APPLAUSE
Christmas University Challenge.
Asking the questions,
Jeremy Paxman.
You know, it's really quite
remarkable that any newspapers
are getting published at all
this Christmas,
when so many of the people
who write for them
are here in Salford,
doing everything they can
to get into the semifinal stage
of this competition.
The same must go for the echoing
corridors of Radio 3 and Radio 4,
facing this temporary exodus
of their finest presenters.
But tonight, we are playing
the penultimate first round match
in this short series for alumni,
so we already know that
the University of Leeds
and University College London
will go through to the next stage,
and a score of 165
or more will guarantee
that tonight's winners
will do so, too.
Now, the first player to represent
Trinity Hall Cambridge has made
fundamental contributions to both
philosophical and practical
applications of statistics,
including its use in
forensic identification,
computation and in law.
He co-authored the book
Probabilistic Networks, which won
the DeGroot Prize,
and in 2018 he was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society.
His colleague's acting career began
with the National Youth Theatre,
followed by the
Cambridge Footlights.
She has since acted with
the Royal Shakespeare Company,
the Peter Hall Company,
and has performed long-running
television roles on both sides
of the Atlantic, including Peep Show
in the UK and
Two And A Half Men in the US.
Their captain is perhaps best known
as the Guardian's television critic,
so we should say at once
that she performs this role
with peerless integrity
and her prose is sublime.
She's also written for most major
women's publications and is now
a columnist for Stylist magazine.
She's been named
Columnist of the Year
at the Professional Publishers
Association Awards
and she's also the author of
five books, the latest of which
is Bookworm: A Memoir
Of Childhood Reading.
Their fourth player
is an internationally-acclaimed
director of films with subject
matter ranging from The Beatles
to Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix
to Maria Callas.
Alongside numerous Baftas and 14
gold medals
at the New York Film
and TV festival,
he's also the only person to have
won the Prix Italia three times,
and he lives in the most
westerly house in England.
Let's meet the Trinity Hall
Cambridge team.
Hello, I'm Philip Dawid.
I graduated in 1966 in Mathematics
and I'm now a retired
Professor of Statistics.
Hello. I'm Sophie Winkleman.
I graduated in English in 2001
and I'm now an actress.
And this is their captain.
Hi, I'm Lucy Mangan.
I graduated in English in 1997
and I'm now a journalist and author.
I'm Tony Palmer.
I graduated first in 1964,
subsequently made rather
a lot of films
and I'm now a retired
old age pensioner.
APPLAUSE
Now for St Peter's College, Oxford.
First, a broadcaster who specialises
in reporting on terrorism,
cyber security and spying.
He's worked on Radio 4's Today
programme as a foreign reporter,
presented documentaries and written
books relating to security
and the world of espionage.
He's recently looked inside GCHQ
in a Radio 4 series,
and with him is the award-winning
writer of the Guardian's
long-running cookery column,
"How To Make The Perfect...",
in which she sets the record
straight on how to attempt
everything from souvlaki
to gypsy tart.
She's also food columnist for the
New Statesman and has written
six books - most recently,
One More Croissant For The Road,
a culinary odyssey around
France on two wheels.
Their captain was 14 when she began
reporting for the Voice,
Britain's oldest Afro-Caribbean
national newspaper.
She later worked in international
development and then qualified
as a barrister, specialising
in cases of international justice
and human rights.
She currently writes for the
Guardian and is a presenter
on the Sky News debate programme
The Pledge.
Her debut book, Brit(ish):
On Race, Identity And Belonging,
was awarded the Royal Society
of Literature Jerwood Prize.
She's written a bestselling
children's book
about the Supreme Court Justice
Lady Hale
and she was also one of
the so-called rebel judges
of the 2019 Booker Prize.
Now, their fourth player's role
is often described as
oculus episcopi - the bishop's eye,
and includes the welfare of clergy
and their families, responsibility
for church buildings,
and the implementation
of diocesan policy.
Between taking up his role in 2017
and his ordination in 1986,
he was a curate and a vicar
in several locations in Yorkshire.
Let's meet the St Peter's team.
I'm Gordon Corera.
I graduated in Modern History
from St Peter's in 1995, and I'm now
a security correspondent
for BBC News.
I'm Felicity Cloake.
I graduated in English Language
and Literature in 2005, and I'm now
a food writer and journalist.
This is their captain.
I'm Afua Hirsch.
I graduated in PPE in 2002
and I'm an author,
journalist and broadcaster.
Hello, I'm Paul Ayers.
I graduated in 1982 in Theology
and I'm now the Archdeacon of Leeds.
APPLAUSE
OK. The rules are the same
as for the student series -
ten points for starter questions,
15 for bonuses.
Right, fingers on the buzzers,
here's your first starter for ten.
Denoting a popular Christmas
decoration, what word can also mean
a showy trinket that would
appeal to a child?
Bauble.
Bauble is correct. Yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, these bonuses are on
Christmas scenes
in children's stories, St Peter's.
In which novel is a young boy
so moved by the thin face
and poor clothes of the young
orphan Sara Crewe that he insists
on giving her his sixpence
at Christmas?
The author is
Frances Hodgson Burnett.
She wrote The Secret Garden,
but I don't know if...
Give it a guess?
I don't think it was, though.
Secret Garden?
No, it's A Little Princess.
Secondly, on waking up
on Christmas Day,
which title character
runs downstairs singing,
"Merry Christmas, Marilla!
Merry Christmas, Matthew!
"Isn't it a lovely Christmas?"
Pass. That's the insufferable
Anne Of Green Gables.
And finally, in which 19th-century
novel does a mother
persuade her daughters to donate
their Christmas breakfast to a poor
and starving family who live nearby?
Little Women?
It is Little Women. Yes.
Ten points for this.
After a European country, what is
the two-word common name
of Picea abies, often described
as the traditional Christmas tree?
The country in question
is the source of the tree erected...
Norway spruce.
Norway spruce is right. Yes.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses,
Trinity Hall, on a Latin term.
In 1924, George Ratcliffe Woodward
published an English version
of a French Christmas carol.
This version contains one word that
is sustained for almost six bars.
Name both the word and the carol.
Gloria? Yeah.
Gloria? Glo-oo-oo-ria.
Ding Dong Merrily On High?
Yes, Ding Dong Merrily On High,
Gloria.
The word is Gloria,
Ding Dong Merrily On High.
That's correct. Yes.
Gloria in Excelsis and Gloria Patri
are respectively known
as the greater and
the lesser what?
The term literally means
speaking glory or praise.
I didn't follow the question,
did you?
AUDIENCE CHUCKLES
I don't know, I didn't
hear the question. OK, pass.
It's Doxology.
And finally, the Gloria in D Major,
classified as work RV 589,
is a frequently-performed setting
of the Gloria by which
Italian composer?
Vivaldi. Vivaldi.
Vivaldi.
Vivaldi is correct.
Ten points for this.
The Dutch physicist Frits Zernike
won the Nobel Prize in 1953
for his invention of a specific type
of what optical instrument?
Known as the phase contrast,
his instrument permits
the examination of biological cells
without the need for staining.
Microscope?
Correct. Wow.
You get three bonuses
on leguminous plants.
The sensitive or humble plant,
commonly cultivated
for its rapid leaf movements
in response to touch,
is a member of which genus of plants
in the pea family?
No pea experts on the panel?
You surprise me.
No idea. No.
I don't know any member
of the pea family.
Try pansy.
Pansy.
No, it's the Mimosa.
Distinguished by their often blue,
white or pink
upright flower spikes,
which herbaceous plants in the pea
family derive their name
from the Latin for wolf?
Lupins? Lupin. Lupins.
Lupin is correct.
Glycine max is a legume
with what common name?
It is the source of
fermented foods such as tempeh,
miso and stinky tofu.
Soy? Soy.
Soy.
Soy or soybeans. Correct, yes.
Right, we're going to take
the first picture round now.
For your picture starter, you're
going to see the title and author
of a recent biography, however, the
subject's name has been omitted.
Ten points if you can give me the
missing name. To help you, you'll
also see the dates and places of her
birth and death.
BUZZER
Marie Colvin?
Marie Colvin is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Lindsey Hilsum's biography
of Marie Colvin won the 2019
James Tait Black Prize
for Biography.
As the prizes celebrated
their centenary in 2019,
your bonuses are three more
recent winners of this award.
Again, give the missing name
of the subject in each case.
Firstly, a writer.
Yeats?
Yeah. Yeats?
Yeats.
It is WB Yeats, yes.
Secondly.
Edward Burne-Jones?
Edward Burne-Jones?
Rossetti? Rossetti?
Rossetti?
No, it was Edward Burne-Jones.
And finally, another artist.
Velazquez? Correct.
Well done.
Right, ten points for this.
The newly married couples
Elyot and Sibyl Chase
and Victor and Amanda Prynne
are the principal characters
of which play of 1930
by Noel Coward?
Set in France, it's subtitled
An Intimate Comedy.
Private Lives.
Private Lives is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on Shakespeare
and JK Rowling.
In each case, give the single word
that completes the quotation.
All three answers appear in the
titles of the Harry Potter books.
Said by Falstaff
in Henry IV Part 2,
"God send the companion
a better..." What?
God send the companion a better...
Curse? Harry Potter...
Philosopher?
Curse?
Philosopher?
Yeah. Try that?
It's a Harry Potter book.
But it's not.... Um, philosopher.
No, it's prince.
As in the Half-Blood Prince.
Secondly, from Macbeth,
"Or have we eaten on the insane
root that takes the reason..."
What?
Prisoner, maybe?
Prisoner, yeah.
Prisoner. Prisoner is correct.
Prisoner as in Prisoner Of Azkaban.
And finally, from King Lear,
"Thou art a soul in bliss, but I
am bound upon a wheel of..." What?
Stone? Fortress? Stone. Stone?
You say stone, are you sure?
Stone, yes, I would. I don't know.
Stone?
No, it's fire.
As in the Goblet Of Fire.
Ten points for this.
Give the single word that
completes this short verse
concerning number theory.
Sift the twos and sift the threes,
the sieve of Eratosthenes.
When the multiples sublime...
Prime.
Prime is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Do you find it insultingly easy?
Here are your bonuses.
They're on a festive menu
on the government's public
sector information website.
It consists of UK foods
that have been awarded
an EU protected name.
Firstly, as a starter, gov.uk
recommends what molluscs
from the River Fal in Cornwall,
prized for their
distinctive flavour?
Oysters. Yeah, oysters.
I think so. Oysters.
Oysters. Oysters is correct.
Secondly, the website suggests
the fenland variety
of which umbelliferous
vegetable for inclusion
on its festive cheese board.
Celery? Grape?
Or a grape? Fenland celery, yeah.
Celery.
It is celery, yes.
And finally, to accompany
the meal, gov.uk suggests
a bitter produced in the village
of Langham near Oakham,
in which county
of the East Midlands?
Rutland. Rutland. Rutland.
Could be Rutland.
Yeah, that's what he said.
OK, Rutland.
Rutland is correct.
Ten points for this.
Quote, "It does for snow what his
Lawrence Of Arabia did for sand."
Those words, from a
review published in 1965,
refer to which film by David Lean?
Doctor Zhivago?
Correct. Yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses this time,
Trinity Hall, are on SI units.
In each case, identify the unit
from the description.
Firstly, the unit of magnetic flux.
It shares its name with the
German sociologist
best known for The Protestant Ethic
and with the composer of the 1821
opera Der Freischutz.
Weber. Weber? Luther? Weber.
Weber.
Weber is correct.
The unit of electrical
conductance, secondly.
It shares its name with a German
multinational technology company.
Siemens?
Go with Siemens?
Siemens? Correct.
GASPS
And finally, the unit of the
absorbed dose of ionising radiation.
It shares its name with a poet
who wrote an
Elegy Written In
A Country Churchyard.
Gray. Gray, yes.
Gray.
Gray is correct. Yes.
We're going to take a
music round now.
For your music starter you will hear
a piece of popular music.
Ten points if you can name the band
performing this particular version
of the song.
# Stop your messing around... #
Specials. It is The Specials, yes.
Well done.
APPLAUSE
2019 marked 40 years since Specials'
keyboard player and songwriter
Jerry Dammers founded 2 Tone
Records, the label at the heart
of the British ska revival.
For your music bonuses, I simply
want you to identify three more
ska revival bands from this period.
Firstly....
# Lip up fatty
# Ah, lip up fatty, for the reggae
# Lip up fatty
# Ah, lip up fatty, for the reggae
# Listen to the music
Shuffle up your feet
# Listen to the music
of the fatty beat
# Lip up fatty... #
Pass.
You don't recognise
Lip Up Fatty, then?
It's by Bad Manners.
Secondly...
# I bought my baby a red radio
# He played it all day,
a go-go a go-go
# He liked to dance to it
down in the streets
# He said he loved me
but he loved the beat... #
Pass.
That's The Selecter, spelt wrong.
And finally...
# An earthquake is erupting
but not in Orange Street
# A ghost-dance is preparing
You got to help us... #
Madness?
It is Madness. Yes, well done.
APPLAUSE
Right, ten points for this.
During a carriage ride home
after a Christmas Eve dinner
at the Weston's house, which of
Jane Austen's characters is shocked
to receive a proposal of marriage
from Mr Elton?
BUZZER
Emma?
Emma Woodhouse is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
So your bonuses this time,
St Peter's,
are on geopolitical changes in 2019.
In 2019, which country in east
central Africa moved its political
capital from Bujumbura
to the city of Gitega?
Central African Republic?
No, it's Burundi.
In March 2019, the capital of which
central Asian country
was renamed Nur-Sultan after
the country's former president?
Kazakhstan? Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan?
Azerbaijan?
No, it's Kazakhstan.
And finally, what single word
did Macedonia add to its name
in February 2019 to resolve
a long-running naming dispute
with a neighbouring
Greek province?
Independent?
I thought it was in
a geographical sense.
Was it geographical?
Upper. Or lower.
Upper.
Upper?
No, it's North.
Ten points for this.
For what do the letters PT stand
in the abbreviation IYPT2019?
This refers to the Unesco-designated
International Year of something
the Royal Society of Chemistry
website describes as an....
Periodic Table.
Periodic Table is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on jargon used
in the TV police drama Line Of Duty.
In each case, give the term
from the abbreviation.
For what single word
does the letter U stand
in the abbreviation UCO?
It's undercover.
Undercover? Undercover.
Correct.
Secondly, what three-word term is
denoted by the abbreviation OCG?
Organised criminal gang. Nice one.
Organised criminal gang,
or crime gang.
No, it's organised crime group.
And finally, for what
do the letters AC stand
in the name of
the police unit AC-12?
Air conditioning? No, no.
Um...
Assistant.
Assistant Constable. No.
Assistant Commissioner.
No, they're...
Assistant...
No, we don't know.
I thought you were a TV critic.
It's anti-corruption. So did I!
Right, ten points for this.
What four-letter term denotes
the branch of law that imposes
civil liability to pay damages for
breach of obligations imposed...?
Tort.
Tort is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on films
with two-word titles
in which the second word
is Christmas.
In each case, name the film
from the description.
Firstly, a 2019 film starring
Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding
and Emma Thompson.
Last Christmas. Last Christmas.
Last Christmas is right.
Secondly, a 2004 film starring
Ben Affleck, Christina Applegate
and James Gandolfini.
Merry Christmas.
What shall we say? Crazy?
Bad. Bad Christmas.
No, it's Surviving Christmas.
And finally, a 1954 film whose stars
include Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney
and Vera-Ellen.
White Christmas.
White Christmas is correct.
Right, we're going to take
another picture round.
For your picture starter
you'll see a work of art.
Ten points if you
can identify the artist.
Hokkai.
Nope.
Hokusai.
No, it's Hiroshige.
So we're going to take the picture
bonuses in a moment or two.
Ten points at stake
for this starter question.
The technology writer Ian Betteridge
gives his name to a law or adage
concerning what journalistic form?
The adage states,
"Any example of the form
that ends in a question mark
"can be answered by the word no."
Headline.
Headline is correct. Yes.
APPLAUSE
So you get the picture bonuses.
They are three more artistic
depictions of snowstorms.
Five points if you can name
the artist in each case.
Firstly, this American artist.
Maybe Singer Sargent?
Singer... Sargent.
Singer Sargent?
No, it's Hassam. His Snowstorm,
Fifth Avenue, New York.
Secondly, this artist,
born in the Russian Empire.
Kandinksy? Kandinsky, is it?
Kandinsky.
No, that's Malevich. And finally...
Is that a Turner? Turner.
Turner. Turner.
That is Turner, yes.
Right, ten points for this.
What geographical term appears
along with dolls, horses and fear
in the titles of novels
by Jacqueline Susann, Jean Auel...
Valley?
Valley is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses on winners
of Sweden's Polar Music Prize.
Which three contiguous European
countries won the 1992 Polar Prize?
The singing revolution from the late
1980s led to the restoration
of their independence.
Belarus? Is it Belarus?
I've no idea what the question...
Lithuania, Latvia?
Estonia.
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
Nominate Philip.
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
Correct. Yes, the Baltic states.
Which South African
won the prize in 2002?
Her albums include Sangoma,
Homeland and Eyes On Tomorrow.
No idea. No guesses?
OK. No, we don't know.
That's Miriam Makeba.
And finally, the recipient
of a Polar Prize in 2011
who released her first album,
Horses, in 1975
and three years later had a UK top
five single with Because The Night.
Patti Smith. Patti Smith.
Patti Smith. Patti Smith is correct.
Ten points for this.
Born in 1898, the English
architect Elisabeth Scott
is perhaps best known for
her redesign between 1928 and 1932
of which theatre
overlooking the River Avon?
The Royal Shakespeare Company.
That's correct, yes. The Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre, as was.
Right, you get a set of bonuses
on parliamentary office.
In 2017, Sarah Clarke, a former
director of the Wimbledon Tennis
Championships, became
the first woman to be appointed
to which parliamentary position
in over 650 years of its existence?
Black Rod. Black Rod.
Black Rod is correct. Yes.
Black Rod's deputy has
what two-word title?
The first word has the historical
meaning of a freeholder
cultivating a small area of land.
Yeoman? No, two-word.
Um...
Yeoman fief... I don't know.
Chief. Chief! Chief yeoman.
No, you're right. It's yeoman.
It's yeoman usher, though.
So you don't get the points.
And finally, Black Rod originates
from a role created in the mid
14th century to guard the door
during meetings of
the Order of the Garter,
the advisory council
to which monarch?
Edward III. Yeah.
Edward III.
Correct. Ten points for this.
At atmospheric pressure
near absolute zero temperature,
what is the only element
that does not freeze solid?
Nitrogen?
No. Anyone want to buzz
from Trinity Hall?
Oxygen.
No. It's helium.
Ten points for this.
The words Christmas and European
follow the name of which
former US humorous publication
in the titles of the 1980s...
National Lampoon.
National Lampoon is correct.
You get a set of bonuses
now on Bill Bryson.
In The Mother Tongue, Bryson singles
out what short word as a booby trap
for the unwary foreigner
because its meanings include
a means of travel and a critical
part of a gentleman's apparel?
What could be a means of travel?
GONG
Pass.
That was fly.
But at the gong,
St Peter's have 85 and
Trinity Hall, Cambridge have 180.
So, St Peter's, I'm afraid we're
going to have to say goodbye to you,
but you will go through,
Trinity Hall.
Many congratulations to you.
180's a terrific score.
We shall look forward to
seeing you again in the semifinals.
I hope you can join us next time
for the final first-round match.
But until then, it's goodbye
from St Peter's, Oxford...
ALL: Goodbye.
It's goodbye from Trinity Hall,
Cambridge. ALL: Goodbye.
And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.
APPLAUSE
