University Challenge

[Nick Armstrong]

Hmmm, did Paxo say "Central European" to throw them off the scent? "Polish" would have been too easy, though isn't Poland more, er, Eastern Europe? It was about the only barcarolle left!

I'm not sure how much more of the timewasting, dithering and gurning I can take - someone should really have had a word. UC less enjoyable this season.

Yes, I wondered in passing, too... Interesting that they got the Fauré but failed to recognise the Chopin.

I was the opposite ... Kicked myself for not getting Fauré.

And last night, I became aware that they have been increasingly letting the microphones pick up the deliberations - it was even more glaring last night than ever before, sound levels the same for all 4 contestants as when they are actually answering questions. I think they've realised that certain team members' 'workings' are supposedly as interesting to viewers as the answers - that funny little fellow Oscar (first time I've heard Paxo call a contestant by their first name) has acquired quite a public 'profile' for his stream of consciousness 'workings' and his gurning (as well as his alarming levels of knowledge).... His neighbour, the ice-cool Woods, an amusingly total contrast - she'd make a good Bond villainess....

[Richard Tarleton]

Perhaps he'd read the comments here and was playing it up.

It was recorded long before it went out....But I'd have thought the series producers might have advised on timewasting, at the time.....

[jean]

Central Europe, I'd have said; Eastern Europe's surely Belarus / Ukraine / Moldova / Georgia / Armenia / Azerbaijan / Turkey &c.?

Didn't we stop talking about Central Europe altogether when the Cold War divided everything into East and West?

[french frank]

Didn't we stop talking about Central Europe altogether when the Cold War divided everything into East and West?

I'm not sure that that's so. This is what I've always understood (more or less, give or take) to be Central Europe:

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm not sure that that's so. This is what I've always understood (more or less, give or take) to be Central Europe:

Well Gerald Gorman's "Birding in Eastern Europe" includes Poland

Last night Fauré was "this French composer" while Chopin was "this Central European composer". Calling him "this Polish composer" in the context of the question would have been more or less to give the answer.

[jean]

It was VSO's East European Partnership that sent me to Poland.

[french frank]

I have always thought of Austria as being 'quintessentially' Central Europe, and I suppose many of the old 'eastern European' states have been dragged into the centre as they attached themselves to the western countries, in particular 'Czechoslovakia', as was. Eastern European still has the ring of 'Soviet bloc', doesn't it?

[jean]

Yes, I think so - that's why I said it was the Cold War that made us think in terms of East and West.

[french frank]

Yes, I think so - that's why I said it was the Cold War that made us think in terms of East and West.

Indeed, but I think we may have started thinking of Central Europe again. The last few times I travelled in those parts, the term 'Central Europe' seemed to crop up quite often. I think that I've stopped saying Eastern Europe now. I don't know how I would refer to the current Russian satellite states.

[vinteuil]

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteleuropa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe

[french frank]

I rather like the 'strategic awakening' of Central Europe and of Eastern Europe 'recently becoming more and more imprecise'. 'Twas my feeling, M. Vinteuil.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... Kicked myself for not getting Fauré.

And last night, I became aware that they have been increasingly letting the microphones pick up the deliberations

Yes - I confess that the Fauré had me stumped for a moment until I heard someone whisper his name during the deliberations: an "Of course!" moment.

I was waiting to see if they offered this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkKZm2BMsGM

[ahinton]

Didn't we stop talking about Central Europe altogether when the Cold War divided everything into East and West?

I don't see either that this is the case or tht it would need to be so; for me, "western", "central" and "eastern" Europe are no more than indicators of the whereabouts of certain European nations - nothing to do with the Cold War or other political divisiveness factors. In that, it's no different from talking about Norway and Finland as being in "northern Europe" and Malta, Turkeyand Italy as being in "southern Europe".

[vinteuil]

Didn't we stop talking about Central Europe altogether when the Cold War divided everything into East and West?

... I think that is so. In the 1970s and 1980s where I worked there was a firm division between the West Europe Department and the East Europe and North Asia Department, the latter requiring greater security on phone traffic etc. No-one referred to such a thing as 'Central Europe'.

[ahinton]

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteleuropa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe

The important aspect of the last of these is the vagueness and differences of viewpoint about how far Europe stretches eastwards and which eastern nations it embraces. For me, those that once belonged to Soviet Russia are a part of Eastern Europe just as is a large but as yet undefined and perhaps undefinable portion of western Russia; this includes the "stans".

That said, the notion of including Turkey in a definition of southern or south eastern Europe begs the question about the Middle Eastern states from Lebanon eastwards to Kazakhstan in the north and Afghanistan to the south; if Syria finally collapses altogether, Iraq follows suit and so-called IS is wiped out (a lot of ifs, admittedly), that question might then possibly come also to extend to Israel, Palestine and those north African states with a Mediterranean border because, even though the last of these are effectively on the African continent on terms of land mass, the Sahara represents a far larger "dividing line" than the Mediterranean, Caspian or Black Seas - and let's not forget that Morocco's desire to join EU could as easily come to be shared by the other states to its east. Subject to a number of admittedly substantial political uncertainties, it could well be that, given time, Europe might come to be widely regarded as a continent comprising more than 70 nation states; the Council of Europe already covers 47 and rising.

However unlikely some of this might seem from a current standpoint, Israelis in particular have emigrated to many parts of the world over a long period of time, British and other western European involvement in some of the Middle Eastern states will have left and continue to leave some kind of European legacy there, the European Russian influence on the "stans" that once belonged to the Soviet bloc will not all have evaporated since the collapse of the Soviet Union and so on.

Yes, of course, there will be an even greater raft of differences - political, cultural, economic, &c. throughout such an enlarged Europe and it would take two or three generations to establish such an enlarged Europe in any generally meaningful way but, if it were to come to this, it would have at least the overall geographical size and population statistics eventually to entitle it to be taken seriously alongside Russia, China, India, US et al.