- 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.
Monday 25 March 2024
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February quiz this underwhelming prize was rescinded, and we were each given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)