humour that was dominated by blood?

-Sanguine.

-Correct. Another starter question. Quote:

"Dry, obscure, contrary to all ordinary ideas and prolix to boot."

These are the words of which German philosopher describing his own 1781 work, The Critique of Pure Reason?

-Immanuel Kant.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on Parliament.

Usually a Member of Parliament, who is the government's principal legal adviser,

the role involving civil law functions as well as criminal law?

-Attorney General?

-Correct. Dating to 1415, which officer ensures the order and security of the Commons

and is the only person allowed to carry a sword there?

-Black Rod.

-The Serjeant at Arms. The holder of which office acts as custodian of the Great Seal

and is Secretary of State for Justice?

-Lord Chancellor?

-Correct. 10 points for this starter.

Coined in 1777 by the Scottish physician William Cullen,

what familiar but imprecise term describes a relatively mild mental disorder characterised by anxiety,

depression or irrational fears, but without psychotic symptoms?

-Psychosomatic?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Pembroke College?

-Sociopathic?

-No, it's neurosis. 10 points for this.

"A game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented

"in order to give themselves some conception of eternity..."

-Cricket?

-Yes!

Lord Mancroft's description. Your bonuses are on an element.

On what would have been his 537th birthday, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

confirmed on February 19th, 2010, that element number 112 had been named after which scientist?

-Copernicus.

-Correct. As element number 112, copernicium was made

by fusing isotopes of which two familiar metallic elements with atomic numbers 30 and 82?

-Iron and gold?

-No, zinc and lead. Copernicium was discovered at the Helmholtz Centre in Darmstadt

which had also isolated the previous five new elements, numbers 107-111.

Five points if you can name two of them.

-Nominate Pugh.

-Meitnerium and Seaborgium.

No, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium and Roentgenium. A picture round now.

You will see the first eight positions in the American presidential line of succession

as outlined in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.

10 points if you can give me the office that is missing.

-Speaker of the House.

-Speaker of the House is right.

Your picture bonuses are three recent Speakers of the US House of Representatives.

Five points for each. Firstly...

-Nancy Pelosi.

-Correct. Secondly...

-Er, Tom Foley?

-No, that's Tip O'Neill. Finally...

-John Boehner.

-"Bayner".

-That's correct. Same person. 10 points for this.

The Roman Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, said to be the world's largest Christian church,

is in the official capital...

-Ivory Coast.

-Right, yes.

Your bonuses are on fictional books. Which animated TV series has featured Great Machete Battles,

Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War and Harry Potter and the Balance of Earth?

-Futurama.

-Correct. Ethel The Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying

and 30 Days In The Samarkand Desert With The Duchess of Kent

are fictional titles in a sketch devised by which BBC comedy team?

-The Two Ronnies?

-No, Monty Python.

Stu The Cockatoo Is New At The Zoo is used by Sheldon Cooper

to create a flowchart in which US sitcom?

-The Big Bang Theory.

-Correct. 10 points for this.

Used from the Middle Ages to refer to the Eastern Mediterranean and after WWI for Syria and Lebanon,

what short term is the present participle of the French verb to rise?

-Levant.

-Levant is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on a name.

Used by Pliny the Elder and the Venerable Bede,

what ancient name for Britain is thought to derive from Latin for white in allusion to the cliffs?

-Alba.

-Albion!

-Yeah.

-No, I have to take your first answer. It's Albion.

Alba was just the northern part.

The Emanation of the Giant Albion is the subtitle of which poem,

written and engraved by William Blake in the early 19th century?

It might be...

-The Marriage of Good and Evil?

-No, Jerusalem. What adjective was applied, originally in French,

to Albion by the Marquis de Ximenes in a poem in 1793 and later by Napoleon departing for St Helena?

-Perfidious.

-Perfidious?

-Correct.

Another starter. Sometimes called Suicide Bags because of their roles in apoptosis...

-Lysosomes.

-Correct!

Right. Your bonuses are on hexagons.

What natural product consists of a vertical lattice of rhombic decahedra

with a hexagonal cross-section at the open end and walls less than 0.1mm thick?

-Carbon nano tubes?

-No, honeycomb. What concept was introduced by Linus Pauling in 1931

to explain why a benzene molecule is a regular hexagon with six carbon-carbon bonds of equal length?

-Delocalisation.

-Resonance theory.

The earliest known paper to conjecture on the hexagonal structure of the snowflake,

the 1611 essay On The Six-Cornered Snowflake was the work of which German astronomer?

-Kepler.

-Kepler is right. 10 points for this.

If the numbers from 1 to 100 are written in words and placed in alphabetical order,

the first is Eight, the second Eighteen, the fiftieth is One.

What number is the hundredth and last?

-Ninety-seven?

-Nope.

-Seventy-seven?

-No, it's two. 10 points for this. Quakes, fuse, skua and ukase

are among words that may be made with letters of which adjective?

Meaning impenetrably oppressive, senseless or disorienting,

it's an eponym of a novelist born in Prague in 1883.

-Draconian?

-No. Anyone from Pembroke College?

-Kafkaesque?

-Kafkaesque is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on words meaning very small.

Which synonym for very small can also mean a letter in lower case?

-Miniscule?

-Correct. Minium, the Latin for cinnabar, was the origin of a verb

meaning to paint with vermilion or illuminate a manuscript

and thence, via an Italian art term, to which common word meaning very small?

-Miniature?

-Correct. Which six-letter synonym for tiny comes from the past participle

of a Latin verb meaning to lessen?

-Minute?

-Correct. 10 points for this. What personal quality did Albert Camus describe

as a way of getting the answer "yes" without having asked any clear question?

-Intelligence?

-Nope.

-Beauty?

-No, it's charm. Listen carefully and answer as soon as you buzz.

Five European countries have internet codes that begin with a different letter from that

which begins their one-word English name. One is Serbia, that is .rs. Name three of the others.

-Germany, Hungary and...

-No.

-..Ukraine.

-Nope.

Pembroke?

-Er, Germany, Switzerland and Croatia?

-Yes. The other is Spain.

OK, your bonuses this time are on circumlocutions of the US military.

What piece of equipment, often used by soldiers on manoeuvres,

was given the name frame-supported tension structure by the Pentagon?

Tent, maybe?

-Tent?

-Tent is correct. On one occasion, hexaform rotatable surface compression unit

was the Pentagon's term for which object?

-A spade?

-OK. Spade?

-No, it's a nut.

And what is the usual English word for what the Pentagon has called an aerodynamic personnel decelerator?

-Parachute? Parachute.

-Parachute is right, yes.

We'll take a music round now. There's still plenty of time, Clare, for you to come back.

Your music starter is an extract from an opera.

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

OPERA MUSIC PLAYS

-Purcell?

-No. You can hear a little more, Clare College.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Is it Handel?

No, it's not. It's Telemann.

We'll take music bonuses in a moment or two. In the meantime, another starter question.

Which area of South London on the River Thames links Henry VIII's Royal Dockyard,

Peter the Great's education in shipbuilding, the knighting of...

-Deptford.

-Deptford is right, yes.

That piece of Telemann you heard was from Don Quichotte.

For your bonuses, three more extracts from classical works based on Cervantes' Don Quixote,

this time all from the late 19th or early 20th centuries.

Five points for each composer you can name. Firstly, the French composer of this piece?

CLASSICAL PIECE PLAYS

-Nominate Janes.

-Is it Jules Massenet?

-It is, yes. Well done.

Secondly, the Austrian composer of this ballet?

MUSIC PLAYS

-Strauss.

-No, that was Ludwig Minkus. And finally, the German composer of this opera?

CLASSICAL MUSIC

That could be Richard Strauss.

- He did do Don Quixote. - Richard Strauss.

-Strauss.

-Which one?

-Richard.

-Correct.

Ten points for this starter question.

When Dr James Murray began compiling the New English Dictionary in the late 19th century,

he worked from a corrugated iron shed to which he gave what name,

that of a chamber in medieval monasteries for the copying of manuscripts?

-Scriptorium.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on the novels of Charles Dickens. Which 1838 novel

by Dickens includes a chapter headed "Containing an account of what passed between Mr and Mrs Bumble

"and Mr Monks at their nocturnal interview"?

WHISPERING

-Oliver Twist.

-Oliver Twist.

-Correct.

"Too full of adventure to be briefly described", "The story of the goblins who stole a sexton"

and "Samuel Weller makes a pilgrimage to Dorking

"and beholds his mother-in-law" are chapter headings in which novel?

Try Our Mutual Friend.

WHISPERING

-Nicholas Nickleby.

-Nicholas Nickleby

-No, they're from Pickwick Papers.

Which novel of 1849 has chapters entitled "I am born", "I become neglected and am provided for"

and "I assist at an explosion"?

-David Copperfield.

-Correct. Another starter question.

The medical term "lordosis" denotes an inward curvature of what part of the body?

-Is it the spine?

-It is the spine, yes.

Right, Clare, your bonuses this time are on eponymous states of matter.

After a Danish physicist, what eponym is used for a dilute gas where the mean free path is greater

than the dimensions of the apparatus containing it, so molecular collisions can be ignored?

CONFERRING

-Bose.

-No, it's a Knudsen gas.

An Indian and German-born physicist together give their names to what phase of matter...

-Bose-Einstein condensate.

-Correct.

What term for a solid that is both viscous and elastic is named after a British and a German physicist?

WHISPERING

-Name a German physicist.

-Let's have it, please.

-Newtonian...

-No, it's a Kelvin-Voigt material.

Ten points for this. What given name links a US civil rights leader murdered in New York in 1965...

-Martin Luther King.

-I'm afraid you lose five points.

..four kings of Scotland, a fictional...

-Malcolm.

-Malcolm is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on young British artists. In each case, name the artist from her works.

Firstly for five, the monumental paintings Plan and Torso 2

and the triptych entitled Strategy: South Face, Front Face, North Face

which appeared on the cover of The Manic Street Preachers' album, The Holy Bible?

Tracey Emin doesn't paint, does she?

-Maybe Tomma Abts?

-Sorry? Nominate Pugh.

-Tomma Abts?

-No, it's Jenny Saville. Secondly, for a possible five,

the photographic series of 1992 to '93 entitled "Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs

"that say what someone else wants you to say"?

-Might as well guess Emin.

-Tracey Emin?

-No, Gillian Wearing.

Finally, the photographic series entitled Naked Flame and Crying Men

and the 2009 feature film, Nowhere Boy?

Sam Taylor-Wood.

-Sam Taylor-Wood?

-Yes, Sam Taylor-Wood.

-Sam Taylor-Wood.

-Correct.

A second picture round now. For your starter,

you will see the family tree of figures from the Old Testament.

Ten points if you can name the missing figure highlighted.

-Abraham.

-It is Abraham, yes.

So, Clare College, your picture bonuses invite you to identify three more members of Abraham's family

from their place in his family tree. Who should be at "A"?

WHISPERING

-Hagar.

-Correct. Secondly, at B?

WHISPERING

-Lot.

-Yes.

And finally for five points, who's at C?

-Jacob.

-Well done, yes.

Ten points for this. A port in Yemen on the Red Sea, an order of friars founded in 1525 and Italian...

-San. S-A-N.

-No, you lose five points

..and Italian words meaning "stained" and "pressed out" are all associated with which beverage?

-Coffee.

-Coffee is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on England.

England, Your England is the title of the first part of which long essay by George Orwell in 1941

in which he suggested that England is "a family with the wrong members in control"?

CONFERRING

-Inside The Whale.

-Inside The Whale?

-Inside The Whale.

-Inside The Whale.

-The Lion And The Unicorn.

England, Their England, a novel of 1933 expressing a satirical view of English life and manners

from a Scottish perspective is by which author and journalist?

-When's it from?

-I don't know.

-What date?

-Pass.

-That's by AG Macdonell. And finally,

England, My England is the title of a collection of short stories including Wintry Peacock,

The Horse Dealer's Daughter and Fanny And Annie, published in 1922 by which novelist?

-Virginia Woolf?

-Virginia Woolf?

-No, DH Lawrence. Ten points for this.

A military organisation established in 1920,

Haganah became the basis of the army of which state after...

-Is it Israel?

-Yes, it is.

Your bonuses are on an Italian city, Clare College.

In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII paid tribute to the people of which city,

declaring them to be the "fifth element" alongside fire, water, earth and air?

-Florence.

-Correct. Containing artwork by Donatello and Giotto,

which Franciscan abbey in Florence is the burial place of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli?

WHISPERING

Sorry, I don't know.

-Pass.

-Santa Croce. Finally, in 2008, 700 years after it was issued,

Florence's city council revoked a sentence declaring that which poet would be burned at the stake

if he ever returned to the city?

-Dante.

-Correct. Another starter question. What flower links a 1985 film directed by Woody Allen,

a song by Edith Piaf...

-Rose.

-Rose is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on pharmacology, Clare College.

Antipyretic pharmaceuticals reduce what general medical condition?

-Fever.

-Correct. What is reduced by the group of pharmaceuticals known as sartans?

WHISPERING

-Blood pressure.

-Correct.

What lipid component of plasma is lowered by the class of drugs known as statins?

-Cholesterol.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

What activity is the subject of a painting of 1930 by CRW Nevinson,

donated to Manchester Art Gallery because it seemed "peculiarly suitable for Manchester"...

-Is it football?

-It is, yes.

Your bonuses are on damaged reputations now.

In which comedy by Sheridan do Lady Sneerwell, Mrs Candour

-and Sir Benjamin Backbite...

-Nominate Foxwell.

-No, it's not.

..do their worst to damage as many reputations as possible?

-School For Scandal.

-Nominate Janes.

-The School For Scandal.

-Correct.

Shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, Notes On A Scandal...

-Zoe Heller.

-Correct. The 1989 film Scandal is based on the events surrounding the revelation in 1963

-that which politician had an affair...

-Profumo.

-Correct. Another starter question.

"Dia", "para", "ferri", "ferro" and...

-Magnetic?

-It is magnetism, yes.

Your bonuses are on men born in the year 1829. Identify the person from the description.

An Apache leader who led an uprising of 1881 to '86 in Arizona and New Mexico. He later became a farmer...

-Geronimo!

-Correct. A German philologist who gives his name to the dictionary confirmed in 1902

as the official standard for German spelling?

-Pass, pass.

-Pass.

-It's Duden.

A Bavarian who, in 1853, founded the clothing company in San Francisco

that is held to be the first maker of blue jeans?

-Levi.

-I can't accept. Levi Strauss. Ten points for this.

Admirers of which author hold an annual Bloomsday celebration...

-James Joyce.

-Correct. Your bonuses this time are on space telescopes.

Give the name of the broad energy band of the electromagnetic spectrum each telescope detects.

First, the Chandra Observatory?

-X-ray.

-The Fermi Space Telescope?

-Quickly!

-Infrared?

-No, it's gamma-rays.

And the Spitzer Space Telescope?

-Optical.

-No, that is infrared. Ten points for this.

In terms of the relative proportions of land and water,

what geographical feature is said to be the converse of an isthmus...

-A river?

-No, you lose five points.

..Examples include Bab-el-Mandeb, Messina, Bering and Gibraltar.

-A strait.

-A strait is correct.

Your bonuses are on escapes by boat.

Helped by the family of her gaolers, which royal figure escaped by boat from Lochleven Castle in May 1568?

-Mary, Queen of Scots.

-In June 1746, Flora MacDonald helped Charles Edward Stuart escape to Skye

from which island situated between North and South Uist?

Come on.

-Mull.

-Benbecula. In 1943, citizens of which Nazi-occupied country achieved the clandestine evacuation

of more than 7,000 Jews...

-Denmark.

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

What two-word term denotes a unit of distance with the same abbreviation as the chemical symbol for gold?

-Astronomical unit.

-Correct. Another set of bonuses on a shared name.

Which of Henry VIII's wives, accused of intent to commit treason, was beheaded in 1542

after the execution of Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper?

-Catherine Howard.

-Correct. Howard is the family name of which dukes whose seat is at Arundel Castle?

-Norfolk.

-Correct. Lord Howard of Effingham commanded the English forces in 1588

-when they faced which fleet under the Duke of Medina...

-GONG

And at the gong, Clare College have 175

and Pembroke College have 250.

Bad luck. You had a terrific comeback, but just left it a little bit too late. Thank you very much.

You'll play one more quarter-final to have a chance of going through to the semis. We look forward to that.

Terrific performance again from you, Pembroke College. You definitely go through to the semi-finals.

We look forward to seeing you there. Congratulations.

-Join us next time for another quarter-final, but until then, it's goodbye from Clare College.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Pembroke College.

-Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me.

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