Episode 3 University Challenge

Christmas University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello, welcome to the third first round match

in this seasonal contest for grown-ups. The mental equivalent

of reducing the turkey giblets to a wholesome stock.

We're lucky enough to have eight people with us this evening

with no Christmas party to go to.

The last time that students from New College, Oxford

were series champions was back in 1965,

so let's see if tonight's team of older, wiser heads

can show them how it's done.

First among them is the recipient of the 2008 Literary Review

Bad Sex in Fiction Award - a rather greater distinction

than her brother's tomfoolery as Mayor of London.

Next to her, another novelist,

who's now trying out the real job of farming.

Their captain is also a best-selling writer as well as

the co-founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction,

now the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Fourthly, they're sensibly leavening the mix

with the scientist who's a familiar face on our television screens.

Let's meet them.

I'm Rachel Johnson, I read Classics

and now I'm a journalist and novelist.

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

-And their captain.

-I'm Kate Mosse, I read English and I'm a novelist.

I'm Yan Wong. I read Biological Sciences.

I'm not a novelist, I'm a researcher and science broadcaster.

APPLAUSE

Their opponents tonight represent the London School of Economics,

part of the University of London.

They're fielding the award-winning novelist

behind the Guardian's Man About the House column,

a former MP who's also headed the RSPCA and Action on Hearing Loss.

Their captain is a former punk singer turned restaurant critic

and poor man's Henry Higgins.

Their fourth team member has been on the LSE staff since 1965

and also holds the title for the finest head of hair in the House of Lords.

Let's ask them to introduce themselves.

I'm Tim Lott, I read Government and History and I'm a novelist.

I'm Jackie Ballard, my degree's in Social Psychology

and I work for a wonderful charity called Womankind Worldwide.

This is their captain.

I'm Loyd Grossman, I read Economic History

and I'm chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust.

I'm Meghnad Desai, I'm Emeritus Professor of Economics at the LSE.

APPLAUSE

Rather than assuming you all know, starter questions are worth 10.

They have to be answered individually.

If you interrupt a starter question with an incorrect answer,

you incur a five-point penalty.

Bonus questions are worth 15 points. They are collaborative exercises.

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

What bird links a dance set to ragtime music

popular in the early 20th century,

a serious and forthright discussion, a method of curing addiction...

-Turkey.

-Turkey's right.

APPLAUSE

The first set of bonuses are on awards of 2012.

The Design Museum's 2012 Award for Design of the Year

went to Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby

for which 80 centimetre long triangular object

made of a light aluminium mix and having 8,000 perforations?

The Torch, the Olympic Torch.

Yes. In which English city is the Royal Albert Memorial Museum,

established in 1868 and named the 2012 Museum of the Year?

-Exeter.

-Correct.

The Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati

and the singer and actor John Barrowman

won what award in 2012?

-Olivier?

-No, they were Rear of the Year.

10 points for this - which short novel of the late 1890s

begins with ghost stories being told on Christmas Eve.

It features the apparent apparitions of two servants,

the valet Peter Quint and the former governess...

-The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

-Correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your first set of bonuses, New College, are on films of the 1940s.

In each case, name the film in which the following lines are spoken.

"Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.

"Don't you see, it's not just Kris that's on trial,

"it's everything he stands for.

"It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles."

A Matter of Life and Death.

No, it's Miracle on 34th Street.

Secondly, "We always were English and we always will be English

"and it's just because we are English

"that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundians."

Passport to Pimlico.

-Passport to Pimlico.

-Correct.

"I don't think any word can explain a man's life.

"No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in the jigsaw puzzle,

"a missing piece."

-Citizen Kane.

-Too easy. 10 points for this.

What given name links the librettist of South Pacific

and the Sound of Music, the author of De Profundis...

-Oscar.

-Oscar's correct, yes.

Pistorius, Wilde and the rest.

These bonuses are on ancient Greek mathematics.

In each case, name the mathematician from the description.

Firstly, the author of the Elements,

his theorems include the infinitudes of the primes...

Euclid.

Euclid is right.

Killed in 212 BC by a Roman soldier at the siege of Syracuse,

he calculated the area of a circle in terms of its radius

and wrote both The Sand Reckoner and On Floating Bodies.

-Pythagoras.

-Archimedes!

I'm going to accept that because you must answer through the captain.

Archimedes is correct.

Finally, a philosopher and mystic credited with the theorem

that in a right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse...

-Pythagoras.

-Correct.

10 points for this starter question.

The Latin phrase "indocilis privata loqui,"

which translates as "not apt to disclose secrets,"

is the motto of which organisation?

It consists of both professional and amateur members

and was formed in London in 1905.

-Is it the Magic Circle?

-It is, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on arts festivals.

First held in 1176 and revived in its present form in 1860,

which festival derives its name from the Welsh word for "sit?"

-The Eisteddfod.

-Correct.

Founded in 1947 by the theatre director Jean Vilar,

which French festival's venues include the inner courtyard of the city's Palais de Papes?

-Festival of Avignon.

-Correct.

In late January, the Colombian seaport of Cartagena

holds an offshoot of which literary festival?

-The Hay Literary Festival.

-Correct.

We're going to take a picture round now with scores on 45 points apiece.

Your picture starter is a Christmas list with one glaring omission.

For 10 points, simply identify the word that's missing.

Balthasar.

Balthasar is right, it's the names of the Three Kings and their gifts.

We follow on from that with three more Christmas lists

with vital elements missing.

-Five points for each missing word or term you can identify.

-Firstly...

-Basher.

-Basher?

It's Vixen. Santa's reindeers.

-They're all synonyms, aren't they?

-Secondly...

-It's Let It Snow, isn't it?

-What rhymes with stoppin'?

Hoppin'?

MOSSE HUMS MELODY

Hoppin'?

You happy with that? Hoppin'.

Hoppin'? No, it's poppin'.

You got it right, it is the last word of the lyrics of Let It Snow.

Can we not get a bonus for singing it?

I guessed droppin', but there we are. And finally...

Ladies... Ladies dancing.

Well done! Right, 10 points for this.

A high-level structured programming language developed by Niklaus Wirth,

an SI unit equivalent to one Newton per square metre and a wager...

-Pascal.

-Pascal is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on people born on Christmas Eve.

Firstly for five points - Christmas Eve 1754 saw the birth

of which English clergyman whose poem The Borough

inspired Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes?

-George Crabbe.

-Correct.

Christmas Eve 1818 saw the birth in Salford of which English scientist

who gives his name to the SI unit of energy?

Joule?

-Joule.

-It is James Prescott Joule.

Finally, Christmas Eve 1822 saw the birth

of which poet and cultural critic appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1857?

-Ruskin?

-I don't know.

-Matthew Arnold.

-Shall we go for Arnold?

-Matthew Arnold.

-Correct.

10 points for this starter question. Listen carefully.

The English name of the seat of the Dutch government,

the author of Waiting for Godot,

a leader of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

and the leader of the opposition from May 2010

link recent holders of which Cabinet Office?

-Foreign Secretary.

-Correct.

Hague, Beckett, Straw and Miliband.

Your bonuses this time are on French cheeses.

Firstly for five, a hard, bright orange cheese

similar in shape to a cantaloupe, Mimolette is particularly associated

with which major city of northern France?

-Rheims?

-Rheims.

No, it's Lille.

Distinguished by a dark vein

of vegetable ash running through it horizontally,

Morbier takes its name from a village in which department

in Franche-Comte named after a mountain range?

-Verges.

-No, it's Jura.

And finally, Ossau-iraty is a sheep's milk cheese

with a nutty fragrance made in which mountain range?

-Pyrenees.

-Correct.

10 points for this. Believed to be the largest reliquary

in the Western world, the Shrine of the Three Kings,

traditionally thought to contain the remains...

-Cologne.

-Cologne is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on writers on gardening.

Which poet and novelist wrote a weekly gardening column

for the Observer from 1947 and is also noted for restoring

the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle in the 1930s?

-Vita Sackville-West.

-Correct.

Which artist and designer wrote prolifically on gardening

between 1881 and 1932? Some of her best-known garden designs

were in collaboration with Edward Lutyens.

-Gertrude Jekyll.

-Correct.

Rose Blight was the pseudonym used

by which academic and literary figure for her gardening column

in Private Eye in the 1970s?

Any ideas?

Don't know.

That was Germaine Greer's column. 10 points for this.

Its buds pickled for use

as a condiment, which shrub shares its name

with a frolicsome dance and also...

-Caper.

-Caper is right.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on a name.

What three-word name derives from the account of the birth of Jesus

in the Gospel of Matthew

and is given to the plant Ornithogalum arabicum

in reference to the appearance of its flower?

Three word?

Any ideas? Three words?

Let's have it, please.

-Don't know.

-Star of Bethlehem.

Which German astronomer argued in 1614

that the Biblical phenomenon of the Star of Bethlehem

might have been the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn?

-Leibniz, maybe?

-Three words, no. Not a three-word name.

-Leibniz.

-No, it's Johannes Kepler.

Finally, also known as the Star of Bethlehem,

what two-word term denotes the bright lines radiating from

the centre of a light source in a reflecting telescope?

Red eye?

-Red eyes?

-Nominate Desai.

-Red eye.

-No, it's diffraction spike.

10 points for this.

What is the common name of the bird whose two families

are the Strigidae, which include the Fearful, Elf and Spectacle species...

-Owl.

-Yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on Ancient Greece and Rome.

In Ancient Rome, a triclinium was a dining room

that included three of what item of furniture?

Couches? BUZZER RINGS

-You don't need to buzz.

-Couches, things to recline on.

Exactly. Couches is right.

In classical architecture, what name meaning "thrice carved"

is given to the slightly raised blocks that alternate

with the metopes in a Doric frieze?

-Do you know?

-Don't know. I do know but I've forgotten.

-Bricks.

-They're triglyphs.

In the late Roman Republic, the First Triumvirate

was an unofficial coalition of Julius Caesar and which two figures?

Mark Antony and Octavius.

-Octavius.

-Mark Antony and Octavius.

It's Pompey and Crassus.

We're going to take a music round now. For your music starter,

you'll hear a song from the soundtrack of a 1993 film.

For 10 points, name the film.

# What's this, what's this?

# There's colour everywhere

# What's this? There's white things in the air

# What's this? I can't believe my eyes

# I must be dreaming, wake up, Jack, this isn't fair!

# What's this?

# What's this, what's this?

# There's something very wrong

# What's this? There's people singing songs... #

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

No, anyone like to buzz from the LSE?

You may not confer, one of you may buzz.

# ..The streets are lined with little creatures laughing

# Everybody seems so happy

# Have I possibly gone daffy? What is this?

# What's this? #

I don't think we're getting anywhere here.

It's from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Music bonuses in a moment or two

and 10 points for this starter question.

The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 aimed to secure

the undisputed and undivided succession

of the lands of which Royal House?

-Hapsburg.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

You get the music bonuses.

Three more pieces of music from Christmas film soundtracks.

Five points for each film you can identify.

Firstly, this film from 1990.

MUSIC PLAYS

Home Alone?

-Home Alone.

-It was, yes. Secondly, a film from 2004.

MUSIC PLAYS

-We don't know.

-That's from The Polar Express apparently.

Finally, the precise title of this 1992 film.

# There's magic in the air this evening

# Magic in the air

# The world is at her best, you know

# When people love and care... #

-The Muppets Christmas.

-Is it?

-The Muppets Christmas...

-It could be the Muppet Christmas Movie.

Muppet Christmas Movie.

It's The Muppet Christmas Carol!

Imagine not knowing that! 10 points for this.

A liquor made of apple, sugar and ale,

a drunken bout, a merry song.

These were Dr Johnson's definitions in 1755

of which seven-letter word associated with the Christmas season?

-Wassail.

-Wassail is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on Asia in 1912.

In each case, name the country that ruled

over the following present-day capitals on Christmas Day 1912.

Firstly, for five points, Hanoi.

-France.

-I think it could be.

-France.

-Correct.

Secondly, Baghdad.

Britain? Britain.

No, that was Turkey, the Ottoman Empire. Finally, Dhaka.

-Britain?

-As in D-A-K-A-R?

I think it must be Britain. Or did France get it?

What do you think?

-France again.

-That was the United Kingdom.

10 points for this.

When spelled backwards, the name of which tangy purple spice

gives the name of a Nobel Literature Laureate...

-Sumac.

-Sumac is right. Camus is what it spells backwards.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on the Ridgeway National Trail.

Which Neolithic long barrow near the Ridgeway is named after a Saxon god

who was believed to have his forge in the burial chamber?

It's the other one, it's near... I can't remember.

That's the key, remembering.

-Begins with W.

-Wotan.

-No.

-It's gone.

-Do we know?

-I know but it's gone.

-Wotan.

-No, it's Wayland.

Secondly, the western terminus of the Ridgeway is set at Overton Hill

close to which village, a major prehistoric site?

-Avebury.

-Correct. Thought to date from the Bronze Age,

what image may be seen on the Berkshire Downs

close to Uffington Castle, a little north of the Ridgeway?

-The Uffington White Horse.

-Correct.

10 points for this. Which Dutch artist coined the term

neo-plasticism in 1917

to describe his own style of abstract work,

which he created using only the primary colours...

-Piet Mondrian.

-Correct.

15 points for this bonus set. They're on a novel.

"It's always winter here and never Christmas."

These words appear in which children's novel of 1950?

-The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.

-Correct.

In the novel, which character announces his arrival with the following words?

"I've come at last. She's kept me out for a long time

"but I've got in at last."

-Is that Edmund?

-It sounds like Aslan...

It must be Edmund? Edmund.

No, it's Father Christmas.

Which character in the novel does Father Christmas give a bottle

containing the juice of one of the fire-flowers

that grows in the mountains of the sun?

-Lucy.

-Correct.

Going to take a second picture round. For your picture starter,

you'll see a painting. 10 points if you can identify the artist.

-Van Gogh.

-It is Van Gogh, yes.

That was Backyards of Old Houses in Antwerp in the Snow.

Your bonuses are three more Post-Impressionist snow-filled vistas.

Five points for each artist you can identify.

All three are French and born within ten years of each other. Firstly...

-Cezanne.

-It is, Melting Snow at Fontainebleau. Secondly...

Is that French?

-All French.

-Recognise it, anybody?

Rousseau? Rousseau.

-Rousseau?

-Rousseau is correct. And finally...

-Monet or Seurat.

-I think it's Monet.

-Monet.

-No, that's Gauguin.

10 points for this starter question.

American Buffalo, Speed-The-Plow and Glengarry Glen Ross...

-David Mamet.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on two-letter place names, LSE.

Bo, spelled B-O, is the second largest town in which

West African country that underwent a civil war from 1991 to 2002?

Nominate Desai.

-Sierra Leone.

-Spot on.

The Sumerian city state of Ur was an early home

of which Jewish patriarch, the husband of Sarah?

-Abraham.

-Nominate Desai.

-Abraham.

-Correct.

Finally, one of the settings for Dumas's novel,

The Count of Monte Cristo, the Chateau d'If,

was built in the 16th century to guard which seaport?

Nice?

-Take a guess.

-I don't know, just guess.

-Marseille.

Marseilles is right.

10 points for this. Which group of widespread illnesses

are caused by rhino-viruses,

a genus of single-stranded RNA viruses...

-Colds.

-Colds is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on chemistry.

What Greek-derived term denotes elements in group 17 of the periodic table?

They have seven electrons in their outer shells

and are highly reactive non-metals.

-Nominate Wong.

-Groups 17?

I can't repeat the question, get on with it!

-Halogens.

-Correct.

Which of the halogens has an atomic number of nine?

It's the most electro-negative element known

and hence is a highly reactive oxidising agent.

-Fluorine.

-Correct.

Which of the halogens is found in the hormone thyroxine?

Nominate Wong.

-Won't be chlorine... Iodine.

-Iodine is right.

Four and a quarter minutes to go, 10 points for this.

Which English county town links the Iron Age hill fort of Maiden Castle,

the trial...

-Dorchester.

-Dorchester is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on a Japanese author.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

is a 2009 memoir by which Japanese novelist?

Murakami?

-Nominate Lott.

-Murakami.

Correct. Which of Murakami's novels had two English translators

working on it to speed up publication and also saw bookshops

in the UK and US opening at midnight for its release in 2011?

Anyone? Don't know.

It's 1Q84.

Finally, published in Japanese in 1987, Murakami's fifth novel

is named after which song by The Beatles?

-We should guess.

-I Saw Her Standing There.

No, it's Norwegian Wood.

Three and a quarter minutes to go, 10 points for this.

Naples, Venice, Panama City and St Petersburg

are among the cities of which US state?

-Florida.

-Florida is right.

These bonuses are on zoology.

I want the common English name of the following British mammals.

Firstly, Talpa Europaea, a small carnivorous mammal.

Let's have it.

-Vole.

-No, it's the mole.

Meles Meles, a large distinctively patterned omnivore.

-Badger.

-Correct, and finally,

Phoco Vitulina, a sleek aquatic piscivore.

-Otter.

-No, it's a common or harbour seal.

10 points for this, two and a half minutes to go.

In ecology, the term "littoral" denotes what zone or area...

-On the shore.

-Correct.

These bonuses, New College, are on Norman Mailer.

Mailer's last novel, The Castle In The Forest,

deals with the early life of which...

You don't need to buzz. Answer through your teacher.

Your teacher! Your captain.

..deals with the early life of which political figure born in 1889?

-Hitler.

-Correct.

Mailer's work of 1995 subtitled An American Mystery,

is the story of which controversial figure killed

whilst in police custody in November 1963?

-Who shot Kennedy?

-Lee Harvey Oswald?

No, no, no, the other one.

-Let's have it, please.

-Do we know?

-Lee Harvey Oswald.

-Correct.

Described by The Times as "the best war novel to come out of the United States,"

what was the title of Mailer's first novel published in 1948?

The Quick and the Dead?

-The Quick and the Dead.

-No, it's The Naked And the Dead.

10 points for this. Answer as soon as your name is called.

Of the British Royal Houses of Stuart, Hanover and Windsor,

since 1600, how many monarchs have been women?

-Three.

-LSE, one of you buzz.

-Two.

-No, it's four.

Mary, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II.

10 points for this, answer as soon as your name is called.

Give the dictionary spelling of the word "oscillate,"

meaning swing to and fro.

-O-S-C-I-L-L-A-T-E.

-Correct.

Your bonuses this time are on a shared name element.

Firstly, for five points, what name links an annual meteor shower

in mid-November and the Soviet leader who followed Khrushchev?

-Nominate Wong.

-Leonid.

-Correct.

In which century BC did King Leonidas of Sparta

defend the Pass of Thermopylae against the Persians?

-Fifth.

-It was the fifth.

The US composer Leonard Bernstein was from 1959 to 1969

the music director of which orchestra?

Let's have it, please.

-London.

-No, it was the New York Philharmonic.

10 points for this...

GONG

At the gong, the LSE have 160 and New College, Oxford have 240.

LSE, it was a very closely fought game

and you were ahead much of the time.

Although 160 is higher than many winning scores

so far in this contest,

or indeed I would guess even by the semifinals.

It's a very good score but I'm afraid we're going to have to say goodbye to you.

New College, 240 is the highest score so far

and I would take a very strong bet that you will certainly be back

to take part in the semifinals.

I hope you can join us next time for another first round match

but until then, it's goodbye from the London School of Economics.

It's goodbye from New College, Oxford and it's goodbye from me.

Goodbye.

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