Episode 32 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello.

So far, we've seen Emmanuel College Cambridge and Edinburgh University

take the first two places in the semifinal stage of this competition.

Both teams playing tonight lost their first quarterfinal matches,

which means that the winners will earn themselves one last

chance to qualify, while the losers will head off into the sunset.

The team from the University of Birmingham had wins in rounds one

and two against Queen's University Belfast and St Andrews.

Although their first quarterfinal

saw them trip up against Edinburgh University,

they did manage to earn an impressive clean sweep of

paintings on bacchanalia, which suggests

they know how to enjoy themselves on their nights out.

They're here with an accumulated score of 485.

Let's meet them again.

Hi, my name's Elliot, I'm from Derby and I'm studying chemistry.

Hello, my name's Fraser, I come from Edinburgh and I study history.

This is their captain.

Hi, I'm George Greenlees, I'm from Plymouth and I'm studying medicine.

Hi, I'm Chris Rouse, I'm from Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire

and I study history and politics.

APPLAUSE

The team from Balliol College Oxford beat Imperial College London

and Robinson College Cambridge in rounds one and two, but their

first quarterfinal saw them lose to Wolfson College Cambridge.

Here to put that behind them, and with an accumulated score of 565,

let's meet the Balliol team again.

Hi, I'm Freddie Potts, I'm from Newcastle and I'm reading history.

Hello, I'm Jacob Lloyd, I'm from London and I'm reading for

a DPhil in English.

And this is their captain.

Hi, I'm Gerry Goldman, I'm from London and I'm reading

philosophy and theology.

Hi, I'm Ben Pope, I'm from Sydney, New South Wales,

I'm doing a DPhil in astrophysics.

APPLAUSE

OK, put your fingers on the buzzers,

here's your first starter for ten.

Believed to have been the model for St Ogg's in George Eliot's

The Mill On The Floss,

which town is situated on the River Trent between Newark and Scunthorpe?

It shares its name with an 18th-century painter

of portraits and landscapes.

-Gainsborough.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

So, Balliol, you get the first set of bonuses, they're on place names.

In the novels of George RR Martin,

the seven kingdoms are found on which continent?

Westeros.

Westeros.

Correct.

The birthplace in 1925 of the actress and director Mai Zetterling,

the city of Vasteras on Lake Malar is the largest inland port

of which EU member state?

-What's the name, Mai Zetterling?

-Swiss...?

-Could be Switzerland.

-Sweden?

-Yeah.

-Sweden.

-Correct.

Wester Ross is a sparsely populated region of northwest Scotland,

with around 20% of its 6,000 inhabitants living in which port,

the terminus of a ferry service to Stornoway?

Is it Inverness?

Inverness?

No, it's on the other side, it's Ullapool.

Ten points for this.

Who said of his historical writings, "My work is not designed to meet

"the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever"?

Born near Athens and about 460 BC...

Herodotus.

No, you lose five points.

..his history is a moral and political analysis

of the Peloponnesian War.

-Thucydides.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your first bonuses, Birmingham, are on world history.

In each case, name any one of the three successive years in which

the following events occurred.

Firstly, the start of the first Opium War,

the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, and the death of

the US president William Henry Harrison, succeeded by John Tyler.

It's the 1830s.

Was the Opium War not 1860?

1860s, so...?

Say, early 1860s?

1863?

1863.

No, you're way out, it's 1839, 1840 and 1841.

Secondly, the destruction of the Summer Palace in Beijing by

British troops, the start of the American Civil War, and the Treaty

of Saigon, by which France gained its first foothold in Indochina.

American Civil War? 1866.

-1867.

-Was it '65 it started?

Because Gettysburg was 1863.

So it can only be a couple of years before that.

1863.

No, it was 1860, 1861 and 1862.

And finally, the looting of Beijing by foreign troops during the

Boxer Rebellion, the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia

and the end of the Second Boer War.

1900. Was it 1902, the Second Boer War finished?

OK, so that's 1901?

1901.

It was, the other events were in 1900 and 1902.

Ten points for this - popularised by the Dutch Nobel laureate

Paul Crutzen, what unofficial term denotes the geological era

in which humans have significantly...

Anthropocene.

Anthropocene is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses, Balliol, on Mendelian genetics.

Firstly for five - Mendel crossed pea plants that were homozygous

for round seeds with those that were homozygous for wrinkled seeds.

What two-word term denotes that technique?

Oh, yeah, hybridisation. Hybridisation. Oh, two words.

-No, it's a monohybrid cross.

-Sorry.

Secondly, what term denotes Mendel's second law of inheritance?

It's based on the observation that crossing pea plants,

which are heterozygous, for two traits, results in traits

being segregated as they would in two parallel, monohybrid crosses.

-I don't know the name of it.

-How's your GCSE biology?

Allelisation? I don't know.

Allelisation.

No, it's independent assortment.

And finally, in Mendel's nomenclature of generations,

for what do the letters P and F stand?

Parent and family?

Yeah, I'll go for it - parent and family.

No, it's parental and filial.

Ten points for this.

Sky - S-K-Y - is an acronym widely used for the three most

prestigious universities in which country?

The S and K indicate universities named after the country's

capital and the country itself, respectively...

Singapore.

No, you lose five points.

..while the final letter stands for Yonsei.

-South Korea.

-South Korea is correct.

APPLAUSE

You get three bonuses on the actor and director Ida Lupino.

In the 1940s, Ida Lupino was viewed by Hollywood as a potential

replacement for which actress, known for her confrontational manner

as well as for her roles in films such as Jezebel and Now, Voyager?

Bette Davis?

Could be.

Davis. Bette Davis.

Correct.

Lupino is regarded as the first female director of a mainstream

US film noir, after the release in 1953 of which film, based on

the true story of a highway killer?

-No idea.

-Know any highway killers?

Pass.

It's The Hitch-Hiker.

And finally, who starred opposite Lupino in

They Drive By Night and High Sierra, both directed by Raoul Walsh?

-Errol Flynn? When are we?

-No, that's too late.

A Western? John Wayne?

John Wayne.

No, it was Humphrey Bogart. We're going to take a picture round.

For your picture starter,

you'll see the titles of two pop songs by the same band,

originally released in English, but here in German translation.

For ten points, I need both the original English titles.

I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves Me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LAUGHTER

Anyone like to buzz from Birmingham?

I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

So you get the picture bonuses then, Birmingham.

In 1964, the Beatles re-recorded those two songs in German

and released them as a double A-side single.

For your bonuses, you're going to see the titles in translation

of three more tracks, re-recorded by 1960s artists for release in Europe.

For the five points each, I need the precise, original English title.

Firstly for five, I need a six-word title here.

So, always...

Always Something There To Remind Me.

-Huh?

-Always Some...thing? Someone?

Yeah, I mean, it's taken as someWHERE, but...

The title.

Always Someone There To Remind Me.

Always Someone There To Remind Me.

No, it's Always Something There To Remind Me.

Secondly, I need a five-word title here, please.

-If You Have A Heart, is it?

-Anyone Who Had A Heart?

-Yeah.

-Anyone Who Had A Heart.

-Correct.

And finally, the five-word title

under which this was released in English?

-It's like, Where Is Our Love?

-Yeah.

But a five-word title.

-"Unsere" is our, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Is it Where Is Our Love, yeah?

-Yes.

Where Is Our Love?

No, it's Where Did Our Love Go?

Ten points for this.

Which fictional character first appeared

in an illustrated work of 1949?

His jersey and hat, respectively, are the same colours

as the home shirts of Wales and France in rugby union,

and he sometimes works as a self-employed taxi driver.

No, sorry.

Anyone like to buzz from Balliol?

Tintin?

No, it's Noddy.

I'm afraid that was a technical interruption, Birmingham,

so you've had five points taken away from you.

Here is another starter question, fingers on the buzzers.

Give the three words that complete this remark by Ronald Hutton

in a history covering the years from 1485 to 1660.

"The Irish had precipitated,

"the Welsh had ensured and the Scots had failed to prevent

"a conflict that was to go down in history as the...?"

-English Civil War.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Balliol College, are on Australian deserts.

Firstly, Crossing The Dead Heart is a 1946 account of the geologist

Thomas Madigan's journey into which central Australian desert,

named by Madigan after the financier of the expedition?

Sturt Stony Desert?

Nominate Pope.

Sturt Stony Desert.

No, it's the Simpson Desert.

Lying between the Little and Great Sandy Deserts in Western Australia,

which desert did the explorer Ernest Giles cross in the 1870s,

naming it after a companion who died on an earlier expedition?

Can we think of any good...?

Shall we go with that again? Was it Sturt Stony?

I guess.

Sturt Stony Desert?

No, that's very odd name for somebody.

It's Gibson, the Gibson Desert.

And finally, also visited by Ernest Giles, which desert in

Western and South Australia is the largest in the country?

The Nullarbor Plain? I don't know!

LAUGHTER

Nominate Pope.

Nullarbor Plain?

-No, it's the Great Victoria Desert.

-Sorry!

What is the point of having an Australian if

he can't answer things like that? LAUGHTER

-There is physics!

-Ten points for this.

Quote, "All violent feelings have the same effect, they produce

"in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things."

These words of the critic John Ruskin refer to which literary

device, known by a two-word term, which attributes human emotions...

-Pathetic fallacy.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Balliol, are on physics.

"I have committed the ultimate sin, I have predicted

"the existence of a particle that can never be observed."

These words of Wolfgang Pauli refer to what particle -

wrongly, as it transpired, in terms of detectability?

It's going to be neutrino, probably.

-Neutrinos.

-Correct.

Pauli was also involved in establishing the CPT theorem,

which implies that simultaneously changing three aspects of

a system leaves the results of quantum field theory unchanged.

For what do the letters C, P and T stand?

Charge, parity and time.

-Charge, parity and time.

-Correct.

And finally, Pauli formulated the exclusion principle, by which no

two identical particles in a system can occupy the same quantum state.

This applies to which broad class of particles?

-Fermions.

-Fermions.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

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

For your music starter,

you're going to hear part of a cantata by a Russian composer.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

DARK, SWEEPING MUSIC

Stravinsky?

No, you might be able to hear a little more, Birmingham, I think.

Mussorgsky?

No, that was Prokofiev. It was Battle On The Ice.

It originated as a collaboration with the director Sergei Eisenstein.

So we're going to take the music bonuses in a moment or two.

Ten points at stake, fingers on the buzzers, please.

The subject of a 2006 novel by Andrew Drummond,

which constructed language was invented by the German...

Esperanto.

No, you lose five points.

..by the German cleric Johann Martin Schleyer

and first published in 1879?

With a name meaning "world speech",

it gained many thousands of enthusiasts

before the advent of Esperanto.

Weltsprecht?

No, it's Volapuk.

Ten points for this.

Choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan to music by Poulenc, which

one-act ballet of 1980 commemorates the dead of the First World War?

Its six-letter Latin title precedes "in excelsis Deo"

in Western liturgical rites.

-Gloria.

-Gloria is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Now, you'll recall that for your music starter,

you heard Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky cantata.

Your music bonuses,

you're going to hear three more excerpts from scores by composers

known for their association with a particular director.

In each case, I want the composer of the score you hear,

and the director of the film for which it was written.

Firstly, for five...

ROUSING, PASTORAL STRINGS

It's Lawrence Of Arabia.

-What?

-It's Lawrence Of Arabia. So, David Lean.

Who's the composer?

When was that, 1960?

David Lean, and...

..erm...

John Williams.

David Lean and John Williams.

David Lean was the director - it was Lawrence Of Arabia -

but it was composed by Maurice Jarre.

So you don't get any points there.

Secondly...

DRIVING, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC

Eisenstein and Shostakovich, maybe.

Eisenstein and Shostakovich.

No, it was Jonny Greenwood and Paul Thomas Anderson.

And finally...

OPERATIC, 'SPAGHETTI WESTERN' MUSIC

Ennio Morricone...

Yeah, and Sergio Leone.

Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone.

That's correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, ten points for this.

Born in Ireland in 1819, which physicist's name is joined

with that of the French engineer Claude-Louis Navier to denote...

-Stokes.

-Stokes is right.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses, this time on a Victorian poet.

"The effect of studying masterpieces

"is to make me admire and do otherwise."

So said which English poet and Catholic convert, who,

on becoming a Jesuit priest, burned his poems,

having first sent copies to a friend for safekeeping?

-Gerard Manley Hopkins.

-Correct.

Hopkins said that his main aim in poetry was to find a way to

describe the unique essence or inner nature of a person, place or thing.

What term did he invent to refer to this particular concept?

Inscape.

-Inscape.

-Correct.

Which ship is named in the title of Hopkins' poem of the mid-1870s,

marking the death by drowning of five nuns after it ran aground...

The Deutschland.

The Deutschland is correct.

APPLAUSE

Here's a starter question.

Who in the 1780s modelled for the artist George Romney's

painting of Circe?

She later became romantically involved...

-Lady Hamilton?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on the solar system, Balliol.

Which planet orbits the sun once every 164 Earth years,

at a mean distance of 30.1 astronomical units?

-Neptune.

-Correct.

The orbit of Pluto is highly elongated, and,

at its closest, is 29.7 astronomical units from the sun.

Its furthest point, or aphelion, is how many AU distant?

You have three AU either way.

-80, I don't know.

-What's that one? Like, 29?

-29 is its perihelion.

Its aphelion's heaps far away. It's, like, 50 or 80.

-50? Let's try 50.

-50.

I'll accept that, yes, it's 49.5.

Mercury has a diameter of 4,880km.

What is Pluto's diameter?

You can have 10% either way.

Pluto's pretty small, 2,750.

-I couldn't say.

-2,750.

Kilometres.

You're just outside, it's 2,370,

so that doesn't... You don't get the 10%.

Right, ten points for this.

Since independence in 1822, periods in the chronology of which

country have included Empire, Old Republic, Vargas Era,

Second Republic, Military Rule and the New Republic,

which began in 1985?

Brazil?

Correct.

Your bonuses this time, Balliol, are on palindromic surnames.

In each case, name the person from the description.

Firstly, the author of

The Crisis Of Global Capitalism And The Tragedy Of The European Union.

He's a Hungarian-born financier, noted for speculation

at the time of Black Wednesday.

Soros.

George Soros is correct.

Secondly, a German architect whose projects include the roof

of Munich's 1972 Olympic Stadium.

He was noted for having won the Pritzker Prize shortly before

his death in March 2015.

Pass.

That was Frei Otto.

And finally, a French author and diarist who was romantically

associated with Henry Miller.

She wrote the novel sequence Cities Of The Interior, published...

Anais Nin.

Anais Nin is correct.

We're going to take a second picture round.

For your picture starter, you'll see a painting by an Italian artist.

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

Giorgio de Chirico.

Correct.

That was one of his many paintings of imaginary townscapes.

Your picture bonuses are three earlier examples of capricci,

the genre of architectural fantasy or invention.

For the five points, I need the name of the artist.

Firstly for five, this French artist.

-Looks like Poussin.

-Or it could be Claude. I'll go for Claude.

Claude Lorrain.

Correct. Secondly, this Italian artist.

Piranesi.

Correct. And finally, another Italian artist.

- Canaletto. - It looks like...

Canaletto.

Correct.

Ten points for this.

In physiology, what small endocrine gland secretes melatonin,

a hormone that...

The pineal gland.

Correct.

You get bonuses on psychology, Birmingham.

In the 1955 paper Opinions And Social Pressure,

which US psychologist detailed experiments suggesting that

people will override their own judgment in order to conform?

Milgram?

No, it's Asch. Solomon Asch.

Which Turkish psychologist conducted the 1954 Robbers Cave Experiment

with his wife, Carolyn Wood?

He later devised realistic conflict theory.

Sherif?

Correct.

At which California university did Philip Zimbardo...

-Stanford.

-..conduct his prison experiment?

Stanford.

Correct. Ten points for this.

"Where books are burned,

"in the end people will burn..."

Goethe.

No. You lose five points.

These are the words of which German poet,

perhaps best known for the 1827 collection The Book Of Songs?

Heinrich Heine.

Correct.

These bonuses, Balliol, are on pairs of words

that differ only by the three-letter prefix "pro".

For example, "verb" and "proverb".

In each case, give both words from the definitions.

Firstly, a subnational entity such as Tasmania or Uttar Pradesh,

and the male sex gland beneath the bladder.

State and prostate.

Correct. Secondly, to provoke in a playful way

and an enzyme that breaks down proteins and peptides.

Tease and protease.

Correct.

And finally, a passage for conveying lymph or glandular secretions

and a quantity obtained by multiplication.

Duct and product.

Correct. Four and a half minutes to go, ten points for this.

Often serving as a habitat for a wide variety of wildlife,

Quickset, Devon and Cornish

are among types of what structure made using organic material?

Beehive?

Anyone want to buzz from Balliol?

I'll tell you. They are hedgerows. Ten points for this.

In 2014, a movement called Citizens' Broom

toppled the President of which African country?

30 years earlier, Thomas Sankara had changed...

Burkina Faso.

Correct.

These bonuses are on French ministers of finance, Balliol.

Born into a family of merchants in Reims,

who rose to become Finance Minister to Louis XIV in 1665?

Colbert.

Correct. Which French king dismissed Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

from office after the latter introduced

such institutional reforms as abolishing the Paris guilds?

Louis XVI.

Correct. Soon overturned, Turgot's reforms included

replacing which government policy

of using unpaid forced labour to build roads?

Its name means contribution.

THEY CONFER

Yeah could just be.

Levy.

No, it's corvee. Ten points for this.

About four minutes to go.

Born in Leipzig in 1902, which architectural historian was

the editor of the 46-volume work...

Pevsner.

Pevsner is right. Your bonuses now are on Latin grammar.

According to Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer,

which mood of the verb makes a statement or enquiry about

a fact or something that will be a fact in the future?

Indicative.

Correct. Which mood expresses the will of a speaker as

a command, request or entreaty?

Imperative.

Correct. Which mood represents a verbal activity as willed,

desired, conditional or prospective?

Subjunctive.

Correct.

Ten points for this.

Which group of aluminosilicate

minerals make up more than half of the Earth's crust?

Their name derives in part from the German for field.

Feldspar?

Correct.

These bonuses are on proper names, Birmingham.

For five points, give the name from the description.

Each answer has five letters with the middle letter in common.

Firstly, a descendant of French-Canadians driven by

the British from Acadia and settled in the bayou lands of Louisiana.

Cajun.

Correct. Secondly, a former capital of the kingdom of Asturias.

It lies on the Bay of Biscay, close to the city of Oviedo.

THEY CONFER

Bajas?

No, it's Gijon.

And finally, an Iranian language spoken in the country between

Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan?

Tajik.

Tajik is right. Ten points for this.

The author of the 1894

short prose work The Story Of An Hour

and the early 19th century...

Chopin.

Chopin is correct.

These bonuses are on pharmacology, Balliol.

Used to lower cholesterol,

what class of drugs inhibit HMG-coenzyme A reductase?

Statins.

Correct. ACE inhibitors are used to reduce hypertension.

For what do the letters A-C-E stand?

Pass.

Angiotensin-converting enzymes.

And finally, what seven-letter term denotes the class of drugs

which reduces hypertension by blocking angiotensin receptors?

THEY CONFER

Bromides.

No, they're sartans. Ten points for this.

Used in coastal weather forecasts,

Gibraltar Point is in which English county?

It's the site of a nature reserve

that runs from Skegness to the mouth of the Wash.

Lincolnshire?

Correct.

Your bonuses are on prominent people.

In each case, I want the unique full decade during which

the two named people were alive.

For example, 1990s.

The decade is assumed to begin on January 1st

of a year ending in a zero.

Firstly, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

-1790s?

-That late?

1780s.

1780s.

Correct.

Secondly, Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain.

GONG

And at the gong, Birmingham have 65

but Balliol have 265.

Well, Birmingham, I'm afraid we're going to have to say goodbye to you.

That's a pretty convincing victory

and you're good sports about it, too.

Balliol, congratulations.

You will get the chance to come back and do it all over again

if you want to get through to the semifinals.

So, congratulations to you.

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

but until then, it's goodbye from Birmingham University...

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

..it's goodbye from Balliol College Oxford...

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

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