Episode 14 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. This is the last of the first round matches.

13 teams are already through to the next stage of the competition

and whichever team wins tonight will join them. We'll also know the four highest-scoring losers

who will compete in the play-offs.

To make the cut, the score to beat there is 140.

The University of Warwick received its royal charter in 1965

and now has a student body of around 19,000, which has included

the comedy writers and performers Stephen Merchant and Ruth Jones and the actor Carla Mendonca.

It's a campus-based institution known to students as The Bubble because many don't set foot outside.

So we're pleasantly surprised to have them here at all.

Warwick Rag Week is noted for "gnoming" when students are clingfilmed to a tree

before being covered in flour and beans, so by comparison tonight should be a doddle.

Hello out there. I'm Sean Quinn from Derry in Ireland and I'm studying Classical Civilisation.

I'm Sarah Jane Bodell from Western Kentucky and I study the History of Medicine.

-And their captain...

-I'm Andrew Shaw, from Ipswich, studying Maths.

I'm James Wheatley from Sudbury, studying Chemistry.

APPLAUSE

The University of Aberdeen was founded in 1495,

making it Scotland's third-oldest university, fifth-oldest in the UK.

It's based in the Old Aberdeen section of the Granite City

and has a student body of around 13,000.

Its connections with the energy industry and North Sea oil operations

make it attractive to overseas students. One drawback of its location is the seagulls

which frequently fight students for the contents of their chip wrappers.

The seagulls usually win. If they can't fight off a seagull, how will they cope tonight?

Alumni include the scientist James Clerk Maxwell, newscaster Sandy Gall

and the former Chancellor Alistair Darling.

Tonight's team have an average age of 23. Let's meet them.

Hi. My name is Thomas Ainge, from Northamptonshire, studying Anatomy.

-Hello, I'm Sean McMahon from Cambridgeshire, studying for a PhD in Astrobiology.

-Their captain...

Hi, I'm James King from Chicago and I'm pursuing a PhD in Divinity.

Hello. My name is Ross Collier, I'm from Sunderland, studying Politics and International Relations.

APPLAUSE

OK, the rules are unchanging. 10 for starters, 15 for bonuses,

a 5-point penalty if you interrupt a starter question incorrectly.

Here's your first starter for 10. Walking down a street throwing litter,

winding a clock in a songwriter's apartment, standing on a street in a cowboy hat

and walking two dogs out of a pet shop. From 1935 onwards,

these were among the cameo appearances of which director...

-Alfred Hitchcock?

-Correct, yes.

Your bonuses, Warwick, are on 19th-century duels.

Which Foreign Secretary's disapproval of the Walcheren Expedition in 1809

-led to his fighting a duel with the Minister of War, Lord Castlereagh, on Putney Heath?

-Ideas?

-Foreign Secretary.

-Um, I can't think.

-Spencer Percival. Was he dead?

-I don't know.

-Lord something?

-Lord Salisbury?

-It could be.

-We'll try the Marquis of Salisbury.

No, he didn't do that at all. George Canning. In 1841,

John Thomas Brudenell was tried in the House of Lords for "an assault with intent to kill and murder"

after fighting a duel with Captain Harvey Tuckett. By what earldom is Brudenell better known?

Any ideas?

-Essex?

-Earl of Essex? No.

Earl of...Northumberland?

-Er, the Earl of Northumberland.

-No, the Earl of Cardigan.

Culminating in an Act of Parliament of 1829, what political issue caused a dispute

resulting in a duel between the Earl of Winchilsea and the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington?

Was it the Reform Act? Maybe? The Reform Act?

-Er, the Reform Act?

-No, Catholic emancipation. 10 points for this...

"A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!

"Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire."

These words describe which character, the protagonist of a short novel of 1843?

-Ebenezer Scrooge?

-Correct.

Right, these bonuses are on caves, Warwick.

Sharing its name with an extinct mammal, which national park in Kentucky is the site

-of the world's longest known cave system?

-Mammoth Cave.

-Mammoth Cave.

-Correct. Including an area known as the Shaft of the Dead Man,

which caves were discovered in the Vezere Valley, Dordogne, in 1940

and are noted for their Palaeolithic wall paintings?

-Lascaux.

-Correct. Believed to have been used by the Emperor Tiberius as his personal nymphaeum,

-the Blue Grotto is a sea cave off the coast of which Italian island?

-I think it's Capri.

-I think so.

-Capri.

-Correct. 10 points for this. In geology,

what term indicates the slow, imperceptible movement of soil and detritus downhill

under the influence of gravity and processes such as successive freezing and thawing?

It's also used for the continuous deformation of metal under stress, especially at high temperatures.

-Drift?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Warwick?

-Warping.

-No, it's creep. 10 points for this. The UK Space Agency, launched in 2010,

is based in which town to the west of London? The town has featured in two James Bond films,

was the home of the first lending library, has a group of five conglomerated mini-roundabouts...

-Swindon.

-Swindon is right!

Your bonuses are on cell biology.

Negri, Cowdry and Guarnieri are among the types of inclusion bodies sometimes seen in animal cells.

What general type of pathological condition do these bodies indicate?

-Come on.

-Cancer.

-No, viral infection.

Named after the English doctor who described it in 1817,

what degenerative neurological disorder is associated with the appearance in nerve cells

of protein aggregates known as Lewy bodies?

-Alzheimer's?

-Alzheimer's or Parkinson's?

-It could be Alzheimer's.

-Would it be British?

-No.

-Parkinson's?

-Correct. H inclusions can be demonstrated in cells from patients with Alpha Thalassemia.

In what type of cell do these bodies appear?

-Some sort of blood cell?

-Try white.

-White blood cell.

-Red blood cells. We're going to take a picture round. For your starter,

a scene from a film which has been recreated using pieces of Lego.

10 points if you can name the film in which the scene appears.

-American Beauty.

-Yes!

Your bonuses are three more scenes from films illustrated through the medium of Lego. Lord knows why!

Each is based on a novel. I want the title of the film and the original author of the novel.

Firstly, this film of 1971.

-Clockwork Orange...

-By Tony Burgess?

-A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

-Correct. Secondly, this film of 1972.

-Pulp Fiction.

-No, no, it's...

Is it Scarface or The Godfather?

-The Godfather, Mario Puzo.

-Correct. And, finally, this 1980 film.

-The Shining...

-Stephen King?

-The Shining, Stephen King.

-Correct! 10 points for this starter.

After visiting Holland in the 1860s, French art critic Theophile Thore wrote a series of articles

that championed which then-neglected Dutch master as a poet of the everyday and a master of realism?

His 34 authenticated works include The Milkmaid.

-Vermeer.

-Vermeer is right, yes.

These bonuses are on art installations.

Combining clay, felt and blocks of basalt rock, The End of the 20th Century is an installation

by which German artist? He is also noted for How To Explain Pictures To A Dead Hare.

-Pass.

-Joseph Beuys. Which English artist's 1991 installation, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View,

features a garden shed which was blown up by the British Army at her request?

It is displayed in fragments suspended from the ceiling as if depicting the explosion.

-Tracey Emin.

-No, Cornelia Parker.

Curator of the 1988 exhibition Freeze,

which English artist created the mixed media installation Pharmacy in 1992?

The chap with the cows.

-Damien Hirst? Damien Hirst.

-Correct. 10 points for this.

What letter precedes "factor" in the name of a parameter that describes in electronics

the ratio of the reactance of an inductor or capacitor to series resistance and, generally,

the under-damping of an oscillatory system, expressing a relationship between stored energy

and energy dissipation?

Z?

No. Anyone want to buzz from Warwick?

-Q.

-Correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on tranquillity.

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion

"recollected in tranquillity." These lines by Wordsworth appear

in the preface to the 1802 edition of which anthology?

-I don't know.

-Intimations of Mortality...

-Shall I nominate you?

-No.

-Intimations of Mortality?

-Yeah.

-Intimations of Mortality.

No, it's the Lyrical Ballads.

In the 1868 work Lucretius, which poet wrote, "Passionless bride, divine tranquillity,

"Yearned after by the wisest of the wise"?

Why am I thinking Ted Hughes?

-1868.

-I thought he said 1968. Not Ted Hughes.

So Byron or Tennyson...?

-Let's have it, please.

-Tennyson.

-Tennyson.

-Correct.

"Fame and tranquillity can never be bedfellows." Which French thinker made that observation

in his Essais, published from 1580?

-Descartes?

-Go on.

-Descartes?

-No, Montaigne. 10 points for this.

Besieged by King John in 1215, which castle in Kent

shares its name with the physicist who co-discovered the subatomic particle called the Kaon,

the title held by the 17th-century poet John Wilmot and a romantic hero created by Charlotte Bronte?

-Rochester?

-Correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on cosmology. What name is given to the period of rapid expansion

in the early universe during which the universe grew exponentially?

-The one right after... What's it called?

-Planck Epoch?

-I think it's a very short time.

-Planck Epoch.

-The Planck Epoch?

-No, inflation.

Secondly, from Greek words meaning "heavy" and "come into being",

what is the general name for the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe?

Bary-something?

Greek, heavy. And what was the other bit?

-Making...

-Baryo-genesis?

-Baryo-genesis?

-Correct.

Finally, occurring around 380,000 years after the birth of the universe,

what era was characterised by the bonding of electrons and protons into the first hydrogen atoms?

-The Planck Epoch.

-Recombination Era.

We're going to take a music round now. You're going to hear a piece of classical music.

10 points if you name the composer.

PIANO PLAYS

-Offenbach?

-No, you can hear a little more, Warwick.

MUSIC RESUMES

Come on.

-Liszt?

-No, it's Rachmaninov. Music bonuses shortly, another starter question in the meantime.

Ten points for this. Isothermal expansion, adiabatic expansion,

isothermal compression and adiabatic compression are the four stages in the cycle of changes

in the physical condition of a gas in a reversible heat engine.

Which French engineer's name is given...

-Carnot.

-Carnot is correct, yes.

You'll recall we heard one of Rachmaninov's waltzes.

For your music bonuses, three more examples of dance forms in classical music.

All of them, like the waltz, are triple-time dances.

In each case, I want the name of the dance that gives the piece its form and its title.

CLASSICAL PIECE PLAYS

CONFERRING

Polka...? Polka maybe?

I don't know.

-Polka?

-No, that's a fandango.

Secondly, this dance of Eastern European origin?

CLASSICAL PIECE PLAYS

-Eastern European can be polka?

-Yeah.

-We'll try polka again.

-No, that's Mussorgsky's Polonaise.

And finally, this dance of French origin?

CLASSICAL PIECE PLAYS

Gavotte?

-Maybe, yeah.

-Gavotte?

Yeah.

-Gavotte?

-No, that's the Minuet from Handel's Water Music. Ten points for this.

Which three consecutive letters of the alphabet begin the names

of the largest state of peninsular Malaysia,

the largest province of Canada and the largest state of India?

-K-L-M.

-No. Aberdeen?

-M-N-O.

-No, it's P-Q-R, Pahang, Quebec and Rajasthan. Ten points for this.

What part of the body appears in nicknames given to Peace Democrats

in the north during the American Civil War

and supporters of Parliament during the English Civil War?

-Head.

-Head is correct, Copperhead and Roundhead.

Your bonuses this time, Warwick, are on a 19th century biography.

"I will publish what I know of her and make the world honour the woman as much as they admired the writer."

These words of Elizabeth Gaskell refer to which novelist?

-Charlotte Bronte.

-Correct. "How dreary 'tis for women to sit still on winter nights by solitary fires."

Mrs Gaskell's preface to her biography of Charlotte Bronte has those lines from Aurora Leigh,

which was written by which 19th century poet?

Keats?

-It might be, yeah.

-Any better ideas?

-Keats?

-No, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Finally, which novel of 1847 by one of Charlotte's siblings

did Mrs Gaskell describe as having "revolted many readers by the power

"with which wicked and exceptional characters are depicted"?

Jane Eyre?

-Is it a novel or a novelist?

-A novel.

Come on, let's have it.

-Jane Eyre?

-No, Wuthering Heights. Ten points for this.

For what do the letters CWG stand in the name of the inter-governmental commission established in 1917?

It adopted its present name in 1960 and its installations are widespread over Belgium and northern France.

-Commonwealth War Graves.

-Correct.

Warwick, your bonuses are on English or British monarchs. Identify the monarch from the description.

He became heir to the throne after the death of his mother

and less than three months later, he succeeded a monarch who, like himself, was a great-grandchild

of James I and VI?

WHISPERING

Let's have it, please.

Charles II... Charles II?

No, George I. He seized the throne from his distant cousin and was briefly succeeded by his son

and then by his brother who was killed in battle in 1485?

-That was Edward IV.

-Edward IV?

-Yeah.

-Edward IV?

-It was, yes.

He succeeded his brother and was himself succeeded by his niece

after neither he nor his predecessor had managed to father a surviving legitimate child?

-William IV.

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

If a rope encircles the Earth at a height of one metre above the ground and is then pulled tight,

how much slack will be left over?

100 metres.

Anyone want to buzz from Warwick?

-10,000 metres.

-No, it's 2 pi metres. Ten points for this.

What type of wheat with a high protein content produces a harder flour than that produced by other...

-Durum.

-Durum is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time, Aberdeen, are on fine art.

A year after the title subject's death in 1863,

Henri Fantin-Latour painted a group portrait as a homage to which fellow French painter?

WHISPERING

David?

-David?

-No, it was Eugene Delacroix.

In 1949, the German-American painter Josef Albers began a series of paintings in homage to which form?

-Still life?

-No, it's the square.

Finally, Barbara Hepworth's 1966 sculptural homage to Piet Mondrian

is displayed in the grounds of which English cathedral?

It's, you know, squares and whatnot, shapes like that.

-Lincoln?

-No, it's Winchester.

Time for another picture round.

Your starter is a photograph of a European city. To get ten points, you just have to name it.

-Bruges.

-Bruges is correct.

2012 sees the 40th anniversary of the adoption by UNESCO

of the convention to establish World Heritage Sites of which Bruges is one.

For your bonuses, three more. In each case, name the site and the country in which it is located.

Firstly for five...?

That's Ironbridge in the UK.

-Ironbridge in the UK?

-Ironbridge Gorge in England, yes.

Secondly...?

Is that Karnak in Egypt? Karnak?

-It's not Egypt, is it?

-It looks Egyptian to me.

It looks Persian or Syrian or something.

Let's have it, please.

-Karnak in Egypt.

-No, that's Persepolis in Iran.

And finally...?

Is it St Helena?

-Why would that...?

-Because of Napoleon?

-I don't know.

-Let's have it, please.

-Any ideas? No?

-St Helena, UK.

-No, it's Robben Island in South Africa.

Ten points for this. The traditional terminology of which sport,

when translated into French, includes "le gardien de guichet" and the abbreviation...

-Hockey.

-No.

Five points penalty.

..and the abbreviation JDG representing "jambe devant guichet"?

-Football?

-No, cricket. It's "wicketkeeper" and "leg before wicket". Ten points for this.

In the titles of novels, what is unqualified by John Banville,

repeated by Iris Murdoch and described as Cruel by Nicholas Monsarrat and...

-The Sea.

-The Sea is right, yes.

These bonuses are on biochemistry.

In the Krebs Cycle, Warwick,

which carboxylic acid accepts an acetyl group from acetyl coenzyme "A" to form citrate?

-Citric acid.

-Citric acid?

-Citric acid.

-No, it's oxaloacetic acid.

Assuming no intermediate compounds are used in biosynthesis,

how many molecules of carbon dioxide are generated in each round of the Krebs Cycle?

Six, I think.

-Six.

-No, it's two. Where does the Krebs Cycle occur in prokaryotic cells?

-Mitochondria.

-Mitochondria?

-Yeah.

-Are you sure?

-Wait, prokaryotic...

WHISPERING CONTINUES

-Come on.

-Shall I say "mitochondria"? Mitochondria.

-No, it's cytoplasm.

Ten points for this. London, Lorentz, centripetal, osmotic, electrostatic, van der Waals,

drag, weight and friction...

-Force.

-Force is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on a US President. In September 1974, which US President granted Richard Nixon

a full and unconditional pardon just before he could be indicted?

-Gerald Ford.

-Correct. Pardoned by President Ford in 1977,

Iva Toguri D'Aquino had been convicted of treason

for broadcasting Japanese propaganda during World War Two.

By what two-word term was she and similar broadcasters better known?

Tokyo Rose or something?

-Worth a try. Tokyo Rose?

-Correct.

Which Confederate commander in the Civil War signed an amnesty oath in 1865,

but did not have his citizenship restored until 1975 by President Ford?

-A general from the South?

-Yeah.

-Grant?

-No, that's the North. Robert E Lee.

-Robert E Lee.

-Correct. Three minutes to go. Ten points for this.

Substituting the final letter changes the French word for Monday

to the name of which rocky island in the Bristol...

-Lundy.

-Lundy is correct.

Your bonuses this time, Aberdeen, are on the genus "Homo".

Which Indonesian island appears in the binomial of a possible species of genus Homo

whose skeletal remains were discovered in 2004?

-Flores.

-Correct. The binomial of which extinct Hominidae species translates as "handy man"?

-Defer, McMahon.

-Homo habilis.

-Homo habilis is correct.

Which Hominidae species is named after a German valley where remains were found in a cave in 1856?

-Neanderthal.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

The word "terrapins" is an anagram of which verb used in botany

to denote the passage of water out of the stomata of a leaf?

-Transpiration.

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Warwick?

-Transpire?

-"Transpire" is the anagram, yes.

Your bonuses this time, Warwick, are on physics.

What term is used for the inverse of resistance and is a measure

of how easily electricity flows in a material?

-Conductivity or conductance?

-Conductivity.

-Come on!

-Conductivity?

-No, it's conductance.

After a German industrialist, what is the SI unit of conductance?

-Ohm?

-No, that's resistance.

Let's have it.

-Krupp? That's a German industrialist. Krupp.

-No, Siemens.

What is the other common unit of conductance, being the SI unit of resistance spelled in reverse?

-It's "ohm" in reverse.

-Mho?

-Yeah.

-Mho.

-The mho is correct. Ten points for this.

David Cameron became Prime Minister in May 2010. Who was the UK Prime Minister when Cameron was born?

Margaret Thatcher?

No. Aberdeen, one of you buzz?

-Heath?

-No, it was Harold Wilson. Ten points for this.

Described as Queen of the West in a poem of 1854 by Longfellow,

what is the third largest city in Ohio after Columbus and Cleveland?

-Cincinnati.

-Cincinnati is correct.

Your bonuses are on Russia. Named after a Siberian city,

the mining and smelting company Norilsk Nickel is the world's biggest producer of nickel

and which other metal, a key component in catalytic converters?

-Platinum.

-No, palladium. A UNESCO World Heritage Site,

Solovetsky Monastery is located on an island in which inlet of the Barents Sea?

-The White Sea.

-Correct. Which public figure served as Governor

of the remote Arctic region of Chukotka from 2000 to 2008?

GONG

It was Roman Abramovich, but you were too late to get the points if you knew it.

At the gong, Aberdeen have 100 and Warwick have 175.

We have to say goodbye to you, Aberdeen, but 100 is perfectly respectable.

Congratulations, Warwick. We shall look forward to seeing you in Round Two.

Join us next time for the first play-off between the four highest scoring losing teams.

-But until then, it's goodbye from Aberdeen.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Warwick.

-Goodbye.

-And goodbye from me.

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