Episode 2 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Tonight is the second contest in this series,

in which the honour of some of the UK's top universities lies in the hands, not of their students,

but in those of their distinguished graduates.

Here to prove that the passage of time doesn't necessarily only lead

to that common typo, older and wider.

The four winning teams with the highest scores

will go through to the semi-final stage of this contest.

First tonight, a team trying to live up to the fearsome reputation of the University of Durham,

which has produced student champions twice in the past.

They are an England cricketer, who has been described as having the grace and timing

of a right handed David Gower. She's been part of the winning England team in the World Cup,

the World Twenty20 and in the team that's taken the Ashes twice.

With her, an actor who came to prominence in the Merchant Ivory films Maurice and Howard's End,

followed by Gosford Park, Regeneration and next year

he'll be seen in ITV's drama production Titanic.

Their captain is a man named by the Independent newspaper

as amongst the UK's top 50 people making the world a better place.

He's founder of Tearcraft and Tradecraft,

the ethical importers of food and crafts from the developing world.

Their fourth team member is one of Britain's leading crime writers. Winner of numerous awards,

including an Edgar Allen Poe, and two Gold Daggers from the Crime Writers Association.

But in case we'd missed anything out, let's ask the Durham team to speak for themselves.

Hi, I'm Caroline Atkins, I received my sports degree from Durham University in 2002,

and I'm now a Chance to Shine coaching ambassador.

Hi, I'm James Wilby, and I received my degree in mathematics from Durham University in 1980

and I'm currently working as an actor.

And their captain.

Hello, I'm Richard Adams, I received my degree in Sociology from Durham in 1968

and I'm currently working on the safety of nuclear energy and the Common Fisheries Reform.

Hello, I'm Minette Walters, I received my degree in French from Durham University in 1971.

I am currently a psychological thriller writer,

and I'm working on a quick reads book for adults who want to improve their reading skills.

APPLAUSE

Their opponents are products of Edinburgh University. The first of them took up an internship at NASA,

then studied climate change at Oxford and worked on the New Scientist magazine before

her current eminence predicting the weather on television for people who get up very early.

Her teammate's dream of a career as a television reporter was shattered

when he became the youngest member of the House of Commons in 1965.

He failed to recover in time to prevent him being made leader of the Liberal Party

and later the Lib Dems.

Their captain is the author of a social history of urine, The Life of Pee,

a work perhaps accurately described as a surprise best seller.

But you may recognise her as the journalist and broadcaster

and presenter of Reporting Scotland and Songs of Praise.

Their fourth member is one of the world's leading entomologists, whose name will live forever

in various types of cockroaches, plant hoppers and ants.

He also advocates eating the subjects of his work,

which is more than can be said for the average professor of Sanskrit or indeed metallurgy. Let's meet them.

Hello, I'm Kirsty McCabe, I graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in Geophysics in '97

and I'm now a weather presenter.

I'm David Steel, I took arts and law degrees in Edinburgh in the 1960s

but was led astray into politics very early on.

And their captain.

I'm Sally Magnusson, I graduated from Edinburgh in English in 1978 and I'm a TV news presenter

and do some writing when I've got time.

Hi, I'm George McGavin, and after my degree in Zoology in Edinburgh,

I went to Oxford for 25 years, but I'm now a presenter on TV.

APPLAUSE

I guess you all know the rules, 10 points for starters which are solo efforts. 15 points for bonuses,

which are team efforts. 5 point penalties if you interrupt a starter question incorrectly.

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

Described ironically by the sitter as a remarkable example of modern art,

who was presented with a portrait of himself by Graham Sutherland, in...

-Churchill.

-Winston Churchill is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

The first bonuses go to you, Edinburgh. They're on a game.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was accused of failing to observe

proper mourning for her second husband, Lord Darnley,

when shortly after his death in 1567

she was seen playing what game, of which she was an enthusiastic proponent?

-Tennis?

-Curling?

-Curling?

Lacrosse? I'm thinking curling.

-Shooting? Lacrosse?

-Shall we go with curling?

-The consensus is curling.

-The consensus, I'm afraid, is wrong. It's golf.

Which US President was reputed to have played golf almost daily

while in office, including on the morning of April 2nd 1917,

the day on which he asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany?

Roosevelt?

-Roosevelt?

-Wrong war! No, it's Woodrow Wilson.

-Oh.

-And, finally, what was the significance of a golf ball hit in February 1971,

the player in question excitably but erroneously claiming that it travelled for miles and miles?

What's the significance? No idea.

No idea.

We haven't a clue!

That was Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the moon.

Right, ten points for this starter question. HOMES - that's H-O-M-E-S -

is a mnemonic for the main constituents of what geographical feature of North America?

Together they form one of the most important commercial waterways in the world.

-The Great Lakes?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Durham,

are on graduates of University College London.

Firstly for five points, born 1826, which UCL graduate's works include The English Constitution

and Lombard Street, a description of the money market?

The 1820s...

Born in the 1820s, so an economist...

-Parliamentary?

-No, it'll be an economist, 19th century.

-Adam Smith, something like that.

-No? No idea?

Sorry, we don't know.

There's two people on the other team who SHOULD know. It's Walter Bagehot.

Secondly, born 1880, which social reformer's works include

Married Love and Contraception: Its Theory, History And Practice?

-Marie Stopes.

-That's Marie Stopes.

-It is, yes.

The works of which academic, born in 1941, include

The Cambridge Encyclopaedia Of Language, The Stories Of English

and Txtng: The Gr8 Db8?

1941.

-Lynne Truss?

-No, she wrote...

Yeah, I know, but we can try. Anybody else know?

-Lynne Truss.

-She'd be mortified to think she was born in 1941.

No, David Crystal. Ten points for this. What entity has been described as follows -

by Wordsworth as too much with us,

by a ballad of 1646 as having been turned upside down,

by Woodrow Wilson as having to be made safe for democracy and by Shake...

-The world?

-The world is right, yes.

-APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on history this time, Durham.

Born 1638, which princess's marriage to a British king

was seen by merchants as "the most beneficial that ever our nation was engaged in"?

-1638.

-Born. Born 1638.

So the king would have been Charles II.

-Henrietta.

-No, that was his sister. Charles was married to...

THEY CONFER

No? We think it was Henrietta.

No, it was Catherine of Braganza.

For five, Catherine of Braganza's dowry gave Charles II which port

close to the Strait of Gibraltar?

Now a major city of Morocco, it proved costly to defend

and was evacuated in 1684.

THEY CONFER

-Casablanca?

-No, it's Tangier.

Of more enduring significance was Charles's acquisition by marriage of which port on the Arabian Sea?

It's now one of the largest cities in the world.

-That's...

-Bombay?

-Bombay.

-Bombay, Mumbai, is correct, yes.

Right, a picture round now. For your picture starter you'll see a coat of arms from a British university

from which we've removed any helpful wording.

Ten points if you can identify the university.

-Cardiff?

-Well done. Yes, it is.

APPLAUSE

So you get a set of picture bonuses now, Edinburgh.

There are three more coats of arms of British universities, five points for each one you can identify.

Firstly...

THEY CONFER

-Newcastle?

-No, that's the University of Bristol.

Secondly...

Glasgow.

-That is Glasgow, yes!

-And finally...

-Oxford?

-Uhh...dah!

-No, I'm afraid if you've given an answer...

-LAUGHTER

We're enjoying it, go on! No, the line of birds are the giveaway.

It's the University of Liverpool. Ten points for this.

Quote, "Here is something more terrible than Cain killing Abel. It is Washington killing Spartacus."

These words of Victor Hugo refer to the execution of which US abolitionist

after an attack on a Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859?

John Brown?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on biology. Which group of infectious agents

are classified by the Baltimore system, which is based on the nature

of their genetic material and how they generate messenger RNA?

-Sorry.

-That's all right.

THEY CONFER

HE LAUGHS

-We don't know.

-They're viruses.

Which group of viruses contain sense RNA and produce DNA

as an intermediary in the production of their messenger RNA?

I'm sorry, we don't know that.

Retroviruses.

Finally, what enzyme is required by retroviruses for the production of

DNA from the RNA of their genome?

Think of an enzyme...

Let's have it, please.

-No, sorry, don't know.

-It's reverse transcriptaise.

Right, another starter question. 10 points for this.

The pre-decimal values of a guinea plus a crown together represent

how much in present-day pounds and pence?

-£1.30.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

One pound, one shilling and five shillings.

Right, your bonuses this time, Durham, are on Greek mythology.

A son of Cronus, Chiron was among the wisest and most learned

of which mythical beings?

THEY CONFER

Centaurs?

Correct.

The centaurs fought against which people who drove them out

of Thessaly after a violent brawl at the wedding of Hippodamia?

No... I don't know.

-No, we don't know.

-They fought the Lapiths.

Finally, which hero died after he wore a tunic that had been dipped

in the poisoned blood of the centaur Nessus?

It's going to be... THEY CONFER

-Agamemnon?

-No, it's Hercules.

10 points for this.

Examples being aphids and cicadas, what term denotes

the taxonomic order of true bugs...

BUZZER

-Hemiptera?

-Correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Edinburgh, are on a French philosopher.

The Algerian-born French philosopher Jacques Derrida initiated and led

which specific movement, a sceptical approach the possibility of coherent meaning?

-Existentialism?

-No, it's deconstruction.

Existentialism is much earlier.

The notion of deconstruction was presented in the introduction to

Derrida's 1962 translation of Origin Of Geometry,

by which philosopher and founder of phenomenology?

-We're not big on phenomenlogy.

-LAUGHTER

Count your blessings, I say!

It's Husserl.

And finally, in which work of 1967 did Derrida argue against

the phonocentrism that privileges speech above writing?

Yes, it's on the tip of our tongues.

Obviously. It's of grammatology.

Music, now.

For your Music starter you'll hear an exert from a piece of classical music.

Ten points if you can name the composer.

-BUZZER

-Edinburgh McGavin.

Glinka?

No, you may hear a little more, Durham.

-BELL

-Durham, Adams.

-Tchaikovsky.

-No, it's Rachmaninov. His Piano Concerto No 2.

So, another set of bonuses.

Those music bonuses coming up

when someone gets a starter question right.

Ten points for this. What term derives from the Latin meaning

"marriage with a morning gift"

and refers to a marriage in which a person of lower social rank has

no rights to the title or possessions of a spouse of higher rank?

-BELL

-Durham, Wilby.

-Morganatic.

-Correct.

So that piece of Rachmaninov you heard earlier was voted number one in the 2011 Classic FM Hall of Fame.

For your Music bonuses, three more pieces that all appear

-in the top 30 of that chart, in each case, all you have to do is to name the composer.

-Firstly:

-Thomas Tallis?

-No, it's Allegri.

-And secondly:

-Cesar Franck?

-No, Saint-San, Third Symphony. And finally.

-Rutter?

-No, that was Faure's Requiem. Ten points for this starter question.

Fingers on buzzers.

Which play was both an adaptation of both the book Goodbye To Berlin

and a precursor to the stage and film musical Cabaret?

-BELL

-Durham, Adams.

Mr Norris Changes Trains?

No. Edinburgh?

It's I Am A Camera. Ten points for this.

In the A B system of the classification of blood groups, list

all those groups which can safely be given to a person who is group AB.

-BUZZER

-Edinburgh, McCabe.

-Isn't that the universal receiver and can have all of them?

-Correct.

A set of bonuses for you now, Edinburgh.

They are on UNESCO World Heritage Sites,

specifically those located in British Overseas Territories.

Firstly, for 5 points.

In which British Overseas Territory is Henderson Island,

a raised coral atoll in the South Pacific, described by the RSPB as the

world's last large limestone island still in a near pristine condition?

-Come on.

-Pitcairn Islands?

-Correct.

What is the closest populated island to Gough,

an inaccessible island described as one of the least disrupted

ecosystems in the cool temperate zone?

Nominate McCabe.

I'm thinking it must be somewhere near the Antarctic,

so I tried to think of something that we owned there.

We can't hang around all day. It's Tristan Da Cunha.

And finally, in which British Overseas Territory is the historic town of St George?

Founded in 1612,

it's one of the earliest English urban settlements in the New World.

-We'll try Bermuda.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

Meaning of what word include, in Biology,

a genus of sea snails, in physics, the ratio of stress to strain in an

elastic material and in mathematics, the absolute value of a number?

It's the modulus. Ten points for this.

What specific human disposition

is both provoked and unprovoked by drink

according to the Porter in Shakespeare's Macbeth?

Edinburgh, McGavin!

Lust.

Durham?

Durham, Adams!

Love?

-No, it's lechery! I need the speci...

-Oh!

It may be the same to you, matey, but that's not what the Porter says!

LAUGHTER

10 points for this. The US anthropologist Ruth Fulton-Benedict's 1946 work

The Chrysanthemum And The Sword explored the patterns of culture in which country?

Durham, Walters!

-Papua New Guinea?

-No, Edinburgh, one of you buzz.

Edinburgh, McGavin.

-Japan.

-Correct!

APPLAUSE

Get these bonuses you'll take the lead. They're on eye rhymes,

that is pairs of words that end in the same letters but do not rhyme,

for example "gander" and "wander".

In each case, give both words from the definitions.

Firstly, to administer a sleeping draught and upper legislative body of France or Australia?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

Sedate and senate.

Correct. Secondly, to inspire with spirit or hope

and a group of followers or attendants?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

Come on, let's have it, please.

Inspire, aspire?

No, it's encourage and entourage. And finally, the shape of the Swiss flag

and paralysing substance obtained from the bark of South American trees?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

Curare and square?

-Curare is correct and square is correct.

-APPLAUSE

Our second picture round now. It's a photograph of a house in the United States.

For 10 points, I want you to name the US author who at one time lived there.

BUZZER

Durham, Wilby.

Fitzgerald?

No, somebody like to have a go from Edinburgh?

You may not confer, one of you may buzz... I'll tell you,

-it's Ernest Hemingway.

-Hemingway.

-It was but I'm sorry, I had already started answering by the time you...

I'm going to have to enforce the rule of law.

That was Hemingway's house. You got there too slowly, I'm afraid.

Picture bonuses in a moment or two but another starter question in the meantime.

Which environmental activist died in Nairobi in September 2011.

The founder of the Green Belt Movement in 2004, she became the first African...

Edinburgh, Steel!

Wangari Maathai.

-Yes.

-APPLAUSE

So you get some picture bonuses now.

Three more photographs of writers' houses,

this time in the UK.

In each case simply name the writer who lived there.

First, which writer, born in the 20th century, lived here?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

-Daphne du Maurier.

-It is, at Fowey in Cornwall.

Secondly, which writer, born in the 18th century, lived here?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

-Sir Walter Scott.

-Indeed! That's in David Steel's old constituency, isn't it?

I can't recognise the picture! LAUGHTER

I've been there many times.

-Awful photograph!

-Oh, I'm so sorry about that!

Good excuse!

Finally, for 5 points, this writer, born in the 19th century?

THEY CONFER IN WHISPERS

Thomas Hardy.

-Thomas Hardy is correct, yes.

-APPLAUSE

Another starter question, 10 for this.

Born 1905, which Dutch-born astronomer found carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars,

discovered the dense atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan

and gave his name to a large belt of icy bodies orbiting beyond Neptune?

Edinburgh, McCabe.

Kepler?

No. Durham, one of you buzz.

It's Kuiper. 10 points for this.

Which prime number may be obtained by adding the number of sovereign states in South America

to the number of countries whose English names end in "stan",

that's S-T-A-N?

Durham, Walters!

20.

No. Edinburgh, one of you buzz?

-27.

-No. It's 19 - 12 and 7.

For ten points, in compound nouns, what word of five letters can come before drive,

mail, reaction, letter...?

I think it's chain.

Chain is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on naval history. In 1667, which country's fleet achieved a major victory

when it surprised the English Navy at Anchor in the River Medway?

THEY CONFER

-Spain?

-No, the Dutch Republic.

In 1776, British troops surrendered to United States naval and marine forces

at which port on New Providence Island,

now a national capital?

THEY CONFER

Let's have it, please.

-We'll try Ottawa.

-No, Nassau. The largest naval action between Britain and France

during the French Revolutionary Wars, the Third Battle of Ushant is often known by what name,

referring to the day in 1794 on which it was fought?

THEY CONFER

-Come on!

-Thursday.

No! It's Glorious First of June.

Only a couple of minutes to go. 10 points for this.

The author of the 1961 Cottage Garden Flowers,

who created the garden at East Lambrook Manor in Somerset from 1938?

-Gertrude Lawrence?

-No.

Vita Sackville-West?

No, it's Margery Fish. 10 points for this.

Collagen is the constituent protein of which strong,

flexible connective tissue that joins bone to bone...?

Cartilage?

No, you lose five points.

-Ligaments.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on 19th-century American painting.

Which river in New York state gives its name

to a mid-19C school of landscape painting, influenced by Romanticism?

THEY CONFER

-Come on!

-Hudson.

-Correct.

As seen in the latter's work of Breezing Up, Fitz Hugh Lane

and Winslow Homer were well-known painters of what genre?

-Come on!

-Landscape?

-No, it's seascape.

A painting of 1888 at the Boston Arts patron

Isabella Stewart Gardner is among the works of which US artist,

also associated with portraits of European society?

-No idea.

-It's John Singer Sargent. 10 points for this.

Written in the 1620s, On The Death Of A Fair Infant Dying Of A Cough

was the first original poem in English

by which poet? His large major poem was Samson Agonistes in 1671.

-Milton.

-It was.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on Africa.

In each case, identify the country from its three main ethnic groups.

Firstly, Wolf, at around 40%, Fula and Serer.

-No.

-Senegal.

Secondly, Ovimbundu at around 37%, followed by Kimbundu...

GONG

That's the gong.

Durham University have 60 points, Edinburgh University have 135.

APPLAUSE

Durham, thank you very much for playing.

You started well but faded a bit as it went on.

Edinburgh, we shall look forward to seeing you again.

I hope you can join us next time for another of these graduate matches,

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

ALL: Goodbye.

And goodbye from Edinburgh University...

-ALL: Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye!

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