Episode 27 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. The game's afoot.

Two quarterfinals down, two teams a step closer to the semifinals,

and two more teams playing tonight to secure

the first of the two victories they'll need to make the semifinals.

The team from St John's College, Cambridge,

may well be hoping for rather stiffer opposition tonight

than they've had so far in this competition,

just to show us what they're like under pressure.

The teams from St Andrews University

and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,

didn't do much to make them break sweat.

And with only those two matches behind them,

their accumulated score is already 540.

With an average age of 23, let's meet the St John's team again.

Hi, I'm John-Clark Levin, I'm from Los Angeles, California,

and I'm studying for a PhD in politics and international studies.

Hello, I'm Rosie McKeown, I'm from Kingston upon Thames

in South West London, and I'm studying French and German.

And their captain.

Hi, I'm James Devine-Stoneman from Southall in West London,

studying for a PhD in superconducting spintronics.

Hi, I'm Matt Hazell from Ringwood in Hampshire,

and I'm studying veterinary medicine.

APPLAUSE

Now, the team from Ulster University have had ample opportunity

to show us grace under fire.

They lost their first-round match by a mere five points

against Edinburgh University,

survived as one of the highest-scoring losing teams,

then to beat St Anne's College, Oxford, in the play-offs.

They then knocked off the University of Warwick

in Round Two by a 30-point margin.

With an accumulated score of 505 earned over those three matches,

and with an average age of 50,

let's meet the well-preserved Ulster team again.

LAUGHTER

Hello, I'm Cathal McDaid from Buncrana in County Donegal,

and I'm studying for a Masters degree in English literature.

Hi, I'm Kate Ritchie, I'm from Waringstown, County Armagh,

and I'm studying fine art.

And this is their captain.

Hi, I'm Ian Jack, I'm originally from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire,

and I'm reading for a PhD in pharmacy.

Hi, my name's Matthew Milliken, I'm from Comber in County Down,

and I'm studying for a PhD in education.

APPLAUSE

OK, the rules are the same as ever, so fingers on buzzers.

Here's the first starter for ten.

What short surname links a trade unionist born in 1864,

after whom a new town in County Durham is named,

the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

during the American Civil War...?

-Lee.

-Lee is correct.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on literary figures

who served as members of the House of Commons.

In each case, I want you to identify the MP from the description.

Firstly, for five,

the member for Liskeard between 1774 and 1780,

and for Lymington between 1781 and 1784.

In the former period, he published the first of the six volumes

of the work of non-fiction for which he is most remembered.

Try, um, Edward Gibbon.

Edward Gibbon?

Er, Gibbon?

Correct.

Secondly, a playwright who was the member for three constituencies -

Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester -

at different times between 1780 and 1812,

and was appointed treasurer of the Navy in 1806.

-Anything on that?

-There's a faint thing...

Try Sheridan, but it's not.

Sheridan.

-Sheridan is correct.

-Oh.

And, finally, a French-born writer who was the Liberal Party MP

for South Salford between 1906 and 1910.

During this time,

he published a collection of verse parodies for children.

Hilaire Belloc.

-Hilaire Belloc.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

In astronomy, what seven-letter term is defined as

"the great circle formed by the intersection

"of the celestial sphere with a plane perpendicular to the...?

The ecliptic?

No, you lose five points.

"..plane perpendicular to the line from an observer to the zenith"?

In more general speech, it denotes a boundary or limit,

for example of knowledge or perception.

One of you buzz from Ulster.

Tangent?

It's horizon.

Ten points for this.

"I have spent my life since I first read it trying to solve it.

"It's incredibly prophetic, full of pre-Freudian insights."

These words of Leonard Bernstein

refer to which opera or musical drama

inspired by two lovers in Celtic legend?

Completed in...

Tristan and Isolde.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on art museums.

In each case, give the name of the museum

and the city in which it's located.

Firstly, originally built for the Medici family,

which Italian museum's collection

includes Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration Of The Magi

and Titian's Venus Of Urbino?

-Is that the Uffizi?

-Could be the Uffizi in Florence, yeah.

-Yes.

-The Uffizi in Florence?

-Correct.

Incorporated in 1870, which American museum's collection

includes John Singer Sargent's Portrait Of Madame X

and Winslow Homer's The Gulf Stream?

It's the one in New York.

-The Moma?

-Moma?

-The Moma?

It could be.

-Try that?

-Yeah.

The Moma in New York?

No, it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met.

And, finally, housed in a building completed in 1819,

which museum's collection includes

Titian's Equestrian Portrait Of Charles V

and Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son?

The Prado in Madrid.

-The Prado in Madrid.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

What letter of the alphabet is used to designate

the atmospheric region also known as the Kennelly-Heaviside layer?

It is responsible for the reflections involved

in Marconi's original transatlantic radio communication in 1902.

X?

No. Anyone like to buzz from St John's?

-A?

-No, it's E.

Ten points for this.

"George I was a Doge. George II was a Doge.

"They were what William III, a great man, would not be."

Who wrote those words in the 1844 novel Coningsby?

On his elevation to the peerage, he was created Earl of Beaconsfield.

-Benjamin Disraeli.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on experiments at CERN. Firstly, for five.

What five-letter name is given

to the general-purpose particle detector

at the Large Hadron Collider which, along with the CMS detector,

discovered the Higgs boson in 2012?

-Atlas.

-Correct.

What five-letter name is given to the detector array

spread up to half a kilometre around the CMS interaction point?

It's designed to study the forward direction region

inaccessible to other LHC experiments.

Not sure on this.

Not Prism or something?

Could try that.

-Prism?

-No, it's Totem.

Using arguably the cleanest box in the world,

the Cloud experiment at CERN investigates possible links

between cloud formation and what?

-Magnetism?

-Something like that.

-Magnetic fields?

Or it could be like a charged particle, like... Or...

I think maybe it's something forming around particles...

Electromagnetic fields.

No, it's cosmic rays.

Ten points for this.

It's a picture question.

For your picture starter, you will have to tell me

the name of the specific body of water highlighted in red here.

-The Gulf of Guinea.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your picture bonuses are three more alliterative geographical features.

Five points for each you can name. Firstly...

-It's Lake Ladoga.

-Yeah.

-Lake Ladoga.

-Correct.

Secondly, this specific part of the Gulf of Guinea.

-LEVIN:

-The Bight of Benin, I think.

-The Bight of Benin?

-Correct.

And finally...

-MCKEOWN:

-Hook of Holland. Oh, no, no.

-LEVIN:

-This is Massachusetts.

-Oh, yes.

-HAZELL:

-Could be a hook or spit.

-Oh, yeah.

-Any idea?

-Massach...

-Come on.

-No?

Um...pass.

It's Cape Cod.

Ten points for this. I need a two-word term here.

The diamond-water paradox of value that Adam Smith was unable to solve

can be explained with the help of which concept,

referring to the amount of extra satisfaction

gained from the last unit of the commodity consumed?

Marginal utility?

Yes, that's correct. APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on films that have won

the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In each case, give the English title under which the film was released,

and the decade in which it was released.

Firstly, Das Leben Der Anderen.

-BOTH:

-The Lives Of Others.

That was the 2000s.

Yeah, The Lives Of Others in the noughties.

That's correct, yes.

Secondly, Voyna I Mir.

-Any idea?

-No.

-Voyna I Mir...

-Russian?

-Probably. Something Slavic.

Yeah, pass.

It's War And Peace in the 1960s.

And, finally, La Vita E Bella.

Life Is Beautiful, 1990s.

Life Is Beautiful, 1990s.

Correct. Ten points for this.

With masses thought to be less than a millionth of that of an electron,

what group of particles were the subject of research

that earned Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald...?

-Neutrinos.

-Neutrinos is correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, St John's,

are on the early 20th-century political activist Annie Kenney.

Born in Lancashire in 1879, Annie Kenney was a leading figure

in which specific movement, known by a four-letter acronym?

The Women's Social And Political Union.

Um, The Women's Social And Political Union.

Correct, yes.

In her work in the WSPU, a biographer says that Kenney's value

lay in her total and almost mystical devotion to which person,

the eldest daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst?

It's either Sylvia or Christabel.

I think Sylvia was older.

Sylvia.

No, it's Christabel.

And, finally, in Manchester in 1905,

Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst were among the first suffragettes

to be imprisoned after they heckled which Liberal politician,

who became Foreign Secretary later that year?

-Was that Asquith? Was he a Liberal?

-What year?

-Er, 1905.

Yeah, try Asquith.

Asquith?

No, it was Sir Edward Grey.

Ten points for this.

Answer in French or in English.

Used in Bernard Shaw's Man And Superman,

in an imagined conversation between Don Juan and the devil,

what two-word term was also used by the philosopher Henri Bergson

to refer to the impetus or spirit that animates living creatures?

Life force or vital force?

Life force is correct, the elan vital.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses on a theory of the origin of life, St John's.

Independently put forward by Alexander Oparin and JBS Haldane,

what theory proposes that life began

in an ocean of organic molecules on ancient Earth?

-Oh, that's the primordial soup, something like that?

-Yeah.

Primordial Soup Theory?

Correct.

Published in 1953,

which experiment tried to test the Primordial Soup Theory

by sending electricity through a mixture

of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen?

-Urey-Miller.

-Urey-Miller?

-Yeah.

Urey-Miller?

The Miller-Urey experiment, yes.

Which essential biomolecules

did Miller and Urey manage to synthesise in their experiment?

It was amino acids.

-Yeah, amino acids.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

In which present-day country is the city of Kalisz?

It gives its name to a statute of 1254 that defined freedoms

and safeguards for Jews granted by Duke Boleslaw The Chaste.

Poland?

Poland is correct.

APPLAUSE

Your set of bonuses are on poetry.

In classical poetry,

the ode is a formal lyric poem with a three-part structure

of which the first two parts are the strophe and the antistrophe.

What name is given to the third part?

The panegyric? I haven't...

-Nominate McKeown.

-The panegyric?

No, it's the epode.

And, secondly, consisting of a verse of 11 lines

with the same phrase used in the 1st, 4th and 11th lines,

what poetic form was developed by Algernon Swinburne

for a collection of 1883?

No idea.

Pass.

That's a roundel.

And, finally, what poetic form of French origin

has its first and third lines each repeated three times

in a total length of 19 lines?

An example is Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

Villanelle.

Villanelle.

Correct. APPLAUSE

We're going to take a music round now.

You're going to hear a piece of popular music.

For ten points, I'd like you to give me

the name of its original composer.

# Birds do it... #

-Cole Porter.

-Correct.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, you're off the mark.

Your bonuses are three more performances

by Ella Fitzgerald of works from The Great American Songbook.

In each case, I want the name of the original songwriter

and the title of the song. Firstly...

# Dressed up like a million-dollar trooper

# Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper... #

Puttin' On The Ritz.

# Super duper

# Come, let's mix where Rockefellers... #

Puttin' On The Ritz by Irving Berlin.

Correct. Secondly...

WOMAN SCATTING

# It makes no difference if it's sweet or hot

# Just gave that rhythm everything you've got... #

RESUMES SCATTING

-Putting On The Ritz.

-No, we've had that.

No.

-Anything?

-No.

Sorry.

That was It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

by Duke Ellington.

And, finally, I want the two writers and the title of this.

# And, oh, if we ever part

# Then that might break my heart

# So if you go for oysters

# And I go for er-sters

# I'll order oysters

# And cancel the er-sters

# For we know we need each other... #

-It's Po-tay-to, Po-ta-to and...

-Who?

-It's...

-It's two writers.

-Let's Work The Whole Thing Out.

Let's Work The Whole Thing Out, who's that by?

Work The Whole Thing Out?

-It's the whole thing about two...

-No.

-Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Rodgers and Hammerstein, Work The Whole Thing Out.

No, you were getting there.

It's Let's Call The Whole Thing Off by George and Ira Gershwin.

Right, ten points for this.

Name either of the Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine

in 1923 who shared their prize-money

with Charles Best and Bertram Collip.

The award was made for the discovery of insulin.

-Banting.

-Correct.

Banting and the other one was Macleod.

Right, you get a set of bonuses this time

on the Biblical book of Judges, Ulster.

The only female judge,

which prophet led an attack against the forces of Canaan?

She gives her name to an oratorio of 1733 by Handel.

Handel...

Deborah, she was a judge.

That's the only one I can think of.

What about the Handel oratorio?

-I don't know a Handel oratorio about her.

-Go on.

Deborah.

Deborah is correct.

Secondly, which judge was sent by God to deliver

the Israelites from domination by the Moabites?

His name is the given name of two prime ministers of Israel

who served after 1999.

Given names?

Oh!

-Ariel?

-No...

-Ariel Sharon?

I think it's Ehud.

-Ehud.

-Correct.

Which judge won a decisive victory over a Midianite army?

His name was adopted

-by an international evangelical association...

-Gideon.

..founded in 1899.

-Gideon.

-Gideon is correct. Ten points for this.

Derived ultimately from the Greek for drum,

what six-letter word denotes

the quality or character of a sound?

-Timbre.

-Correct.

You get a set of bonuses on volcanoes this time.

Novarupta is in the Katmai National Park in which US state?

Its eruption in 1912 is often stated

as being the largest of the 20th century.

-Volcanoes in US states?

-What about the...?

Could it be in Alaska?

-Hawaii?

-Hawaii?

-It's possible.

Hawaii.

No, it's Alaska.

-Argh!

-Secondly, an eruption of...

-HE LAUGHS

-Sorry.

Take it easy!

Secondly, an eruption of Mount Pelee in 1902 killed about 30,000 people

on which Caribbean island situated between Dominica and Saint Lucia?

What about the one that Granada had? They had one.

Granada?

No, it's Martinique.

And, finally, eruptions of Mount Pinatubo

in 1991 and '92 caused devastation in which country

in addition to widespread stratospheric disturbances?

Would that be the one in Iceland, the ash cloud?

No, it's not the right name.

-It was somewhere in Indonesia.

-Indonesia?

Java or somewhere? Say Indonesia?

Indonesia.

No, it was the Philippines.

Ten points for this.

Josephine The Singer, Or The Mouse Folk

was the final fictional work of which author?

It appeared in a German language publication

known as the Prague Press some weeks before his death

in 1924. BUZZER

-Kafka?

-Kafka is correct.

Your bonuses, Ulster, are on organic chemistry.

In each case, I need the IUPAC name of the substance.

Firstly, I need you to spell a six-letter term here.

C6H5OH is the chemical formula of which white soluble substance,

also known as carbolic acid?

C6H5...

Is it Phenol?

-P-H-E-N-O-L.

-Six letters.

-Are you sure it's six letters in it?

-P-H-E-N-O-L.

P-H-E-N-O-L.

Correct.

Phenyl, P-H-E-N-Y-L,

is a group formed from which aromatic hydrocarbon

by the removal of one hydrogen atom?

Phenylalanine, is that from...?

Aromatic... Aromatic hydrocarbon?

Could it be benzene, or...?

Um...

Phenylalanine.

-Is that what we say? Is it aromatic?

-I don't know.

-Benzene?

-Correct.

Also known as amino benzene,

which colourless, oily, organic compound has the formula C6H5NH2?

It's used in the manufacture of synthetic dyes.

-Aniline.

-Correct.

We're going to take another picture round now.

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

from a television series. Ten points if you can name it, please.

BUZZER

Mad Men?

Nope. BUZZER

Twin Peaks?

Twin Peaks is right, yes.

It was co-created, co-written and co-directed by David Lynch.

Your picture bonuses show three more examples of directors

primarily known for feature films working on the small screen.

This time, I want both the title of the show

and the director in question.

Firstly for five, this show

and the man who directed its opening episodes.

He continues to be one of the executive producers of the show.

House... That's House Of Cards.

Who executive produces?

Obviously, written by Michael Dobbs. Did he do the production?

Director, it's the director of the first episodes of it.

We need the director.

House Of Cards, Michael Dobbs.

Nope, it's House Of Cards and David Fincher.

Secondly, this show and the Oscar-nominated director

who co-created, co-writes and co-directs it.

It's something like On The Shore. It was set in New Zealand.

Erm... So a New Zealand director, do you know any?

Jane Campion, maybe? Try that.

She's a New Zealander.

On The Shore, Jane Campion?

It's Top Of The Lake, Jane Campion.

And, finally, this show and its Oscar-winning executive producer.

He also directed the pilot.

It's Boardwalk Empire.

A director?

Scorsese? Try Scorsese.

Boardwalk Empire, Scorsese.

Correct.

Right, we're going to take another starter question now.

From the Russian meaning east,

what was the name of the spacecraft in which, on April the 12th 1961,

Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes?

Soyuz.

No, anyone like to buzz from St John's?

Meer?

No, it's Vostok 1.

Ten points for this.

Which state of India contains Cape Comorin,

the southernmost point of the Indian Peninsula?

-Tamil Nadu.

-Correct.

You get three bonuses on the Danish author Karen Blixen.

Many of Karen Blixen's well-known works were published under

what pseudonym, especially in the United States?

-It's like Dinesen? Dinen-sen?

-Dinesen.

Dinesen.

-Isak Dinesen.

-Correct.

Secondly, a film based on which of Blixen's short stories

won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1988?

The story concerns a French refugee who prepares a meal for her

Danish neighbours after she wins the lottery.

No. I'm not good on Danish literature.

Er... Pass.

That was Babette's Feast.

And, finally, who won an Academy Award for directing

the 1985 film Out Of Africa,

partly based on Blixen's memoir of her life in a colonial Africa?

Who could that be? Someone like...

David Lean or is that too...?

I don't know. Starring Meryl Streep.

-No, it wouldn't be David Lean, would it?

-No. I don't know.

-Come on.

-John Ford?

-Er, John Ford?

No, it was Sydney Pollack.

There are about four minutes to go and ten points for this.

In organic chemistry, what compound has the empirical formula H2CO?

In aqueous solution,

it's been used extensively to preserve biological specimens.

-Formalin.

-Yes.

-Formaldehyde, sorry.

Yeah, I'll accept that, formalin.

Here are a set of bonuses for you on cities in the UK, Ulster.

Of the seven places in Scotland with official city status,

which is the most remote in the sense that its distance

from the nearest of the other six is the greatest?

I'd say it's Inverness. That's miles from anywhere.

-Inverness.

-Correct.

By the same measure, which is the most remote

of the five official cities of Northern Ireland?

Erm...

It's probably Derry.

-There's Newry, Belfast...

-Lisburn.

Derry.

It is Derry, yes.

Similarly, which is the most remote of the six cities of Wales

irrespective of whether English cities

are considered as possible neighbours?

-Irrespective?

-Aberystwyth, because it's...

-Could be.

-What about St David's?

-Caernarfon.

-Caernarfon.

-Is that a city?

Yeah, I think so. It's got a castle in it.

St David's is a city as well.

St David's.

It is St David's.

Ten points for this.

Derived ultimately from the Greek for something assumed,

what term is used to describe a subsidiary theorem

of a more complicated proof,

particularly in mathematics?

-Lemma.

-Correct.

These bonuses are on the 17th-century parliamentarian

John Pym.

Firstly, in January 1642, Charles I attempted to arrest

for treason how many members of the House of Commons,

John Pym among them, in an act that precipitated the Civil War?

Hmm... Was it, like, 40?

-Something like that, yeah.

-Probably has a good name.

-Come on.

-40?

No, it was five.

In 1626, Pym played a major part in the attempted impeachment

of which royal favourite, assassinated two years later?

Duke of Buckingham.

-The Duke of Buckingham.

-Correct.

Which leading adviser of Charles I did Pym call "the wicked earl"?

He was executed for treason in 1641.

-I don't know.

-Is it the Earl of Stratford?

Could be.

The Earl of Stratford?

The Earl of Stratford is correct.

Ten points for this.

The words dreary and weary appear in the first line of which 1845 poem?

Its title character appears tapping at the chamber door and regularly...

The Raven by Poe.

Yes, you're right. 15 points for these bonuses.

They're on Italian composers.

Which composer died at his villa in Passy on the outskirts

of Paris in November 1868?

His remains were later reinterred

at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

-Is it Paganini?

-I don't know.

-Paganini.

-No, it was Rossini.

Which composer revised a piece originally written to commemorate

Rossini for his requiem for the poet Alessandro Manzoni?

It was first performed in 1874.

-Manzoni...

-Could be Verdi?

-Try that.

-Giuseppe Verdi.

-Correct.

Which composer adapted melodies by Rossini for the 1918 ballet

La Boutique Fantasque, or The Magic Toyshop,

choreographed by Leonide Massine?

-Was it Puccini? He was... Go for it?

-Yeah.

Puccini.

No, it's Respighi. GONG

And at the gong, Ulster University have 130,

but St John's College, Cambridge, have 185.

Well, Ulster, you're going to have to come back again

and you're going to have to win to stay in the game,

but it was an absolute treat to hear a man from Fraserburgh...

-You're from Fraserburgh, aren't you?

-Peterhead.

-Peterhead, sorry, yes,

describing Inverness as being miles from anywhere!

LAUGHTER Very good.

St John's, many congratulations.

Another storming performance from you.

We shall look forward to seeing you again, too.

You only have to win one more time to go through to the semifinals.

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

-but until then, it's goodbye from Ulster University. ALL:

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from St John's College, Cambridge. ALL:

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.