University Challenge

[Boilk]

Tonight's contest ended annoyingly with two classical music questions chopped off by the gong. We shall never know......

Incorrect Arcarp, you lose 5 points! Two of the three three opera questions were asked and responded to:

1st: Opera buffa / opera seria
2nd: Opera seria in Naples (Alessandro Scarlatti et al)
3rd: "Which German composer made a significant departure..." question was cut off by gong. Could the answer have been Handel or Gluck?

[ardcarp]

[Nick Armstrong]

When Cali posted this photo on a previous occasion I was not the only one to observe that just about everyone in the photo was smoking but that RVW appeared to be inserting his pipe into the wrong orifice.

Well worth another outing, Richard!

I'm ashamed that I didn't recall the RVW hearing aids (in this and the earlier photo)

[cloughie]

Well worth another outing, Richard!

I'm ashamed that I didn't recall the RVW hearing aids (in this and the earlier photo)

Perhaps he was just doing it for a Lark?

[Richard Tarleton]

Cracking contest last night - the first really exciting one this series, IMV. Captain Leo seemed out of sorts (and was being too clever by half in places - King Lear) - his team mate suitably embarrassed by suggesting Spring to be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness . Mr Iredale on the other team got the first four starters, they were on 80 to Teddy Hall's -5 for a while. Not a lot of classical music - brindisi, polka, fandango.......

A clean sweep of the pop music questions here - Tina Turner (the throbbing intro to River Deep recognisable from the first bar), Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Beach Boys, but then I am over 70 . Teddy Hall looked blank. How on earth were they supposed to know those?

Best wishes to Kerry - on the University Challenged site it says Sorry for the silence over here! Illness is keeping UniversityChallenged away for now. . Perhaps MrGG can pass on our good wishes?

[ardcarp]

I agree Leo got off to a slow start. I would just question one of JP's decisions. Towards the end he allowed Leo to get away with some hesitation before answering a starter. As he had, moments before warned him for the same 'offence' suggesting he wouldn't get away with it again, this seemed a bit 'partial'. Might this have affected the outcome? I have to say Bristol got off to a fine start. I was sorry for their captain who failed to consult on one occasion before answering.

I just dread pop music questions as I know narthing.

[LMcD]

Cracking contest last night - the first really exciting one this series, IMV. Captain Leo seemed out of sorts (and was being too clever by half in places - King Lear) - his team mate suitably embarrassed by suggesting Spring to be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness . Mr Iredale on the other team got the first four starters, they were on 80 to Teddy Hall's -5 for a while. Not a lot of classical music - brindisi, polka, fandango.......

A clean sweep of the pop music questions here - Tina Turner (the throbbing intro to River Deep recognisable from the first bar), Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Beach Boys, but then I am over 70 . Teddy Hall looked blank. How on earth were they supposed to know those?

Best wishes to Kerry - on the University Challenged site it says Sorry for the silence over here! Illness is keeping UniversityChallenged away for now. . Perhaps MrGG can pass on our good wishes?

I'm starting to get seriously irritated at Jeremy Paxman's failure to instil any discipline in certain contestants: pressing the buzzer and then continuing to ruminate out loud is tantamount to cheating in my book. Yes, I KNOW 'it's only a quiz', but it can't be right to indulge some contestants (e.g. those named after large cats) at the expense of others.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I agree Leo got off to a slow start. I would just question one of JP's decisions. Towards the end he allowed Leo to get away with some hesitation before answering a starter. As he had, moments before warned him for the same 'offence' suggesting he wouldn't get away with it again, this seemed a bit 'partial'. Might this have affected the outcome?

Yes - especially as he'd earlier been very strict with the rules when the Bristol captain had misheard the pronunciation of a correct answer one of her teammates had given her. (And his chummy "Teddy" when talking to the St Edmund team didn't communicate impartiality, either.)

[Richard Tarleton]

I just dread pop music questions as I know narthing.

For your benefit ardcarp (what were you doing in 1966?).

This video is entirely spurious, though there is the opportunity to see the delectable Ikettes - it was a studio recording, with lush orchestral strings to create Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, and in the film version of Tina Turner's life Ike is locked out of the studio.

[Nick Armstrong]

I would just question one of JP's decisions. Towards the end he allowed Leo to get away with some hesitation before answering a starter. As he had, moments before warned him for the same 'offence' suggesting he wouldn't get away with it again, this seemed a bit 'partial'. Might this have affected the outcome?

I just dread pop music questions as I know narthing.

Agreed about the 'let off' for the hesitant Oxford captain!

Also about the pop music...

Mind you I surprised myself the other week, getting The Buggles* - because I'd recently watched the Film Music doc on BBC Four, and had seen the clip of Hans Zimmer. I knew the Radiohead question too, but couldn't for the life of me remember Johnny Greenwood's surname

*I felt for the Durham contestant who said "The Bugles" - arguably he should have been allowed that, I thought, especially given some of the other laxity on view from Paxo

(what were you doing in 1966?).

Well translating that into the '70s, speaking personally I was listening to Shostakovich

[Richard Tarleton]

Well translating that into the '70s, speaking personally I was listening to Shostakovich

Well....the two not mutually exclusive - in the 60s I was discovering classical music, going to concerts & opera, and listening to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones....different compartments of my life.....some things so ubiquitous you had to try quite hard not to be aware of them....

[vinteuil]

... what were you doing in 1966?..

... bicycling the four miles to (and four miles back from) my piano lessons (Bartok and Bach); yearning for a harpsichord; listening to my father stumbling his way thro' Dowland lute pieces; going to Monteverdi recitals at the Bath Festival ...


( ... what did you expect? )

[cloughie]

Well....the two not mutually exclusive - in the 60s I was discovering classical music, going to concerts & opera, and listening to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones....different compartments of my life.....some things so ubiquitous you had to try quite hard not to be aware of them....

Like me Richard you were fortunate to have your formative music listening years in the 60s when for me there were no boundaries, genres if they had been invented didn’t matter, and the thirst for taking in everything that was around was the norm.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well....the two not mutually exclusive

Sorry, I was unclear - I meant only listening to Shostakovich!

[Richard Tarleton]

... bicycling the four miles to (and four miles back from) my piano lessons (Bartok and Bach); yearning for a harpsichord; listening to my father stumbling his way thro' Dowland lute pieces; going to Monteverdi recitals at the Bath Festival ...


( ... what did you expect? )

....I too stumbled through Dowland pieces on the guitar (played "Melancholy Galliard" at a master class to a famous guitarist, played The King of Denmark's Galliard to Osian Ellis), saw and heard Lina Lalandi and Eugen Dombois, August Wenzinger and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Julian Bream, etc. etc., I evidently just wasn't as exclusive in my tastes as you guys. And while learning classical guitar, being able to pick out the accompaniment to a Tom Paxton song did not of itself turn one into a babe magnet but having a party trick never did any harm. Cloughie -

Your starter for ten - which Tom Paxton song provided the title and leitmotif for an episode of Lewis?

PS I ceased to be any good at pub quizzes after the early eighties when I ceased to recognise any of the pop music.