Christmas University Challenge.
Asking the questions,
Jeremy Paxman.
APPLAUSE
Hello. Some not overly subtle
embellishments to our surroundings
tell us that tonight we're beginning
our annual competition
for distinguished alumni of some
of the UK's leading universities
and university colleges.
14 teams have bravely accepted
our invitation to entertain us
over the next few nights,
and in order to be on a team,
everyone needs to have graduated
from the institution
they're playing for,
and since leaving, to have
gone on to make their mark
in their chosen field.
Happily, this second criterion is so
vague as to be almost meaningless.
They'll be up against the kind
of questions we like to throw
at the country's brainiest students
and the rules of the competition
are the same for them,
except that out of
seven winning teams
from these first-round matches,
it'll be only the four teams
with the highest scores
who proceed to the next stage
of the competition.
Now first, the University of Leeds,
represented by an expert on China
and Japan who has contributed to
Channel Four's New Secrets
of the Terracotta Warriors
and China's Jade Empire,
while his writings include
a scholarly work on anime
and a brief history of the samurai,
essential reading,
according to the Japan Times.
Attentive viewers will remember
their next player
from his appearances as a student
in this competition 36 years ago.
Clearly, the years have been kind,
and he's filled them, in part,
by writing both fiction
and factual books,
including The Accidental Species:
Misunderstandings of Human Evolution
and the ever handy
A Field Guide to Dinosaurs.
From recording artist to Reverend,
their captain's career
has been diverse, to say the least.
He found fame with the band
The Communards in the 1980s,
and since then, as well as his day
job, has been a frequent presenter
and broadcaster on theological
and other matters.
He's also redefined
what we're entitled to expect
of our present-day clergy
by making it to week three
of Strictly Come Dancing.
Their fourth player
is a photographer
who specialises in recording
the lives of remote communities
throughout the world.
He's worked for the Independent
and the Sunday Telegraph,
was photographer on the landmark
TV series Human Planet,
and has won Press Photographer
of the Year,
six Picture Editors' Guild Awards
and 19 commendations for
Travel Photographer of the Year.
Let's meet the Leeds team.
I'm Jonathan Clements.
I graduated in 1994 in Japanese
with East Asian Studies,
and I am now an author of books
on Far Eastern history
and a TV presenter
for National Geographic.
I'm Henry Gee.
I graduated in 1984
with zoology and genetics.
I'm a recovering palaeontologist
and I'm an editor
with the science journal Nature.
This is their captain...
I'm Richard Coles.
I did a research degree at Leeds
when I was at Theological College
about 15 years ago.
I'm now vicar of Finedon
and have the unique distinction
of being the only clergyman
to have spray tanned
with Debbie McGee!
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
And, er, following that...
I'm Timothy Allen.
I was at Leeds
at the end of the 1980s.
I actually flunked my degree
and got a 2.2 in zoology.
Fortunately, after I left,
I picked up a camera
and 25 years later I'm still doing
exactly the same thing.
APPLAUSE
Now, the team from Clare College,
Cambridge, includes a soprano
particularly noted for her
performances of baroque music.
She's performed at major venues
across Europe including
the Royal Albert Hall, the Zurich
Tonhalle and the Wigmore Hall.
In 2008 she gave the world premiere
of Sir John Tavener's Requiem
in Liverpool Cathedral,
and in May 2018, she sang
at the wedding of Prince Harry
and Meghan Markle.
With her is
an award-winning novelist.
He's also written several
screenplays and presented numerous
documentaries, including
Channel Four's Unreported World,
and we can, perhaps, expect
to see the galvanising effect
it has on a player's performance
to know that his younger brother
captained the winning team
in this contest in 2015.
Now, we might choose to imagine
their captain tonight to be
the kind of person whose
visits to a classroom
are met with some trepidation.
She's been a school governor,
the chair of Ofqual, the
qualifications and exams regulator,
worked for the education charity Ark
and has served on the board
of the Institute of Education.
Their final team member has worked
for the Independent and the Observer
and is now a columnist
for her current newspaper.
Her first novel,
I Don't Know How She Does It,
was a bestseller and was made into a
film starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
Her latest, How Hard Can It Be,
is to become a US drama series.
Let's meet the Clare College team.
I'm Elin Manahan Thomas.
I studied Anglo-Saxon,
Norse and Celtic in the '90s,
but for the last 20 years,
I've been a classical soprano.
I'm Marcel Theroux.
I graduated in English Literature
in 1989
and I'm a writer and broadcaster.
And this is their captain...
I'm Amanda Spielman.
I studied maths and law at Clare,
graduating in 1982,
and I am the Ofsted Chief Inspector.
I'm Allison Pearson.
I read an awful lot of novels
at Clare College, Cambridge
in the late 1970s.
I've since tried to write
a few myself.
I'm now the chief columnist and
interviewer of The Daily Telegraph.
APPLAUSE
OK, I guess you all know the rules.
They're the same as
for the students -
ten points for starter questions,
they're individual efforts.
Bonuses are team efforts.
They're worth 15.
Interrupt a starter question
incorrectly,
you'll be fined five points.
Right, fingers on the buzzers.
Your first starter for ten.
What six-letter noun appears
in all these titles?
Firstly, a novel by Daniel Woodrell
set in the Ozark Mountains...
Secondly, a play by Shakespeare
featuring two bohemian shepherdesses
called Mopsa and Dorcas...
And the first episode of the first
series of Game of Thrones...
BELL
Winter.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses are on sites
added to the UNESCO
World Heritage List in 2019.
In each case, name the site.
Firstly, the seat of rulers such
as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar,
which city on the Euphrates fell
to the Persians in 539 BCE?
Its ruins are located
about 90km south of Baghdad.
Babylon.
Correct.
Secondly, the capital of
the Indian state of Rajasthan,
which fortified city combines
ideas from Hindu, Mughal
and Western urban planning
and is known for
its rose-coloured buildings?
Jaipur. Jaipur is correct.
Established in 1945, which site
in northwest England has played
a significant role in the study
of meteors, the discovery of quasars
and the tracking of spacecraft?
Jodrell Bank. Correct.
APPLAUSE
Fingers on the buzzers.
A thin layer of
the unstable compounds
silver fulminate and
a layer of abrasive material
are placed in contact during
the usual manufacture
of which common seasonal items...?
BUZZER
Fireworks.
No, you lose five points.
Oh, crackers, sorry...
I have to take
the first thing you say.
You can hear the rest
of the question, Leeds.
..placed in contact during the usual
manufacture of which common seasonal
items sometimes banned on aircraft?
Shearing force is usually applied
by pulling cardboard strips...
BELL
..to initiate a reaction...
Christmas crackers.
Christmas crackers is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses
on a sporting event, Leeds.
Oh...
In August 2019,
Fiona Kolbinger of Germany
beat more than 200 men
to win the Transcontinental -
a race across Europe
by what means of transport?
She completed the 4,000km route
in just over ten days.
Rickshaw?
Pogo stick?
What do you think? I've no idea.
Skateboard.
No, it's cycling. Ah! Ah!
The start of this east-west race
was the city of Burgas -
that's B-U-R-G-A-S.
Along with Varna, it is
one of the two main seaports
in which country?
Bulgaria. Correct.
The Transcontinental finished
at which French naval base
about 60km south west
of Roscoff in Brittany?
Le Havre? Er, yeah, maybe.
Le Havre? No, it's Brest.
Ten points for this...
2019 saw the death of
which Italian film director?
BUZZER
Franco Zeffirelli. Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses
are on exhibitions at
the Tate Galleries in 2019.
In each case, name the artist
from the description.
Firstly, for five,
which British photojournalist
was the subject
of a retrospective at Tate Britain
that featured images of conflict
in Vietnam, Northern Ireland
and Syria,
as well as urban and rural
scenes of life in Britain?
Don McCullin... Don McCullin...
Don McCullin. Correct.
Focusing on his work from 1912
until his death in 1947,
which French artist's work
appeared in the Tate Modern
exhibition The Colour of Memory?
His paintings include
Nude in the Bath
and Stairs in the Artist's Garden.
Matisse...
No, it's, erm...
THEY CONFER
Mondrian? No?
I'm sorry we... Matisse?
It's not Matisse, no...
It's not Seurat?
No, it's not. It's Pierre Bonnard.
And finally, Tate Liverpool held
the first UK retrospective
of which US artist
and activist's work,
part of the 1980s
New York art scene?
He was known for his colourful
images and motifs
including a "Barking Dog"
and a "Radiant Baby."
Oh... It's not Jeff Koons?
No, it's, er...
It's the guy who did
the T-shirts... Erm...
We don't know. Jeff Koons.
We don't know.
It's Keith Haring.
Right, we're going to take
a picture round now.
For your picture starter you'll see
an excerpt from a poem of 1819.
Two rhyming words
have been obscured.
For ten points give me both of them.
BELL
Bird and heard.
Correct, yes.
Let's see the whole thing.
Part of Keats' Ode to a Nightingale.
So, we follow on from
Ode to a Nightingale with bonuses
on lines from three or more
of the six major odes
written by Keats in 1819.
This time you need to give me the
single word that's been obscured,
which in each case is
the titular subject of the ode.
Firstly, you're
looking for an abstract noun here.
Majesty...
Hm. Majesty...
Is it truth?
I think it's too long a word.
Shall we try that one? Yeah, go on.
Majesty?
No, it's melancholy.
We'll see the whole thing now.
Secondly, another abstract noun...
No idea? No.
Sugar puffs.
LAUGHTER
Sugar puffs?! Yeah.
No, it's indolence.
And finally,
a mythological figure...
Cupid? Erm...
Cupid.
No, that's Psyche.
Let's see the whole thing.
There we are.
Right, ten points for this starter
question. Fingers on the buzzers.
Which traditional English carol
is this?
The New Oxford Book of Carols
states that its refrain
"is incoherent and oddly irrelevant,
"standing in the same aesthetic
relationship to the verse
"as does Tower Bridge to
the Tower of London..."
BUZZER
Ding Dong Merrily on High.
No. You lose five points.
Its title refers
to two evergreen plants... Oh...
BELL
The Holly and the Ivy.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on plants
and animals with names that come
from the Malay language.
In each case, give the name
from the description.
Firstly, a starch prepared
from the pith of palm trees.
In a seasonal context
the word may be the answer
to the Christmas cracker joke
"how do you start a pudding race?"
I keep thinking of s-s-s...
Oh, sago.
Indeed! Well done!
What name is given to
several genera of parrots
with large curved beaks
and feathered crests?
Species include the galah
and the gang-gang.
Cockatoo...
THEY CONFER
It's not that.
Cockatoo? Cockatoo. Cockatoo.
Cockatoo.
Cockatoo is correct.
Finally, a large anthropoid ape.
Its name means "man of the forest".
Orangutan.
Correct.
Ten points for this.
September 2019
saw the announcement
of the discovery of a previously
unknown 17th-century manuscript
by which philosopher
of the English Enlightenment?
Concerning the toleration
of Roman Catholics,
it predates his two treatises
on government by about 20 years?
BELL
Locke.
Locke is correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses this time are
on parts of a house or building.
In each case give the term
from the description.
Firstly, meaning a small,
elegantly furnished room for a lady
to rest or receive friends,
what word comes from a French verb
meaning to pout or sulk?
Boudoir. boudoir is correct.
What part of a house has a name that
derives via the name of an order
of architecture from the name
of the area around Athens?
Attic. Attic.
Attic is correct.
What word for an entrance hall
in a theatre, for example,
derives via French
from the Latin for half?
Foyer. Foyer. Foyer is correct.
Ten points for this.
The last line of Charles Causley's
poem Innocent's Song
refers to which historical figure,
described in the second chapter
of Matthew's Gospel as having died
shortly after the birth of Jesus?
John the Baptist.
No.
Do you want to have to go, Vicar?
Well, there's so many.
LAUGHTER
Shortly after the...
Oh, in Matthew's Gospel? Come on!
I can't think. It's Herod. Oh!
Right. Ten points for this.
LAUGHTER
I need two names promptly here.
Born in 1849 and 1887 respectively,
what are the surnames of
the scientists, Ivan and Erwin,
who appear in a joke
to which the punch line is,
"The librarian said the book rang
a bell, but they weren't sure
"if it was there or not."
Pavlov and Schrodinger.
Correct. Yes.
APPLAUSE
"I asked for a book about
a dog and a cat."
Right. These are your bonuses.
They're on the works of
Toni Morrison, who died in 2019.
In each case, name the novel.
Firstly, which early work blends
elements of realism, fable
and fantasy and follows
Macon Dead III,
nicknamed the Milkman,
in his search for an identity?
Beloved.
No, it's Song Of Solomon.
Secondly, set on a Caribbean island,
which novel depicts the unlikely
romance between Jadine,
a wealthy fashion model,
and Son, a poor fugitive?
It explores conflicts of race,
class and sex.
Try Beloved again. Beloved.
No, that's Tar Baby.
And finally, which novel tells
the story of a former slave who,
at the point of recapture,
kills her daughter to spare her
a life of slavery?
Beloved.
Beloved is correct.
LAUGHTER
Right. We're going to take a music
round now. For your music starter,
you'll hear a piece of
classical music. For ten points,
please name its composer.
MUSIC PLAYS
That is Walton.
No. Anyone like to buzz from Clare?
You can hear a little more.
MUSIC PLAYS
Elgar.
It is Elgar, yes.
APPLAUSE
That was part of
his Pomp And Circumstance March,
which was given its world premiere
at the Proms by conductor
and Proms founder Sir Henry Wood.
To mark 150 years
since Wood's birth,
your bonuses are three more works
whose UK premieres were given
by Wood at the Proms.
Name the composer in each case.
Firstly, this piano concerto.
MUSIC PLAYS
THEY CONFER
Concerto No.2.
Ravel. Ravel is correct, yes.
Piano Concerto In D Major
For The Left Hand.
Secondly, this violin concerto.
MUSIC PLAYS
THEY CONFER
Brock. No, it's Sibelius.
His Violin Concerto In D Minor.
And finally, this orchestral work.
MUSIC PLAYS
THEY CONFER
I'm going to nominate
Manahan Thomas. Is that De Falla?
No, it's Debussy.
Right. Ten points for this.
In professional baseball,
North America has the World Series.
In which country do the most
successful teams from the Central
League and the Pacific League
play one another in
a championship series?
Japan. Japan is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right. You get a set of bonuses,
Leeds, on a polar phenomenon.
Around the turn of the 20th century,
the Norwegian scientist
Kristian Birkeland was the first
to explain the source of which
polar phenomenon once thought
to be a portent of doom?
THEY CONFER
Aurora borealis. Correct.
Alta is known as
the City of the Northern Lights
because of its location
in which area of Norway,
the country's northernmost county?
THEY CONFER
Finnmark. Finnmark is correct.
Who, in the 1770s, first used
the name aurora australis
for the true Southern Lights,
following his voyage
towards the Antarctic
in the ship Resolution?
Cook. Cook is correct.
APPLAUSE
Ten points for this.
From the Greek for
"setting in motion",
what term denotes
signalling molecules
produced by one group of cells
that exert an effect on
a group of distant cells?
Hormone. Hormone is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses this time
are on recipients of the European
Green Capital Award - a recognition
of the role that local authorities
play in improving the environment.
In each case, identify the city
from the description.
Firstly, the winner in 2017,
a former centre of coal mining
in the Ruhr area located
between Dortmund and Dusseldorf.
Essen. Essen is right.
Secondly, the 2013 winner,
a city on the River Loire,
close to the Atlantic Coast.
It gives its name to
an edict of 1598
that granted religious freedoms
to Protestants.
Nantes. Correct.
And finally, an inland city
about 40km south of Bilbao.
It's the capital of
the Spanish Basque Country.
San Sebastian. No, it's Vitoria.
There's still plenty of time
to get going, Clare,
so maybe you'll do it
with this picture round.
For your picture starter,
you're going to see a still
from a musical film. For ten points,
I want the film's title.
On The Town.
On The Town is correct.
APPLAUSE
That film was the directorial debut
of the choreographer Stanley Donen,
who died early in 2019.
For your picture bonuses, stills
from three more of Donen's films.
Five points for each film
you can name.
Firstly...
Is it To Catch A Thief?
No, it's Charade.
Secondly...
Any ideas?
Star Wars.
LAUGHTER
Star Wars?!
No, that's Peter Cook
and Dudley Moore in Bedazzled.
And finally...
WHISPERS: Seven Brides
For Seven Brothers.
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.
Indeed, yes. Well done.
APPLAUSE
Right, ten points for this.
Described as an in-depth
tidying masterclass,
Spark Joy is a follow up...
Marie Kondo. Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right. You get a set of bonuses
on cellists. Which Spanish cellist
formed a renowned
chamber music trio in 1905
with the pianist Alfred Cortot
and the violinist Jacques Thibaud?
Pablo Casals. Correct.
Shostakovich's first cello concerto
and Britten's Cello Symphony
were both written for which cellist,
born in Baku in 1927?
THEY CONFER
BUZZER
Oh, sorry, didn't mean to buzz.
I'll nominate.
Mstislav Rostropovich.
Correct, yes.
Finally, a student of both Casals
and Rostropovich, who featured
as the cellist in Christopher
Newton's 1969 documentary film
The Trout, in which he appeared
alongside Daniel Barenboim?
Jacqueline Du Pre. Correct.
APPLAUSE
Five minutes to go. Ten points for
this. During the thawing process,
soil microbes in permafrost
turn carbon into carbon dioxide
and which other gas,
which is also...
Methane.
Methane is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses this time are
on physics, Leeds.
"You cannot win"
and "you cannot break even"
are commonly cited summaries of
two of the four main laws of
which branch of physics?
Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics.
Correct. The unattainability
statement of the third law
asserts that, using a finite number
of thermodynamic cycles,
what condition for a system
is impossible?
Come on. Entropy.
No, it's reaching
a temperature of absolute zero.
And finally, what quantity relating
to thermodynamics is often
given the symbol "S"?
Free energy. Free energy.
No, that is entropy.
Ten points for this.
Who played the title role in
Sam Gold's production of King Lear
that opened on Broadway
in April 2019?
At the Old Vic in 2016 she played
the same character shortly after
returning to acting?
BUZZER
Glenda Jackson.
Correct.
Your bonuses are on the 2019
British Book Awards, also known
as the Nibbies.
In each case, give the title
from the description.
First, the memoir that won
Audio Book of the Year, written
and narrated by Michelle Obama.
Belonging.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
No, I'm afraid I have to take
the answer that you... It's a bonus
question, so you can give it
through your captain, but you gave
the wrong one. It's Becoming.
And secondly, the novel that won
the award for crime fiction
and Thriller of the Year.
It was the 12th novel by the
South London author Louise Candlish.
No idea. We don't know.
That's Our House.
And finally, the novel by
Sally Rooney that won the award
for Overall Book of the Year.
I need the two-word title, please.
Normal People.
Correct. Ten points for this.
Now meaning varied in character,
appearance or colour,
what word does Jaques use
to refer to Touchstone
in As You Like It, in its sense of
a traditional colour...?
BUZZER
Piebald.
No. You lose five points, Clare.
..in its traditional sense of
a coloured jester's costume?
BELL
Motley.
Motley is correct.
Your bonuses are rarely used words
that appear in Christmas carols.
Identify each word
from the description.
Firstly, taken from the second verse
of Hark The Herald Angels Sing,
a word meaning the character
or quality of being a deity.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see...
Come on. Godhead.
Godhead is correct. From the second
verse of the Coventry Carol,
a generic noun that refers to
a juvenile person or animal.
Childer.
No, it's youngling. And finally,
appearing in the first verse of
Ding Dong Merrily On High,
an adverb...
GONG
And at the gong,
Clare College have 55,
and Leeds University have 205.
APPLAUSE
You never really got a chance
to get going, did you, Clare?
I think they've got
better buzzes than us.
LAUGHTER
I demand a recount!
They've certainly got
better reactions!
Congratulations, Leeds.
205 is a great score.
Maybe you'll come back as one of the
four highest-scoring winning teams.
We'll find out. Thank you.
I hope you can join us next time
when we'll have another
first-round match.
But until then, it's goodbye
from Clare College, Cambridge.
Goodbye. It's goodbye
from Leeds University.
Goodbye. And it's goodbye from me.
Goodbye.
