Episode 11 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge.

Asking the questions - Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. For the next half-hour, we'll be giving the student mind

a thorough kneading to prove the taxpayer's money's well spent on higher education.

Tonight's teams are playing for a place in the second round

or at least a place in the losers' play-offs.

Pembroke College is the third oldest in Cambridge,

founded in 1347 by Marie de St Pol, the Countess of Pembroke.

Its original statutes gave preference

to those born in France who had already studied elsewhere in England,

and they also required that students

should keep a close eye on each other's morals and rat on them

if they visited houses of ill repute or drank to excess.

No call for anything like that nowadays.

Its current Master is Sir Richard Dearlove,

the former head of MI6.

Alumni include William Pitt the Younger,

the poet Ted Hughes, the comedians Peter Cook, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor

and Joe Thomas of The Inbetweeners fame.

Playing on behalf of around 700 fellow students

and with an average age of 20, let's meet the Pembroke team.

Hi. I'm Mark Nelson from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, America.

I am a graduate student in nuclear engineering.

Hi. I'm Lizzie Colwill from Woking in Surrey

and I'm studying Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.

And their captain.

Hi. I'm Harry McNeill-Adams from London.

I'm reading history.

Hi. I'm Matthew Anketell from Sevenoaks in Kent.

I'm reading natural sciences.

APPLAUSE

Somerville College, Oxford, was founded in 1879

by the mathematician Mary Somerville,

a staunch advocate of women's education and suffrage.

And for the first 115 years of its existence,

it was a women-only college,

during which time it educated the Nobel Prize-winner Dorothy Hodgkin,

Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher

and the novelist AS Byatt.

It was built in North Oxford,

safely away from the predatory males in the centre of town.

And then in 1994, the rot set in with the admission of male students.

Give them an inch, they'll take a mile - just look.

LAUGHTER

Hi. I'm Hasneen Karbalai from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

I'm studying medicine.

Hi. I'm Zach Vermeer from Sydney, Australia,

and I study law.

And their captain.

Hi. I'm Michael Davies. I'm from Blackburn in Lancashire.

I'm studying politics, philosophy and economics.

Hi. I'm Chris Beer. I'm from Blyborough in Lincolnshire

and I'm studying English literature.

APPLAUSE

Let's not waste time reciting the rules.

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

"There is nothing wrong with America that can't be cured by what is right with America."

These are the words of which President

in his first inaugural address in January 1993?

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams.

Bill Clinton. Correct.

Your first bonuses are on Hans Holbein the Younger.

A portrait by Holbein includes a book bearing a Latin couplet

that translates as "I am Johannes Holbein,

"who it is easier to denigrate than to emulate."

Which humanist scholar is the subject of the portrait?

THEY CONFER

Thomas Harkins? Thomas Harkness.

No, it's Erasmus.

Secondly, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve

were the subjects of which painting of 1533 by Holbein,

which features still-life objects including a sundial and two globes?

The Ambassadors. Correct.

In 1538, Holbein visited Brussels

and painted the portrait of Christina of Denmark,

for which monarch who was considering marrying her?

Henry VIII.

Henry VIII. Correct. 10 points for this.

3, 4 ,5,

5, 12, 13

and 8, 15, 17 are...

Pembroke, Anketell.

Pythagorean triples.

Correct.

Right, Pembroke College, these bonuses are on the poetry of Byron.

Dedicated to Ianthe, which narrative poem by Byron describes the journeys of a world-weary young man

"in scorching climes beyond the sea"?

THEY CONFER

Don Juan. No, it's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Secondly, set in the Alps, which dramatic poem by Byron

features a Faust-like figure,

who is described as being "half dust, half deity"?

Um...oh, it could be, actually.

Prometheus.

No, it's Manfred.

Published between 1819 and 1824,

which epic satire in ottava rima

tells the story of a young man of Seville sent abroad in disgrace after an intrigue?

Don Juan. It is Don Juan, yes.

10 points for this. Which two initial letters

link the constellation between Leo and Libra,

a hue on the shortwave end of the visible...?

Somerville, Karbalai.

VI. Correct.

Your first bonuses, Somerville, are on biochemistry.

Firstly for 5, what two-word common name is given to organic long-chain aliphatic carboxylic acids?

They condense with glycerol, forming mono-, di- and tri-acylglycerides.

Fatty acids? Nominate Karbalai. Fatty acids.

Correct.

What term describes fatty acids whose hydrocarbon chain contains at least one double or triple bond?

Unsaturated. Correct.

Found in fish oils, what term denotes polyunsaturated fatty acids

in which the first double bond is between the third and fourth carbon atom

from the methyl end of the chain?

Omega-3. Correct.

APPLAUSE

10 points for this starter question.

Listen carefully. Answer as soon as your name is called.

Add the number of EU member states to the number of EU official languages.

Divide the total by the number of US states.

What number results?

Somerville, Davies. One.

Correct.

These bonuses could give you the lead. They're on an English abbey.

Which abbey close to the River Severn is described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner

as having "probably the largest and finest Romanesque tower in England"?

THEY CONFER

Shrewsbury. No, it's Tewkesbury.

Tewkesbury Abbey houses a memorial to Victoria Woodhull, who died nearby in 1927.

An advocate of free love, in 1872,

she became the first woman to seek election to which high office?

US President, I think.

US President. Correct.

Tewkesbury Abbey contains an organ named after which poet?

He's reputed to have played it at Hampton Court in 1654,

when Latin Secretary to the Council of State.

John Milton. Correct.

We'll take a picture round now.

For your starter,

you'll see the crest of a rugby union team

who play in the Pro12 championship,

a competition for Celtic and Italian clubs.

For 10 points, simply name the club.

Any helpful wording has of course been removed.

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams.

Leinster.

No. Anyone like to buzz from Somerville?

No idea? Take a punt.

Somerville, Davies. Edinburgh.

No, it's Munster.

So we'll take the picture bonuses shortly. 10 points for this starter question in the meantime.

"Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment,

"and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

These are the words of which political...?

Somerville, Vermeer. Edmund Burke.

Yes.

So we follow on from the very unrecognisable logo for Munster rugby club

with three more Pro12 team crests.

5 points for each team you can identify.

Again, any helpful wording has been removed. Firstly, this one, please.

It's going to be Welsh if it's a dragon, isn't it?

Cardiff?

Cardiff Dragons?

Cardiff Dragons. No, they're the Llanelli Scarlets.

Secondly...

THEY WHISPER

Leinster.

No, they're the Glasgow Warriors. And finally...

Ulster.

But what?

Ulster. Ulster is right. The red hand was a giveaway.

Another starter. Listen carefully. Answer as soon as your name is called.

A star and crescent symbol appears on the flag of four Mediterranean countries. One is Turkey.

Name two of the others.

Pembroke, Nelson.

Algeria and Tunisia. Correct. The other one's Libya.

Your bonuses are on place names.

An urban centre of prehistoric North America,

the archaeological site of Cahokia Mounds in Southern Illinois

is the largest settlement of a culture named after which major river?

Mississippi.

Mississippi. Correct.

Around 100km north of Toulouse,

Cahors is the capital of a department named after which river, a major tributary of the Garonne?

Just name a French river!

The Dordogne. No, it's the Lot.

The Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique

is, along with the Kariba, a major dam on which river system?

Zambezi?

Zambezi. Correct.

10 points for this.

From words meaning "do everything",

what Latin-derived term denotes a person with many...?

Somerville, Vermeer. Factotum.

Very good.

Somerville College, these bonuses are on mathematics.

In factorial notation, what integer is represented by 3 followed by an exclamation mark?

Six.

Correct. What is the largest prime factor of 12 factorial, the product of all positive integers up to 12

or 479,001,600?

11?

11. Correct.

The Nth primorial number is calculated by multiplying the first N prime numbers together.

What's the 3rd primorial?

12. 12.

No, it's 30. 10 points for this.

"We hear from America and the Continent

"all sorts of disagreeable things about England.

"The unmusical, anti-artistic, unphilosophic country.

"We quite agree."

These words appeared in 1914

in the manifesto issued by which group of artists and writers?

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams.

The Modernists.

No. Somerville, one of you buzz.

Somerville, Vermeer.

The Bloomsbury Group.

No, it was the Vorticists in The Blast, their manifesto.

10 points for this.

Which literary figure enlisted in the Light Dragoons in 1793?

Rescued from this, he planned the formation of...?

Pembroke, Colwill.

Sharpe.

No. You lose 5 points. He planned the formation of a Utopian community in North America,

together with Robert Southey, and in 1789,

he and Wordsworth published the Lyrical Ballads.

Somerville, Beer. Coleridge.

Correct.

These bonuses, Somerville, are on social sciences.

Regarded as one of the founders of modern social science,

which French academic was the author in 1895 of Rules Of The Sociological Method?

Levi-Strauss?

It could be.

It could be Durkheim.

You go with it.

Levi-Strauss. No, it was Emile Durkheim.

Developed by the Italian sociologists Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto,

which theory holds that the domination

of social and political systems by powerful minorities is inevitable?

The Iron Law Of Oligarchy.

No, it's the Elite Theory.

Sorry! LAUGHTER

Very nicely confident, though!

And finally, what term denotes the iron law formulated by the German political scientist

Robert Michels, by which control of any political organisation

unavoidably devolves to a small group, due to such factors as the leaders' love of power?

That's the Iron Law Of Oligarchy. Oligarchy.

Yes, the Iron Law Of Oligarchy is correct!

10 points for this. In biology, which Greek word

meaning "virgin birth" is used when an egg grows and develops

without being fertilised by sperm, a phenomenon which allows...?

Somerville, Vermeer. Parthenogenic.

Yes, parthenogenesis.

These bonuses are on the diplomat and politician Harold Nicolson.

Firstly, for 5 points. "Like a village fiddler after Paganini."

These words from Nicolson's diary in 1947

refer to the public speaking abilities of a Prime Minister and his predecessor.

For 5 points, name both.

Churchill and Attlee.

Correct. "For 17 years, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps."

These words of Harold Nicolson refer to which figure who died in 1936?

George V. George V.

Correct. What event in 1956 did Nicolson describe as

"a smash and grab raid that was all smash and no grab"?

The Suez Crisis.

Suez Crisis. Correct.

Music round. For your music starter, you'll hear the opening bars from the soundtrack of a popular film.

For 10 points, name the film.

QUIVERING ELECTRONIC NOTES

Somerville, Beer. Chariots Of Fire.

Correct.

Chariots Of Fire was included on a list of 45 films

described by the Vatican's Pontifical Council For Social Communications

as "important" in 1995,

to mark the occasion of 100 years of cinema.

Your bonuses are excerpts from the soundtracks of three more Academy Award-winning films on that list.

5 points for each you can name.

Firstly, this film, released 1993.

PLAINTIVE STRINGS

Oh, actually, is it Philadelphia?

Philadelphia. No, that's Schindler's List.

Secondly, this film, released in 1959.

EPIC ORCHESTRAL SWEEP

Ben-Hur. Ben-Hur.

Correct.

And finally, this film, released in 1968.

DRAMATIC INTRO

2001: A Space Odyssey.

Correct.

10 points for this. "Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage."

Which French thinker made this statement in the 1942 work

The Myth of Sisyphus?

Somerville, Vermeer. Camus.

Albert Camus is correct.

These bonuses, Somerville College, are on scientists born in 1913.

In each case, name the person from the description.

Firstly, a British paleoanthropologist

whose fossil discoveries in East Africa revolutionised views of human evolution.

Her works include Olduvai Gorge: My Search For Early Man.

Mary Leakey. Mary Leakey.

Correct.

Secondly, a prolific Hungarian mathematician,

the subject of the 1998 biography The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.

I think Von Neumann. Could be. Von Neumann.

No, it's Paul Erdos.

And finally, a British radio astronomer,

the first director of the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire.

Hubble?

Hubble. No, that's Sir Bernard Lovell.

10 points for this.

The national flag of which Central American country is unusual,

in that it depicts human beings, in this case, two woodcutters?

It gained independence from the UK in 1981.

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams. Belize.

Belize is right, yes.

Your bonuses, Pembroke College, this time are on eye rhymes -

that is, pairs of words that end in the same letters, but don't rhyme, for example,

lasagne and champagne.

In each case, give both words from the definitions.

Firstly, device used by musicians to mark time

and perfect example of a specific quality or type.

THEY CONFER

Epitome and metronome. Correct.

Secondly, aircraft such as a Tiger Moth or Sopwith Camel

and infusion of leaves or flowers of plants other than Camellia sinensis.

Biplane and tisane.

Yes, correct.

Moisture exuded through the skin

and cereal grass of the genus Triticum.

Sweat and wheat.

Correct. 10 points for this.

What letter and number

denote the vitamin which is also the designated food colour E101?

It imparts a yellow-orange colour...

Pembroke, Anketell. B12.

No. You lose 5 points. ..to commercial vitamin supplements.

BUZZ Too late. It's B2.

10 points for this.

Developed in the 1950s and generally indicated by a single six-letter word,

which is the principal worldwide system of transcribing Chinese characters...?

Somerville, Davies. Pinyin.

Pinyin is right.

These bonuses are on industrial chemical processes, Somerville.

Which process for making sulphuric acid

involves the oxidation of sulphur dioxide

to sulphur trioxide over a vanadium pentoxide catalyst?

Boyle Process. No, it's the Contact Process.

Born 1838, which Belgian chemist gives his name to a process

for making sodium carbonate from sodium chloride, calcium carbonate and ammonia?

Hayburn. No, it's Ernest Solvay.

What is the name of the process

used to make ammonia by combining hydrogen and nitrogen over iron catalysts?

It's Haber-Bosch, isn't it? Yes. Haber-Bosch process. Correct.

10 points for this.

Concatenating the first and second person singular forms of the English verb "to be"

give the infinitive of what Latin verb?

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams.

Ere.

No. You lose 5 points.

Often used as a paradigm.

Somerville, Karbalai.

Love - amare.

Amare or amo is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on published works whose titles begin with the words "The Man Who".

Which 1888 novella by Rudyard Kipling

tells of a pair of adventurers who become rulers of a remote part of Afghanistan?

The Man Who Would Be King.

Correct. Concerning an anarchist group operating in London,

the name of which day of the week completes the title

of GK Chesterton's novel of 1908, The Man Who Was...?

The Man Who Was Thursday. Correct.

First published in 1985, which compendium of neurological case studies by Oliver Sacks

is subtitled "And Other Clinical Tales"?

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.

Correct.

We're going to take a second picture round now.

For your starter, you'll see a painting.

All you have to do to get 10 points

is to give me the name of the artist.

Pembroke, Anketell. Constable.

It is Constable, yes.

Constable lived from 1776 to 1837.

For your bonuses, you'll see paintings by three more artists

who were born in one century and died in another.

In each case, I want the name of the artist

and the centuries of their birth and death.

Firstly for 5...

Gauguin, isn't it?

19th and 20th?

Paul Gauguin, 19th and 20th.

Correct. Secondly...

That looks like... What's his name? It'll be 15th and 16th.

The young guy who got kicked out of his town.

I can't remember his name.

Botticelli, 15th and 16th.

No. It's Caravaggio, the 16th and 17th centuries.

And finally...

OK, that's Hans Holbein, I believe.

16th and 17th.

No...

Van Eyck, 16th and 17th?

Van Eyck, 16th and 17th.

No. It is Van Eyck, but it's 14th and 15th. Bad luck.

10 points for this. Frequently used by researchers

and known by the abbreviation TNA, which Government department

has its headquarters at Kew in southwest London?

Pembroke, Colwill. National Archives.

Correct.

Pembroke College, your bonuses are on railway lines in England.

A line from Exeter to Barnstaple is known by what name, after a novel of 1927 by Henry Williamson?

Um...

Devon.

No! The Tarka Line, after Tarka The Otter.

The line from Norwich to Sheringham has what designation, after a wading bird found in the nearby wetlands?

THEY CONFER

Storks and cranes wade...

Curlew.

No, it's the Bittern Line.

And finally, the line from Grantham to Skegness

via Boston is known by what name,

after a traditional song?

Greensleeves. No, it's the Poacher Line, after the Lincolnshire Poacher.

Five minutes to go. 10 points for this.

In probability theory, what is the covariance between two independent real-valued random variables?

Somerville, Karbalai. 0.5.

Anyone like to buzz from Pembroke? Pembroke, Nelson.

Zero. Zero is correct, yes.

Pembroke College, your bonuses are on ores.

What is the principal metal extracted from the ore galena?

Lead. Lead. Correct.

Mined since antiquity, which metal is extracted from cassiterite?

Copper? Could be copper.

THEY CONFER

Calcium. No, it's tin.

What metal is extracted from bauxite?

Aluminium. Aluminium. Correct.

Four minutes to go. 10 points for this.

Derived from Russian, "gulliver", meaning head and "khorosho", meaning good, are slang words...

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams. A Clockwork Orange.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on South America.

In each case, name the country in which the following major geographical features are located.

All three countries are larger than the UK.

First, for 5 points, the Sao Francisco River and the Mato Grosso Plateau.

THEY CONFER

Argentina.

No, it's Brazil.

The volcanoes Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.

Ecuador. Correct.

And finally, the Angel Falls and Lake Maracaibo.

Venezuela. Correct.

Answer as soon as your name is called.

Which comedy by Shakespeare is the source of the opera by Berlioz, entitled Beatrice And Benedict?

Somerville, Vermeer. Much Ado About Nothing.

Correct. Your bonuses are on fiction.

Name the 19th-century novel which inspired each of these later works or sequels by other authors.

First, Adele by Emma Tennant.

Jane Eyre?

Is it? She's the ward, is she? I don't know.

Let's have it, please.

Jane Eyre. Correct.

Rebecca And Rowena by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Ivanhoe, I suppose.

Ivanhoe.

Correct. And finally,

The Independence Of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough.

Pride And Prejudice. Pride And Prejudice. Yes.

10 points for this. The Visconti and Sforza families

are primarily associated with which major Italian city?

Somerville, Beer. Venice.

No. Pembroke?

Pembroke, McNeill-Adams.

Milan. Milan is correct.

Pembroke College, your bonuses are on anagrams in French.

For example, aimer - A-I-M-E-R -

and maire - M-A-I-R-E.

In each case, give both the French words from the English definitions.

Firstly, handsome, fine or beautiful

and dawn or daybreak.

Beau and ebau.

No, it's beau and aube.

Secondly, tapestry and shop specialising in cakes and pastries.

Tapestry and patisserie.

Patisserie and tapisserie.

Finally, dog and populous country in East Asia.

Chien and Chine. Correct.

10 points for this.

In astrophysics,

the abbreviation AGN stands for...?

Somerville, Beer. Active galactic nucleus. Correct.

Here's your bonuses on former capital cities, Somerville.

Which city was the capital of British India

from 1772 until the establishment of New Delhi in 1911?

Calcutta. Correct.

The city of Vlore on the Adriatic

was briefly the capital of which country when it became independent in 1912?

1912, I don't know. Albania?

What do you think?

Albania. Correct.

Which city was the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 until the early '90s?

Bonn. Bonn is correct.

Another starter. Deriving its name

from the Greek word for "being",

which branch of metaphysics...?

Somerville, Davies. Ontology.

Correct.

These bonuses are on broken engagements in the works of Charles Dickens.

In each case, name the character to whom the following were at one time or another engaged to be married.

First, for 5 points, Belle.

Let's have it, please.

David Copperfield. Ebenezer Scrooge.

Secondly, Rosa Bud.

Come on!

GONG

That's the gong.

Pembroke College, Cambridge, have 145.

Somerville College, Oxford, have 255.

APPLAUSE

You were good, Pembroke,

but not good enough to beat these guys, who seemed to be on fire at various points.

Somerville College, Oxford, 255. Terrific score. We shall look forward to seeing you in round two.

I hope you can join us next time for another first round match,

but until then, it's goodbye from Pembroke College, Cambridge. ALL: Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from Somerville College, Oxford. ALL: Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye!

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