Monday 7 October 2013

University Challenge 2013-14: Round 1: Match 13: St John's vs Downing

It's Monday night, so it must be University Challenge time. And, with the first round nearing its close, the fight for the repechage is heating up. Scoring 160 or more would guarantee tonight's losing team a place in it. And it was an Oxbridge match, and, if the previous three were anything to go by, there was a chance we could've seen that.

St John's College Oxford was founded in 1555, and is now, like its Cambridge namesake (who we've already seen this year lest we forget) once was, the richest college in the university. A long list of alumni include a certain Mr T. Blair. The college last appeared back in 2009-10, where they impressively reached the final before losing to Alex Guttenplan's Emmanuel team to finish second. Hoping to go one step further this year were:
Ted Elgar, from Blackheath in London, studying History and Politics
Tom Finch, from Appleford in Oxfordshire, studying Classics
Captain: Jonathan Lane from Carmarthenshire, studying Medicine
Tom Salt, from Oxfordshire, studying Maths

Downing College Cambridge was founded in 1800 with the legacy left by Sir George Downing, builder of Downing Street. A long list of alumni include John 'Basil' Cleese, the late Michael Winner and, er, my Grandfather! The college last sent a team in the 2010-11 series, where they lost to eventual winners Magdalen College Oxford in the second round. Playing tonight were:
Tom Claxton, from Grantham, studying Natural Sciences
Georgina Phillips, from Shoreham-by-Sea, studying Geography
Captain: John Morgan, from Abingdon, studying Theoretical Chemistry
Tom Rees, from Guildford, studying Maths

A lot of Toms tonight. And this series overall, in fact.

Both teams got off the mark quickly, sharing the first two starters, and getting one bonus each. Then, Downing stepped into gear, and began to pull out into the lead. After the first picture round, they led by 75-15.

A set of bonuses on brothers went to Downing next, and I got one on a complete guess of Edwards IV and Richard III. An incorrect interruption then gave St John's a chance to get back into the game, and two bonuses from a set of new entries into the OED gave them two correct answers. But Downing soon resumed normal business, and pulled away through the three figure barrier.

St John's did take the music round, which required them to name the instrument being played, which was probably as hard as it sounded. The gap now stood at 120-50 in Downing's favour, and it grew when Tom Ress didn't fall into the trap of saying Darwin coined the term 'Survival of the Fittest' a la Alan Davies on QI. The subsequent bonuses required two soundalike words to be spelt out, and an amusing moment came when Mr Rees was nominated, then tried to renominate Miss Phillips! She eventually gave the right answers.

Downing secured the 160 points that ensured we'd be seeing them again one way or another. St John's pulled back with two starters in a row, getting them towards three figures. The second picture round was on restaurants and the chef associated with them. Tom Rees very quickly shot in with the Fat Duck and Heston Blumenthal (as did I as well) almost as soon as Paxo finished his preamble! Paxo seemed rather surprised he knew it!

Downing's lead was now 205-85. St John's didn't stand much of a chance of catching Downing, but could still reach the repechage with a good run of questions. An unlucky penalty didn't help them much, and then Downing put their feet down again, and added to their already impressive score. Two starters were dropped, including one where the answer had a leeway of one either way; both teams' answers were two away on either side!

Another starter went to Downing, and it now looked unlikely St John's could gather the momentum to reach the repechage. They did manage a short sprint in the closing minutes, breaking three figures and reaching respectability. At the gong, Downing won by 260-115.

St John's definitely didn't disgrace themselves, but they were just comprehensively beaten on the buzzer by Downing. A very good first showing by the Cambridge side though, who, again, could do well this year with a favourable draw. The Toms Claxton and Rees got five starters each, and the Cambridge side converted 25 bonuses out of 42. Tom Finch's four starters was the best individual tally for St John's, who managed 10 correct bonuses out of 21. Both side incurred one penalty.

Safely through to the repechage: Durham (170), Loughborough and Southampton (155)

Next week's match: Aberystwyth vs Bangor in the first first round match.

Again didn't see much of Only Connect tonight, but a comfortable win for the winning team, whose captain's brother was part of the Draughtsmen, who were runners-up two series ago.

9 comments:

  1. I hate to be this sort of person, but I feel contractually obliged to point out that St. John's Cambridge is second-richest, after Trinity. :P

    Anyway. John's had 152, Downing 237. Downing join a group of nine teams with scores in the 200s - we could really be in for some good matches in round two!

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    1. Ah, I see. I guess I should've double-checked before repeating something I heard three years ago. Thanks for pointing that out!

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  2. Well, this was a most peculiar match! We have a winning team who were absolutely on fire with their buzzers, and a losing team that could have had a real chance to shine were it not for their opponents’ buzzer speed.

    This is another match this series that I’ve paid especially close attention to because one of the institutions represented is one that I nearly applied to. St John’s, Oxford was one of three Oxford colleges that really stood out for me in terms of academic and scenic credentials, and when I made my final decision of which college to apply to, St John’s lost out only very narrowly. (Despite the fact that I consider myself to be conservative with a small c, the fact that its most famous alumnus is the great Mr Blair didn’t sway my decision. I’ve also just noticed that St John’s now joins an increasingly long list of institutions to have appeared on this series whose alumni include British PMs of the last century.)

    I also have a friend from school who is now at St John’s, and who is friends with at least one of their team from tonight, so I was cheering for them for several reasons. Unfortunately, they just seemed a bit quiet, and never really posed much of a threat to the incredibly quick buzzer power of Downing College. Maybe the “losing streak” effect kicked in quite early for them. I don’t know.

    Downing certainly impressed me with their buzzer speed (that spontaneous answer to the kinetic energy calculation being particularly impressive – I was expecting to hear Paxo give out a velocity rather than a momentum, so I was preparing for the wrong kinetic energy equation, so I was nowhere near the answer by the time Downing got it!). Their bonus conversion rate is not bad, but they may struggle in future rounds unless they manage to increase it. I suppose this was why they didn’t wow me as much as Trinity did on their first appearance.

    And then there was the Shipping Forecast picture round! I felt physically sick at the sight of it! I’d been learning that map as part of my knowledge-boosting efforts before going to film my debut appearance on the show, and grown rather fond of the Forecast in the process (hence my name!), so I really wanted a question about it! Instead, it was given to St John’s! That was a painful round to watch. I shared Paxo’s puzzlement when Downing somehow identified Viking as “Orkney”, because Orkney certainly isn’t that far east of the British mainland, and it was pretty visible on the map provided in Area Fair Isle.

    So, with that match done and dusted, I’ll definitely be seeing you in the repechage! I look forward to seeing how it turns out on screen. I can, of course, now reveal that I know what happens in both repechage matches, and that the first one filmed – which, I almost guarantee, will be the first one aired – will feature either Aberystwyth, Bangor or Christ Church. So be cautious if you’re reading the Radio Times Online pages for UC before this Monday, because they might just spoil the identity of our fourth repechage team.

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    1. The Radio Times has not yet named any teams for the first repechage match, so it looks like we will not be getting any accidental spoilers yet.

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  3. You can add me to the list of people impressed with Downing's buzzing. Also of note is that there are now a whopping five Cambridge teams in the quarter-finals (anyone know of the top of their heads how unusual that is?).

    Based purely on the subjects being studied I was expecting good things from John's - it's something I've been meaning to blog about for a while, but I think that combination of subjects must be getting on for perfect for UC - at least on paper (although I'd probably take a physicist over a mathematician).

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    1. The second round, you mean. Five is quite a few, but not unheard of - but I suspect we shall be seeing some Cambridge-Cambridge matches in the next round!

      I'm not sure that subject composition is that informative. So much depends on what particular area of the subject they specialise in, what their other interests are, what their undergraduate degree was if they're a postgraduate, and so on. I'm a zoologist, but I ended up answering relatively few questions about biology, for example.

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    2. Oh sure, subject is unlikely to tell you *that* much, but I'd expect it to act as a vague proxy. For one thing you get a lot of subject-specific questions which are trivial to those studying certain degrees (medicine being one that covers a lot of bases) and even those with certain A levels (which are obviously associated with degree course). I'd also expect correlations between degrees and hobbies/mindsets; in my experience mathematicians/physicists will tend to be better at quick/lateral thinking questions but are less likely to be as widely read in, say, history and literature. Obviously it's not necessarily going to be a particularly *good* measure (and there will always be exceptions), but it's a fun thought experiment at the very least. I might go dredge up past champions' subjects to see where that goes.

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  4. Looking forward to seeing Bangor on next week. Here's hoping they build on our performance last year!

    The captain of this year's Bangor team was our reserve last year; & 2 of the other team members are good friends of mine, so I'm expecting grand things...

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