Episode 24 University Challenge

University Challenge.

Asking the questions - Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Out of the 28 teams who qualified for this contest,

19 have already been consigned to oblivion.

Seven are through to the quarter-finals.

They'll be joined by whichever team wins this, the last of the second round matches.

Bangor University took an early lead in their first round match against St Andrews,

then lost it, regained it and just held on to it until the gong,

despite their opponents snapping at their heels.

The team will doubtless know that no Welsh institution has yet taken the series title in this contest.

A win tonight will get them closer to changing that shameful state of affairs. Let's meet them again.

Hi, I'm Adam Pearce, from Barry

and I'm studying for a PhD in Translation Studies.

I'm Mark Stevens from Cheshire and I'm studying Environmental Science.

-Their captain.

-Hi, I'm Nina Grant from London

and I'm studying for a degree in French and Linguistics.

Hi, I'm Simon Tomlinson, originally from Manchester,

and I'm studying for a PhD in Neuropsychology.

APPLAUSE

The team from Durham University are representing an institution which has taken the title twice before.

Their first round match this time was something of a breeze

and they came away with the second highest of all the first round scores -

245 against Strathclyde University

over whose performance we'll draw a veil and merely say they scored a lot, lot less.

Durham proved they are good at anagrams, they know about geology, compound words and Mandelbrot,

but after a bonus set on cocktails, you maybe wouldn't want them to mix you a drink. Let's meet them again.

Hi, I'm Philip Ferry from Ponteland in Northumberland, studying Maths.

Hi, I'm Katie Vokes from Edinburgh and I'm also studying Maths.

-Their captain.

-I'm Richard Thomas from Hook in Hampshire

and I'm studying Politics.

Hi, I'm Dominic Everett Riley from Farnham in Surrey

and I'm studying English.

APPLAUSE

You all know the rules, so fingers on the buzzers, here's your first starter for ten.

In various spellings, what surname links the American imagist poet known as HD,

a US airman who led a daring raid on Tokyo in 1942...

-Doolittle.

-Doolittle is correct, yes.

First blood to you and first bonuses are on confectionery.

Deriving its name from the Latin word for "nut", which confection is particularly associated

with the French town of Montelimar?

-Nougat.

-Correct.

Its ingredients including crushed almonds, a German variety of which confection is a speciality

of the Hanseatic city of Lubeck?

-Marzipan.

-Correct.

Its recipe including both nougat and marzipan,

the confectionery first created by Paul Furst in Salzburg in 1890 is named after which composer?

WHISPERING

-Austrian composer?

-Mozart?

-Strauss?

-Strauss?

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

Which Christian revivalist movement originated in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century

and is inspired by the experiences of the Apostles in the 50 days after the Resurrection of Christ?

-Pentecostal Movement.

-Correct.

These bonuses, Bangor, are on the Peloponnese.

Give either the name of the ancient city state in the Peloponnese or the adjective deriving from it

which means "characterised by austerity or lack of comfort".

-Spartan.

-Correct. Give the name of the region of the Peloponnese or the adjective deriving from it

which means "sententiously brief", supposedly a characteristic of its people?

-Laconic.

-Correct. Again give the name of the city in the Peloponnese or the adjective deriving from it

which means "excessively elaborate"

and links an order of classical architecture and a number of originally amateur sports teams.

-Corinthian.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

In zoology, what term denotes a common chamber

into which intestinal, genital and urinary tracts open?

The chamber is often seen in vertebrates such as reptiles and birds.

Its name is derived from the Latin for "sewer".

-Cloaca.

-Correct.

Right, Bangor, these bonuses are on the anatomy of the eye.

Name the white, fibrous outer layer of the eyeball which, at the front of the eye, becomes the cornea.

WHISPERING

-Sclera?

-Correct. Which shallow depression in the retina contains a large number of cones

and is therefore the area of greatest acuity of vision?

-Nominate Tomlinson.

-Fovea.

-Correct.

Which delicate mucous membrane covers the front of the eye and lines the inside of the eyelid?

-The conjunctiva.

-Correct.

Time for you to get going, Durham. Ten points for this.

An unusual combination in English, what two letters, both vowels,

begin words meaning the principal Turkic people of western China,

an Afrikaans word...

-U-I.

-U-I is correct, yes.

OK, you're with us now. Your bonuses are on European history, Durham.

Treaties signed in Munster and Osnabruck at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648

are given what collective name after a region of north Germany?

-Peace of Westphalia.

-The treaties reaffirmed that the ruler's faith

became the official denomination of his state. What four-word Latin expression encapsulates this point?

-Cuius regio eius religio.

-Correct.

Who was on the throne of France at the time of the Peace of Westphalia?

-1648, um...

-That could be Louis XIV.

-Louis XIV?

-Correct.

Picture round now. For your starter,

you'll see a euro coin showing a landmark in a European capital city.

Ten points if you can identify the city, any helpful wording having been removed.

-Madrid.

-It is Madrid.

It's the Puerta de Alcala.

That's one of a series of five euro coins showing major landmarks

in each of the 50 provincial capitals of Spain.

Your picture bonuses are three more coins in the series.

I want you to identify the Spanish city that the coin represents. Any helpful wording has been removed.

WHISPERING

Is that Cordoba or Granada?

-Granada.

-Granada?

-Just the city?

-Yeah.

-Granada?

-No, that's Cordoba. That's the mosque there. Secondly?

Could be Valencia.

WHISPERING

-Anything?

-There's one in Santander like that.

-Go for Santander?

-Santander?

-No, that's Palma de Mallorca. And finally?

-That's the Guggenheim. Bilbao?

-Yeah...

-Guggenheim?

-Bilbao?

-That is Bilbao. Right, ten points for this starter question.

"The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible

"from one class of citizens to give it to the other."

This statement is from the Dictionnaire Philosophique,

a work of 1764 by which Enlightenment figure?

-Voltaire.

-Voltaire is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time, Bangor, are on the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The 1932 winner John Galsworthy was awarded the prize for which series of novels,

described by the Academy as having taken his "distinguished art of narration" to its highest form?

-The Forsyte Saga.

-Correct. "This great novel...has won steadily increased recognition

"as one of the classic works of contemporary literature."

These words of the Academy refer to which novel by the 1929 laureate Thomas Mann?

Death In Venice.

-Death In Venice?

-No, it's Buddenbrooks.

When Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in 1954, which of his novels did the Academy highlight

as a particularly fine example of "his mastery of the art of narrative"?

-The Old Man And The Sea.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

"An eccentric and bohemian club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this,

"that the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his living."

These words describe which fictional club created by GK Chesterton

in The Tremendous Adventures Of Major Brown?

None of you knows? It's the Club of Queer Trades. Ten points for this.

Resulting from the action of sulphuric acid upon alcohol,

which colourless, volatile liquid shares its name

with the substance once believed to pervade all space...

-Ether.

-Ether is correct, yes.

Bonuses are on Foreign Secretaries in the words of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website.

Identify the minister from the description. All three served before 1968.

"A former Prime Minister, he cultivated a fine taste for good food, lawn tennis and philosophy.

"At the Paris Peace Conference, his behaviour was likened to that of a choir boy at a funeral service."

-When was the Paris Peace Conference?

-Was that at Versailles?

-Is there a former Prime Minister at that time?

-Palmerston?

-That's a bit early. Early 20th century.

-Campbell-Bannerman?

-Go for that.

-Campbell-Bannerman?

-No, it was Balfour. "His subordinates found him unusually modest.

"He nevertheless became the first British Foreign Secretary to win the Nobel Peace Prize,

"following his negotiation of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925."

-Austen Chamberlain.

-Correct.

"At the important Anglo-German meeting at Berchtesgaden in 1938, he mistook Hitler for a doorman."

Was Halifax the Foreign Secretary?

-Lord Halifax, I'm not sure...

-Halifax?

-It was Viscount Halifax, yes. Ten points for this.

Tragic, Resurrection, Titan and Ode To Heavenly...

-Mahler.

-Correct.

You get a set of bonuses this time on mathematics.

In each case, name the mathematical function described.

Firstly, its value is zero for negative numbers and one for positive numbers?

WHISPERING

-Natural?

-No, that's the step function.

Secondly, the derivative of that step function, sharing its designation with a geographical

or, more specifically, a fluvial feature?

River?

-Bank?

-No, that's the delta function.

And finally, a polynomial of the third degree, also the adjectival form of a platonic solid?

-Cubic.

-Cubic.

-Cubic is right. Ten points for this. Answer as soon as you buzz.

What is the minimum number of people that guarantees...

-Oh, no. A quorum?

-I'm sorry. You're going to lose five points.

..that guarantees at least three will have their birthdays on the same day?

368.

No, it's 733. Right, another starter question.

Which US President was in office during the period often known as The Era of Good Feeling

when partisan rivalry in politics diminished?

He gives his name to a foreign policy doctrine that asserted US hegemony...

-Monroe.

-Monroe is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on psychology, Bangor.

A complex in psychology that relates to an impulsive desire of a man to kill his mother is named

after which figure in Greek mythology? The son of Agamemnon, he murders his mother, Clytemnestra.

Jocasta?

WHISPERING

- Jocasta? - Jason?

-- Jocasta? - No, that's wrong.

-Jason?

- Isn't there the Electra Complex? - That's Jung.

-Come on!

-You're the psychologist.

-Jason.

-Jason?

-Jason.

-No, it's Orestes. Secondly, which complex in psychology is described

by the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler in The Neurotic Constitution

as "a compensation in the sense of an enhancement of self-esteem"?

WHISPERING

-Inferiority complex.

-Correct. After the Roman goddess of the moon,

what is the name of the complex in which a woman has a repressed desire to become a man?

- Is it Selene? - Selene is the goddess of the moon.

-Selene?

-Yes.

-Selene Complex.

-No, it's the Diana Complex.

We're going to take a music round. You'll hear a piece of popular music.

-10 points for the band performing.

-# You can go your own way... #

-Fleetwood Mac.

-It is, yes.

Go Your Own Way from 1977. You're going to hear a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song,

then a chain of covers - each artist covering a song by the artist before them.

In each case, I simply want the name of the band or solo artist.

Firstly, who's covering this Fleetwood Mac song?

# If you wake up and don't want to smile If it takes just a little while

# Open your eyes and look at the day

# You'll see things in a different way

# Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

# Don't stop It'll soon be here

# It'll be better than before Yesterday's gone... #

-Mick Hucknall?

-No, Elton John. Secondly, who is covering this Elton John song?

# Mars ain't the kind of place to raise the kids

# In fact, it's cold as hell

# And there's no one there to raise them if you did... #

Let's have an answer, please.

-What did I say? Bjork?

-No, that's Kate Bush. Finally, who's covering this Kate Bush song?

# Oh oh, oh oh oh The hounds of love are calling

# Oh oh, oh oh oh I've always been a coward

# Oh oh, oh oh oh And I don't know what's good for me

# Well, here I go... #

Shall we go for Razorlight? We'll go for Razorlight.

No, it's the Futureheads. Right, another starter question.

Frequently attacked by the Teutonic knights in the Middle Ages, the city of Kaunas was...

-Lithuania.

-Lithuania is correct.

These bonuses are on linguistics. Best known for a hypothesis further developed by Benjamin Lee Whorf,

which US linguist was the author of 1921's Language: An Introduction To The Study of Speech?

Is it Chomsky?

Anyone better than Chomsky? Chomsky?

Edward Sapir. Compiled from lecture notes after his death in 1913,

which Swiss scholar's Course In General Linguistics is credited with founding modern linguistics?

-We don't know any linguists.

-No.

-Come on!

-Berger?

-No, that's Ferdinand de Saussure.

Which US academic and philosopher was the author in 1957 of Syntactic Structures,

which first presented the idea of transformational generative grammar?

-Chomsky?

-That was Chomsky, yes.

10 points for this. In the mid-19th century, the father and son Evan and James James of Pontypridd

together wrote which song, words of which are inscribed on...

-Land of My Fathers?

-It is, yes.

They wouldn't have let you back if you hadn't got that! Your bonuses are on phases in science.

What word describes the transition of a substance from a solid phase to a gas phase

without passing through a liquid phase?

-Sublimation.

-In cell division, which phase of mitosis follows metaphase?

It's the stage during which chromatids move towards opposite poles.

Let's have an answer, please.

-Pass.

-That's anaphase. What phase of the Moon is seen when the ecliptic longitude of the Sun and Moon

differ by 180 degrees?

-180 degrees.

-Come on.

-Half Moon?

-No, it's full.

10 points for this starter. Published in 2012, The World America Made is a work by which US historian

and foreign policy commentator? His previous works include Of Paradise and Power.

-Gore Vidal?

-Nope.

Durham, one of you buzz.

-Niall Ferguson?

-No. Absolutely not. He's Scottish. Robert Kagan. 10 points for this.

What happens to a thixotropic material if it is exposed to increasing shear stress,

for example, if it is shaken?

-It gets less viscous.

-It does. Viscosity decreases or it thins.

You get a set of bonuses on the arts. In each case, give the decade that links the following.

Constable's The Hay Wain, de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater

and the first performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony?

I'm thinking around 1850s. What's your input? You know this better than me.

-1830s...

-Let's have an answer, please.

-1820s.

-Correct. Manet's Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

and the first performance of Brahms's German Requiem - which decade?

-Late 19th century?

-1870s I'd go with.

-That's just a guess.

-1870s?

-No, it's the 1860s.

And the decade linking Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, Edvard Munch's The Scream

and the first performance of Dvorak's New World Symphony?

-1890s.

-1890s is correct. We'll take a second picture round now.

Your starter is a painting that inspired a work by a major English poet.

Ten points if you can tell me the name of the poet.

-William Blake?

-No. One of you may buzz from Durham.

-Tennyson? Oh, sorry...

-No, Wordsworth. It's Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm,

which inspired Wordsworth's Elegiac Stanza. Picture bonuses shortly.

Another starter in the meantime. Meaning self-reliance, juche is the national ideology...

-North Korea.

-Well done.

That painting was by Sir George Beaumont, inspiration for Wordsworth's Elegiac Stanzas.

Your picture bonuses are three more paintings about which poems have been written.

This time you'll see photographs of the poets. In each case, I want you to identify the painter and poet.

Firstly, the painter of this work and the American poet it inspired.

-Nominate Everett Riley.

-Paul Cezanne and Wallace Stevens?

No, you're right on the painting. It is by Cezanne, but the poet there is Ginsberg.

Secondly, the painter of this work and the poet it inspired.

Anyone?

Come on, let's have it, please.

-Manet and Auden.

-No, it's Brueghel's Fall of Icarus and it is Auden, the poet.

Finally, the painter of this work and the British poet it inspired?

Let's have it, please.

-Da Vinci and Rossetti.

-Is he English?

-Yes.

-Da Vinci and Rossetti?

-It is. Virgin of the Rocks and Rossetti. Right, ten points for this.

The Italian word "pigrizia", the German "Faulheit" and the French "paresse"

indicate which negative human attribute...

-Laziness.

-Laziness is right, yes.

Your bonuses are on an Asian country, Bangor.

In which country is Dien Bien Phu, the scene of a catastrophic defeat for French forces in 1954?

-Vietnam.

-Who became President of South Vietnam in 1955, following US intervention in the country?

He was assassinated eight years later during a coup d'etat.

-Pass.

-That was Diem. Finally, who led the August Revolution in 1945

as the head of the organisation known as the Viet Minh?

He was subsequently President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam until his death in 1969.

-Ho Chi Minh.

-Correct. 10 points for this. Give the names of all three non-metallic elements

which have alphabetically successive one-letter symbols.

-Nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus.

-Correct!

Your bonuses are on satire. "It is difficult not to write satire."

These are the words of which poet, banished to Egypt after writing 16 satires that exposed

the immorality of Roman society?

Juvenal. He wrote satires.

-Juvenal?

-Correct. "Satire is a lesson," wrote Vladimir Nabokov.

What similar genre of writing did he describe as a game?

What's similar to satire?

-Come on.

-Comedy?

-Parody. "Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any."

Who wrote these words in the preface to his 1704 work A Tale of A Tub?

-That's Swift.

-Swift.

-Jonathan Swift is right.

10 points for this. A scientific and medical adviser to Elizabeth I,

which mathematician, natural philosopher and student of the occult is the subject

of an opera of 2011...

-Dee.

-Dr John Dee is correct.

These bonuses are on chemical elements. Give the name of the heavy precious metal, atomic number 78,

whose two-letter symbol is the same as the SI-consistent abbreviation for 10 to the 15 tonnes?

-It's platinum, isn't it?

-I think so.

-Platinum?

-Correct.

Which element is indicated by the abbreviation for 10 to the 12 metres?

-Magnesium?

-No, it's going to be something m.

-Come on.

-Tm, so...

-Nominate Vokes.

-Thulium.

-Correct. Which element is indicated by the SI abbreviation for 10 to the 18 seconds?

Einsteinium.

-Einsteinium?

-Correct! 10 points for this.

"Nature's torn" is an anagram of the name of what type of astrophysical object,

which creates extreme distortions in spacetime?

-Neutron star.

-Correct!

Your bonuses could give you the lead. They're on royal divorces.

Whose marriage to Louis VII of France was annulled in 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity?

She later married Henry Plantagenet.

-Eleanor of Aquitaine.

-Which English churchman, who in 1504 became the Catholic Bishop of Rochester,

earned Henry VIII's disfavour by opposing his divorce from Catherine of Aragon?

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

-Cardinal Wolsey.

-No, John Fisher.

In 1527, which sibling of Henry VIII obtained an annulment of her marriage to the Earl of Angus?

She had earlier been married to King James IV of Scotland.

-Come on.

-Mary?

-No, Margaret Tudor.

Civil Disobedience is a work of 1849 by which US author,

also noted for A Week On The Concord and Merrimack River and Walden?

-Henry David Thoreau.

-Correct!

Your bonuses now are on football, Bangor.

Which club won the FA Cup five times in the trophy's first seven seasons,

but was disbanded fewer than 10 years after winning the trophy for the last time? Come on.

-Go on.

-Royal Engineers?

-No, Wanderers. The first Football League competition took place in 1888/89

-and was won by which club...

-GONG

And at the gong, Durham have 165, Bangor have 175.

If you hadn't had that fallow period, you might have won, Durham. Thanks for taking part.

It was a good, high-scoring game. Bangor, congratulations. We'll see you in the quarter-finals.

I hope you can join us next time. Until then, goodbye from Durham,

goodbye from Bangor and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.

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