Episode 35 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Around 120 teams applied to take part in this contest.

28 have appeared on the series

and now only four remain as we begin the semifinals.

Next time Pembroke College, Cambridge, take on

University College London.

Whichever team wins tonight

will meet the winner of that match in the final.

The team from Worcester College, Oxford,

have demonstrated the importance of our rule which allows

the highest-scoring losers from round one a chance to play again,

because, having lost narrowly to Clare College, Cambridge,

in their first match, they went on to beat St Andrews University

in the play-offs, then Queen's College, Oxford,

Newcastle University and University College London in the later stages.

Let's welcome them back for their sixth appearance.

Hi, I'm Dave Knapp from Woking in Surrey, and I'm studying engineering.

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

and I'm studying chemistry.

And their captain.

I'm Rebecca Gillie from Weymouth, reading French and Italian.

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

WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE

The team from Manchester University

sent Selwyn College, Cambridge, home in their first-round match

and Christ Church, Oxford, in their second

but then lost to University College London in their first quarterfinal.

Needing two quarterfinal wins to qualify, they then had

an easy victory over Newcastle University but a very tough fight

against Clare College, Cambridge, winning by 20 points at the gong.

Let's meet them for the sixth time.

Hi, I'm Luke Kelly, I'm from Ashford in Kent and I'm studying history.

Hi, I'm Michael McKenna from St Annes in Lancashire

and I'm studying biochemistry.

Their captain?

I'm Tristan Burke from Ilkley in West Yorkshire

and I'm studying English literature.

Hi, I'm Paul Joyce from Chorley, Lancashire, studying for

a Masters in social research methods and statistics.

APPLAUSE

OK, let's not waste any time on the rules.

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

What country's national flag may be described as having

the colours of Noddy's hat, Gandalf the Grey's later epithet

and Rupert the Bear's jersey in vertical bands from hoist to fly?

France.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, the first set of bonuses are on Anglo-Saxon kings, Manchester.

In each case give the name and epithet by which they're known.

Firstly, canonised in 1161,

which King of England rebuilt Westminster Abbey?

Having taken a vow of chastity, he and his wife Edith

reputedly remained virgins throughout their lives.

Edward the Confessor?

THEY CONFER

No, William the Conqueror wouldn't have taken a vow of chastity.

Edward the Confessor.

Correct.

Which son of Alfred the Great united the Kingdoms of Mercia

and Wessex, thereby paving the way for his son Athelstan

to become the first King of all England in 925?

Is that Ethelred the Unready? I don't know.

It sounds like a quite competent thing to do for someone...

He has an epithet.

Ethelred the Unready.

No, that was Edward the Elder.

Which English king was murdered at Corfe Castle in 978,

nearly three years after his accession?

He was canonised around the year 1000.

-Anyone?

-Canonised.

-Alfred the Great?

-Yeah, go for it.

Alfred the Great.

No, that's Edward the Martyr. 10 points for this.

In his picture theory of meaning, which philosopher

expressed the view that a sentence must share a pictorial form with

whatever state of affairs it reports?

The theory appeared in the 1921 work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Wittgenstein.

Of course.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on schools of economic thought, Manchester.

The classical school of economic theory is generally

held to have begun with the publication of which

major work in 1776?

The Wealth Of Nations? The Wealth Of Nations.

Correct. Emerging in the mid-19th century, which school challenged

the foundations of classical theory and saw capitalism

as an evolutionary phase in economic development?

Marxism?

Historical materialism?

-Marxism.

-Marxist school is correct.

Flourishing in the USA during the 1920s, which school regarded

individual economic behaviour as part of a larger social pattern

influenced by contemporary ways of living and modes of thought?

The Chicago school.

No, it's institutionalist school.

10 points for this.

"Under pressure from the ruthless,

"the clueless combined with the spineless to achieve the worthless."

These words of the historian Norman Davies refer to

the foreign policy of which 20th-century prime minister?

Neville Chamberlain.

Yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on Persian history.

A major commercial power on the Silk Road,

which empire was founded in the mid-third century BC

and supplanted by the Sassanid dynasty in AD 224?

I've no idea whatsoever.

-Just say something.

-The Mongols.

No, it's the Parthian.

In the second century AD the Parthian Crown Prince

An Shigao renounced his title,

travelled to Han China and became one of the first

translators of texts of what religion into Chinese?

Into Chinese? Islam? Christianity?

It won't be Islam...

-Christianity. Christianity?

-Yeah.

I'm going to go for Christianity.

-Christianity.

-No, it's Buddhism.

What regnal name is shared by the Parthian ruler who

concluded the first treaty with Rome in 92 BC with the contemporary

King of Pontus, also known as Eupater,

who resisted Roman hegemony?

Choose a number.

-Regnal name.

-Oh, regnal name.

-Someone give me a name.

-Darius.

-Darius.

No, it's Mithridates. 10 points for this.

Believed to have been coined by Coleridge, what objective

relates to the way in which certain organic disorders

such as hypertension are believed to be caused or

aggravated by stress or other psychological factors?

Psychosomatic.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Manchester, are on relative distances in astronomy.

Firstly for five,

imagine a circle of one centimetre diameter on a piece of paper.

That's Earth.

Now imagine another circle, three millimetres in diameter.

That's the moon.

To the nearest 10 centimetres, how far will the moon circle

be from the Earth circle using the same scale?

THEY CONFER

About a third of that in centimetres.

I don't know. Erm...

-Let's have an answer, please.

-200.

No, it's 30 centimetres.

Using the same scale the sun would be

represented by a circle around 1.1 metres in diameter.

How far away would it be? You can have 10 metres either way.

10 metres.

Shall I just say something?

Go for 120.

120.

I'll accept that, yes, it's 118. Yes, very good.

Finally using the same scale, the nearest star Proxima Centauri,

is around 31 of what unit away from our one metre diameter sun?

-Kilometres?

-Yeah.

Kilometres.

No, it's gigametres, or million kilometres.

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

For your picture starter you will have to answer promptly.

You're going to see excerpts from definitions of three words

that are in close proximity in a standard English dictionary.

For 10 points, I want you to tell me what all three words are

in the order they appear from these definitions.

BUZZER

-Quattrocento, quaver and quay.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, three more definitions of words

which appear in close proximity in a standard English dictionary,

again I want all three words from their definitions

in the order in which they appear. Firstly, these three.

-Is that Neolithic?

-Neolithic, neolog...

Neolithic, neo...neologism and...

What's the last one?

Some antibiotic?

-What, beginning with "neo"?

-I need the last one.

Neolithic, neologism and neocitin.

No, bad luck, it's neomycin, so I can't give you the points there. Secondly...

An easy one's the Indian curry.

THEY CONFER

Anyone any idea what the second one is?

-What's the first one?

-I don't know, I'm going to come back to it!

-LAUGHTER

-Is the last one vindaloo?

-Probably.

-Go for it.

-Vanquished...

-Vanquished, something and vindaloo.

-So... Come on, you're the scientist.

-Not with maths!

-There's ligament as well.

THEY CONFER

-OK, I think we need an answer.

-Vanquished, vain and vindaloo.

-No,

it's vincibility, vinculum, and vindaloo, as you got.

Got the curry anyway. Finally...

-Jingo, jangle...

-Chang, clang...

-No, it's Jin, jingle and jingoism. 10 points for this.

Situated at the point where the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers

join to form the Ohio, which city of Western Pennsylvania

is nicknamed the City of Bridges and the Steel City?

Pittsburgh.

-Pittsburgh is right.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on entries from the Wikipedia page "Lamest Edit Wars",

a list of topics that promote a pointless controversy. Name the person

whose edit war may be summarised as follows. In each case, the answer is a single surname.

Firstly, "Should this surname redirect to the page of a US politician

"or to that of a member of the Monty Python team?"

-Palin? Palin.

-Correct.

Secondly, "What demonym describes this scientist?

"Born of Serbian parents in a part of the Austrian Empire, which later

"became a part of the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary, now in Croatia, he later became a US citizen."

-Tesla?

-Correct.

"How is the surname pronounced?

"Does it rhyme with foaling or does it rhyme with howling?"

-Cowling.

-No, it's JK Rowling. 10 points for this.

Twice adapted for the cinema, the title of which novel

of 1959 by Richard Condon has come to denote a person

who's been brainwashed by an organisation or adversary...

-Manchurian Candidate?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Manchester, your bonuses this time are on life in the words of 20th-century novelists.

"Life is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope

"surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end."

Who wrote those words in the 1925 work The Common Reader?

-Ooh...

-Go on.

-George Bernard Shaw?

-No, it was Virginia Woolf.

"Books make sense of life, the only problem is that the lives

"they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own."

These words appear in Flaubert's Parrot,

a 1984 work by which novelist?

Julian Barnes, right? Yeah.

-Julian Barnes.

-Correct. "There is no point to life, though there is a point to art."

These words were attributed to which Booker prize-winning novelist, poet and critic

shortly before his death in 1995?

-Anthony Burgess?

-Do you reckon?

-No, it's...

-Did he win the Booker prize?

-He should've done.

-Anthony Burgess.

-No, it's Kingsley Amis.

Worcester College, still plenty of time, not even halfway. 10 points for this.

From the Russian for "fist",

what term indicates the higher-income farmers who emerged after...

-Kulak.

-Kulak is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, for your bonuses,

give the largest real root of the following polynomial equations.

HE LAUGHS

Firstly, X squared - 10X + 25 = 0.

I don't know what the question means!

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

THEY CONFER

Seven?

-Seven.

-No, it's five.

Secondly, X to the power 4 minus 5 times X squared + 6 = 0.

-What was the middle bit?

-I don't know!

Five.

No, it's root 3.

And finally X to the power 6 - 64 = 0.

-64 divided by six...

-No.

-Eight.

-No, it's two!

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-We'll take a music round now.

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

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

MUSIC: "The Soldiers' Chorus"

-Is it Bizet?

-No. So you can hear a bit more, Manchester.

MUSIC RESUMES

-Verdi?

-No, it's Gounod, it's The Soldiers' Chorus from Faust.

So music bonuses shortly, another starter question.

From Greek words meaning "branch" and "tribe" respectively,

give either term that indicates the system of classifying organisms

based on their evolutionary relationships as opposed to present-day similarities.

-Taxonomy?

-No, Worcester?

-Cladistic.

-Correct.

WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE

OK, you're off, you get the music bonuses.

An excerpt from Gounod's Faust you heard for the starter.

Three more excerpts from pieces based on the Faust legend

for your bonuses.

I simply want you to identify the composer in each case. Firstly, the French composer of this piece.

MUSIC: Excerpt from "The Damnation Of Faust"

-Might be Ravel, I've got a feeling it might be.

-Or Wagner?

-It could be Ravel. I can't think who else who wrote about Faust.

-OK.

-Yeah?

-Go for Ravel.

-Is it Ravel?

No, it's not, it's Berlioz. It's from The Damnation Of Faust.

Secondly, the German composer of this work.

MUSIC: Excerpt from "Faust"

-Richard Strauss. Go for Richard Strauss.

-Yeah? OK.

Is it Richard Strauss?

No, that's Robert Schumann.

And finally the Hungarian composer of this piece, please.

MUSIC: Excerpt from "Faust Symphony"

-The Hungarian composers that I know are Bartok.

-Bartok. Shall we go with him?

-Bartok and Liszt.

-Do you know any others... Is Liszt Hungarian as well?

-He's Hungarian but I don't know...

-THEY CONFER

-Could be Bartok or Liszt. Sounds more like Bartok.

-Bartok?

No, it's Liszt's Faust Symphony. 10 points for this.

Give the three words that begin the titles of all of the following:

A short story of 1911 by Willa Cather, a web comic created by Nitrozac and Snaggy,

a 1931 cookbook by...

-Joy.

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

A 1931 cookbook...

The Joy Of.

-The Joy Of, indeed. I asked for all three words.

-APPLAUSE

Right, so, you get the set of bonuses this time.

They are on two-word terms in which the last two letters of the first word

and the first two letters of the second word are the same,

for example, ghost story, or modal algebra.

In each case, give the term from the definition.

First, a detailed examination using the approach principles

of the Greek philosopher who was tutor to Alexander the Great?

It's Aristotle.

THEY CONFER

Aristotle? No, something else?

But what?

-Aristotelian logic?

-Aristotelian, Aristotle logic.

No, it's Aristotelian analysis.

Secondly, a specific part of speech that can take a direct object,

examples being eat, make and ask.

-Some transitive verb? Transitive verb.

-Correct.

The line of longitude that passes through Greenwich?

Green... What is it?

-Something meridian. Prime Meridian.

-Correct, 10 points for this.

According to the historian GR Elton,

what political measure destroyed the last possible refuge of papalism, enriched the Crown,

and anchored the new order firmly in the self-interest of the landown...

-The introduction of the Book of Common Prayer.

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

..in the self-interest of the landowning classes who purchased the estates?

The dissolution of the monasteries?

-Correct.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time are on modern political philosophers.

A proponent of analytical Marxism, who died in 2009,

which political philosopher's works include If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?

-Nominate Kelly.

-GA Cohen.

-Correct.

Born in 1939 in Mandate Palestine, and the leading proponent of legal positivism,

which philosopher's works include The Authority Of Law and The Morality Of Freedom?

-We don't know any political philosophers.

-That were born in Palestine.

-Possibly Jewish.

-We probably do.

-There's a lot.

I don't know.

-No, sorry.

-It's Joseph Raz. Finally, credited with the reinvigoration of modern political philosophy,

which US philosopher is noted for the dictum that the principles of justice

must be chosen behind a veil of ignorance?

-John Rawls?

-John Rawls.

-Correct.

Another starter question. In 2010, to mark its 10th anniversary,

the Lowry Art Gallery commissioned which US artist

to photograph groups of nude volunteers in various locations in Manchester and Salford?

Anne Liebowitz?

No.

-Tunick?

-Yes, Spencer Tunick.

So, your bonuses this time, Manchester, are on a school of art. Firstly, for five,

which 19th-century group of French landscape painters formed a school

that took its name from a small village on the outskirts of the forest of Fontainebleau.

Avignon? I don't know.

-OK, give me a clue.

-I've no idea.

-It's a town, isn't it?

-Ardennes.

-No, it's the Barbizon school.

The Barbizon painters were greatly influenced by the 1824 exhibition in the Salon de Paris

of the works of which English painter?

-Turner? Turner.

-No, it was Constable.

Settling in Barbizon in 1849, and closely associated with the school,

which artist's works include The Gleaners, painted in 1857,

now on display in the Musee d'Orsay?

-A French Millet.

-Is there a French Millet?

-Yeah.

-The French Millet.

-That's correct, Jean Francois Millet.

Right, 10 points for this. Which vole-like Arctic rodents are noted for their mass migrations in...

-Lemmings.

-Lemmings is correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on US state capitals.

Which state capital is closest to Chicago, Illinois?

What's the capital of Michigan? Is it not...

THEY DISCUSS

The one on top would be Wisconsin?

There's no state on top of...

Come on, let's have it, please.

Ann Arbour.

In Michigan, no, it's Madison, Wisconsin.

What is the closest US state capital to El Paso, Texas?

-Albuquerque?

-Santa Fe, maybe?

Where's that, Albuquerque's the capital of New Mexico.

-No, Santa Fe's the capital.

-Are you sure?

-Yeah.

-Santa Fe.

Santa Fe in New Mexico is right.

Finally, which state capital is closer to both New York City and Philadelphia than any other?

-Baltimore?

-No, that's lower down. Vermont? No.

Come on.

-Hoboken?

-No, it's Trenton, New Jersey.

10 points for this. It's a picture round.

For your starter, you'll see a painting depicting the fall of a major historical city.

For 10 points, I want the name of the city,

which is also in the title of the painting.

Troy.

No, one of you may buzz from Worcester. You can have another look.

Carthage.

No, it's Constantinople. So, picture bonuses, shortly. 10 points for this starter question.

With the chemical formula C40H56,

what is the name of the red carotinoid pigment that gives tomatoes their red colouration?

-Lycopene.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

-OK, you're storming away now!

-LAUGHTER

Your picture starter was Delacroix's Crusaders' Entry into Constantinople,

the event marking the beginning of the end of Byzantine empire.

Your bonuses are three mosaics depicting emperors or empresses of that empire.

Five points for each one you can name.

Firstly, for five, this sixth-century emperor?

-It could be... Justinian was pretty damn successful in the sixth century.

-OK.

-Justinian?

-Justinian's right.

Secondly, this 11th-century empress?

What were empresses often called?

No idea.

-Sofia?

-No, it's Zoe.

And finally, this emperor of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empire?

Maybe Theodosius.

-Go with that? Theodosius.

-No, it's Constantine the Great.

10 points for this.

Backed by President Cristina Fernandez's centre-left government, and passed by 33 votes to 27,

which country in July 2010 became the first in Latin America to legalise gay marriage?

Brazil.

Anyone like to buzz from Worcester College?

-Argentina.

-Argentina is correct.

APPLAUSE

Worcester College, your bonuses this time are on the periodic table.

Which two elements have symbols that together spell the name of

the largest island of the greater Antilles?

-Cuba. So, copper and...

-Barium. Copper and barium.

-Copper and barium.

-Correct.

Which two elements have symbols that spell the name of

the South American people who founded their capital at Cusko in Peru in the 12th century?

-Inca. Indium and calcium.

-Indium and calcium.

-Correct.

Which three elements have symbols that spell the name of the mountain range

that includes the Eiger and Mont Blanc?

-That's Alps.

-So aluminium, phosphorus and sulphur.

-Yeah?

-Aluminium, phosphorus and sulphur.

-Well done.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

10 points for this.

"A convulsion of the lungs vellicated by some sharp serocity."

These words are Dr Johnson's description of what respiratory movement,

often a symptom of illness?

-Coughing.

-Cough is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on a disease. Scrofula, now an uncommon condition,

usually acquired by drinking infected milk,

is a form of which disease?

It's a skin disease. The king's touch would cure scrofula.

-I don't know, maybe eczema?

-Let's have an answer.

-Eczema?

-No, tuberculosis. In the Middle Ages,

scrofula was believed to be curable by the physical touch of a monarch,

and was consequently known by what name?

-King's disease?

-King's touch?

King's touch? OK, King's disease.

It's the King's evil, or the Queen's evil.

And, as a small child, Samuel Johnson was brought to London to be touched by which monarch,

the last in Britain to practise the custom?

-Charles II?

-Charles II.

-No, it was Queen Anne. Three and a half minutes to go, 10 points for this.

Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X

and a still from Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin

were among the inspirations for which Dublin-born painter's series of works?

-Bacon.

-Francis Bacon is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on national parks.

The first Scottish National Park was established in 2002,

covering Loch Lomond and which wooded glen near Loch Katrine?

The Great Glen? Yeah?

-The Great Glen.

-The Trossachs. The Great Glen is much further north.

There are three national parks in Wales.

The Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia are two, which is the third?

Is it Pembrokeshire Coast?

Pembrokeshire Coast.

Correct. Created in 1954,

which national park lies primarily within Somerset

and shares its name with a native pony characterised by a winter coat able to repel rain?

-Dartmoor?

-Dartmoor.

No, that's in Devon. It's Exmoor. 10 points for this.

Which EU member state shares its name with the palace used for the Paris peace conference of 1946?

Luxembourg?

Luxembourg is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on shorter words that can be made from the letters of the word "lyrical".

In each case, give the word from the description.

Firstly, a small tree of the genus syringa,

whose fragrant blossom gives its name to a pale pinkish violet colour?

-Lilac.

-Lilac.

Correct.

A covering or appendage of some seeds,

for example, the red fleshy cup around the seed of a yew tree?

-Come on.

-Berry.

-No, it's an aril!

A portion of a curve or a luminous discharge between two electrodes?

-Arc.

-Arc.

-Correct.

Another starter question. "This, above all, to thine own self be true."

In which of Shakespeare's plays...

-Hamlet.

-Hamlet is right, it's the advice to Laertes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on tributaries of the River Thames, Manchester.

For each, give the tributary whose name corresponds to the following.

Firstly, a river whose name rhymes with the surname of the heroine of Pride and Prejudice?

Something, a river that rhymes with... Kennet. Kennet.

Kennet is correct, yes.

Secondly, a town in East Lancashire, part of the borough of Pendle,

-along with Nelson and Barnoldswick?

-Eccles?

-No.

-No.

-Monton?

-What?

-Monton.

-Monton.

-No, it's Colne.

Finally, a timid, home-loving animal, the first character to be introduced in a novel of 1908?

-Mole? Yeah. Mole.

-Mole is right, yes.

-10 points for this.

-What five-letter German word can follow curry, blut, weiss, bock...

Wurst.

Wurst is correct. Here are your bonuses.

They're on a name.

In 2010, which director became the first American woman

to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, for her film Somewhere?

-Kathryn Bigelow.

-No, it's Sofia Coppola.

Which Act of 1701 declared Sofia of Hanover, the mother of George I,

-to be the heir to the throne of England and Ireland?

-Don't know, pass.

-Pass.

-It was the Act of Settlement.

In which modern city is the Hagia Sofia, or Church of the Holy Wisdom,

built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 537?

-Istanbul?

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

Which positive integer has the binary representation 1111?

GONG

And, at the gong, Worcester College, Oxford, have 65,

but Manchester University have 240.

CHEERING

Well, Worcester College, it's a shame to go out by such a wide margin

because, actually, you've been terrific in this series.

With the right questions, you'd have done a lot better than that.

But we have to say goodbye to you.

Many congratulations to Manchester, you go forward on that magnificent score to the final.

I hope you can join us next time for the second semifinal.

Until then, it's goodbye from Worcester College, Oxford.

-TEAM:

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye from Manchester University.

-TEAM:

-Bye.

-And goodbye from me, goodbye.

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