Episode 10 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

Christmas University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello.

14 teams have helped us survive the holiday season

by entertaining us with their general knowledge.

We've asked every conceivable question about reindeer,

the 12 Days of Christmas and poinsettia,

and now before we take down the tinsel,

we've reached the final match. In just under half an hour,

one of these two teams will have climbed a little belatedly

to the top of the tree and made our Christmas.

They get to crack open the bottle of cooking sherry

and communal mince pie which is their reward

for risking embarrassment in front of millions.

Now, the team from New College, Oxford won their first round match

with a score of 240 and their semi-final with 220.

They clearly read a lot and not just what they've written themselves.

The last time we saw them they demonstrated a knowledge

of sensational novels of the 19th century

and infectious diseases and they could spell diphthong.

Let's meet them again.

I'm Rachel Johnson, I read classics. I'm a journalist and novelist.

Hello, I'm Patrick Gale. I read English and I'm a novelist.

And their captain.

Hello, I'm Kate Mosse, I read English

and I'm a novelist and playwright.

Hello, I'm Yan Wong.

I read Biological Sciences and I'm a researcher and science broadcaster.

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The team from the University of East Anglia greeted both their victories

with what was either a becoming modesty or else total astonishment.

On their last outing, they were particularly hot

on Kate Bush, Franz Kafka and plays about scientists.

Let's meet them again.

Hello, I'm John Boyne.

I graduated in Creative Writing and I'm a novelist.

Hello, I'm Razia Iqbal. I graduated in American Studies

and I present the BBC World Service programme Newshour.

-And their captain.

-Hello, I'm David Grossman.

I studied Politics at UEA and now I'm a political journalist.

Hi, I'm Charlie Higson. I studied Literature and Film

and I now mainly write children's books about zombies.

APPLAUSE

You must all know the rules by now so let's just get on with it.

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

Which fictional city of London clerk wrote,

"I am a poor man but I would gladly give 10 shillings to find out

"who sent me the insulting Christmas card I received this morning."

These words appear...

-Pooter, Diary of a Nobody.

-Correct. Charles Pooter is right.

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First set of bonuses, New College, are on black pudding.

Firstly, for five points, in France, which two-word name denotes

a former black pudding made from pig's blood, fat, cream,

salt and onions?

-Boudin noir.

-Correct.

The birthplace of Sir Robert Peel,

which Lancashire town on the River Irwell

is especially noted for its black pudding?

-Do we know that?

-No.

Lake District? Chorley? Never even heard of Chorley.

-Carlisle.

-Carlisle?

-We're just going for things...

Carlisle isn't even in Lancashire, is it?

-We told her that.

-It's Bury.

In which novel of 1980 set in 1327

is the making of black puddings interrupted when the body

of the Monk Venantius is discovered in a cauldron of pig's blood?

The Name of the Rose.

-The Name of the Rose.

-Correct. 10 points for this.

Popular at Christmas time,

which small citrus fruit derives its name from a Moroccan port?

-Tangerine.

-Correct, from Tangier.

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Your first set of bonuses are on Germanic kings, UEA.

Geiseric was king of which Germanic people from AD 428?

He moved his people from Spain to North Africa

and sacked and plundered Rome in 455.

-Goths or the Vandals? Vandals?

-Go for it.

-Go on.

-The Vandals.

-Correct.

Under King Audoin, which people crossed the Alps

and in 572 established a hegemony centred on the city of Pavia?

They give their name to a present day region of Northern Italy.

-Lombard?

-Might as well try. Go for it.

-Lombards.

-Correct.

At the Third Council of Toledo in 589,

King Reccared renounced his Arian faith and accepted Catholicism.

Of which Germanic people was he the ruler?

The Goths.

-The Goths.

-Specifically?

-Visigoths.

-Correct.

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10 points for this.

George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Abraham Cowley

are among poets often given which collective name...?

-The Metaphysical poets.

-Correct.

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Your bonuses are on royal appointments. In each case,

give the position that all three of the following have held.

Firstly, Nicholas Staggins, Walford Davies and Arthur Bliss.

Master of the Queen's Music.

-Master of the Queen's Music.

-Correct, or King's Music.

Benjamin West, Anthony Blunt and Desmond Shawe-Taylor.

-Queen's Pictures.

-Keeper of the Queen's pictures.

Keeper of the Queen's Pictures.

No, it's Surveyor of the Queen's or King's Pictures.

Thirdly, Nathaniel Bliss, Richard van der Riet Woolley

and Arnold Wolfendale.

-Royal Physician?

-I don't know. The Royal Physician.

No, they're Astronomers Royal.

10 points for this, during the 17th century,

the Main Plot and the By Plot were both directed against which king?

The first aimed to replace him with his cousin, Arabella Stuart...

-James I.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on literary characters as described

by EM Forster in Aspects of the Novel.

In each case, identify the character from the description.

Firstly, "A character physically with hard plump limbs

"that get into bed and pick pockets. Husbands were her earlier employ.

"She was trigamous if not quadrigamous

"and one of her husbands turned out to be her brother."

-Moll Flanders? Moll Flanders.

-Correct.

"She is that damsel for love

"of whom all the undergraduates of Oxford except one

"drown themselves during Eights Week

"and he threw himself out of a window."

-Zuleika Dobson.

-Correct.

"Cut out of the same simple material as her dog, but at the end

"there is a catastrophe. Her two daughters come to grief.

"Julia elopes,

"Maria, who is unhappily married, runs off with a lover."

-Lady Bertram.

-Correct, in Mansfield Park.

We're going to take a picture round.

For your picture starter,

you'll see a map with a province of the Roman Empire highlighted.

10 points if you can name the province.

Palestine.

One of you may buzz from New College.

Is it Judea and Sumeria?

No, it's not. It's Judaea. Sumeria was another province.

We're going to take the picture bonuses in a moment or two.

In the meantime, here is another starter question.

Listen carefully and answer as soon is your name is called.

What is the cube root of the number of days

spanned by the Jewish festival of Hanukkah?

-Three.

-No.

New College, one of you buzz, you may not confer.

Five.

No, it's two. Hanukkah lasts eight days. 10 points for this.

Which character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

shares his name with a fruit? The latter has a tough flesh...

-Peter Quince.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

You get the picture bonuses.

According to the Bible, Jesus was born in Judea.

For your picture bonuses, you'll see three other provinces

of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus.

In each case, I want you to identify the province.

Firstly for five.

It's red.

Carthage?

Was it called Carthage?

No, it's in North Africa.

-What did the Romans call it?

-It's not Antioch?

-No, that was Turkey.

-Do we have any idea?

-It is good a bet as any.

-Say Carthage.

-Carthage.

-No, it's Africa. Secondly.

LAUGHTER

OK, come on, middle of Greece, what's that? Macedonia?

Thessaly? I'm so bad at this. Is it Thessaly?

-Magna Graecia.

-No, it's Macedonia, and finally.

That's Spain and Portugal. Iberia.

-Iberia.

-No, that's Lusitania. 10 points for this.

The Revolutionary Socialist League formed in Germany

during the First World War by Karl Liebknecht

and Rosa Luxembourg later became the German Communist Party

and was named after which Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt...?

-Spartacus.

-Spartacus is right.

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These bonuses, New College,

are on railway history in the United States.

Firstly for five points, in 1872, which US engineer patented

a failsafe air brake system that had a marked effect on railway safety?

He was also a pioneer in the use of alternating current.

Alternating current is...Tesla.

-Tesla.

-Tesla.

-No, it's George Westinghouse.

In 1877, a nationwide railroad strike was suppressed by armed force

with over 100 deaths.

Which US president authorised the use of federal troops?

-1877?

-1870.

-1870, do we know?

-Theodore Roosevelt.

-Say Roosevelt.

-Roosevelt.

-No, it's Rutherford B Hayes.

-Sorry.

Finally, which major New York station opened officially in 1913

after investment from the shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt?

-Grand Central Station.

-Grand Central is correct, 10 points for this.

Spell the six letter name of the building designed

by Richard Rogers Partnership that opened on St David's Day...

-L-L-O-Y-D-S.

-No, I'm sorry. You lose five points.

..St David's Day, 2006, to house the Welsh Assembly.

-That's in Cardiff...

-You may not confer!

I can't spell.

Right, OK, it's the Senedd. S-E-N-E-D-D.

Right, 10 points for this.

Footfalls, Ohio Impromptu and Catastrophe are among stage works

written during the latter part of the life

of which Dublin-born playwright?

-Samuel Beckett.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

New College, your bonuses are on words that with the substitution

of the initial letter become the name of a chemical element.

In each case, give both words from the description.

Firstly, small platform from which a speaker addresses an audience

and alkali metal that appears below lithium on the periodic table.

Rostrum.

-Below lithium? Beryllium.

-Change the first letter.

-What's something that sounds like...

-Nostrum?

It's not rostrum. Below lithium is...sodium!

Podium and sodium.

-Podium and sodium.

-Very good.

Trademark of the tranquiliser diazepam

and neo-Latin name for potassium

from which this element's chemical symbol is derived.

Natrium and Valium.

Natrium and Valium?

Valium and kalium. And finally, part of the skull that encloses the brain

and radioactive element whose isotopes include 235 and 238?

-Uranium?

-Uranium and cranium.

-Correct.

Ten points for this. "From a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness.

"From a marchioness a queen and now he hath left no higher degree of honour,

"he gives my innocency the crown of martyrdom."

These are the words of which royal figure shortly before her death in 1536?

BUZZER

Sorry, no. It's not who I thought it was.

New College, one of you buzz?

BUZZER

-Lady Jane Grey.

-No, it's Anne Boleyn. Ten points for this.

"In which it is proved that notwithstanding their names ending

"in -os and -is, the heroes of the story we are about to have the honour to relate to our readers

"have nothing mythological about them."

These words begin the author's preface to which a French novel of 1844?

BUZZER

-The Three Musketeers.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, UEA, are on The World's Wife.

A series of poems by Carol Ann Duffy in which she writes

in the imagined voices of the wives of historical characters.

In each case, identify the historical figure whose wife has the following lines.

"7th April 1852, went to the zoo.

"I said to him, something about that chimp over there reminds me of you."

-Charles Darwin.

-Correct.

"He lived, I saw the horror on his face. I heard his mother's crazy song

"I breathed his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud."

-These are real historical figures.

-Yeah.

THEY CONFER

We don't know.

It's Lazarus. And finally, "My living, laughing love - I hold him in the casket of my widow's head.

"As he held me upon that next best bed."

THEY CONFER

-Shakespeare?

-Yeah.

-Shakespeare.

-Yes, famously. Ten points for this, it's a music round.

You will hear a piece of classical music -

just give me the name of the composer, please.

MUSIC PLAYS

BUZZER

Bach, Johann S Bach.

Correct, it's Christmas Oratorio.

We follow on from Bach's Christmas Oratorio with three more

classical pieces pertaining to Christmas, five points for each composer.

Firstly, this French composer.

MUSIC PLAYS

Bizet.

No, it's Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ.

Secondly, this Italian composer.

MUSIC PLAYS

THEY CONFER

OK.

We're going for Corelli.

No, it's Vivaldi. His Santissimo Natale.

And finally, this composer.

MUSIC PLAYS

-Handel.

-It is indeed the Messiah.

Right, ten points for this.

Recent winners of which literary award include

Diana Athill, Francis King and Al Alvarez?

BUZZER

Is it the Samuel Johnson Prize?

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

Awarded for lifetime achievement rather than for a single work,

it's named after its founder, the early 20 century poet and essayist who wrote the words...

-You may not confer!

-I'm sorry!

..who wrote the words to Land of Hope and Glory

and whose brother wrote the Mapp and Lucia novels.

-Hammerstein...

-You may not confer!

BUZZER

The Benson Award.

The Benson medal is correct, well done.

APPLAUSE

Right, your bonuses are on the human body.

What name is given to the point between one nerve cell and another

at which the transmission of an impulse takes place.

-Synapse.

-Correct.

What term denotes a chemical released by a nerve ending

on the arrival of an impulse and crosses the synapse to excite or inhibit the post-synaptic cell?

-Nominate Wong.

-Neurotransmitter.

Correct. The term synapsis is used for the interlocking pairing

of homologous chromosomes during what form of cell division

also called reduction division?

And nominate Wong!

Um...Meiosis.

Meiosis is right. Ten points for this.

Born in the Spanish Basque country in 1770, the naval officer

and ambassador Don Miguel Ricardo de Alava had the rare distinction

of being present at which two crucial military events,

both of which give their names to well-known locations in London.

BUZZER

-Trafalgar and Waterloo.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

You get bonuses on group pseudonyms, UEA.

A historical novel about the 16th century reformation,

Q was written by four Bologna-based anarchists

who used the name of which former AC Milan and Watford footballer

as their pseudonym?

AC Milan and Watford.

THEY CONFER

No idea.

AC Milan and Watford.

We don't know.

That's Luther Blissett.

Which pseudonymous author was created in 1929

by Frederic Dannay and Manfred B Lee,

who gave their fictional detective the same name?

An influential crime fiction magazine,

first published in 1941, is also named after him.

-Ellery Queen?

-Yeah.

Ellery Queen? Ellery Queen?

ALL: Yes.

Ellery Queen.

Well done.

In 1935, the name Nicolas Bourbaki was first used

by a group of French academics working in which field?

-French academics.

-What year did he say? '35.

-Something to do with the question.

-Something to do with...?

Well, the question was to do with novels, no? I thought it was.

-Philosophy.

-Philosophy.

No, it's mathematics. 10 points for this.

September 2012 marked the centenary of the birth

of which US avant-garde composer,

whose works include Imaginary Landscape No. 4?

-John Cage.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

East Anglia, these bonuses are on shorter words that can be made

using any of the seven letters of the word "prudish".

In each case, give the word from the definition.

Firstly, the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet,

used to represent the golden ratio.

-Is it pi?

-Pi. Pi?

-Pi?

Yeah.

Pi.

No, it's phi.

In phonetics, an unvoiced consonant, for example k, s or t,

and in mathematics, an irrational number or the root of an integer.

Root of an integer.

No idea.

No.

Come on, let's have it.

No, we don't know.

It's a surd.

The initials of the political party whose leaders have included

Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson.

-DUP.

-DUP.

-DUP.

-Correct. 10 points for this.

Listen carefully and answer as soon as your name is called.

In an ideal gas consisting of molecules with mass m,

if the mass if the molecules is increased by a factor of four,

by what factor is the speed of sound in the gas changed?

Two.

No.

Eight.

It's halved. 10 points for this.

The 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition featured

a display of which former landmass between Scotland, Denmark

and the Channel Islands?

Flooded by ice melt thousands of years ago,

it is named after a large sand bank in the North Sea.

Dogger. Doggerland.

Doggerland is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on physics.

The physicist Andre Geim of the University of Manchester

is the only person so far to have won both a Nobel Prize

and what other award, which he received in 2000

for an experiment on a frog?

(Experiment on a frog.)

Chemistry award?

THEY CONFER

Come on.

Royal Society Award?

Could be.

Let's have an answer, please.

Royal Society Award.

-No, it's an Ig Nobel Prize.

-Ah!

Geim shared the 2000 Physics Ig Nobel Prize

for levitating a frog using a superconducting magnet.

An effect that relied on what physical property

of the water in the frog?

The magnetic dipole of the water.

Yes, diamagnetism.

The Physics Ig Nobel Prize for 2011 recognised research

into the side effects of two athletic events,

one of which often induces dizziness while the other does not,

despite having an apparently similar action. Name both events.

Ballet dancing, and...

-The Ig Nobel, it'll be really silly.

-Ig Nobel, yeah.

-Really silly.

Pirouetting.

-Trampolining?

-Trampolining.

-We don't know, do we?

-No.

We're going to say drinking and trampolining.

No, it's discus and the hammer.

Apparently, it's the discus that makes you dizzy.

We're going to take another picture round now.

For your picture starter you'll see a painting of the Virgin Mary.

10 points if you can give me the name of the artist.

Andrea del Sarto?

No. University of East Anglia, one of you like to buzz?

Titian.

No, it's Bellini.

And so, picture bonuses in a moment or two.

Another starter question in the meantime.

Which French novelist links the titles of two books,

one by the US journalist Jonah Lehrer

claiming that he was a neuroscientist,

the other by Alain de Botton telling us how he can change your life?

-Proust.

-Proust is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

So, you recall a moment ago we saw Bellini's Madonna of the Trees.

You'll see three more depictions of the virgin

and child for your bonuses. Five points in each case.

I want the name of the style or movement that each typifies.

Firstly for five points, what two-word term has applied

from the 19th century onwards to the style of which this is an example?

I cant even start to think what that would be.

Two words. A two-word term for it.

THEY CONFER

We don't know, sorry.

That's International Gothic.

And secondly, what artistic style is typified by this work?

Mannerism? I'd say Mannerism.

-What do you say?

-I don't know.

-Go with Mannerism.

-Go with Mannerism.

-Mannerism.

-It is Mannerism, yes.

And finally, this work is by an artist

associated with which movement?

Pre-Raphaelite.

Yeah. I would say pre-Raphaelite.

Pre-Raphaelite?

Pre-Raphaelite.

It is. That's Burne-Jones. 10 points for this.

What did the US academic Aaron Levenstein

compare to a bikini, observing that "what they reveal is suggestive...?"

Statistics.

Correct, yes.

Three questions on languages of the Caucasus for you,

University of East Anglia.

Noted for their unusually large number of consonants,

the North Caucasian language family includes the official

language of which breakaway republic on the Black Sea?

Breakaway republics on the Black Sea, what have we got?

-Azerbaijan.

-Are they a breakaway republic?

-Are they a breakaway republic?

-Come on, let's have it, please.

Azerbaijan.

No, it's Abkhazia.

Secondly, the national language of which former Soviet republic

is the principal member of the South Caucasian family of languages?

Which former Soviet republic?

Go on, pick one.

Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, try Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan.

No, it's Georgia.

Azerbaijani is closely related to

the national language of which country,

with which Azerbaijan shares a short border?

Turkey. It has to be Turkey.

Turkey?

-Turkey.

-Correct.

10 points for this.

"That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along",

also known as iambic hexameter.

In which meter is this line from Pope's Essay on Criticism written?

It takes its name from that of a ruler of antiquity.

It's an alexandrine.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on classical music, New College.

Bron in Le Havre of Swiss parentage,

which French composer's works include the 1923 piece Pacific 231,

regarded as a musical evocation of a steam locomotive?

-Nominate.

-Nominate Gale.

Arthur Honegger.

Correct. A leading exponent of minimalism,

which US composer integrated fragments of audio recordings

of rail travel in his 1988 work Different Trains?

Oh...erm...

I've got it at home.

THEY CONFER

-Is it Cage?

-No, no.

-Is it the one who does the silence?

-No, no.

We've had him already.

I've got it at home. John Adams.

John Adams.

-No, it's Steve Reich.

-Oh!

-Oh, well.

Which Austrian composer composed the Excursion Train polka, opus 281?

-Johann Strauss.

-Strauss.

Johann Strauss.

Which one?

The younger.

The younger.

Correct!

APPLAUSE

10 points for this. "A healthy nation is as unconscious of its nationality

"as a healthy man of his bones,

"but if you break a nation's nationality,

"it will think of nothing else but getting it set again."

These are the words of which playwright in the 1904 work

John Bull's Other Island?

George Bernard Shaw.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses now for 15 points.

They're on the bell-shaped curve, also known as normal distribution.

The bell-shaped curve is symmetric

about a line through which statistical quantity,

associated with a continuous random variable?

-Nominate Wong.

-The mean. But it's the median as well.

Which prolific...

Yes. Both were right, but you only get one lot of points.

Which prolific German mathematician gives his name to a graphical

blurring technique that involves convolving an image

with a two-dimensional analogue of the bell-shaped curve?

Surprisingly, nominate Wong.

Gauss.

Gauss is correct. Given a normally-distributed random variable,

what is the total area under its corresponding bell-shaped curve?

And again, Wong.

One.

One is correct, yes.

10 points for this. Not to be confused with the river in Kent,

which atoll in the central Pacific

gives its name to a battle of June 1942?

Midway.

Midway is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on geography, East Anglia.

Three EU member states have a larger population than any country

with which they share a land border.

For five points, name two of them.

-Germany.

-Germany.

Come on.

Spain.

-Germany, Spain shares a land border with France.

-Portugal?

Come on.

GONG

Oh, come on!

APPLAUSE

Well, at the gong, the University of East Anglia have 110.

New College, Oxford have 205.

Well, you were a jolly entertaining team to watch, anyway.

And you went out to very, very strong opposition.

New College, many congratulations to you.

That's a terrific performance,

and clear testimony that synapses don't dull as time goes by.

I would just like to say one thing to all of you,

and to every team that took part,

which was simply that none of you needed to do it,

and we're grateful to you that you did.

So a big thank-you to all the teams who've taken part in this series.

Thank you for watching.

Next time we resume the students' competition, but for now,

we leave you with some evidence of what wholesome young things

tonight's eight once were. Goodnight.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd