Monday 25 March 2024

Normal Service is suspeded

 - but it will be resumed shortly. I'm going away for the week to West Wales with some of the family. So I'm going to excuse myself from posting until I come back at the weekend.  See you soon.

Thursday 21 March 2024

Pizzagate continued

I didn’t go to the monthly film quiz last month. I was feeling completely knackered at the time and rather down. Last night I wasn’t feeling much better if truth be told but I felt that I should go in the hope that it might perk me up a little bit.

Now, the team did go last time when the category was Sci Fi movies and although they were only a few points behind the winners at the end they were not on the podium. So, as we walked in yesterday the organiser who really doesn’t like us very much made a pointed comment about the last quiz. The poor idiot seemed to be labouring under the impression that it would have made much of a difference if I’d played. It wouldn’t have, and I say that with authority being the weakest player on the team (in a modern film quiz).

Yeah we did win. The theme was animated movies and we won fairly comfortably. Ironically this seemed to confirm the organisers’ idea that I really would have made a difference.

Now, if you’re a regular reader, you may recall earlier posts I’ve made this year about the league which ran throughout 2023 in this quiz. No prizes were presented in the end of the year. In the January quiz a couple of months ago it was announced that we would each receive our choice of T-shirt. I wasn’t impressed. I was even less impressed when the team told me that in the February quiz this underwhelming prize was rescinded, and we were each given vouchers for a pizza instead. I can only say that I’m grateful I wasn’t there at the time because I might well have ended up telling them to shove their pizza right up where no sun shines.

The stupid thing is that if they’d said that the league is only a bit of extra fun and there would be no prizes from the start I’d have been perfectly alright with that. Still, there we are.

I did not think that they could rub our noses in it any more than they have already been rubbed. Au contraire. Every quiz there is a consolation prize for the lowest – or sometimes second lowest – scoring team. Guess what it was last night? That’s right – a pizza voucher for each member of the team. The same prize for coming last in ONE quiz as was given to the winners of the whole-year league.

Jess and Dan had their pizzas last night. I wasn’t interested. But I now have visions of giving over my voucher next month and being told its too late to use it!

Tuesday 19 March 2024

University Challenge 2024 Quarter Final Sudden Death match

The Teams

Birkbeck

Danny McMillan

Olivia Mariner

Samir Chadha (Capt.)

Margherita Huntley

Trinity, Cambridge

Sarah Henderson

Agnijo Banerjee

Ryan Joonsuk Kang (Capt.)

Jeremi Jaksina

So, away we go, dearly beloved, with the last of this year’s quarter final matches. Would we see Birkbeck become the third team from London through, or would Trinity be the last college standing from Oxbridge? Well, not if Danny McMillan had much to do with it as he came in early to take the first starter on Matisse. Birkbeck took one on Jason and the Argonauts. Nobody knew that Trowulun is on Java for the next starter. Danny McMillan knew petit maman for the next starter. I’ll be honest, I knew no more about Les Nabis than Birkbeck did as we both failed to score on them. Agnijo Banerjee, so good at the Science and Maths questions proved he’s no slouch at Shakespeare too by knowing the character Hero from Much Ado. Geographical terms taken from Spanish brought them two correct answers. For the next starter both Agnijo Banerjee and I knew that Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. I took a gamble by letting the lap of honour ride for this one. Trinity took one bonus on microbiology but were at least now in the lead. The picture starter showed us verses from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Danny McMillan recognised it. To my delight openings from three more medieval texts provided us both with a full house. Well, look, I was always far more interested in the older stuff during my Literature degree. We were almost at 11 minutes when Birkbeck completed that set to give themselves a lead of 50 – 35.

Danny McMillan knew the Kronos Quartet for the next starter. Eurasian nomads of antiquity and early Middle Ages brought Birkbeck one correct answer which was one more than I had. Neither team knew the name Abigail from either a wife of King David or from the colloquial term for a Victorian serving girl. Danny McMillan won the buzzer race to identify Strasbourg from a set of clues. Their misfortune with the bonuses reared its ugly head again as they were presented with a set on Edna St. Vincent Who Millay. They managed one. Don’t ask me about Virial theorem, but it brought Agnijo Banerjee the next starter. Metallic elements and their ores are good old quiz chestnuts. We both took a full house on this set of bonuses and I decided this would be a good opportunity for my lap of honour. So to the music round, and classical this week. Nobody recognised the work of Haydn. Sarah Henderson knew that John Donne wrote the Holy Sonnets – surprised he had the time while presenting his show on Radio 2 (ask your grandparents). Sarah Henderson also excelled on the music bonuses bringing her team a full house. Samir Chadha pulled his team back to the table by buzzing early with the term nucleation. Classical music and literature showed yet again that the bonus gods were not smiling on Birkbeck. We both managed just the one. Jeremi Jaksina got his first starter of the contest by knowing that Francisco Solano Lopez had been president of Paraguay. One bonus on food stabilisers meant that both teams were level on 95 at just after 20 minutes. Who wanted it more?

Kriging, anyone? It was the answer – which none of us had – to the next starter. You have to feel for Olivia Mariner with the following starter. So often a question about a woodwind instrument used in Peter and the Wolf has the answer the oboe, but this time this answer was not the one sought. Given the full question it became obvious that what was wanted was the bassoon. Sarah Henderson tapped that one into the open goal. You can imagine how delighted I was when Amol announced that the set of bonuses to follow were on vector calculus. Trinity made hay while the sun shone and took a full house. The second picture starter showed the London memorial to my distant relative Edith Cavell. Danny McMillan took it. How Birkbeck would have wanted a kinder set of bonuses at this point. They took one, but got their Garbo’s mixed up with their Dietrichs. To be fair Garbo did look rather like Marlene in the photograph shown. Nobody knew novels set in Zambia for the next starter. Ryan Joonsuk Kang knew that beryllium is found in certain gemstones. The director Youssef Chahine only took the lead to 30 ponits, but that’s crucial because it meant that whatever happened, even if they took a full house on the next set then Birkbeck would need two visits to the table to catch them. Danny McMillan tried but came in too early for the next starter, allowing Ryan Joonsuk Kang in with the Prague school of linguists. Cities that have hosted the World University Games brought no further points but served at least to run the clock down. The Trinity skipper, the bit firmly between his teeth took the next starter on oxytocin, which pretty much guaranteed his team the win. Trinity failed to score on key figures in the struggle for Irish Independence. There was just time for Sarah Henderson to give the correct answer of ice cream to the next starter and then the contest was gonged, with Trinity winning by 165  - 100.

Birkbeck finished the match with a BCR of 38 while Trinity score 51.  While Danny McMillan was comfortably the best buzzer of the night, all of the Trinity team managed at least one starter, and three of them took three each, which shows I guess that  there’s only so much one star buzzer can do, while it’s better to have buzzing throughout your whole team. 

Amol Watch

Amol’s patience was tested by Birkbeck as early as the first set of bonuses where he found himself quite rightly having to issue them with the kind of ‘come on’ which is usually reserved for the last 10 minutes or so. It was nice to see him hail Sarah Henderson’s full house on the music set as impressive too. He had a wee dig at Ryan Joonsuk Kang for not knowing the Daegu question – ‘ If only you had a South Korea captain!’ but let’s be honest, we saw JP say far more biting things in his time.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Kronos was the youngest of the Titans. (Did that make him a teen titan?)

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In Physics, what theorem provides a mechanical description of a system of multiple discrete objects which is in equilibrium in particular the relationship between the total potential and kinetic energies of the system? The turn in question – (at this point Agnijo Banerjee buzzed in to put us out of our misery)

Let’s be honest, a question like this might as well be asked in Old High Gallifreyan as far as I’m concerned. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Mastermind 2024 - Semi-Final 5

The Tale of the Tape

Name

Specialist 

Score

Specialist 

Passes

GK Score

GK Passes

Total Score

Total Passes

Tie break

Peter Wilson

12

0

15

1

27

1

-

Paul Judge

10

1

12

0

22

1

-

Helen Lippell

12

0

9

0

21

0

4

Ben Jones

8

0

12

0

20

0

-

We’re getting close now, early beloved. One more semi-final and then it will be Grand Final time.

Kicking off last night’s contest was Helen Lippell. Helen was in the bottom half of my unofficial heat winners’ table. According to my records Helen also took part in the first round heats in both 2016 and 2019, narrowly failing to progress on both occasions. In her heat she answered very well on Grinling ‘Funky’ Gibbons. Last night she needed an equally good specialist round on British Prime Ministers of the 18th century. She very early got it too, with a fine round of 11 points. Me? Well, I had my best specialist round of the night with four.

Second up was Paul Judge. He’d scored 1 more point in the heats than had Helen, achieved largely through a very good GK round. In his first round Paul had scored 10 points on the Life and Career of Magic Johnson. Last night he was answering on The Stranglers from 1974 – 1990. With such a relatively short time period it was a given that Paul was going to be asked some questions requiring real in-depth knowledge. For the most part he was equal to the task, scoring a good round of 10 to put him just the one point behind Helen.

Ben Jones had scored 1 point fewer than Helen in the heats. He’d had 8 on F. Scott Fitzgerald. 8 is a very respectable score, but while it might be enough in some heats it is unlikely to bring you a win in the semi-final, especially one in which the other contenders have prepared their own specialists so well. Ben, sadly, did not manage to improve on his specialist score from the heats. Answering on the America poet Elisabeth Bishop he scored 7. It is only in the rarest circumstances you’d see a four point lead overhauled in a semi final GK round and there was still one contender to go.

Peter Wilson came in at number 2 on my unofficial table. Last week we saw stand in Thomas Nelson comfortably win a semi final he did not expect to take part in because he had lost in the first round heats. Well, Peter was the contender who beat him, through a magnificent GK round of 15 points. Peter had scored 12 on the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. Last night, answering on Oscar Winning Feature Films he repeated that feat to take the lead. Incidentally I was pleased to see Clive clarify that the subject was about winners of the Oscar for best animated feature film and not on animated feature films that won any Oscar. For the record I scored four on Helen’s round. 2 on the Stranglers, nowt on Elizabeth Bishop and 2 on the films for an aggregate of 8.

So to General Knowledge. Ben’s GK round was very reminiscent of his GK round in his heat. He started off at a blistering pace, snapping out the answers and building considerable momentum. It he’d maintained this then he might possibly have got into the mid teens. However as had happened in his heat he had a couple wrong mid-round and seemed to start doubting himself a little more. Don’t get me wrong, he scored 11 and in a semi-final 11 is pretty good going. But having started five behind the lead, it surely wasn’t going to be enough.

Paul Judge, on the other hand, was only two points off the lead on 10. In his heat he’d score 12 points and if he could do so again then he would be giving himself a shout. To cut a long story short, this was what he did. 12 points gave him a total of 22, and a chance of clinging on at the top until the end of the show.

Let’s put Helen Lippell’s task into perspective. In order to go into the outright lead Helen would need to score 12. That would mean equalling her best ever GK round on Mastermind. At first she did sound rather unsure of some of the answers she was giving, but as more and more of them hit home she kept on dredging them up, until by the end of the round she had posted her highest ever GK round of 13. It was the kind of round that made me recall my own semi final all those years ago, when I said to myself to just keep answering and not worry about any I got wrong.

Which is not to say that Helen was anything like home and dry at this point. Peter Wilson, let us remember, had scored 15 on GK in the heats. He only needed 13 to win outright. Well, there’s no ‘only’ about 13 on GK in the semis. Peter did not get the kind of ride in this round that he had in the heats, and once he got a couple wrong it seemed to play on his mind, There’s nothing to be ashamed about in a score of 8, which is what Peter scored but he will know that he’s better than that score suggests.

I have to say though that it is nice to see persistence rewarded. It must take a certain amount of determination to come back for a third attempt at the show, and so to see Helen not just make her first semi-final, but also her first grand final is great. Best of luck.

The Details

Helen Lippell

British Prime Ministers of the 18th century

11

0

13

0

24

0

Paul Judge

The Stranglers 1974 - 1990

10

0

12

0

22

0

Ben Jones

Elizabeth Bishop

7

0

11

0

18

0

Peter Wilson

Oscar Wining Feature Films

12

0

8

0

20

0

Sunday 17 March 2024

Mastermind semi final five preview

Okay, dear readers. I’m going to give you the list of tomorrow’s semi-final five specialist subjects. See if you can work out which one would be my banker and which one looks like a Londinius nul points.

British Prime Ministers of the 18th Century

Rock band The Stranglers 1974 – 1990

American Poet Elizabeth Bishop

Oscar Winning Animated Feature films

It’s easy for me to say where the nul points are likely to be scored. I’m afraid that I am not at all familiar with the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, so any points there look very unlikely.

As for the other three subjects, they each have the potential to being me one or two, but none of them looks like a secure source of points. I liked the Stranglers a lot really from the end of the punk period through the early – mid 80s, but how many questions in the round will relate to this I don’t know. I know a bit about all Prime Ministers, but nowhere near as much about the 18th century ones as I do about the 19th century ones. Then Oscar Winning Animated Feature films. I’m not clear about the parameters of this round. Does it mean just films that won the Oscar for Best Animated feature film, or does it mean animated feature films that won ANY Oscar? The former has only been going since 2001 so that’s really doable. The later – not so much.

Forecast – well I’d always rather underforecast than overforecast, so let’s save anything higher than five would be pretty good for me.

Little things . . .

It can happen that you go to a quiz which, hand on heart, you think was not that great and yet still walk away remembering a couple of questions that you felt proud of yourself for getting right.

Last Thursday’s rugby club quiz was not very good. Yeah, I know, I’m always criticising other setters’ quizzes. If it makes anyone feel better about it they can start their own blog and criticise mine if they wish. Or we ca sit down together, discuss it face to face and then agree that I was right. RIP Brian Clough.

Now, this is as always just my opinion but on Thursday night I felt that there were issues with the quiz. In no particular order these were –

It was a quiz in which every other round had a different theme. I’m not saying that it is impossible to make a themed quiz which is satisfying to the teams playing, but it is difficult. It requires a level of real skill to prevent rounds from becoming mini specialist quizzes. Each themed round can alienate teams who do not have a particular knowledge of or interest in that subject. I felt that this was pretty much the case on Thursday.

It was a quiz in which too many of the questions excluded the younger players. In the four general knowledge rounds too many questions required the teams being able to remember the 60s or fifties. It was a quiz which would have sounded old fashioned when I stared playing in the club. In 1995.

There were too many whythe’ells. A whythe’ell is a question which provokes you to ask – why the ‘ell are they asking that? It’s the kind of question where you wonder why the setter would think that anyone else might know it and why the setter would think anyone else might be interested in it.

Having said all that, as I did say at the start of this post, there were a couple of questions that left me glowing. Four of the rounds were not themed and would end with the answers to questions 7, 8  and 9 all being connected, and the answer to number 10 being what connected them. So we were asked

The actor who played Withnail in Withnail and I

The Team Sky rider who won four tours de France beginning in 2013

The member of the Carry on Team who played the Black Fingernail.

Now, we had all of the answers – Richard E. Grant – Chris Froome – Sid James, but could not see any connection. Then it struck me – Grant was born in Swaziland/ Eswatini, Froome in Kenya and Sid James in South Africa.  So born in Africa was the connection.

Then in the very last round we had this one.

Which team, beginning with ‘H’ did Eric Morecambe think had won the FA Cup?

Which team sport was played in the Olympics from 1900 to 1936 and shares its name with a Volkswagen car?

Which Elvis Presley song begins with the lines “As the snow flies on a cold and grey Chicago mornin, A poor little baby child is born”

Now, we had the car and the song – Polo and In the Ghetto quickly. But the Eric Morecambe one? All I could think of was that I did recall him from time to time coughing - h’Arsenal!- So we went with that, which gave us

Arsenal

Polo

Ghetto.

What did I know about any of them? Well, I was pretty sure that the first ghetto was that of Venice. And I also had a feeling that the term arsenal derived from Venice somehow. And Venice has Marco Polo airport. So I went for Venice. Bingo.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been mentally congratulating myself ever since over that one. Which all goes to show, little things please little minds.

Tuesday 12 March 2024

University Challenge 2024 Sudden Death Quarter Final - Manchester v. Christ Church, Oxford

The Teams

Manchester

Bluma De Los Reyes-White

Ilya Kullmann

Hiru Senehedheera (Capt

Dan Grady

Christ Church, Oxford

Eliza Dean

Melika Gorgianeh

Arthur Wotton (Capt)

Elliot Lowe

Howdy pardners and thank’ee kindly for joining me for another wee dram in the last chance saloon. And following last week’s fine performance from Christ Church it really was a case of you pays yer money and takes yer choice here. I couldn’t pick a winner before we came under starter’s orders.

Hiru Senehedheera came in too early on the first starter, which remained obscure until the mention of the answer’s trusted lieutenant, Dessalines created the opening to allow Arthur Wootton in for his first starter with Toussaint L’Ouverture. The Oxford skipper took 8 starters last time out, so his buzzer finger would be crucial to CC’s chances of progression. Two bonuses followed on digraphia. Hiru Senehedheera didn’t have to fish too deeply for the mathematician Poisson to answer the next starter (see what I did there?) Medical terms combining Greek and latin derivations, for example neonatal, provided us both with a full house. Yeah, I did take a lap of honour. Dan Grady won the buzzer race to provide the name King Kong for the next starter. Two bonuses on Schopenhauer were taken. I loved the response to the question about Ixion – it’s not in Percy Jackson so I don’t know! Various clues to the word jazz went begging for the next starter. Anechoic chamber? Nope, me neither but the Manchester skipper knew it for the next starter. Two bonuses on the prophet Elijah followed. The picture starter brought a halt to the Manchester charge as Arthur Wootton took his second starter recognising the locations of the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto. More Japanese places with name elements in common brought one bonus. This meant that as we neared 10 minutes the score stood at 55 – 35 to Manchester.

None of us knew what ANT stood for so the next starter went unanswered. Right, now I’m very sorry but the first words of he next starter, “Born in 1791, which physicist – “ were enough for me to shout FARADAY! And so confident was I that I’d completed another lap of honour before Hiru Senehedheera buzzed in with the same. To be fair, it is a very short lap. A UC special set on prominent thinkers whose name appears in other words proved to be surprisingly tricky and we both only had the one. Ilya Kullmann buzzed in before the next starter revealed that the Shakespeare title character it wanted was female. He answered Macbeth. Cleopatra was the answer but CC shot wide of the open goal. So the next starter asked about the four corners National Monument in the USA. Oliver Wotton knew it was maintained by the Navajo nation. Amol announced that their bonuses were on relativistic mechanics and I prepared for the strains of the Baby Elephant Walk to start. Gawd knows what the questions were about, but just like my good self, CC didn’t get any of them. Nobody knew the Non-juror bishops for the next starter. Eliza Dean came in early for the next starter on Negritude. Musical performers named in Angela Davis’ work Blues Legacies and Black Feminism were not as hard a set as it sounded, and CC failed to score. With the gap standing at 5 points we came to the music starter. Nobody could identify the music from the ballet Swan Lake. Arthur Wotton won the buzzer race to answer about Robin Hood Bay to earn the dubious reward of the music bonuses – more pas de deux from other ballets. Nul points. CC were having a purple patch with the buzzer, but failures on the bonuses meant that they weren’t pulling away from Manchester. Dan Grady stopped the rot on the next starter which asked for gravitational waves. Blue plaques in North Staffordshire paid fitting tribute to Elizabeth Wardle, the lady behind the Victorian copy of the Bayeux Tapestry where the naked men in the borders seem to be wearing cycling shorts. Currently in Reading Museum and check it out if you don’t believe me. Manchester took a full house. Nothing daunted Arthur Wotton knew that the upside down tree is the baobab for the next starter. A timely full house on Jose Luis Borges gave CC the lead by 95 – 90 with just a few minutes to show us who wanted it more.

Arthur Wotton certainly wanted it. He won the buzzer race to identify two of the three German states that border Poland. Bonuses on de Toqueville’s “Democracy in America” – which surely inspired Kim Wilde’s immortal “Kids in America” – brought two correct answers, which meant that Manchester would need a full house to even the scores. So to the second picture starter. Elliot Lowe correctly identified a sculpture, of which one of the figures depicted on it was Aeneas. Three more 17th century artistic portrayals of the story of Aeneas netted now for them. Still, Manchester now needed at least two visits to the table. Both teams sat on their buzzer a bit for the next starter until Ilya Kullman identified Topkapi Palace as the residence of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. Bonuses on industrial catalysts brought one correct answer. Would it be the catalyst that set off a Manchester revival? It looked like it when Bluma de los Reyes-White gave the correct answer of Nobel Prize winning scientist Calvin (the awards committee obviously ignored his partner, Hobbes.) South American cities taking their names from cities in Spain gave them a full house, and the lead. None of us knew the Roman poet Sextus Propertius (or even his stupider brother Emptius Propertius). Hiru Senehedheera came in too early and lost five on the next starter but CC could not take advantage. The Manchester skipper made immediate amends, winning the buzzer race to identify the painter Lucien Freud. The Japanese costume designer Emi Wada did nothing for Manchester other than to run the clock down. Arthur Wotton’s buzzer finger fired too early on the next question, but Manchester couldn’t find the word wax to seal the deal. Yet still Captain Fantastic Wotton came back to take the next starter on the word confederate. Only one bonus on small choo choos in art left them one bonus behind Manchester. Dan Grady just won the buzzer race on the next starter on Simone de Beauvoir. GONGGGG! Yes, after a terrific match it all came down to the last starter. 145 played 130. Congratulations to Manchester, and many commiserations to Christ Church.

Christ Church achieved a BCR of 37, while Manchester who scored fewer starters had a BCR of 63, and that’s what won it and lost it.

Amol Watch

With the ANT starter Amol made he slightly cryptic comment “I thought that was going to take you some time to work out.” Er, they didn’t work it out, Amol. They had it wrong. Amol seemed surprised that Christ Church didn’t know de Toqueville wrote ‘Democracy in America’. Well, they’re all easy if you know them, Amol, and difficult if you don’t.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Digraphia means languages which can be written in more than one script.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

In a ratio relating to the rest mass of a particle and its mass when travelling a velocity v the Greek letter gamma is used to represent a factor named after which Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate born (buzz)