Episode 34 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. So far, Emmanuel College, Cambridge,

Edinburgh University and Wolfson College, Cambridge

are through to the semifinals of this year's University Challenge.

Whichever team wins tonight's match

will take the last available place in the semis.

Now, the team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford,

have beaten Jesus College, Cambridge,

the reigning champions Peterhouse, Cambridge,

and Bristol University.

The fly in their ointment was losing to Emmanuel College, Cambridge

in their second quarterfinal,

so let's see if they can put that behind them

and earn themselves a semifinal place tonight.

Let's meet the team again.

Hello. I'm Tom Fleet, I'm from Pendoggett in Cornwall

and I study English.

Hi. I'm Emma Johnson, I'm from North London,

and I study medicine.

-This is their captain.

-Hi. I'm Nikhil Venkatesh,

I'm from Derby and I study philosophy, politics and economics.

Hi. I'm Adam Wright, from Winnersh in Berkshire,

and I'm studying for a DPhil in physics.

APPLAUSE

Now, the path taken by the team from Balliol College, Oxford

saw them beat Imperial College, London

and Robinson College, Cambridge. Their first quarterfinal

was a narrow defeat at the hands of Wolfson College, Cambridge

but they won their next match against the University of Birmingham

by a 200-point margin.

Let's meet the Balliol team again.

Hi, I'm Freddy 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 here's their captain.

-Hi. I'm Joey Goldman,

I'm from London and I'm reading philosophy and theology.

Hi. I'm Ben Pope, I'm from Sydney, Australia,

and I'm doing a DPhil in physics.

APPLAUSE

OK, let's just get on with it. Fingers on the buzzers,

here's your first starter for ten.

What name links three kings of Bavaria,

the author of the 1953 work Philosophical Investigations...

Ludwig.

Ludwig is right.

Right. Your bonuses are on a London building, Balliol College.

"Participants are free to use the information received

"but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker

"nor that of any other participant may be revealed."

This is the standard formulation of a rule

named after which building in St James's Square?

-Chatham House.

-Correct.

Which two words follow "Royal Institute Of"

in the name of the nongovernmental organisation based at Chatham House?

THEY CONFER

Public Policy?

No, it's International Affairs.

And finally, Chatham House takes its name from the title of nobility

granted in 1766 to which prime minister?

It was his residence for several years.

THEY CONFER

Could be Walpole. North, maybe?

He was around then.

THEY CONFER

Walpole.

No, it was Pitt the Elder.

Right, ten points for this.

Which play by Shakespeare contains the lines,

"Oh, Lord! Methought, what pain it was to drown!

"What dreadful noise of..."?

The Tempest?

No, you lose five points.

"What dreadful noise of water in my ears! What sights..."?

Richard III.

Correct.

Balliol College, your bonuses this time are on squandering.

Quote, "Don't squander the gold of your days

"listening to the tedious trying to improve the hopeless failure."

Who wrote that in a work of 1890, earlier in which he stated that,

"the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

-Oscar Wilde.

-Yeah. Oscar Wilde.

Correct. Usually referring to a style of art

associated with the 17th century,

what term did Jorge Luis Borges apply to his own writing,

defining it as, "The final stage in all art,

"when art flaunts and squanders its resources"?

-Baroque.

-Correct.

The Earl of Squander and his son Viscount Squanderfield

are characters in which satirical series of paintings by William Hogarth?

This is Marriage A-la-Mode, right?

-Marriage A-la-Mode.

-Correct.

Ten points for this starter question.

In ecology, what term from the Greek for "well-nourished"

denotes the process by which aquatic...

-Eutrophic?

-Yes, I'll accept that.

Yes. You get a set now of bonuses on scientific terms, Balliol College.

In each case, give the two terms from the definitions.

The two words in each case differ by a single letter.

First, any of a class of cyclic organic esters

usually formed by the reaction of a carboxylic acid group

with a hydroxyl group or halogen atom present in the same molecule,

and a disaccharide sugar present in milk?

Is it lactose and...?

Galactose?

-No, one letter.

-One letter.

Actose? Or latose? Lacose?

OK, we'll go for lactose and actose.

No, it's lactone and lactose.

Secondly, the SI unit of magnetic flux density

and the outer coat of a seed.

Shell and...?

THEY CONFER

What's the outer shell of a seed?

THEY CONFER

Tesla and testa?

Correct. Finally, a small, autonomously replicating

piece of DNA in bacteria

and a group of plant organelles surrounded by a double membrane.

THEY CONFER

-Could be plasmids and plastids? I don't know.

-Yeah.

Plasmid and plastid?

Correct. Ten points for this.

Listen carefully. According to Harold Macmillan in 1981,

there are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges.

One is the Brigade of Guards. Name either of the other two.

The House of Lords?

No.

The House of Commons?

No, it's the Catholic Church and the National Union of Mineworkers.

Ten points at stake for this.

Listen carefully. Concatenate in chronological order

the regnal numbers of the monarchs of Great Britain

who followed Queen Victoria up to the present day.

The resulting five-digit number

is closest to the area in square kilometres

of which of the home nations of the UK?

Scotland.

Correct, yes!

75862, and it's about 78,000 square kilometres in Scotland.

So you get a set of bonuses now on Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland.

Which widowed Scottish monarch did Mary marry in 1538

on the orders of the French king Francis I?

-James IV?

-Yeah... that sounds about right.

James IV?

No, it was James V.

Which royal suitor had Mary previously rejected

with the words, "I may be big in person,

"but my neck is small."

He'd indicated he wished to marry her

because he needed a big wife.

Henry VIII?

Yes - a real charmer, wasn't he?

In 1559, Mary mustered an army and rose to Perth

to disperse Protestants who were rioting

after an inflammatory sermon by which religious reformer?

-John Knox.

-Correct. We're going to take a picture round now.

For your picture starter, you're going to see a flag

of a constituent country of a European kingdom.

Ten points if you can identify the territory this flag represents.

Greenland.

It is Greenland, yes!

That's the official flag of Greenland,

known in Greenlandic as Erfalasorput or "our flag".

Your picture bonuses are three flags of indigenous peoples

that have co-official status.

Firstly, in which country does this flag have co-official status

with the national flag?

Do we have any idea?

OK. Interesting.

THEY CONFER

-Going to go for Canada.

-OK.

Canada?

No, it's Bolivia.

Secondly, this time I want the name of the people

that this flag represents.

-The Sami people.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-The Sami?

-It is the Sami people, yes.

And finally, in which country does this flag have co-official status

with the national flag?

Oh, I recognise it.

-I think it's Australia.

-OK.

-Australia?

-It is Australia. That's the flag of the Aboriginal people.

Right. Ten points for this. An open door is part of the logo

of an organisation named after which social reformer?

In 1921, she founded the UK's first instructional clinic

for contraception.

-Marie Stopes?

-Correct.

These bonuses, Corpus Christi, are on prisons.

In 1791, which English utilitarian philosopher

published plans for a Panopticon,

a prison in which guards in a central rotunda

could observe the cells of all inmates?

-Jeremy Bentham.

-Correct.

Built in the Panopticon style in the 1920s,

in which country is the Presidio Modelo?

Now a museum, two of its former inmates

later became consecutive heads of state,

having been imprisoned after an attack on the Moncada Barracks

in 1953?

South Africa?

I was thinking South America. It sounds Spanish, the name.

Oh, wait!

It may be Brazil...

Argentina.

No, it was Cuba - it was the Castro brothers.

And finally, which French philosopher examined the idea

of the Panopticon in his 1975 work

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison?

-Michel Foucault.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

Points on the celestial sphere can be indicated

using the two co-ordinates declination and right ascension.

What shared value do these co-ordinates take

at the vernal equinox, the point on the celestial sphere

where the sun...?

Zero.

Zero is correct, yes.

These bonuses, Balliol, are on physics.

In the standard model of particle physics,

particles formed of quark-antiquark pairs

are known by what term?

They form a large subclass of the hadrons.

-Mesons.

-Correct.

Which particles constitute the lightest mesons?

Their neutral and charged forms

have masses of 135 and 140 mega electron volts over C squared.

-Pions?

-Correct.

Formerly considered as a meson, what particle

with a mass of about 106 mega electron volts over C squared

is now known to be a lepton and not formed of quarks?

-Muon.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

Differing only in that one has an additional letter,

which two words, easily mistyped,

mean "the process of attempting to settle a dispute

"without recourse to litigation through negotiation conducted by..."

Mediation and meditation?

Correct, yes.

Here are your bonuses. They're on South Korean cinema, Corpus Christi.

In a move that saw major domestic corporations

begin to invest in film,

which conglomerate part-financed the 1992 South Korean box-office hit

The Marriage Story?

Conglomerate? OK, what's a South Korean conglomerate?

It's not necessarily South Korean.

It could be, like, American.

Warner Brothers?

Warner Brothers?

No, it's Samsung.

The 2011 film My Way is based on the life of Yang Kyoungjong,

a Korean soldier captured in German uniform in Normandy in 1944.

He had previously been conscripted into which two other armies?

-It must be the Japanese...

-1944.

..and?

-The Soviet?

-Yeah.

The Japanese and Soviet armies?

Correct! Which film by Kim Ki-duk

won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2012?

Its title denotes a depiction of the Virgin Mary

cradling the dead Jesus.

Pieta.

That's a pieta, I'm pretty sure.

-Pieta?

-Correct. Ten points for this.

Born in 1884, which Italian statistician

gives his name to an index or coefficient

used by the United Nations...?

Gini?

Gini is correct, yes.

Balliol, these bonuses are on pairs of books

in which the shorter title forms the beginning of the longer,

for example Cormac McCarthy's The Road

and George Orwell's The Road To Wigan Pier.

In each case, give both titles.

Firstly, two Booker prize-winning novels by John Banville

and Iris Murdoch respectively.

The Sea, The Sea, The Sea.

Correct.

Secondly, the English title of a 1926 work by Franz Kafka

and a gothic novel...

-The Castle and The Castle of Otranto.

-Correct.

And finally, the English title of a major work by Machiavelli

and a children's novel by Mark Twain set in Tudor England.

The Prince and The Prince And The Pauper.

Correct.

Right. Ten points for this.

Jebel Musa in Morocco and Monte Hacho in Ceuta

have both been suggested as the southerly of which two promontories

named after a figure in Greek myth?

Pillars of Hercules.

Correct.

These bonuses are on South America, Corpus Christi.

In 1971, Jose Mujica was imprisoned for his involvement

in the leftist urban guerrilla movement known as the Tupamaros.

Freed in 1985, he became president of which country in 2010?

-I don't know this.

-Bolivia?

THEY CONFER

Peru?

No, it's Uruguay.

Second, the ELN, the FARC and the M19 have been among

the armed insurgent groups in which South American country?

-Colombia.

-Correct.

Often described as Maoist, the Shining Path insurgent movement

was founded in which country in 1970 and was active until the 1990s?

-Peru.

-That's correct.

Right, we're going to take a music round. For your music starter

you'll hear part of an opera by an American composer.

Ten points if you can say who the composer is.

MUSIC PLAYS

Glass?

It is Philip Glass, it's from Einstein On The Beach.

Philip Glass only made a living as a composer

from his early forties. He wrote his major early works

while working as a plumber or taxi driver.

Your music bonuses are works by three more composers

who held down day jobs while writing some of their best-known works.

Five points for each composer you can name.

Firstly for five, this English composer

who worked as a schoolteacher to support himself.

MUSIC PLAYS

-Purcell?

-No, that's Holst, it's his St Paul's Suite.

Secondly, this American composer

who ran an insurance company for much of his working life.

MUSIC PLAYS

Barber or Ives, I guess.

Samuel Barber?

No, it was Ives, it was Charles Ives.

And finally, this Russian composer, chemist and doctor.

MUSIC PLAYS

THEY CONFER

We need someone who's famous for being a chemist.

Tchaikovsky.

No, that's Borodin, that was from Prince Igor. Ten points for this.

Produced by the repeated cleavage of a fertilised egg,

which embryonic stage consists of a epithelial layer

enclosing a fluid-filled cavity? It...

Blastocyst.

Yes, that is a type of blastula, which is what I was looking for.

So you get a set of bonuses now, Corpus Christi,

on rapidly orbiting moons.

Taking just over seven hours to complete an orbit,

Metis is an inner moon of which planet?

-It's going to be Jupiter or Saturn.

-Do you think?

Yeah? One of the big guys?

Yeah. Saturn...

Yeah, actually, I haven't heard of it,

and aren't most of Jupiter's ones...?

Do we like Saturn, yeah?

-Saturn.

-No, it's Jupiter.

Naiad takes slightly longer than seven hours to complete an orbit

of which planet?

Naiads? That could be Neptune, I think there's some kind of a sea...

Oh, yeah, cos there's a sea whole thing. Neptune.

Correct. Taking over seven and a half hours to orbit,

what is the inner of the two moons of Mars?

They're Phobos and Deimos, right?

I think Phobos is...

Yeah? Phobos?

Phobos is right, yes. Ten points for this.

"The first and greatest masterpiece of modern art."

Those words refer to which painting?

Created in Montmartre in 1907,

it depicts five naked figures against a...

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Correct. The Young Women of Avignon.

So you get set of bonuses, Balliol College,

on writers' block.

"You beat your pate and fancy wit will come

"Knock as you please - there's nobody at home."

Those lines are attributed to which poet, born in 1688?

1688...

Pope. Must be Alexander Pope.

Pope?

Alexander Pope is right.

"Poetry is a distinct faculty. It won't come when called.

"You may as well whistle for a wind."

Which Romantic poet said that to the writer Edward John Trelawny?

I think it might be Keats, but I'm not sure.

John Keats?

No, it was Byron.

"All things content me from this craft of verse."

Which Irish poet wrote that

in a poem first published in 1909?

-That's Yeats.

-OK. Er, WB Yeats.

Correct. Ten points for this.

The title of an award-winning 2014 Swedish film

about a family on a ski holiday, what two-word French term...?

Force majeure.

Force majeure is right.

Your bonuses, Corpus Christi, are on some of England's

more obscurely named administrative districts.

In each case, name the ceremonial county -

for example, West Sussex - in which the following are located.

Firstly, Eden District Council is in which ceremonial county?

THEY CONFER

Eden Project, Cornwall?

Cornwall?

No, it's Cumbria.

Secondly, in which county is Bassetlaw?

-Nottinghamshire.

-Correct.

Finally, in which county is the district of Swale?

Swale...

-There's Swaledale is in Yorkshire, isn't it?

-That's something.

-Am I making that up?

-No, I think that sounds right.

Er, North Yorkshire?

Er, no, it's Kent.

You're thinking of Swaledale, which isn't an administrative district.

Right. We're going to take another picture round now.

For your picture starter, you're going to see one of

the original costume designs for an early 20th-century ballet.

Ten points if you can name the ballet.

You can give the title in English or French.

The Afternoon of a Faun?

Correct.

Right. Nijinsky's costume for the Faun

was one of Leon Bakst's designs for the Ballet Russe.

Your picture bonuses are three more examples of

his costume and set design for that company.

Again, in each case, I want the title of the ballet

for which each was created.

Firstly for five, this is part of Bakst's set design

for which ballet by a French composer?

-No idea.

-Um...

This isn't leaping out at me.

-You don't know?

-Sheep and stuff? I've got no idea.

No, we don't know.

That's Daphnis and Chloe by Ravel.

Secondly, this is a costume for which ballet by a Russian composer?

It could be one of the dancers from Swan Lake,

you know, the country dancers.

-Is that Tchaikov...

-Tchaikovsky, yeah.

Er, Swan Lake by...

No, it's Firebird, Stravinsky.

Finally, this is part of the set design for which ballet,

again by a Russian composer?

I don't know.

No? OK.

Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky.

No, it's Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Ten points for this.

What two-word term denotes the sound

represented in the international phonetic alphabet

by a dotless question mark?

Made by bringing together the vocal cords tightly

and releasing them suddenly.

A glottal stop?

Glo'al stop's right, yeah.

Right, Balliol, these bonuses are on physiology.

Which tropane alkaloid is extracted from deadly nightshade?

Hemlock.

No, it's atropine.

Atropine is cycloplegic,

meaning that it paralyses which specific muscle ring?

What's the name? Cycloplegic?

Muscle ring?

-Diaphragm or something?

-Yeah.

-Diaphragm?

-No, it's ciliary muscle.

And finally, cycloplegia is accompanied by mydriasis,

a term denoting what symptom?

THEY CONFER

Cramps? I don't know.

Cramping?

No, it's dilation of the pupils. Ten points for this.

Having established a reputation as a concert pianist by her teens,

Clara Wieck married which composer...?

Robert Schumann.

Robert Schumann is right.

These bonuses are on postwar works from the shortlist

of academic books that changed the world

compiled by UK publishers in 2015.

Name the author in each case.

First, the 1963 work The Making Of The English Working Class.

Er, EP Thompson?

Correct. Secondly, the 1972 work Ways of Seeing.

John Berger.

-John Berger.

-Correct.

And finally, the 1978 work Orientalism.

-Said.

-Edward Said.

Correct. Four minutes to go, ten points for this.

Answer promptly. Give any two of the three modern-day names

of European capitals whose Latin names

are the origins of the names of chemical elements.

Copenhagen and Stockholm?

Correct. Paris is the other one.

Right. These bonuses are on the Danish colonial empire, Balliol.

In 1620, Denmark established a training station

at Tranquebar on the Bay of Bengal in which present-day Indian state?

THEY CONFER

-Odisha, you say?

-Yeah.

-Odisha?

No, it was Tamil Nadu.

Built by Denmark in 1659 and sold to the UK, in 1850,

Fort Christiansborg houses the offices

of the president of which West African country?

Oh!

THEY CONFER

Come on, chaps.

-Ghana?

-It is Ghana, yes.

Including the islands Saint Croix and Saint Thomas,

the Danish West Indies were sold to which country in 1917?

Either the US or the British Virgin Islands.

-OK. The United States.

-The United States is correct.

Ten points for this.

Which three letters begin the names

of the closest national capital to Vienna,

the German state that surrounds Berlin, and...?

B-R-A.

B-R-A is correct.

You get a set of bonuses on a shared name, Balliol.

The English name of which waterfall

comes from the surname of an American aviator

who crash-landed nearby in 1937?

It drops nearly 1,000m from Devil's Mountain in Venezuela.

-Angel Falls.

-Correct.

In which novel by Thomas Hardy

does Angel Clare reject his wife on their wedding night

when she tells him she is not a virgin?

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Correct. The Angel Islington is a character who lives below London

and is the city's protector in which novel by Neil Gaiman?

-Coraline?

-No, no, no.

-I know this.

-Neverwhere?

-Yes!

-Neverwhere.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Conceived by the philosopher Henry Sidgwick in 1874,

which paradox asserts that anyone who actively seeks happiness

for their own sake will always be denied it?

Paradox of hedonism.

Correct.

These bonuses are on world capitals.

In each case, name the capital city

that precedes the following in dictionary entries.

For example, "airlift" and "wall" gives "Berlin".

Often using a historical spelling, the name of which capital

appears before the words "opera", "man" and "duck"?

THEY CONFER

Come on.

Beijing?

Correct. Which capital can precede the words "circle", "sausage",

"coffee", and "secession"?

Viennese?

Oh, yeah. Vienna?

Vienna is right. Which capital

can precede the words "tar" and "syndrome"?

-Stockholm.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. Between 2005 and 2012,

four small moons of Pluto were discovered.

Name any one.

Nix.

Nix - the others are Hydra, Styx and Kerberos.

You get a set of bonuses now on English and Sanskrit.

Meaning "sacred knowledge", which short Sanskrit word

comes from the same Indo-European root

as the English words "wit" and "history"?

Quickly.

-Veda?

-Correct. Denoting the emblem on the Indian flag,

which Sanskrit word is etymologically related

to the English words "cycle", "circle" and "wheel"?

GONG

And at the gong, Corpus Christi College, Oxford have 160,

but Balliol College, Oxford have 240.

APPLAUSE

Well, it was a strong performance from you,

but sadly we're going to have to say goodbye to you, Corpus Christi.

Balliol, many congratulations -

that was a terrific performance again from you

and we look forward to seeing you in the semifinals.

I hope you can join me next time for the first of the semifinals,

but until then, it's goodbye from Corpus Christi College, Oxford...

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Balliol College, Oxford... ALL:

-Goodbye.

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