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Christmas University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.
APPLAUSE
Hello. Tis the season to be jolly,
but despite that, 14 groups of distinguished alumni have opted
to spend time answering questions instead of guzzling mince pies.
Now only the best two of those teams remain and,
in a little under half an hour, one of them
will have earned the right to call themselves series champions
and to enjoy the victor's glass of eggnog in the green room afterwards.
Now the team from the University of Hull beat Newcastle University
in round one and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in the semifinals,
on which occasion they shone on seaside resorts,
St Bartholomew and the land borders of Slovenia.
They're represented again by two writers, an actor,
and a broadcaster.
Let's meet them again.
Hello, I'm Rosie Millard. I read English and drama at Hull.
I graduated in 1987.
I'm a journalist and I'm chair of the Hull City Of Culture 2017.
Hello, my name is Malcolm Sinclair.
I graduated in 1972 in drama and theology.
I'm president of Equity trade union and I'm an actor.
- And this is their captain. - Hello, I'm Dame Jenni Murray.
I graduated in 1972 in French and drama
and I present Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
Hello, I'm Stan Cullimore.
I graduated from Hull in '84 with a maths degree.
I was a pop star for a while, but now I'm a children's author,
a travel writer and I make a mean cup of tea.
APPLAUSE
The team from Trinity Hall, Cambridge,
defeated Balliol College, Oxford, in round one
and the University of Edinburgh in round two.
They delivered their answers with the same degree of aplomb,
regardless of whether they were completely wrong,
as they were on the okapi and its predators, or right,
as they frequently were on subjects
ranging from Dido, Queen of Carthage, to Joe Orton.
Their team comprises two athletes, a novelist and critic, and an actor.
Let's meet them again.
Hello, I'm Tom James. I graduated in engineering in 2007.
I used to be an oarsman for the Great British rowing team
and now am a management consultant.
I'm Emma Pooley. I graduated in 2005 in engineering.
I'm a retired professional cyclist, now a professional triathlete.
And this is their captain.
Hello, I'm Adam Mars-Jones.
I graduated in 1976 in English and I'm a novelist and critic.
Hello, I'm Dan Starkey.
I graduated in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in 1999 and I'm now an actor.
APPLAUSE
Right, it's the final, so let's not waste any time
and crack on with a first starter for ten.
Fingers on the buzzers, please.
Vaudoise, Neuchateloise, Appenzeller and Moite-moite,
are variations of which Swiss dish, the Latin meaning half...
BUZZER
- Fondue. - Fondue is correct, yes. - APPLAUSE
So you get the first set of bonuses, Trinity Hall. They're on bridges.
Built in limestone around 1600 by Antonio Contino, which bridge
in Venice connects the Doge's Palace to the Prigioni Nuove or New Prison?
- Bridge of Sighs? - It's the only bridge I know in Venice.
- Bridge of Sighs. - Correct.
Begun in 1357, the Charles Bridge
crosses the Vltava river in which European city?
Isn't that in Prague?
- Yes. - That sounds good. - Prague?
- Prague. - Correct.
Which is the oldest of Florence's six bridges over the Arno?
It's noted for its roofed passageway flanked by rows of shops.
- Ponte Vecchio. - Correct. Ten points for this.
What two-word English term is used in Japan to refer
to modifications that since 1998
have moved a number of public holidays
to create a three-day weekend?
This system is not to be confused with a Madchester band
- whose members include Mark Berry and... - BUZZER
- Happy Mondays? - Happy Mondays is correct, yes. - APPLAUSE
So you get another set of bonuses, Trinity Hall,
this time on last emperors.
Firstly for five points,
Puyi was the 12th and final ruler of which Chinese dynasty?
He became titular ruler of the Japanese puppet state
Manchukuo in 1932.
- OK. - So the dynasty. Any idea of the dynasty? - Manchukuo? - He was the last.
- The Peter O'Toole film by Bertolucci, The Last Emperor. - Sorry.
I never saw it.
- Manchu. - No, it's Qing.
What is the common two-word name of the last Roman emperor of the west?
He was deposed in 476.
- - There was Augustulus... - Constantine. - Two names.
Oh, two names?
The last emperor.
Erm...
Romulus Augustulus!
- Romulus Augustulus. - Correct, yes, or Romulus Augustus.
And finally, for five points, born in Sandringham in 1895,
which royal figure was officially the last emperor of India?
1895, so it would have been the last king...
Oh, Victoria?
No, George V, born 1895.
She wouldn't have been emperor anyway.
- George V or VI? - No, George VI.
- Confident? - Still alive, because he died in '52.
So that would have been...
- Was Victoria not... - She was the first empress.
- George VI. - Correct, yes. Right, ten points for this.
Which year saw the world's first regular high definition
television service broadcast by the BBC?
It was also the year of the Jarrow March,
the publication of Gone With The Wind,
Fred Perry's final men's singles win at Wimbledon
and the start of the Spanish Civil War.
BUZZER
- 1936. - Correct. - APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses,
this time on pregnancy in the plays of Shakespeare.
In All's Well That Ends Well, which character,
pretending to be someone else, becomes pregnant after
a midnight assignation with her husband, Bertram?
- Can't think. - Any idea?
Sorry. Juliet or Rosalind or something.
- Do you want Rosalind? Do you fancy Rosalind? - Yeah. - Rosalind.
No, it's Helena.
Secondly, in Measure For Measure, who's sentenced to death after
it's discovered that his unmarried lover is carrying his child?
- Erm, Claudio. - Claudio? Claudio?
- Claudio. - Correct. Finally, in The Winter's Tale,
which character gives birth to a daughter in prison
when her husband, Leontes,
wrongly believes his old childhood friend to be the infant's father?
- Hermione. - Correct.
We're going to take a picture round now.
For your picture starter, you'll see a map of the world
with ten countries highlighted and ranked.
For ten points, I want you to tell me
to what specific sporting achievement of 2014
the ranking applies.
BUZZER
Olympics?
No. Trinity Hall?
BUZZER
Bobsleigh?
No, they're gold medals won at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
"Olympics" wasn't precise enough. It's not an achievement.
So we're going to take the picture bonuses in a moment or two.
Ten points for this starter question.
For what to the letters AF stand in the abbreviation AFP,
denoting the protein discovered by Arthur Devries in the blood plasma
of some species of flounder, cod and herring, and in insects such as...?
BUZZER
- Antifreeze. - Yes, you're right. - APPLAUSE
So you get the picture bonuses.
They are three more maps with countries highlighted
showing the number of medals each of those countries achieved
in a specific discipline at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Five points for each event you can name. First.
Emma? Tom?
EMMA: Switzerland's got two. I should know, but it's gone.
What did Britain not get any medals in the Winter Olympics?
Oh, gosh, erm...
- Skiing, or...? - I should really know this.
- No, we got skiing medals. - Bobsleigh, or...?
Skeleton run?
- Two from Switzerland... - Cross-country skiing?
- I think cross-country skiing. - I think Germany's always... Yep.
- Cross-country skiing. - Correct. Secondly, this event.
- Look at the 23. That seems important. - Oh, um...
Some kind of skating.
Ice skating? Are there 23 kinds of skating?
Well, they've got the 23, so let's go with that.
OK. Do you reckon there's lots of ice skating in Belgium?
- Ice skating. - Erm, no. That's not specific enough. It's speed skating.
- Oh, blimey. OK. - Finally, this, please.
- Oh, right. What did we win? - Oh, skeleton?
Skeleton? Luge.
Skeleton, bob...
Skeleton luge, I think.
- Skeleton luge. - No, it's curling. - Curses! - Sorry.
So, ten points at stake for this starter question.
Fingers on the buzzers all of you, please.
Anagrams of the name of which landlocked West African country
include a word meaning defensive armour for the body,
the name of a South American capital, and the first name
of the actor who played Oskar Schindler in Spielberg's 1993 film?
BUZZER
- Mali. - Mali is correct, yes. - APPLAUSE
So a first set of bonuses for you.
They're on non-standard punctuation marks.
Firstly for five points,
which two punctuation marks form the interrobang,
invented in 1962 to punctuate a question asked in an excited manner?
Haven't the slightest idea!
Interrobang?
Is it just a question mark and an exclamation mark together?
Yeah, try that. Yeah.
Exclamation mark and question mark together.
- A question mark and an exclamation mark together. - Correct.
Secondly, a reversed question mark called a percontation point
was used in the 16th century to signify what type of question,
intended as a statement rather than to elicit an answer?
- Rhetorical? - Yeah.
- A rhetorical question. - Correct.
And finally, the name of which creature in a poem by Lewis Carroll
is shared by a punctuation mark proposed in 2006,
comprising a full stop followed by a tilde and denoting sarcasm?
Griffin?
Carroll? Erm...
Dodo?
Walrus and the Carpenter...
- I don't know. - Caterpillar?
Try griffin, I don't know.
- I'll try griffin. - Walrus. - Griffin or a walrus?
You choose, you're captain.
- A griffin. - No, it's a snark. - Ah! - Of course. - Ten points for this.
Around the size of a mistle thrush,
which word is an occasional visitor to the far south of Britain
and it noted for its salmon-coloured plumage
and its distinctive pinkish-brown crest which...?
BUZZER
Hoopoe.
- Correct. - APPLAUSE
These bonuses, Hull, are on physics.
Usually named after the German physicist who invented it,
what was the first commercially successful detector
of individual alpha particles and other ionising radiation?
Er... Erm...
I think it was...Geiger.
- Geiger. - Geiger counter is correct.
The acronym KERMA, that's K-E-R-M-A,
relates to ionising radiation.
For what do the letters KE of KERMA stand?
- Kinetic energy? - Kinetic energy? I don't know.
- Kinetic energy. - Correct.
Named after a British physicist born in 1905,
in what unit is KERMA measured?
Each is equivalent to one Joule per kilogram.
WHISPERING
Named after a scientist. British physicist.
I don't know any British physicists.
Come on, let's have it, please.
Go for a drac.
A drac? A drac?
No, they're Gray units. Ten points for this.
Patented in 1855, the Bessemer process was a major breakthrough...?
BUZZER
Er, aluminium.
No, I'm afraid you lose five points.
- Was a major breakthrough in the mass production of which alloy? - BUZZER
- Steel. - Steel is correct. - APPLAUSE
A set of bonuses for you now on towns north of the river Trent.
In each case, name the town from the description.
All three end with the same five-letter suffix.
Firstly, a town close to the Pennines in East Cheshire.
Formally a centre of the silk industry,
it's associated with the musicians Ian Curtis and John Mayall.
Erm... Salford.
Salford.
- Anyone? - Five-letter suffix.
Five-letter suffix, Salford as a four-letter suffix.
Would it be, like, a shire, maybe?
- Macclesfield? - Field.
- Macclesfield. - Correct.
Secondly, a town on the river Colne in West Yorkshire,
the birthplace of Harold Wilson in 1916.
It's noted for its large number of listed buildings
and formed part of the route of the Tour de France in July 2014.
I don't know. Could be Huddersfield?
- Huddersfield. - Correct.
And finally, a town close to Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire.
It's the birthplace of the Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington.
Something field?
- Sheffield? - No.
Nottinghamshire, not Sheffield.
Er... It's not a million miles away. It's not far from Sheffield.
- Sheffield. - No, it's Mansfield.
Right, we're about halfway through.
Instead of a music round, you're going to have an audio round.
You're about to hear a clip from the inaugural speech
of a president of the United States.
For ten points, please name the president.
'So first of all, let me assert my...'
BUZZER
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt is correct, yes. - APPLAUSE
That was his first inaugural speech in March 1933,
the last inauguration to take place in March.
Since then, all inauguration ceremonies
have taken place in January.
You're going to hear three more inauguration speeches since 1933.
In each case, I want the name of the president you can hear.
Five points for each, here's the first.
'I've just repeated, word for word,
'the oath taken by George Washington 200 years ago.
'And the Bible on which I placed my hand
'is the Bible on which he placed his.
'It is right that the memory of Washington be with us today,
'not only because this is our bicentennial inauguration,
'but because Washington remains the father of our country.'
- So it's 1976. - What's that?
It's 1976.
So Nixon?
I thought it was.
- Nixon. - No, it was George Bush Senior. - Oh! - Here's your second.
'The world and we have passed the midway point
'of a century of continuing challenge.
'We sense with all our faculties, that forces of good and evil
'are amassed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history.'
- Harry Truman. - No, that's Dwight Eisenhower.
Your final clip is a pretty short one.
'And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you,
'ask what you can do for your country.'
- I think that was Kennedy. - It was indeed, yes.
So ten points for this starter question.
In George Orwell's novel of 1945,
what is the original name of Animal Farm before the rebellion
and the overthrow of its inebriated owner, Mr Jones?
BUZZER
Jones Farm?
No. Trinity Hall, one of you buzz.
BUZZER
Bramble Farm?
No, it's Manor Farm.
Ten points for this.
What surname links the authors
of The Red Wheelbarrow, Stoner: A Novel, Arias...?
BUZZER
- Williams. - Williams is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses are on the stylistic device
known as the polyptoton,
in which words derived from the same root are repeated.
Firstly. "With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder."
In which of Shakespeare's histories does John of Gaunt say those words?
Erm... Henry IV Part One?
No! Erm... No, sorry. Richard II.
- Sure? - Yeah. - Count your monarchs.
- Richard II. - Correct.
"No end to the withering of withered flowers,
"to the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
"to the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage."
Which poet wrote those lines in a work of 1941?
- Eliot? - It's a bit... Thomas?
Thomas?
- Dylan Thomas. - No, that was TS Eliot in the Dry Salvages.
And finally, "Diamond me no diamonds, prize me no prizes."
These words appear in a narrative cycle by which 19th-century poet?
19th century. Browning?
- Browning. - No, it's Tennyson. Ten points for this.
- Divided into three parts entitled Mosque, Caves and Temple...? - BUZZER
- A Passage To India. - Correct. - APPLAUSE
Your bonuses this time
are on Southeast Asian mammals, Trinity Hall.
Which tropical mammal takes its name from the Malay
for rolling over because it curls into a ball when threatened?
It's also known as the scaly anteater.
- Pangolin? - Oh, pangolin!
- Pangolin. - Correct.
The siamang derives its name from the Malay word for black
and is a member of which family of long-armed arboreal primates?
Apes? Ape family?
Monkey? What was it?
- A family of primates. - Oh, right. OK.
- Monkeys, apes... - It's a specific species we want.
Let's have an answer.
Monkey.
- Monkeys. - No, they're gibbons.
A binturong is a species of prehensile-tailed arboreal civet.
To which order of mammals does it belong?
Civet's a cat, isn't it?
So feline.
Felidae.
- No, they're carnivores. - Oh, there we go.
Right, we're going to take a picture round now.
For your picture starter, you'll see a painting.
Cupid or Eros appears on the left.
For ten points,
I want you to identify the other two mythological figures depicted.
BUZZER
- Hephaestus and Aphrodite. - Nope.
BUZZER
Venus and Mars.
No, it's Hades and Persephone.
So picture bonuses in a moment or two,
ten points at stake for this starter question.
Fingers on the buzzers.
Born 1996, Dolly the sheep was cloned from the cells
of what specific gland?
BUZZER
- Thyroid? - No.
BUZZER
Placenta.
No, it was a mammary gland. That's why it was named after Dolly Parton.
Ten points for this.
In the King James Bible, a book named after which prophet
follows Song Of Songs and precedes Jeremiah?
With 66 chapters, it's one of the longest of the Old Testament.
BUZZER
Job.
No. Anybody want to buzz from Trinity Hall?
BUZZER
- Isaiah? - Isaiah is correct, yes. - APPLAUSE
So we return to the picture bonuses.
In Greco-Roman myth, the barren winter months
were caused by Persephone's annual sojourn
with Hades in the underworld.
Your picture bonuses are three more representations of Persephone.
I'd like the artist in each case, please.
Firstly for five, this German artist.
That's Durer.
- Durer. - It is, yes.
Inimitably. Second, this Italian sculptor.
It's got to be a name. Give me a sculptor.
Italian. Bernini? But he did bronzes and he was later, wasn't he?
Earlier, even.
Donatello.
- Donatello. - No, that's Bernini. And finally, this English artist.
- Oh, erm, Rossetti. Rossetti. - Are you sure that's him?
I think that's Rossetti, yeah.
- Rossetti. - It was Rossetti, yes. Ten points for this starter question.
Columbus Archipelago is the official name of which island group
of the Eastern Pacific that is administratively
a province of Ecuador.
BUZZER
- Galapagos. - Correct. - APPLAUSE
Your bonuses, Hull, are on schools in literature.
First performed in 1934,
which stage work by Lillian Hellman concerns the accusation of an affair
directed at two women who run an all-girls school in New England?
No, it's Children...
It might be that.
Little Foxes?
- Try it. - Little Foxes.
No, it's The Children's Hour.
Secondly, for five points,
Barbara Covett is a veteran comprehensive school teacher
and the unreliable narrator of which novel of 2003 by Zoe Heller?
It's the film with Cate Blanchett.
About an affair.
It sounds like chick lit to me, you see. It's not my field.
I don't know about that.
We'd better have an answer, please.
- An Unreliable Affair. - No, it's Notes On A Scandal.
And finally, Sandy Stranger betrays the political leanings
and therefore brings about the downfall
of which eponymous character in a novel of 1961 by Muriel Spark?
- Is it Jean Brodie? - Miss Jean Brodie.
Correct. Four and a half minutes to go, ten points for this.
What is the common name of the subtropical evergreen tree
Olea europaea and its edible fruit?
It's branches appear on the flag of the Republic of Cyprus.
BUZZER
- An olive tree. - Correct.
Your bonuses this time, Trinity Hall, are on plane geometry.
Which class of plane figures are characterised as quadrilaterals
with opposite sides of equal length?
- Rhomboid? - Parallelograms?
Parallelogram or a...?
- Trapezium. - Trapezium sounds right to me, or a rhombus?
No, trapezium's like this.
Same length.
- So it's got two things the same. - That just means they're parallel.
- What's a parallelepiped, is that something? - A rhombus?
- Shall we go for rhombus? - That's just a square which is tilted.
But a square is a subclass of it.
So that's OK, if that's what it means.
We've forgotten the question. Shall we say rhombus? Rhombus.
No, it's parallelograms. We were looking for the class.
The definition of which equilateral parallelogram
usually excludes the square?
Equilateral?
- So four sides... - Let's try parallelepiped.
Parallelepiped.
- No, it's a rhombus. - LAUGHTER
And finally, what is the sum
of the opposite angles in a cyclic quadrilateral?
In any quadrilateral....
Sum of the opposite sides.
It'll be...180.
90, 90.
No, cos it... The sum will be...?
The sum of all of them is always 360, so...
- Sum of all of them? Didn't he say opposites? - Yep.
So it's going to be less than 360.
- 210. - No!
No, it's 180.
Another starter question. About three minutes to go.
In medical diagnosis, what instrument is customarily used
in the procedure known as auscultation?
BUZZER
- Stethoscope. - Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, these bonuses are on the film director Federico Fellini.
Firstly for five,
named after a decisive Italian victory in World War I,
which street in Rome is central to Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita?
- By the river? - Yeah, it has to be after the...Rue de Rivoli?
- No, no, no. - That's in Paris!
Avenue di Vittoria.
- No? - We'd have to have it in Italian. Erm...Strada di Vittoria.
No, it's the Via Veneto.
And secondly, which film of 1963 by Fellini features a memorable rumba
danced by the beach-dwelling character La Saraghina?
- Eight And A Half? - No... Er, actually,
- Eight And A Half. - Correct.
Choreographed by Bob Fosse,
the 1966 musical Sweet Charity was based on which 1957 film by Fellini,
starring his wife and muse Giulietta Masina as the eponymous heroine?
- Sweet Charity, it was Nights Of Cabiria. - Don't know.
Cabiria isn't a name, though. It's a place.
- Nights Of Cabiria. - Correct.
Ten points for this. Answer as soon as your name is called.
In the current Periodic table, for example,
that on the Royal Society of Chemistry website,
how many periods are there?
BUZZER
- Seven? - Correct. - APPLAUSE
These bonuses, Trinity Hall, are on a London museum.
In 1897, the art critic Claude Phillips
became the first keeper of which collection,
housed in Hartford House in Manchester Square?
The Wallace Collection?
- The Wallace Collection. - Correct.
The Wallace Collection is noted for its displays
of 18th-century porcelain from which factory, situated near Versailles?
- Near Versailles? - Sevres?
- Sevres. - Correct.
One of the major works in the Wallace Collection is
A Dance To The Music Of Time, a work of 1635 by which French artist?
- Poussin. - Poussin is right. Ten points for this.
Featuring the adventuress Irene Adler,
what is the first story in Conan Doyle's
- The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes? - BUZZER
- A Scandal In Bohemia. - Correct.
A set of bonuses for you now
on words ending in the Latin or Romance diminutive I-L-L-A.
In each case, give the word from the definition.
Firstly, from the Spanish for chamomile or possibly small...
GONG
And at the gong, Hull University have 65,
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, have 215.
APPLAUSE
Well, Hull, you weren't really on song tonight
in the way that you've been in some previous shows, but thank you.
- We weren't. - It was enjoyable to watch them, quite frankly.
That might have been our mistake.
No, you were all great fun and none of you teams had to do this
and I thank you all very much for taking part.
And many congratulations to you, Trinity Hall.
You receive no trophy, just a bit of undying glory
and a glass of revoltingly cheap drink in the green room, no doubt.
LAUGHTER
So, great thanks to all the teams who took part despite being
well old enough to know better. Thank you for watching.
Next time, we resume the students competition,
- but until then, it's goodbye from Hull University. - Goodbye.
- It's goodbye from Trinity Hall, Cambridge. - Goodbye.
And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.