University of York v University of Southampton University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello, two more teams of distinguished alumni have

gamely agreed to forego an evening of wassailing in

the bosom of their families and friends in order to inform,

educate and entertain us with what they know

and perhaps what they don't know about more or less anything.

There are only four places available in the next stage of this short

seasonal series, so to progress any further, a team must win and do

so with a total that puts them in the top four winning scorers.

Now for the University of York, their first player focuses

her research on cancer patients and their response to radiotherapy.

She sits on several international committees

specialising in cancer research

and has received awards from the Association for Radiation

Research and the European Radiation Research Society.

Next to her, the presenter of radio programmes including

The Listening Service and Music Matters.

On television he has presented

documentaries about the great composers and has fronted the Proms.

He was chief classical musical critic for the Guardian

and is the author of books on conductors and their orchestras.

Their captain is an award-winning journalist who is now

associate editor for one of the UK's leading tabloids.

He also wrote for the Guardian and the Telegraph.

He is the co-author of a book on Parliamentary scandals and is

also a visiting professor of journalism at Sunderland University.

Finally a composer, musical director, conductor,

arranger and performer.

He has composed for Nicholas Hytner's Royal National Theatre

productions of the Winter's Tale

and Henry V as well as for every major British television

channel and for several Hollywood films and in London's West End.

He has conducted Cats, the musical that is, not just stray felines.

So let's meet the York team.

Hello, I'm Catherine West

and I graduated from York in 1978 with a degree in biology.

I'm currently Professor of Radiation Biology at the University

-of Manchester.

-Hello, I'm Tom Service.

I graduated with a music degree in 1997.

Since then I have been writing and talking mostly about classical

music, mostly for BBC Radio Three.

This is their captain.

Hi, I am Kevin Maguire, I did politics at York more than

three decades ago and I now write about it for the Daily Mirror

and The New Statesman.

Hello, I'm Simon Webb, I graduated from York in the late

'70s with a degree in music and I have now

composed music for film, theatre and television.

APPLAUSE

The team from Southampton University includes a comedian who is

a regular contributor to This Week, Mock the Week,

Live at the Apollo and the News Quiz.

Attentive viewers who remember him

being disqualified in an edition of the Krypton Factor in 1995

will doubtless be hoping he redeems himself tonight.

With him, a news journalist who joined ITN shortly after

graduating from Southampton.

He later moved to the BBC where he has been health, Rome, Moscow

and home affairs correspondent, covering numerous national

and international stories.

Their captain has reported on the arts

and cultural stories from around the world.

He has presented on Newsnight

and is heard almost nightly on Radio 4 while listeners are making supper.

He specialises in music related interviews with

everyone from David Bowie to Quincy Jones.

Their fourth player is a businesswoman, poet,

journalist and author of children's books as well as being

a former speech writer for Number Ten.

Let's meet the Southampton team.

Hello, I'm Simon Evans, I graduated in 1986 with a second class

degree in law which I smoothly parlayed into a career in stand-up

comedy a mere 10 years later, and that's where I remain to this day.

Hello, I'm Daniel Sandford.

I'm a news correspondent at BBC News

and I graduated in physics with electronics in 1988.

And their captain.

Hello, I'm John Wilson, I graduated with a degree in English

and media studies in 1987.

Since then I have worked as a broadcaster and journalist

and I present Front Row on BBC Radio 4.

Hello, I'm Claire Foges, I was at Southampton from '99 till

2002 reading English and I am a columnist on The Times.

APPLAUSE

Well, you all know the rules, the audience knows the rules

so let's not bother reciting them.

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

"Grab your pen and take down this song,

"I just wrote the best song I have ever written.

"Heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody has ever written."

To which song do those reported words of Irving Berlin refer?

Its first public performance

was on 25th of December 1941 by Bing Crosby...

-I'm dreaming of a White Christmas?

-Yes. It's called White Christmas.

So you get the first set of bonuses,

they are on best-selling Christmas toys, Southampton.

Firstly for five points,

which best-selling toy of 1960 was invented by the French

electrician Andre Cassagnes who sold the design to the Ohio Art

Company? He originally called it L'Ecran Magique.

Meccano?

WHISPERING

Go Etch A Sketch?

We'll go Etch A Sketch.

Correct. Which popular toy of the 1990s can trace its origin to the

17th-century Japanese game of Menko and takes its name

from a Hawaiian drink of pomegranates, orange and guava?

Pokemon.

Pokemon?

No, that's a...

-No...

-Pomegranate.

-Say Pokemon. Why not?

-Pokemon.

No, it's Pogs.

And finally, in 1997 Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita were awarded

the Nobel Prize for Economics for creating which bestselling toy

and thereby, in the words of the Ig Nobel Committee,

"diverting millions of person hours of work"?

-What year was it, sorry?

-1997.

'97.

THEY CONFER

-It's not Tetris, that was Russians.

-Yeah.

Nobel prize?

Ig Nobel prize?

OK. No idea. Any guess?

Some computer game but I do know what it would be.

Some computer game, we're going with.

That won't do, it's Tamagotchi.

Right, 10 points for this,

renamed in 2017 after the astronomer Eugene Parker and due to launch

in summer 2018, the NASA mission known previously as Probe Plus aims

to investigate the outer atmosphere of which body in the solar system?

Mars.

No, anyone like to buzz from Southampton?

You may not confer, one of you can buzz.

I'll say Jupiter.

No, it's the sun and you lose five points, York,

I'm afraid, cos that was an interruption.

10 points for this, "I used to be snow-white but I drifted."

These words are associated...

-Mae West.

-Mae West is correct.

So you get another set of bonuses, they're on blue plaques

unveiled in 2017 as part of the BBC World Music Day celebrations.

Firstly, which colliery band now has a plaque dedicated to

it at the band rehearsal room in South Yorkshire?

They were the inspiration for the 1986 film Brassed Off.

Bristock or something?

No. They are the famous one, I'm not sure it was that one.

-It's the only one I know.

-Brighouse Colliery?

-Yeah. And Rastrick.

We will go with Brighouse and Rastrick brass bands.

No, it's Grimethorpe Colliery Band.

Secondly, which contralto

is now commemorated with a plaque inside Aspatria Parish Church

in Cumbria, the site of her first professional performance in 1937?

She is particularly associated with the role of Gluck's Orfeo.

THEY CONFER

When was it?

Cumbria. Ferrier?

-That's the one.

-Kathleen Ferrier.

Kathleen Ferrier is correct.

The Brighton Dome now has a blue plaque marking it as the venue

for a breakthrough performance by which quartet on April 6, 1974?

That's ABBA, sorry, you have to say it.

-ABBA.

-It's ABBA.

It is ABBA, yes. Well done.

10 points for this.

Calcium salt, petroleum jelly and long chain aliphatic acids

were among the original constituents of what modelling material?

Developed...

-Plasticine.

-Plasticine is correct.

Here are your bonuses, on stardust this time.

The Stardust space probe was launched in 1999 to capture

interplanetary dust particles and return them to Earth.

In 2002 it flew past which asteroid named after a German born

diarist and victim of the Holocaust?

German diarist?

THEY CONFER

-Wasn't it?

-We will go with that then.

Anne Frank, the diary.

No, she's Dutch, yeah.

Primo Levi.

No, it is Anne Frank.

-Oh!

-Two years later, Stardust captured dust particles,

an example of what form of astrological object?

Comet.

Correct.

The Stardust mission discovered which simple amino acid in cometary dust?

It is represented by the symbol G.

THEY CONFER

Daniel, science degree?

-I don't know any amino acids by name.

-G.

-That's chemistry.

-Yeah? All right, OK.

I've no idea.

-Any guess?

-Nope.

-Nope, sorry.

It's glycine.

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

Fingers on the buzzers.

For your picture starter you are going to see a map showing

a Parliamentary constituency, for 10 points I need its three-word name.

Is no-one going to buzz?

BUZZER

Lothian and something.

Dear, oh, dear.

Anyone like to buzz from Southampton.

It's North East Fife. So picture bonuses in a moment or two.

10 points at stake for this.

A triumphal edifice designed by John Nash,

the intersection of Oxford Street and Regent Street...

Oh! It's not marble arch.

-You're quite right.

-Yeah, yeah.

You're wrong. You lose five points.

..the intersection of Oxford Street and Regent Street,

a cathedral designed by Christopher Wren and the central

financial institution of the United Kingdom all give their names

to stations on which line of the London Underground?

Central Line.

Correct.

Right, so, we go back to the picture bonuses.

North East Fife was held by the SNP's Stephen Gethins by a majority

of two votes, the joint smallest since 1945.

Three more constituencies whose MPs were returned

in 2017 with majorities of fewer than 50 votes.

Firstly this constituency, I need a two-word name.

Kensington and... No.

No, too far down. That's Richmond.

Wimbledon?

-Two words? Richmond Park?

-Richmond goes up to the river, doesn't it?

That's the park. Richmond Park.

Correct.

Secondly this constituency, named for its largest settlement.

Worcestershire.

Could be Chester.

Chester is definitely a constituency and it is a marginal.

-Is that high enough up for Chester?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Chester, we will go with Chester.

No, it's Newcastle-under-Lyme,

held by Paul Farrelly of Labour with a majority of 30.

And finally, I need a one-word name here.

It's further in Kensington. That would be...

-Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, what's next?

-Hammersmith?

-It's Hammersmith and Fulham. Yeah.

-One word. So that's going to be...?

Let's have an answer, this conferring is not interesting.

-Chiswick.

-Chiswick!

It's Kensington. Taken by Emma Dent Coad for Labour Party.

10 points for this, identify the poet who wrote these lines,

"He disappeared in the dead of winter, the brooks were frozen,

"the airports almost deserted and snow disfigured the public statues."

The poem in question was

written in memory of WB Yeats on his death in 1939.

Erm, Auden.

Auden is correct. Yes.

York, your bonuses are on the Foreign Correspondent

Clare Hollingworth who died in 2017 at the age of 105.

Early in her career firstly, while working for the Daily Telegraph,

Hollingworth had a remarkable scoop after she borrowed the British

Consul General's car to drive into Germany from which country?

She discovered that German troops were poised to invade.

Poland.

Correct. After Poland

and then working for the Daily Express, Hollingworth moved

to which country where she covered the abdication of King Carol

and the subsequent riots incited by the Iron Guard?

THEY WHISPER

Romania.

Correct. From 1941, Hollingworth covered the land campaign in which

theatre of war?

She encountered opposition from General Montgomerie,

who disliked the idea of women reporting from the front.

-North Africa.

-Correct.

10 points for this starter question.

Popularised in 2008 by a song by Erykah Badu and later

through its association with the Black Lives Matter movement,

what short word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary

in a new sense in June 2017,

as an adjective meaning alert to injustice in...

-Woke.

-Woke is correct.

These bonuses are on the ethics of hangovers

according to Existential Comics,

described as a philosophy web comic about the inevitable anguish

of living a brief life in an absurd world.

Firstly for five points, according to Existential Comics,

the existentialist response to a hangover is "Drink it off."

In what school of philosophy is the ethical response,

"It's fine, as long as the pleasure outweighed it?"

Its proponents include Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

-Utilitarianism?

-Correct.

Likewise, in what system or ology is the response,

"You shouldn't drink so much no matter what."

Its name derives from the Greek for "That which is binding."

-Methodology.

-No, it's deontology.

According to one commentator, what school would respond,

"Hangovers aren't bad because nothing is bad

"because society makes up what is bad to keep you sheeple in line,

"and I'm 13 and I've read Nietzsche."

Its name derives from the Latin for nothing.

-It's nihilism.

-Sorry?

-Nihilism.

-Oh, sorry. Nihilism.

Correct.

Right, we're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter, you're going to hear a piece of classical music.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

SOOTHING HARP AND STRINGS MELODY

Delius?

No. You can hear a bit more, Southampton.

Is it Vaughan Williams?

No, it was Tchaikovsky, it was from The Nutcracker.

So 10 points at stake for this, music bonuses in a moment or two.

Fingers on the buzzers, please.

What common name is given collectively

to members of the large plant family Poaceae?

Examples include sugar cane, sorghum, millet and bamboo.

-Grass.

-Grasses is correct, yes.

We heard a moment ago part of The Nutcracker

intended to set the scene of a pine forest in winter.

Your music bonuses, three more classical journeys into the deep dark woods.

I simply want the composer of each. Firstly for five.

SINISTER, SWOOPING STRINGS

Bax.

No, that's Schoenberg. It's from The Transfigured Night.

Secondly.

GENTLE CELLO-LED MELODY

Journeys into the woods, he said. What journey into the wood is that?

-Don't know.

-Journey into the wood...

We just need a name.

Saint-Saens.

No, that was Dvorak, Silent Woods,

part of the cycle from The Bohemian Forest.

And finally.

TIMPANI ROLL AND INQUISITIVE STRINGS

-Sibelius.

-It is Sibelius, yes, well done.

Right, 10 points for this.

Which illustrator's work includes the Trigraph,

the Fronted Adverbial and the Morphology Changing Inflection?

Each one is a monster in a series of satirical cartoons called

the Sats Beasties. He was Children's Laureate between 2015 and 2017.

-Chris Riddell.

-Correct.

You did that without pressing the buzzer!

I didn't actually press the buzzer. Well, I didn't think I did.

-Psychic force.

-Your bonuses are on coinage.

In 2017, the Royal Mint released a new 12-sided bimetallic pound coin.

In its shape and approximate size,

this coin resembles which pre-decimal coin

introduced in the mid-20th century?

-Threepenny bit.

-Threepenny bit.

Threepenny bit is correct.

In what year was the circular nickel brass pound coin

introduced to replace the £1 note?

You can have a year either way.

About '84, I think? I'm pretty sure it was at university

when it happened. I'd say '84. Maybe '83.

-Maybe '83 if you want to go either way.

-I'd have gone later.

Yeah. '83.

Correct.

What symbol of government

and of the UK Parliament appeared on the reverse of threepenny pieces

issued during the reign of Elizabeth II?

-Portcullis.

-Correct.

Another starter question. Give the three rhyming words that mean

the stealer of Christmas in a work by Dr Seuss...

Grinch.

No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

..an imperial unit of length equal to 25.4 millimetres

and a small songbird such as a sparrow or canary?

Grinch, inch and finch.

That's correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on household chemicals, Southampton.

In each case, name the substance from the chemical formula.

For example, H2SO4 would be sulphuric acid.

Firstly, KMNO4, used as a disinfectant or water purifier.

-Potassium permanganate?

-Yeah.

-Potassium permanganate.

Correct.

Second, CH3COCH3, a colourless flammable liquid solvent.

Colourless, flammable.

-White spirit?

-Yeah, I quite like white spirit.

-Surgical spirit or white spirit?

-I quite like white spirit.

-White spirit.

-It's acetone.

And finally, NaHCO3, used in cooking and cleaning.

Baking soda?

Oh, wait, hang on.

-Bicarbonate of soda?

-Bicarbonate of soda.

-Yeah.

Yeah, bicarbonate of soda.

Yes, or baking soda, yes.

10 points for this.

One of four constitutions as a Commonwealth,

which US state is the scene of the opening

of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin?

It is strongly associated with bourbon whiskey

and is the location of the bullion...

Kentucky.

Kentucky is correct.

These bonuses are on films nominated for Best Picture

at the Academy Awards in February 2017.

In each case, give the single word title of the film from the description.

Firstly, a science-fiction film

based on a short story by Ted Chiang.

Amy Adams plays a linguist who attempts to translate

extra-terrestrial communication.

Um... Not Interstellar, not Contact.

-Oh, my God.

-Arrival.

-Arrival! Arrival.

Arrival is correct.

Based on a play, secondly, by August Wilson,

a drama starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis

as working-class couple in 1950s Pittsburgh.

-Fences.

-Correct.

And finally a biographical film set in India and Australia

and based on A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley.

-Lion.

-Lion is correct.

Time for another picture round.

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

Ten points if you can identify the artist.

It's...

..Manet.

No, it's not. York, any of you want to buzz?

-Monet?

-It is by Monet, yes.

So, you get a set of bonuses, York.

The hundreds of canvases produced by Monet and his contemporaries

attempted to capture what they called Effet de Neige.

And for your picture bonuses, you're going to see three more of them.

I want the name of the artists in each case, firstly for five...

Cezanne.

No, that's by Sisley. Secondly, who's this by?

It's quite nice!

Renoir.

No, that's by Gustave Caillebotte. And finally...

-Looks like Monet.

-Monet.

Monet?

No, that is by Renoir. Right, 10 points for this.

To the nearest whole number,

what is the equivalent weight in pounds

of a Christmas turkey that weighs five kilos?

-That would be 11.

-It would, yes.

You get a set of bonuses on the writer Sarah Waters.

In her 1999 debut novel, Tipping The Velvet, set in Victorian England,

the character of Kitty Butler appears on stage as a masher.

What is a masher in this context?

I don't remember.

-Really?

-No, I really don't, sorry.

-OK.

Um...

Go-go, was she like a dancer, rather than prostitute?

Let's say prostitute.

-No, no, she was a male impersonator.

-Right.

What is the title of Waters' second novel,

set in and around the Millbank women's prison during the Victorian era

and concerning the world of spiritualism?

-Fingersmith?

-Yeah...

Fingersmith? Fingersmith.

No, it's Affinity.

Transferring the action from Victorian England

to Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s,

the 2016 film The Handmaiden was based on which of Waters' novels?

I don't know, I can't remember. Don't know.

-I could say Fingersmith again.

-Yeah, why not?

-Fingersmith.

-That was Fingersmith.

-Yes!

Right, another starter question.

"Not quite Leicester City 2016, but not so very far off."

These words refer to which unfancied cricket side

who won the 2017 County Championship

first division without losing a match?

Somerset?

No, anyone like to buzz from York?

-Essex?

-Essex is correct, yes.

Right, York, your bonuses are on mathematics.

In each case express the number seven in the following bases.

Firstly, for five points, binary or base two.

Come on.

-Just...

-111.

-111.

Correct. Secondly, ternary or base three.

GONG

And at the gong, York University have 70,

Southampton have 150, though.

-Well, York, you were just a bit too slow there, weren't you?

-Yes!

Thank you very much for joining us.

We're going to say goodbye to you for sure.

Southampton, you might come back as one of the four highest

winning scores, we don't know yet, we'll find out.

But thank you very much for joining us and many congratulations.

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

-but until then it's goodbye from York University...

-Goodbye.

-..it's goodbye from Southampton University...

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.