Episode 24 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. 28 teams qualified to appear in this series.

12 left after their first-round matches, and so far,

seven have departed during the second round, which ends tonight.

The winners of this fixture will take the final place

in the quarterfinals - and the losers won't.

The team from Oxford Brookes University met

the art specialists of the Courtauld Institute in round one,

and came away with a comfortable win by 175 points to 85.

They did well on British indie bands and theme park roller-coasters,

they had fun with flags and were impressive on African capitals,

but appeared never to have listened to the shipping forecast.

With an average age of 36, let's meet the Oxford Brookes team again.

Hello, my main is Inigo Purcell,

I'm from Chiswick in West London, and I'm studying English.

Hello. I'm Pat O'Shea, I live in Oxford, and I'm studying film.

And their captain.

Guten tag, hoeijendagh, bonjour.

I'm Thomas De Bock, I'm from Liege in Belgium,

and I study motorsport engineering.

Hi, I'm Emma-Ben Lewis, I'm from Woodford Green in Northeast London,

and I'm studying for a masters degree in psychology.

APPLAUSE

Now, the team from Merton College, Oxford

achieved the highest first-round score - 285,

against the 110 of the spirited but doomed opposition

of King's College, London.

They tripped up a couple of times during a round on famous spies,

but to be fair, that is more of a Cambridge speciality.

And they were strong on many other subjects,

from Enid Blyton's Famous Five to income tax and world religions.

With an average age of 23,

let's meet the team from Merton College, Oxford.

Hello. I'm Edward Thomas, I'm originally from Oxford,

though I now live in Kent, and I'm reading ancient and modern history.

Hello. I'm Alex Peplow, from Amersham in Buckinghamshire,

and I'm reading for a masters in medieval studies.

-Their captain.

-Hello.

I'm Leonie Woodland, I'm from Cambridge and I'm reading physics.

Hello, I'm Akira Wiberg, I'm from Sweden and Japan,

and I'm reading for a doctorate in molecular and cellular medicine.

APPLAUSE

OK, you all know the rules, so, let's just crack on with it.

Ten points at stake for the first starter question, so,

fingers on the buzzers, please.

The ceremonial engraving known as the Narmer Palette is a significant

artefact of which ancient civilisation?

Thought to depict a ruler's reunification of two kingdoms,

the Upper and the Lower, it...

Egypt?

Egypt is right, yes.

You get a set of bonuses on a Tudor nobleman, Merton College.

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset,

was the Protector of England early in the reign of which monarch,

whose mother, Seymour's sister, died shortly after giving birth?

-Edward VI.

-Edward VI is right.

In the 1540s,

Seymour commanded the military campaigns known as the Rough Wooing.

They aimed to force an agreement to a marriage between the young Edward

and which royal figure?

-Mary, Queen of Scots.

-Mary, Queen of Scots.

Correct. Which Booker Prize-winning novel of 2009 is named after

the ancestral home of the Seymours in Wiltshire?

-Wolf Hall.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. Give the two words

that complete Jowett's translation

of a quotation from the works of Aristotle.

"Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature,

"and that man is by nature..."

A political animal.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on classical music this time, Merton College.

In a collection completed in 1802,

which composer set to music

six poems by the German writer Christian Gellert?

Beethoven?

-It could be Beethoven.

-Beethoven? Beethoven.

It was Beethoven, yes.

Beethoven's Violin Sonata Opus No.47 is commonly known by what name,

the surname of the French-born virtuoso violinist to whom it was dedicated?

Kreutzer.

Correct. From the title of nobility of his patron, Rudolph of Austria,

what name is given to Beethoven's Piano Trio Opus No.97?

The Archduke.

-Archduke.

-Just Archduke?

-The Archduke.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

A location of noctilucent clouds and characterised by very

low temperatures, which layer of the atmosphere lies between around 50

and 85km in altitude above the stratosphere, and...

The mesosphere.

Mesosphere is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on animals protected in the UK by Schedule 5

of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981.

Firstly, Barbary Carpet,

Sussex Emerald and Slender Scotch Burnet are all examples of protected

species of what insect of the order Lepidoptera?

Butterflies? Butterfly.

No, they're moths. Reflecting its striking physical appearance,

what two-word common name is given to Lucanus cervus,

a protected insect of the order Coleoptera?

Is that a stag beetle?

Or a...?

-Stag beetle?

-Correct.

What name is commonly given to the protected aquatic annelid worm with

the binomial Hirudo medicinalis?

I think that's leech.

Is that protected?

I don't know. They used to.

Leech?

It is the leech, yes.

Ten points for this. Which composer adapted the folk melody

The March Of The Kings for his incidental music

to Alphonse Daudet's play, L'Arlesienne?

It dates from 1872...

Bizet.

Bizet is right.

Your bonuses are on cities in the United States.

All three answers share the same initial letter.

Firstly, with a recent population estimate of around 140,000,

which city in the state of Virginia shares its name with an ancient

seaport on Egypt's Mediterranean coast?

-Alexandria?

-Yeah, Alexandria.

-Alexandria?

-Correct.

Having a current population of just over 100,000,

which city to the east of San Francisco shares its name with an

ancient city in southern Turkey

that was a major centre of the Seleucid kingdom?

Anaheim is in California, but...

-That doesn't sound...

-No?

But do we have anything else? Anaheim?

No, it's Antioch.

With a population of around 120,000,

which city in Clarke County, Georgia,

also shares its name with one of the major cities

of classical civilisation?

Atlanta's much bigger. Augusta's in Georgia.

-Is there a city that...?

-Athens is in Georgia.

-Isn't Athens in Georgia?

-Oh.

-Yeah.

-Athens?

Athens is correct. Right, picture round for you.

For your picture starter, you'll see a simplified family tree.

For ten points, what is the family name of this fictional dynasty?

Oh, no, sorry.

Anyone like to buzz from Oxford Brookes?

Buendia.

Buendia is correct, from Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude,

which tells the story of six generations of the Buendia family.

For your picture bonuses, you'll see the members

of three more notable family sagas.

Again, for the points, I want you to give me the family name

of each fictional dynasty.

Firstly, for five.

Oh, is it an American one?

Is it from Grapes of Wrath?

Yeah, go for that.

We need a family, so Joad?

-Joad?

-Joad is correct, and it was The Grapes of Wrath.

Secondly...

That's the DH Lawrence, Women in Love.

What's the surname?

It's German-sounding...

Yeah.

Gudrun is the first name.

Schmidt.

Bad luck. You've identified the family and the work - of course,

it was also in The Rainbow - but the family name was Brangwen.

Finally.

-This is...

-Flyte, is it?

-Flyte, yes.

-So the name is Flyte?

Flyte, or Brideshead...

-Flyte, yeah.

-Flyte.

Flyte is correct, it is from Brideshead Revisited.

Ten points for this. Which 1955 novel appears in the title of

a 2003 memoir by the Iranian-born author...

Lolita?

Lolita is correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Merton College, are on French words used in English.

In each case, the answer ends with the same four letters.

Firstly, Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller is

an early example of what literary genre?

It's a type of fictional biography,

described by Sir Walter Scott as a "romance of roguery".

Roman-fleuve.

I feel like it's one word, but...

-OK.

-But do we have anything else?

-It could be.

-Roman-fleuve.

No, it's picaresque.

Secondly, what term was used

for a female slave in a harem when depicted

in art, such as in the title of a painting in the Louvre by Ingres?

-Odalisque?

-Yeah.

-Odalisque.

-Correct.

What word can mean both a caricature in literature and,

particularly in the United States,

a variety show that is intended for an adult audience?

-Burlesque.

-Burlesque.

Burlesque is right. Ten points for this.

The 18th-century French scientist Reaumur and the 19th-century

Scottish engineer William Rankine...

-Temperature.

-Temperature is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on Italian physicists, Oxford Brookes.

Which physicist, born in Italy in 1905, discovered two elements

and also the antiproton?

He was awarded a share of the 1959 Nobel Prize for physics.

-It was probably Fermi.

-Go for that.

-Fermi?

-No, it's Emilio Segre.

And who was awarded a share of the 1984 prize for his part in

discovering the W and Z particles, carriers of the weak nuclear force?

That's not Fermi, it's too late for that.

-I can't think of...

-It's not Avogadro?

No, that was a lot, a lot earlier.

-No, sorry, pass.

-That's Carlo Rubbia.

And finally, who was awarded the 1938 prize, unshared,

for discovering radioactive elements created by neutron bombardment?

He gives his name to a group of subatomic particles and a unit

of distance equal to 10 to the -15 metres.

-Fermi.

-Fermi is right.

Ten points for this.

Give two answers as soon as your name is called.

Alaska, Kansas,

Maryland and New Jersey are among the eight US states with names

that contain only one of the five vowels, for example, A and E.

Utah.

No, I'm afraid you're going to lose five points.

The other four states are contiguous, name two of them.

Tennessee and Kentucky.

Tennessee is one, Kentucky is not, of course.

The others are Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

Ten points at stake for this starter question.

Who said this? "I will not seek to set up that which Providence

"hath destroyed and laid in the dust.

"I would not build Jericho again."

-Cromwell.

-Oliver Cromwell's right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on dominions of the British Empire during World War I.

Firstly, which dominion defeated a pro-German rebellion in 1914

and soon after annexed a neighbouring German colony,

which it ruled until the 1990s?

South Africa?

-South Africa.

-Correct.

Along with South Africa,

which dominion was one of the few belligerents not to introduce

conscription in World War I?

The Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, introduced two referendums

on the issue, but both were defeated.

-Australia.

-Correct.

Which dominion occupied German Samoa in 1914?

It introduced conscription in 1916, the same year as Britain.

Australia? New Zealand?

-Geographically, because it's near Samoa...

-New Zealand.

New Zealand is right. Ten points for this.

What surname links the Scottish geologist

who wrote the 18th-century work Theory Of The Earth,

the political economist whose works include Them And Us

and The State We're In,

and the Yorkshire batsman who made 364 against Australia...

-Hutton.

-Hutton is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on a shared prefix, Oxford Brookes.

Coined in the 1940s,

what eight-letter term denotes a variety of language unique to an

individual which differs in some details from that of other speakers

-of the same language?

-It's idiolect.

-Idiolect?

-Yeah.

-Idiolect.

-Correct.

The term idiopt,

coined in the 1830s but rejected because of its similarity to idiot,

referred to a person with what visual defect,

also called daltonism?

-Colour blindness.

-Yes, go.

-Colour blindness.

-Correct.

Known by a four-letter onomatopoeic name from Malay,

what percussion instrument is classed as an idiophone because

its resonant, solid body produces its sound?

The gamelan's from around there.

Yeah, go for it.

-Gamelan.

-No, it's gong.

-Ah!

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

For your music starter you're going to hear the overture of an opera.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

MUSIC PLAYS, IMMEDIATE BUZZ

-Wagner.

-It is Richard Wagner, it's the Overture to The Flying Dutchman.

APPLAUSE

Which, as you know, tells the story of that legendary ghost ship and its

cursed captain. Your music bonuses are three more notable phantoms of

the opera, I just need the composer's name in each case.

Firstly, for five.

OPERATIC MUSIC PLAYS

Strauss?

It could be Walton. Walton or Britten.

Walton.

No, I think it sounds more Britten.

-Britten.

-It is Benjamin Britten, yes,

it's Peter Quint in The Turn of The Screw.

Secondly...

OPERATIC MUSIC PLAYS

THEY CONFER

I don't think they're necessarily English,

they're just to do with ghosts.

It could be Purcell.

-Try Purcell.

-What did Purcell write?

-Dido and Aeneas...

-OK.

-Purcell.

-No, it's Monteverdi,

it's from the Chorus Of The Infernal Spirits in Orfeo.

And finally...

OPERA PLAYS

It's Don Giovanni.

Mozart.

Mozart's Don Giovanni, of course.

Right, ten points for this. In 2015,

from which launch station did Tim Peake depart when he joined

the International Space Station ten days before Christmas?

Dating to the 1950s, it is...

-Baikonur.

-Baikonur Cosmodrome is correct.

You get a set of bonuses on the brain.

The Latin for bridge,

what short name is given to the central section of the brainstem,

located beneath the midbrain?

The pons is a thing.

-Pons.

-Correct.

What name is given to the lower part of the brainstem below the pons?

It's responsible for controlling autonomic functions,

such as respiration.

-Medulla.

-Medulla was what I was going to say, yeah.

-Medulla?

-Correct.

The vermis is a medial structure

that connects the lateral hemispheres of

which section of the brain, located behind the brainstem?

-Cerebellum?

-Yes.

-Cerebellum.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. "The entity which each of us himself is."

This is Martin Heidegger's definition of what six-letter

German term, a combination of words meaning "there" and "to be"?

Dasein.

Dasein is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on world rivers, Oxford Brookes.

At the town of Bourem,

the River Niger turns to the south-east at a great bend

in which landlocked country?

-Possibly Mali?

-Yeah, could be in Mali.

-Mali.

-Mali is correct.

The first bend of the Yangtze lies about 50km from the city of

Lijiang, in which Chinese province,

its name meaning "south of the clouds"?

It's probably not Tibet.

-Yunnan?

-No.

Xinjiang, maybe. Xinjiang.

No, it's Yunnan. And finally,

its name referring to a turn on the Rio Grande,

Big Bend National Park occupies a remote region of which US state?

So, it's west of Texas, so it could be New Mexico?

-New Mexico.

-New Mexico?

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

Answer as soon as your name is called.

Of the seven SI base units, how many are eponymous?

-Two.

-Two is correct, the ampere and the kelvin.

Right, your bonuses this time are on mathematics and logic, Merton.

Which German philosopher and mathematician has been described

as the founder of modern mathematical logic?

His works include the 1884 Foundations Of Arithmetic.

Hilbert.

-Is he German?

-Yes, he was German.

-Hilbert.

-No, it's Frege.

Born in 1858, which Italian mathematician gives his name

to nine axioms, or postulates, for the natural numbers?

-Peano.

-Correct.

Who collaborated with his former student, Bertrand Russell,

in the Principia Mathematica which appeared from 1910?

-Whitehead.

-Whitehead is right.

Ten points for this. During the 1960s,

the US painters Ad Reinhardt and Frank Stella were both noted

for radical abstract series of works

denoted by what five-letter adjective,

also applied to a number of early 19th century paintings by Goya?

-Black.

-Black is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on the US author Alice Walker, Merton College.

Which historian and social activist was an influence on Alice Walker

from her time at university in the early 1960s?

His works include A People's History Of The United States.

That's Henry Adams.

Is it Henry Adams?

-Henry Adams.

-No, it's Howard Zinn.

Walker successfully revived interest in the writings of which figure of

the Harlem Renaissance?

Her noted works include the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

-No idea.

-We don't know.

-That was Zora Neale Hurston.

And finally, who directed the 1985 film adaptation of Alice Walker's

novel The Color Purple?

-Spielberg.

-Spielberg?

Spielberg is right. Ten points for this.

No longer in technical use in England and Wales,

what Latin term denotes a writ that summons a person to court to give

testimony or produce evidence?

-Its literal...

-Subpoena.

Subpoena is correct.

Your bonuses are on pairs of words that differ only by the addition of

the letters "ca" at the beginning of one of them,

for example bin and cabin.

In each case, give both words from the definitions.

Firstly - mammal that terrifies Winston Smith

and unit of weight for precious stones.

-Rat and carat.

-Rat and carat.

Correct. Crossing in a wall or fence not usable by animals

and historical region of central Spain.

-Stile and Castile.

-Stile and Castile.

Correct. And finally -

starchy, elongated foodstuff

and an informal term meaning to kiss and cuddle amorously.

-Noodle and canoodle.

-Noodle and canoodle.

Correct.

We're going to take a picture round again.

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

a mythological figure. For ten points, I want her name.

-Europa.

-It is Europa by Guido Reni.

APPLAUSE

You'll recall that Europa was abducted by Zeus while he was in

the form of a white bull.

For your picture bonuses, you're going to see three more paintings

of the erotic metamorphoses of Zeus.

Again, in each case, I want you to identify

the object of his attentions.

Firstly, for five, who's this on the left?

That's Ganymede.

-It's Ganymede.

-Ganymede.

Ganymede by Rubens, that's right.

Secondly, who's this figure?

-Perseus's mother.

-Yeah.

What's her name?

Merope? No.

Merope.

No, that's Danae by Klimt.

And finally, who's this?

-Leda.

-Leda.

It is Leda, of course, by Cezanne.

Ten points for this. "And so they buried Hector, breaker of horses."

This, in Robert Fagles' translation, is the last line...

-Iliad.

-..of the Iliad, that's correct.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on plants of the Ericaceae or heather family.

The national flower of Nepal,

which large genus of woody shrub takes its name

from the Greek for rose tree?

Rhododendron?

No, that might be...

Rhododendron. Sorry.

Correct. From the Greek for dry, because it thrives in dry soil,

what six-letter term denotes a number of species of rhododendron

with funnel-shaped flowers?

It'll be xero-something, won't it?

Possibly, but the name of the flower, that's what you need.

Um...

I'm trying to think of the Greek for flower.

-No, it's six letters.

-It's got to begin with what?

Just because that came up from earlier, but...

-Pass.

-It's azalea.

And finally, what is the common name of Vaccinium myrtillus,

a low-growing shrub with small. edible fruit?

It's commonly found on open moorland.

It's blueberry, I think.

-Just blueberry?

-Or...

-Blueberry.

-No, it's the bilberry.

Another starter question. What two-word formal term is used

both by the government and the people themselves

for the aboriginal people of Canada, who are neither...

First Nations.

First Nations is correct, they're neither Inuit nor Metis.

So your bonuses this time, Oxford Brookes, are on a film director.

One of only a small number of film-makers to have won the Palme d'Or twice,

which British director's early work includes a number of contributions

to the BBC's Wednesday Play, and the feature film Kes?

Yeah, Ken Loach. Ken Loach.

Ken Loach is right. Land and Freedom is a 1995 film by Ken Loach,

set during which conflict?

-The Spanish Civil War.

-The Spanish Civil War.

Correct. Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney play brothers

in which 2006 film by Ken Loach, set in rural Ireland?

The Wind That Shakes The Barley.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley.

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

"There is nothing ugly, I never saw an ugly thing in my life."

These are the words of which artist, born in Suffolk in 1776?

-Constable.

-Constable is correct.

Your bonuses now are on bodies of water.

Euxeinos Pontos, or the Hospitable Sea,

was the name given in antiquity to which body of water?

Mediterranean?

-Possibly.

-Go for that.

-Mediterranean?

-No, it's the Black Sea.

So-called because of its proximity to the Black Sea,

Propontis was the Latin name of which sea,

lying between the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles?

The Sea of Marmara.

-Go for that.

-Sea of Marmara.

Correct. Known in Latin as Maeotis Palus,

which inland sea is connected to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait,

to the east of the Crimean peninsula?

This has come up before, it's the Azov Sea.

-Go.

-The Azov Sea.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Cassiterite is the chief ore of which metallic element?

-Tin.

-Tin is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on German universities, Merton College.

Founded in 1409, Leipzig is Germany's second oldest university.

In which federal state is it?

Saxony.

-Which one?

-No, just...

-Saxony.

-Saxony is correct.

Secondly, in which state are the universities of Greifswald and Rostock,

both founded in the 15th century?

Rostock is in the north, so it must be...

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

-Yes.

-What's the...?

-Nominate Wiberg.

-Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

That's correct. In which federal state are the universities of

Freiburg and Tubingen, also founded in the 15th century?

Freiburg's right in the west of Germany, so it's...

Rhine-Westphalia?

-Nominate Peplow.

-Rhine-Westphalia.

No, it's Baden-Wurttemberg.

Ten points for this. Belarius,

Caius Lucius and Imogen are characters

in which of Shakespeare's later plays?

-Cymbeline.

-Cymbeline is correct. These bonuses are on castles.

Duke Bluebeard's Castle is the only opera by which composer,

born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1881?

-Bartok.

-Bartok.

Correct. Lord Weary's Castle is a collection by which US poet?

It includes The Quaker Graveyard In Nantucket,

inspired by the death of his cousin during World War II.

Ginsberg? No, it would be later...

-Frost?

-No, it's Robert Lowell.

Hatter's Castle and The Citadel are early novels by which Scottish

writer and doctor, born in 1896?

Robert Louis Stevenson. No, that's not...

-Come on.

-Conan Doyle.

No...

Robert Louis Stevenson.

No, it's AJ Cronin.

Ten points for this, listen carefully.

In terms of population size and the spelling of their names,

if O is Liverpool, T is Nottingham and F is Sheffield,

which English city is E?

-Leeds.

-Leeds is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time, Merton College, are on ancient Greece.

In each case, name the person from the description.

All three names begin with the same three letters.

Firstly, an Athenian orator and statesman,

his speeches include the Philippics against Philip II of Macedon...

GONG

And at the gong,

Oxford Brookes University have 175,

Merton College, Oxford have 255.

Oxford Brookes, you came back strongly, but you left it

a bit too late, I think, but never mind. But thank you very much

for joining us. Merton, we shall look forward to seeing you

in the quarterfinals. Congratulations to you.

I hope you can join us for the first of the quarterfinals next time,

but until then, it's goodbye from Oxford Brookes University.

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Merton College, Oxford.

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.

APPLAUSE