Christmas University Challenge.
Asking the questions - Jeremy Paxman.
Hello.
Any students who have just got out of bed to watch this programme
may need reminding that their own series is enjoying a brief respite
while we put their elders and betters to the test.
While the average age of the players in the students series is 24,
it's exactly twice that in this special short series
for distinguished alumni,
so we confidently expect to see twice the knowledge on display.
Now, last time we saw University College London win the first match,
with 155 points against Birmingham University's 80,
but as only the four teams with the highest winning score go through
to the next stage of the competition, nothing has been decided yet.
Oriel College was founded shortly before the Black Death,
making it one of the oldest colleges in Oxford.
Tonight's team includes a chess grandmaster
and three times world champion in chess problem solving.
He was Oriel's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey,
having entered the college at the age of 15, when ironically,
he would have been too young to take part in our students series.
His colleague worked for NGOs and in international relations before
moving to that brand of journalism known as the celebrity interview.
As the same time she set up her own internet baby, which is
still going strong today, having survived a superinjunction
and an appearance before the Leveson Inquiry.
Their captain is due the thanks of a grateful nation for launching
the television career of Jeremy Clarkson
and has a corner named after him on the Top Gear test track.
After producing for ITV, the BBC's natural history unit
and Channel 5, he now finds himself on the other side of the camera.
Their fourth member is a screenwriter for film and television.
His credits include the detective drama
Wallander, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and a biographical film
of the life of Frankie Howerd, with David Walliams playing Howerd.
More recently he's secured what must be the top job in his profession
when he joined the band of writers on Doctor Who.
So let's ask the Oriel team to introduce themselves.
Hi, I'm John Nunn.
I read mathematics at Oriel College, Oxford from 1970 to 1976.
And I'm currently a director of Gambit Publications.
Hello. I'm Camilla Wright.
I studied politics, philosophy
and economics at Oriel College from 1989 to 1992.
And I set up and now run Popbitch, the pop culture website.
And their captain.
Hello. My name's John Bentley.
I read geography at Oriel between 1979 and 1982.
I'm a TV presenter and journalist and I'm probably best known for
appearing on Channel 5's The Gadget Show.
Hi, my name's Peter Harness.
I studied English at Oriel from 1994 to 1997
and I'm now a TV and film writer.
APPLAUSE
Now, their opponents represent Trinity College, Cambridge,
founded by Henry VIII.
Their first player's many awards include a Fields Medal,
which is often viewed as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
And in 2012, he was knighted for his services to that discipline,
which are frankly baffling to many of us mere mortals.
His colleague has produced one of the very few television
institutions to predate University Challenge,
having made programmes for The Sky At Night as well as
more recent documentaries such as The Secret Life Of The Cat
and the award-winning Battlefield Britain.
Award-winning is something of a constant in this team,
as their captain has won the broadcast news journalism award.
He's reported on economics for the Observer
and been economics editor for Channel 4 before taking on his current job.
Their fourth player has been described as
the ultimate food scholar.
She's written several books and various columns on the subject,
including the award-winning Kitchen Thinker for the Sunday Telegraph.
She is the chair of the Oxford symposium on food and cookery.
Heaven knows what kind of a roughhouse that must be.
And more impressively, she's been a semifinalist on MasterChef.
Let's meet the Trinity team.
Hello, I'm Timothy Gowers.
I studied mathematics at Trinity College from 1982 to 1985.
And now I study mathematics at Trinity College.
Hi, I'm Zoe Heron. I graduated in biological anthropology in 1993.
And I'm currently series producer of the BBC science strand Horizon.
And let's meet their captain.
Hello, I'm Faisal Islam. I graduated from Trinity in economics in 1998.
And I'm the political editor of Sky News.
Hi, I'm Bee Wilson.
I studied history at Trinity from '92 to '95.
And I also did a PhD at Trinity in history,
which I got in 2002 and I'm now a food writer and journalist.
APPLAUSE
OK, the rules are the same as ever.
Ten points for starter questions
which you answer on the buzzer on your own.
Bonus questions are worth 15 points.
You can confer on those and there's a five-point penalty
for incorrect interruptions to start questions.
Fingers on the buzzers. Here's your first starter for ten.
What form of exercise takes its name from its originator, born near
Dusseldorf in 1883 and a sufferer from several childhood ailments?
His regime aims to improve strength
and flexibility through a series of controlled movements and...?
Pilates.
Pilates is right, yes.
You get the first set of bonuses, Trinity.
They're on winter vegetables.
Firstly, for five points,
its consumption described in Gerard's Herbal of 1621 as causing
"a filthy, loathsome, stinking wind and therefore more fit for swine than men."
What is the two word common name of helianthus tuberosus,
in season in the UK from November to January?
Jerusalem artichoke.
Correct. In season in the UK from October to February,
which vegetable is thought to be mentioned in Homer's Odyssey,
where it is called selenon and grows in Calypso's cave?
It's sometimes called celery root.
Celeriac.
Correct.
And finally, the ability to taste the chemical phenylthiocarbamide,
or PTC, has been suggested as the reason some people have a dislike of
which vegetable? Brassica, oleracea, gemmifera,
in season in the UK from September to February?
There are actually lots of vegetables
- that people with that thing... 
- It will be Brussels sprouts.
But Brussels sprouts isn't a root vegetable.
If it's a root vegetable it can't be Brussels sprouts.
But actually there are lots. What was the Latin...?
I don't know.
If it's Brassica it's got to be in the cabbage family,
so it's something like Brussels sprouts.
- We'll just go for Brussels sprouts. 
- Oh... 
- Let's do it. 
- OK.
Sorry. Brussels sprouts.
Correct.
Ten points at stake for this starter question.
Fingers on the buzzers, please.
Born 1794 and nicknamed Commodore,
despite holding no military rank,
which US magnate amassed a fortune of over 100 million
in the shipping and rail industries and financed
the construction of New York's original Grand Central Station?
Rockefeller.
Anyone from Oriel?
JP Morgan.
No, it's Cornelius Vanderbilt. Fingers on the buzzers, please.
First published in the 1887 edition of Beeton's Christmas Annual,
what is the four-word title of the story which opens with a man
named Stamford introducing a doctor recently returned from India
to a man conducting a chemistry experiment?
The latter is described as...?
A Study in Scarlet.
Correct.
The first of the Sherlock Holmes stories, of course.
So your bonuses are on the classical problems of geometry, Oriel.
Firstly, one of the classical problems of geometry requires
the construction using only compass and straight edge of what three
dimensional shape with exactly twice the volume of a given similar shape?
It was proved impossible by Pierre Wantzel in 1837.
The cube.
Correct.
Pierre Wantzel also proved the impossibility of constructing
an angle that is exactly what fraction of any given angle,
again using only compass and straight edge?
One third.
Correct. Which geometric problem did
Ferdinand von Lindemann prove impossible in 1882?
In everyday language, it means to attempt a task that is either
extremely difficult or impossible.
An impossiblearium.
Squaring the circle.
Ten points for this.
Referring to his tempestuous relationship with his lover
and fellow poet, who said of the French writer Paul Verlaine,
"he was always chasing Rimbauds"?
Born in New Jersey in 1893, she was a noted poet, author...
Sylvia Plath.
No.
You lose five points.
..poet, author, journalist and screenwriter.
Dorothy Parker.
Correct.
You take the lead and you get a set of bonuses on equipment
used in Winter Olympic sports, Oriel College.
Name each piece of equipment from the description, please.
Firstly, for five points.
The men's version has an upper weight limit of 43kg.
The length is between 800 and 1,200mm.
And it comprises of construction frames, saddle, base plate,
ballast, runners, bumpers and coverings.
Skeleton bob.
Skeleton is correct.
Skelton or skeleton sled.
These items, secondly, for five points,
typically have a laminated wood core surrounded by composite layers
of material such as carbon fibre, Kevlar and aluminium.
The minimum length varies with the specific event,
but is between 155 and 218cm.
Ski.
Alpine skis is right.
These items weigh between 38 and 44lb,
with a circumference of no more than 36 inches
and a height of at least four and a half inches.
They're highly polished and made of a rare dense granite
quarried on the Scottish island of Ailsa Craig.
Curling stones.
- Just say curling stones. 
- Curling stone.
Correct.
Right, we're going to take a picture round now.
For your picture starter you will see a map indicating a site
of historical and constitutional significance in England.
For ten points, simply identify the site.
As it's Christmas, we've also marked on a nearby town to help.
Runnymede.
Correct.
Picture bonuses for you.
2015 marked the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta,
agreed at Runnymede in Surrey.
For your picture bonuses, maps showing three more places
of what are now called the Magna Carta charter towns -
places significant in Magna Carta's history.
Five points for each you can identify.
Firstly, for five, this city.
Cambridge?
It's not Cambridge.
So it's got to be below. So what's below...?
Suffolk, Essex, is it somewhere in Essex?
- Colchester? 
- It's not Colchester.
Is it below Essex?
It's somewhere near Bedford or Luton.
It's an old town.
Shall we have a guess?
- Guess? 
- Guess.
- Let's go Bury St Edmunds. 
- It's not Bury St Edmunds.
Bury St Edmunds.
No, it's not Bury St Edmunds. It's St Albans.
THEY GASP
How undignified for them to be known as being near Luton.
LAUGHTER Secondly, this town, please.
- It could be Bury St Edmunds. 
- That's Bury St Edmunds. Bury St Edmunds.
That is Bury St Edmunds, yes.
And finally, this city.
That's Colchester. Yeah? That's Colchester. No, it's Canterbury.
Canterbury? Canterbury.
Correct.
Right, another starter question now.
Fingers on the buzzers.
The playing pieces in the standard UK edition of the board game Monopoly
include a top hat, a racing car
and what specific breed of dog?
A Scot... Scotty dog.
A Scottish terrier?
Correct, yes.
You get a set of bonuses, this time, having taken the lead,
Trinity College, on Christmas parties in the novels of Thomas Hardy.
Firstly, in which of Hardy's novels does Eustacia Vye join
a group of mummers in the guise of a Turkish knight to gain
admittance to a Christmas party to which she has not been invited?
- I have no idea. 
- It's not The Mayor Of Casterbridge. 
- The Woodlanders?
It's not Tess Of The d'Urbervilles. It's one of the other ones.
LAUGHTER
It's not Far From The Madding Crowd, either, is it?
So we need to guess either the Woodlanders or
Return Of The Native or...
Return Of The Native.
Correct, yes. By a process of elimination
and good luck, you got there.
Secondly, which of Hardy's novels features a Christmas party
so lively that its hostess Mrs Dewy declares,
"A body could almost wish there were no such things as Christmases"?
- I'm wondering if that is Tess Of The d'Urbervilles. 
- Is that...?
Tess Of The d'Urbervilles.
No, that's Under The Greenwood Tree.
And finally, in which of Hardy's novels does a farmer give
a Christmas party only for it to end dramatically when he shoots
and kills his rival in love?
- Far From The Madding Crowd. 
- Are you sure?
- Far From The Madding Crowd. 
- Far From The Madding Crowd.
It is. It's when Farmer Boldwood shoots Sergeant Troy.
Ten points at stake for this starter question.
In physiology, what name denotes the conglomerate of between 30 and 50
tubular or sac-like glands secreting fluids into the urethra
and ejaculatory ducts?
Present only in males, it's a chestnut-shaped...
Prostate.
Prostate is correct, yes.
These bonuses could allow you to retake the lead.
They are on scientists born in December.
Firstly for five, born in New York in December 1797,
which scientist discovered several important principles of electricity
including self induction?
The SI derived unit of inductance is named after him.
Faraday. Faraday.
Faraday.
No, it's Joseph Henry.
Secondly for five points, born in 1856,
which scientist was elected to the Royal Society and appointed
as chair of physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, both at the age of 28?
He discovered the electron in 1897 and won the Nobel Prize in 1906.
- Thomson. 
- Thomson?
Correct.
Born in Paris in 1852, which scientist gives his name to
the SI derived unit of radioactivity with the symbol Bq?
Becquerel. Becquerel.
Becquerel.
Becquerel is correct, yes.
Right, we're going to take a music round now.
For your music starter, you're going to hear a piece of popular music.
For ten points, I'd like the name of the artist behind it, please.
# Right here... #
Fatboy Slim.
It is, yes.
You retake the lead.
And now, to the consternation of some,
2015 saw the first ever Radio 1 Prom, with Ibiza as its theme.
Beginning with that track by Fatboy Slim,
Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra led a 90-minute concert of club
classics at the Royal Albert Hall
and your music bonuses are now three more of the works performed.
You'll hear the original track in each case
and again I want the band or artist behind each.
Firstly for five...
# I can't get no sleep. #
Faithless. It's Faithless.
You should just answer them all.
Faithless.
Faithless is right, yes. Secondly...
MUSIC PLAYS
Moby.
Moby is correct. And finally...
# One more time... #
Daft Punk.
Daft Punk is right, yes.
Moving swiftly on... LAUGHTER
Ten points at stake for this.
Referring to the practice of sending Christmas cards to people merely
because one has received a card from them, which poet wrote,
"Some ways indeed are very odd by which we hail the birth of God"?
The words appear...
Philip Larkin?
No, you lose five points.
The words appear in the poem Advent, 1955.
John Betjeman.
John Betjeman is correct, yes.
Oriel, these bonuses are on biology, a specific name in biology.
Abies religiosa is so named
because its foliage is used in Mexico at Christmas time.
The genus Abies has what three-letter common name?
It includes species such as Sicilian and silver.
Ivy.
No, it's fir.
Secondly, its generic name being the Greek for prophet or diviner,
what insect with the specific name religiosa is
known as prie-dieu in French and Gottesanbeterin in German?
You may give the common name or the first part of the binomial.
- Is it ladybird? 
- Shall we try it?
Ladybird.
No, it praying mantis or mantid.
Ficus religiosa, also known as the peepal or bow tree,
is particularly associated with which religious figure,
born somewhere between the sixth and fourth century BCE?
(Buddha.)
INDISTINCT
The Buddha.
The Buddha is correct, yes.
Level pegging. Ten points for this.
Perhaps having
overindulged in Madeira, Dr Squills describes which protagonist
as having, "Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure,
"famous frontal development"?
She appears in a satirical novel by William Thackeray.
Betsey Trotwood?
No.
Becky Sharp.
Becky Sharp is correct, yes.
So you take the lead, Trinity. You get a set of bonuses on hats.
What name for a soft woollen hat or bonnet is taken from the title
character of a narrative poem of 1791 by Robert Burns?
Robbie Burns, Scottish.
- Tam O'Shanter? - I don't know.
- Tam O'Shanter? 
- I don't...
- Tam O'Shanter, I mean, that's a soft... 
- OK. 
- That's a Scottish hat.
- Nominate Bee. 
- Tam O'Shanter.
Correct.
According to its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, what term
has been punningly applied to a hat with a broad brim and a low crown
because the soft felt of which it is made does not have a nap?
I didn't even understand that.
- Pass. 
- Stetson?
So it's nap-less so what word do we get from that? It's a soft...
Fedora? Fedora?
- No, it's a wide-awake hat is the nickname. 
- Oh.
Like the sort of thing you see
on that bloke on the packets of Quaker Oats.
What type of felt hat has an indentation running
the length of the crown and has been associated with both
the politician Anthony Eden and the rapper Tupac?
It's named after a spa town near Frankfurt.
- Mainz is the spa town. 
- There's Baden-Baden.
There's probably lots of spa towns.
What is that hat? I thought that was a trilby.
- Yes. Go on. Nominate Bee. 
- Trilby.
No, it's a Homburg. Ten points for this.
The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to
the National Dialogue Quartet...
Tunisia.
Correct.
You'll retake the lead if you get these bonuses.
They're on literary titles.
The last of his major novels to be written in Russian,
what is the usual English title of Vladimir Nabokov's book Dar? D-A-R.
INDISTINCT
Try Lolita?
We'll say it anyway. Lolita.
No, it's The Gift.
A Time Of Gifts and its sequel Between The Woods And The Water
recount which author's journey
on foot from the Netherlands to Constantinople in the 1930s?
He fought in Crete and mainland Greece during the Second World War.
Um...
INDISTINCT
Not Hemingway? No?
Hemingway?
No, it's Patrick Leigh Fermor.
And finally, The Gift Of Stones is a novel of 1988
by which British author?
His other works include Quarantine, Being Dead and Harvest,
the latter of which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013?
No, we don't know. Sorry.
Jim Crace. We're going to
take a second picture round now. For your picture starter,
you're going to see a still from a television adaptation of a novel.
For ten points, I want the title of the novel.
Great Expectations.
Anyone like to buzz from Oriel?
David Copperfield.
David Copperfield is correct.
It's a young Daniel Radcliffe and Bob Hoskins as Micawber.
That was the BBC's 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield.
It aired on Christmas Day and Boxing Day that year.
Your picture bonuses are stills from three more BBC adaptations
of Dickens broadcast near Christmas over the last ten years.
Five points for each novel you can identify. Firstly for five...
I think that was... Go on.
Great Expectations?
INDISTINCT
I was going to say Bleak House, but...
What should we go with?
Well, you both said Great Expectations.
I think we'd better have an answer.
Go with Bleak House.
Bleak House is correct. Yes, it's Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock.
Secondly...
INDISTINCT
Any guesses?
Oliver Twist.
We'll go with...Oliver.
Oliver Twist?
No, that's Little Dorrit. Claire Foy as Amy Dorrit.
And finally...
I think that's probably Oliver Twist.
We're going to go with Oliver Twist for that one.
No, that's Great Expectations.
Oscar Kennedy as Young Pip.
Right, ten points at stake for this starter question.
Christmas Atoll in
the West Central Pacific has a circumference of about 100 miles
and is the largest island in the world
that is purely formed of what organic material?
Coral.
Coral is correct, yes.
These bonuses are on Emmeline Pankhurst, Oriel College.
In 1903 in Manchester, Emmeline Pankhurst founded
the Women's Social And Political Union. What was its three-word motto?
The middle word of the three is "not".
INDISTINCT
Votes...
Let's have it, please.
Votes not petticoats.
No, it's deeds not words. LAUGHTER
Secondly, an act of 1913 enabled
the release of hunger striking suffragettes
until they had regained their health.
Pankhurst was released and rearrested 12 times within a year.
By what three-word name was this act popularly known?
- - Don't know. 
- - Pass.
Act of Enfranchisement.
No, it was the Cat and Mouse Act.
And finally, Emmeline Pankhurst died in the year that women gained
voting rights on the same terms as men.
What year was that?
1921, wasn't it?
- 1918? 
- 1921.
'18? '21?
1921.
No, it was 1928. Ten points at stake for this.
"She had much of the richness
"of style and beauty of imagery of her still more eminent brother."
These words from an obituary of 1895 refer to which poet whose
works include In The Bleak Midwinter, The Prince's Progress...?
Christina Rossetti.
Correct.
These bonuses are on films set around Christmas but lacking in goodwill.
Firstly, set on Christmas Eve, which 1988 action film sees a New York
policeman battle against criminals in a Los Angeles skyscraper?
- Oh, it's Die Hard 2. 
- Die Hard.
- Come on. 
- Die Hard.
Die Hard is right.
The narrative of which 1999 film by Stanley Kubrick
begins at a Christmas party and sees a New York City doctor
embark on a voyage of sexual and moral discovery?
Eyes Wide Shut.
Correct. From the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett,
which 1934 film sees Nick and Nora Charles
investigate a murder over the Christmas holidays?
I don't know.
- Do you know that one? I don't know. 
- Pass.
It's The Thin Man.
Ten points for this. What English word translates all the following?
Negua in Basque,
fuyu in Japanese,
zima in Polish,
inverno in Italian...
Winter.
Winter is correct.
These bonuses are on astronomy, Trinity College.
According to the designations used by the International Astronomical
Union, what is the smallest planet of the solar system?
- Does Pluto count, no? - No. Mercury?
Mercury.
Mercury is correct. In addition to Mercury,
which other planet of the solar system lacks natural satellites?
- Venus. 
- Venus.
Correct. In addition to Venus,
which planet rotates in the opposite direction to that of Earth?
- Uranus. 
- Uranus.
Uranus is correct.
Ten points for this. A painting by the Belgian surrealist
Rene Magritte with the words "au revoir" written across the subject
was the inspiration for the logo of which record label launched in 1968?
Apple.
Apple is correct. You get a set of bonuses, this time,
on German cities as they have appeared over the years
in references on this programme. Firstly, which city links
an Archbishop Elector of the Holy Roman Empire,
a cathedral that in 1880 was the tallest building in the world
and the Roman aqueduct known as the Eifel?
- Cologne? 
- Cologne?
Correct. Which city links Leonardo's Madonna Of The Carnation,
the origin of the word "kitsch"
and a 1938 diplomatic arrangement known to Czechs as The Diktat?
It's have "kitsch" in it in some way.
Come on.
Berlin.
No, it's Munich. Which city links the European Central Bank,
the birthplace of Goethe and a variety of sausage?
- Frankfurt. 
- Yes. Frankfurt.
Correct. Ten points for this.
With a name that can be translated
as swallowing a cloud... GONG
And at the gong, Oriel College Oxford have 135
but Trinity College Cambridge have 140.
Well, that's about as close as it gets
unless we have a sudden death on a dead heat.
So congratulations to both of you. Thank you very much indeed.
Oriel, we shall definitely be saying goodbye to you.
Trinity, you might come back as one of the highest scoring winning teams.
We'll have to see. It depends upon how others perform.
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 Oriel College Oxford...
- ALL: 
- Goodbye. 
- ..it's goodbye from Trinity College Cambridge...
- ALL: 
- Goodbye. 
- ..and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.
APPLAUSE
