Durham v LSE University Challenge

Christmas University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Another bout of intellectual Buckaroo lies ahead of us tonight

as we play the last of the first-round matches

in this Christmas series.

So far, Magdalen College, Oxford and the universities of Manchester

and Sheffield have earned themselves places in the semifinals.

If tonight's winners are to go through and join them,

they need to beat University College London's score of 155.

Now, first tonight, the team from the University of Durham.

We pride ourselves on this programme that this series is one of the few

occasions when librarians get the recognition they deserve,

and Durham's first team member has worked in the libraries

of the House of Lords and Edinburgh University,

as well as the National Library of Scotland.

He is the 25th incumbent of his current post,

which was inaugurated in 1602.

With him, a news presenter and reporter who,

in the past 20 years, has covered stories both in studio

and on location, from the crisis in Ukraine

to the rescue of the Chilean miners,

the uprisings of the Arab spring and the Japanese tsunami.

Their captain is a leading space scientist.

She has headed the Meteorite team at the Natural History Museum

and in 2014 she was the world's cheerleader when the Philae probe

became the first spacecraft to land on a comet nucleus.

Joining them is a Dutch-born entrepreneur

who in 2000 founded an institution which has attracted 16 million

visitors and brought over £1 billion into the Cornish economy.

Let's meet the Durham team.

I am Richard Ovenden.

I graduated from Durham in 1985, in modern history and economic history.

I'm now Bodley's Librarian, which means I'm responsible

for the research libraries of the University of Oxford.

I'm Tim Willcox. I read Spanish at Durham

more than 30 years ago.

Since then, I've been working as a journalist in newspapers then TV.

I currently work as a presenter for BBC News.

And this is their captain.

Hi, I'm Monica Grady.

I read chemistry and geology at St Aidan's College, Durham,

graduating in 1979.

I'm currently Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences

at the Open University.

My name is Tim Smit. I graduated in 1976 from Durham,

reading archaeology and anthropology.

But today I lead the Eden Project

and the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

Their opponents are playing for the London School of Economics.

Its founders in 1895 included Sidney and Beatrice Webb

and George Bernard Shaw, and the four trying not to let them down

tonight include a former criminal law barrister turned Conservative MP.

He's been Shadow Minister for London, local government minister

and deputy party chairman.

With him, a journalist who has spent eight years as the

BBC's Washington correspondent.

He left that job to take up his present role, of

which he said that it was "the only one that could have lured him away -

"and if it goes wrong, he'll be on the next plane back."

Their captain is an award-winning campaigner, newspaper columnist,

and writer on all things to do with personal finances.

He presents his own programme on ITV,

is the resident expert on numerous other programmes,

and is executive chairman of the UK's biggest money website.

Their fourth team member began his career as one of the youngest

show business editors in Fleet Street.

Since then he's written for the Times Literary Supplement

and The Guardian, but is best known for presenting numerous radio

and television programmes. Let's meet the LSE team.

Hi, I'm Bob Neill. I read law at LSE in the 1970s.

Now I'm the MP for Bromley and Chislehurst

and Chair of Parliament's Justice Select Committee.

Hi, I'm Justin Webb.

I took a degree in economics in 1983.

Now I present the Today programme on Radio Four.

And this is their captain.

Hi, I'm Martin Lewis.

I graduated in government and law in 1994.

I've since founded and run moneysavingexpert.com.

This is Felix, the LSE Beaver.

A hard-working and industrious animal

-with a gift for double entendre.

-LAUGHTER

Hello, I'm James O'Brien. I graduated in 1995

with a degree in philosophy.

I'm now a journalist and broadcaster with a daily show on LBC radio.

OK, you all know the rules, I guess. If you don't, you shouldn't be here.

So let's just crack on with it, shall we?

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

In two-word expressions,

what six-letter adjective may proceed the words

stick, bean, horn, cricket, mustard, dressing, toast...?

French.

French is correct, yes.

Right, Durham. Your bonuses are on a work of literature.

Firstly for five points.

Which short novel of 1843 did the Illustrated London News note -

"the surpassing beauty with which they accomplished

"author of this seasonable little volume has worked out - or,

"as he supportively terms it, raised 'the ghost of an idea'"?

A Christmas Carol.

By Dickens, of course.

After reading A Christmas Carol, which notoriously

reclusive 19th-century historian

and essayist was seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality

and hosted two festive dinner parties at his Cheyne Walk residence?

THEY CONFER

-Thomas Carlyle.

-Correct.

To which character in a Christmas Carol

was a Thackeray referring when

he wrote, "There is not a reader in England but that little creature will

"be a bond of union between the author and him"?

Tim Cratchit.

Correct, Tiny Tim.

Right, ten points for this.

The Celestial Hierarchy,

formerly attributed to Dionysius the Aeropagite,

was an important influence on which 13th-century theologian?

Known as The Angelic Doctor,

his works included the Summa Theologica.

Thomas Aquinas.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on Jewish religious festivals, Durham.

Originally an agricultural festival marking the start of the summer

wheat harvest, Shavuot, or the Festival of the Weeks,

is also known by what name, from the Greek meaning 50th?

Greek for 50?

-Don't know. No.

-Don't know.

It's Pentecost.

Translated into English as the Feast of Lots, which festival

commemorates the survival of the Jews who, according to the Book of Esther,

were marked for death by the Persian rulers in the 5th century BC?

Yom Kippur?

-Is it?

-Yom Kippur.

No, it's Purim.

And finally, thought to derive from the Hebrew verb meaning to dedicate,

what name denotes the festival celebrated over eight days,

and also known as the Feast of Dedication,

the Feast of Lights and the Feast of the Maccabees?

Hanukkah.

-Hanukkah.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

Who was the subject of Andrew Robinson's 2006 biography

entitled The Last Man Who Knew Everything?

A physician and physicist born in Somerset in 1773,

he established the principle of interference of light,

and was instrumental in deciphering the Rosetta Stone.

Thomas Young.

Correct.

Your bonuses are on scientific theories later disproved, Durham.

Firstly, from the 17th century,

an early chemical theory assumed that all combustible material

was in part composed of which hypothetical substance?

The idea was discredited by Lavoisier from 1770.

Phlogiston.

Correct. What name was given to the weightless, transparent,

frictionless substance thought to permeate all matter and space,

until the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1881 severely

weakened the theory of its existence.

Ether.

Correct. And finally, work by Wegener in 1912 was the first rigorous

attempt to refute the idea that the major landmasses of the Earth were

immovable. This view persisted until the 1960s,

when what theory became generally accepted?

Plate tectonics.

Or continental drift, yes. Right, a picture round now.

For your picture starter,

you are going to see a map showing

the locations of the host venues

of a major sporting event

that took place in 2015.

For ten points, I want you to

identify that sporting event.

Cricket World Cup.

It is the ICC Cricket World Cup. Well done.

For your picture bonuses, you'll see three of those cities highlighted.

For five points each, I want you to identify the city

and the name of its cricket ground at which World Cup matches were played.

Firstly, the city and cricket ground at A.

MCC, Brisbane.

It is Brisbane. It's the Gabba though, the cricket ground.

Secondly, the city and the cricket ground at B.

Is that Wellington? Auckland?

Do we know the cricket ground at Auckland?

Auckland and the Auckland Cricket Ground.

It's Eden Park in Auckland.

And finally, the city and cricket ground at C.

-That's Sydney, isn't it?

-The MCC. Or is it Melbourne?

Quick.

-Melbourne...

-Melbourne, the MCC.

It's Melbourne and the MCG. The Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Oh, actually, you can have it. Why not?

CHEERING It's Christmas.

Ten point for this.

The History Of A Dangerous Idea is the subtitle of which

recent work by the British political economist Mark Blyth?

The single-word title denotes a particular approach to

government spending.

-Austerity.

-Yes.

Three questions on carol singing for your bonuses, LSE.

In each case, give the title of the literary work

from which the following lines are taken.

Firstly, from a novel of 1860.

"There had been singing under the windows after midnight -

"supernatural singing, Maggie always felt,

"in spite of Tom's contemptuous insistence that the singers

"were Old Patch, the parish clerk, and the rest of the church choir."

Tom Sawyer.

No, it's from The Mill On The Floss by George Eliot.

From a memoir, secondly, of 1959.

"For a year we had praised the Lord, out of key,

"and as a reward for this service we now had the right to visit

"all the big houses, to sing our carols and collect our tribute."

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

'59. Yep, give me a guess.

Any guess?

Pass.

That's from Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee.

And finally, from a 1908 novel for children.

"As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried

"the lantern was just saying, 'Now then - one, two, three!'

"And forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air

"singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed."

-Peter Pan or...

-INDISTINCT CHATTER

OK. Peter Pan.

-No, it's The Wind In The Willows.

-Wind In The Willows!

Ten points for this. Listen carefully.

Benjamin Disraeli described idiosyncrasy is a quality

"which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury,

"or a Prime Minister."

What is the dictionary spelling of the word idiosyncrasy?

I-D-I-O-C...

Y-N...

No. LAUGHTER

Digging a nice hole there.

I-D-I-O-S-I-N-C-R-A-C-Y.

No, it's S-Y-N-C-R-A-S-Y.

So, ten points at stake for this starter question.

Harvest Of The Cold Months - The Social History Of Ice And Ices

is a later work by which author, who died in 1992?

Perhaps best-known for French provincial cooking,

she has been described as "the best writer on food and drink..."

Elizabeth David.

Yes.

LSE, you get questions on Iris Murdoch and philosophy.

"People were liberated by that book after the war,

"it made people happy, it was like the Gospel."

These words of Iris Murdoch referred to Being And Nothingness,

a work by which French philosopher?

Sartre?

Sartre.

Correct. Iris Murdoch's 1977 work The Fire And The Sun discusses the

attitude to art and the theory of beauty of which ancient philosopher?

THEY CONFER

Plato seems more likely, doesn't he?

-Plato.

-Correct.

In the 1959 essay The Sublime And The Good,

what concept did Iris Murdoch described as "the extremely

"difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real"?

Idealism.

We'll go for it?

-Idealism.

-No, it's love.

Ten points for this.

Which three cautionary words link a 1968 recording by the sound

engineer Peter Lodge, the voice artist Emma Clarke, and The Archers

actor Tim Bentinck, who has been heard on the Piccadilly Line?

Mind the gap.

Correct.

Right, three questions on checkmates in chess for your bonuses, LSE.

Scholar's mate is a checkmate that may often catch out a beginner,

and always results in a win after how many moves?

Six is the shortest.

I think it's six.

-Six or eight.

-I think it's three.

-Three?

-Pawn, bishop, queen.

-Nominate O'Brien.

-Three.

No, it's four. It's also known as the four-move checkmate.

Involving a queen with a bishop, checkmating the opposing king.

Also known as Philidor's Legacy,

what term describes a checkmate by knight against a king that

has all of its escape squares blocked by its own pieces?

The term suggests being surrounded and unable to breathe.

Suffocate. Choke?

A choke mate.

No, it's a smothered mate.

And finally, Anastasia's mate and Arabian mate most commonly involve

which two pieces working in tandem to checkmate the opposing king?

It would be a horse, wouldn't it?

THEY CONFER

A knight and a queen.

No, it's a knight and a rook.

Right, we are going to take a music round now.

For your music starter, you'll hear a piece of popular music.

Ten points if you can identify the artist, please.

POP MUSIC PLAYS

# When the world gets cold

# I'll be your cover

# Let's just hold

# Onto each other

# Let it all fall

# Let it all fall down

# Look at yourselves in a ghost town... #

Adele.

It doesn't sound anything like Adele.

I've got no idea. And nobody else seems to have.

Well, it was enterprising of you to have a go.

You are wrong, I'm afraid though.

Anyone like to buzz from the LSE?

Beyonce.

No, it's Madonna. It's Ghost Town.

Music bonuses in a moment or two.

Ten points at stake for this starter question.

In which sensory organ of the human body are the specialised cells

called the hyalocytes of Balazs?

They form part of the surface of the vitreous body.

The eye.

Correct.

Right, you will recall that Madonna fell over on stage at the 2015

Brit Awards due to an unfortunate entanglement of her costume.

For your bonuses, you are going to hear three more songs by groups

or artists who experienced similar onstage calamities in 2015.

Firstly for five, can you to identify this band?

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

# One in ten

# One in ten

-# One in ten... #

-Ace Of Spades...

# Don't want to be your monkey wrench... #

AC/DC. Yeah?

AC/DC.

No, it's Foo Fighters.

The lead singer and guitarist, Dave Grohl,

broke his leg falling off stage in Gothenburg.

Secondly, can you name this artist, please?

HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS

-# Uh-huh, yeah

-It's all about the Benjamins, baby

# Now, what y'all wanna do?

# Wanna be ballers shot-callers, brawlers. #

Kanye West.

No, it's Puff Daddy, or P Diddy, or Diddy, or Puffy, or Sean Combs...

LAUGHTER

..who fell into a hole during an awards ceremony, apparently.

Finally, I specifically want the name or nickname

of the guitarist of this band.

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

The Edge.

-U2. Edge.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

Edge.

It is The Edge. Yes. Who fell off the edge, apparently. In Vancouver.

Right, ten points for this.

Which two initial letters link words meaning the process of

shedding skin in reptiles...

Ex.

No. I'm sorry, you are wrong. You lose five points too.

..a short pastoral poem - for example, by Virgil -

the colour of unbleached linen

and the study of living things within their environment.

A-B.

No, it's E-C.

I'm not going to recite the long list of terms involved.

Ten points for this.

Which small city in North Dakota shares its name with

a film of 1996 with the tag line -

Small town. Big crime. Dead cold?

It start Frances McDormand and was...

Fargo.

Fargo is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on astronomy,

comedy and a government agency.

All three answers contain the letter combination DNA.

Discovered in 2003, which trans-Neptunian object was

given a five-letter name after an Inuit goddess of the sea?

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

Diana.

No, it was Sedna.

Secondly, founded in the late 18th century, which government-owned

company's products include the Explorer and the Landranger series?

THEY CONFER

Land Rover.

No, it's the Ordnance Survey.

And finally, born with the surname Beazley,

who was created a Dame in 1974?

The creation was portrayed as a spontaneous

gesture by the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

BUZZER

You don't need to buzz.

Edna Everage.

You are quite right. It is Edna Everage, yes.

Right, ten points at stake for this.

Meanings of what six-letter word include either of the

two pendulous, fleshy growths on each side of a turkey's beak,

an alternative name for the...

Wattle.

Wattle is correct, yes.

Your bonuses, Durham, are on mnemonics.

Will A Jolly Man Make A Jolly Visitor is a mnemonic for the surnames

of the first eight US presidents.

Which two presidents are represented by the phrase Jolly Man?

-Jackson.

-And...

-Hmm.

-Madison.

Jackson and Madison.

No, it's Jefferson and Madison.

Sorry, sorry.

Secondly, for five points.

How shocking! Tom's Songs Make Me Queasy

is a mnemonic for the names of the major Chinese dynasties,

beginning with the Han.

Which dynasty does the word Queasy represent?

You may spell it if you wish.

Chen.

-Quinn.

-Qing.

Qing.

Correct. No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely

is a mnemonic for the royal houses of England, beginning with the Norman.

For which houses do the words Like Yours stand?

York. Lancaster and York?

Lancaster and York.

Correct. The winner takes a second picture round now.

For your picture starter,

you are going to see a photograph of a theatrical production.

The ten points, I want you to identify both the actor you see

and the role he is playing.

Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet.

That's correct.

That was the Barbican's 2015 production,

which has become the fastest-selling play in London theatre history.

Your picture bonuses show three more 2015 record breakers.

Firstly for five,

I want you to identify the subject of this exhibition.

THEY CONFER

Vivienne Westwood.

No, it's Alexander McQueen.

His exhibition Savage Beauty broke the V&A's attendance record.

Secondly, the title of this painting.

You can give it in either English or French.

I don't know the name of the painting.

Le Fantastique.

No, it's the Women Of Algiers by Picasso.

The most expensive artwork sold at auction.

Finally, I want you to identify this film, please.

-I don't know.

-Not a clue.

It's all been record breakers. Was there something huge this year?

No?

Alf Does Christmas.

LAUGHTER

What?!

No, it's Jurassic World. In June 2015, it broke the record

for the most successful global opening weekend.

Right, ten points for this.

In October 2015, who led the Liberal Party to an unexpected

victory in the Canadian federal election?

Justin Trudeau.

Correct.

Right, your bonuses this time, LSE, are on memorials.

William Wyggeston and Simon De Montfort are two of the four

men represented by statues on the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower

in which English city?

Leicester.

Correct.

Designed by George Gilbert Scott, the Martyrs' Memorial on St Giles'

in Oxford commemorates the three men known as the Oxford martyrs.

Thomas Cranmer was one. Name either of the other two.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

-BUZZER

-Ridley.

Ridley was correct, yes.

Can you settle down with your buzzers there?

LAUGHTER The other one was Latimer.

And finally, opened in 2001,

the National Memorial Arboretum is located close to the River Tame,

a tributary of the Trent, in which English county?

Staffordshire.

Staffordshire.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Equilibrium Points In n-Person Games was the title of the ground-breaking

paper of 1949 by which US mathematician, who died in May 2015?

John Nash.

Correct.

Level pegging. You get these bonuses, they'll give you the lead.

They are on the Stirling Prize for Architecture.

The media centre at which UK sporting venue won

the 1999 prize for its architects?

It was the world's first all-aluminium,

semi-monocoque building.

Lord's.

Correct. The 2014 prize went to the architects of the rebuilding of which

theatre in Liverpool?

Its original incarnation opened in 1964

in the shell of a 19th-century chapel.

Delphi?

THEY CONFER

-Everyman.

-Try that one.

Everyman.

It was the Everyman Theatre. And finally,

the restoration of Astley Castle, a ruined manor house,

won its architects the Stirling Prize in 2013.

It is situated to the south-west of Nuneaton in which English county?

-Leicester.

-Or was it Warwickshire? Worcestershire.

THEY CONFER

-Leicestershire.

-No, it's Warwickshire.

SHE SIGHS Ten points for this. Born in 1830,

Emily Davies was a pioneer of higher education for women and a founder

of which institution, named after a village north-west of Cambridge?

Girton College.

Correct.

Your bonuses, LSE, are on a London museum.

William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress is part of the collection

of which museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields,

named after the Regency architect who left it to the nation in 1837?

John Soane's Museum.

-Correct.

-Next to LSE.

Part of the Soane Collection, what event is the subject of a series

of paintings by Hogarth inspired by the Oxfordshire contest of 1754?

It depicts vicious indulgence in sensual pleasures, the wearing

of blue or orange ribbons, and the distribution of bribes.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Talk to me.

It's not the polling or something like that. It's...

It's something to do with elections. Is it the polling?

I'll accept that, yes. It's The Humours Of An Election.

A general or parliamentary election, yes.

Also in the Soane Collection, Les Noces, or The Marriage,

is a work of the 1710s by which artist, born in Valenciennes,

a major exponent of the genre known as fetes galantes?

No idea.

Nominate Neill.

Is it Watteau?

It is Watteau. Yes.

Ten points for this. Listen carefully.

For what does the letter S stand in the scientific acronym laser?

Stimulation.

Stimulated. I'll accept that. You've got the right idea.

Right, your bonuses are on fictional doctors.

The former Nazi, Dr Christian Szell,

appears in which 1974 conspiracy thriller?

Marathon Man.

-Marathon Man.

-Correct.

Which novel, first published in 1925,

refers to the image of the eyes of Dr TJ Ekelberg?

INDISTINCT WHISPERS

GONG

APPLAUSE

Right, at the gong, it's absolutely level pegging.

The way we are going to sort this out now is

I'm going to ask you a starter question.

If you get it right, you get ten points and immediately win.

If you interrupt incorrectly and get it wrong...

..you are fined five points and you automatically lose.

OK?

Listen up then. Fingers on the buzzers.

Cat And Mouse and Dog Years are novels in the Danzig trilogy by which

German Nobel laureate who died in 2015?

The first work in the trilogy is his 1959 debut novel, The Tin Drum.

Gunter Grass.

Gunter Grass is correct. That means you win.

APPLAUSE

Well, I thought you were going to do it, LSE,

but you need to bone up a bit on one or two subjects, I think.

LAUGHTER

Congratulations to you, Durham.

I'm afraid although you have won on 140 points, it is

not one of the four highest winning scores.

So we shan't be seeing you again.

It means you have the honour of winning

but you don't have the possible embarrassment of having to come back.

-LAUGHTER

-(Thank goodness.)

We now know the teams in the semifinal stage of the competition.

They will be Magdalen College, Oxford, Manchester University,

Sheffield University

and University College, London.

I hope you can join us next time for the first of the semifinals.

Until then though, it's goodbye from the LSE.

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Durham University.

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.