Hi Cherryaders,
Just a quick note to say that our final University Challenge quarter final match is on BBC Two at 8pm tonight (March 1st) and for a week after on Iplayer. It's our very last chance to make it into the semi finals and we'll be facing the Edinburgh team who beat the excellent Jesus College Oxford in last Monday's nail-biting match so they are fearsome competition!
I will eventually get round to finishing my accounts of round 2's match against KCL and our first 2 quarter finals against St. Andrews Uni and St. John's College Oxford, promise!
Apologies for the total lack of activity on this blog recently, things have been very busy round here but still had time to fit in some great nights out at Under Achievers, brilliant gigs from Los Campesinos!, This Many Boyfriends, Lovely Eggs, Everybody's in the French Resistance Now, Town Bike and many others plus a spot of djing at the brilliant new Chorleton girlpop night, Cherry Coloured Pop, run by the brilliant Kev and Linda, it'll be on every two months at Abode Bar in Chorleton, you should definitely go! Also, rumours about Cafe Saki closing are innacurate (though since they were printed in the Manchester Evening News that's hardly surprising, yes, I'm still bitter!) which means that Under Achievers will be staying in its natural home and continuing to delight Manchester's most discerning indie kids on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month for the forseeable future, hooray!
Plans for this week: little UC party at Cherryade Towers tonight, Fuel quiz (as always!) tomorrow, Rose Melburg (legendary indiepop superstar, has been in more awesome bands than you could shake a prittstick at, Softies, Go Sailor, Tiger Trap) playing in Sheffield with some genuine home-grown legends, Plouf!, Then, Saturday March 6th sees the return of Manchester's newest and most exciting queer grrrl night, Pussywhipped, run by one of our favourite people in the world, the incredibly talented and incredibly nice Ste Mccabe, performances come from Cherryade's own Candy Panic Attack (a very rare visit from the London trio), Manchester's own Salty Lips and the marvellous Will and Rick who I can't wait to see as I've heard great things! Should be a great week!
Take care,
Love Rach Cherryade xx
Showing posts with label University Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University Challenge. Show all posts
Monday, 1 March 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
My thoughts on the Manchester Evening News article...
Hi Cherryaders!
Hope you all enjoyed Monday's super-tense UC match, St. Johns are a wonderful and genuinely friendly and likeable team and there was no shame in losing to them. We do get another chance to make the semi finals as we play an as yet undecided opponent on March 1st.
Those of you lucky enough not to have encountered me in the last couple of days will not have had to hear my (largely unprintable) thoughts on the article which appeared in Tuesday's Manchester Evening News and today's South Manchester Reporter but I wanted to state, on the record, that I do not endorse either the tone or content of this article, that I found the tone patronising, that the article ignored and misrepresented everything I told the journalist, that the article was pitched to us as being about the whole team and consequently we were all interviewed (though you wouldn't know it from reading it) but ultimately they had misled us as the eventual article was totally different and that the general standard of writing was appalling. Had I known that this was the type of article they were after I would certainly have refused to participate.
Ok, rant over, just wanted it to be clear where I stood!
I hate being grumpy but this has really annoyed me, sure I'll have forgotten about it soon though!
Take care,
Love Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Hope you all enjoyed Monday's super-tense UC match, St. Johns are a wonderful and genuinely friendly and likeable team and there was no shame in losing to them. We do get another chance to make the semi finals as we play an as yet undecided opponent on March 1st.
Those of you lucky enough not to have encountered me in the last couple of days will not have had to hear my (largely unprintable) thoughts on the article which appeared in Tuesday's Manchester Evening News and today's South Manchester Reporter but I wanted to state, on the record, that I do not endorse either the tone or content of this article, that I found the tone patronising, that the article ignored and misrepresented everything I told the journalist, that the article was pitched to us as being about the whole team and consequently we were all interviewed (though you wouldn't know it from reading it) but ultimately they had misled us as the eventual article was totally different and that the general standard of writing was appalling. Had I known that this was the type of article they were after I would certainly have refused to participate.
Ok, rant over, just wanted it to be clear where I stood!
I hate being grumpy but this has really annoyed me, sure I'll have forgotten about it soon though!
Take care,
Love Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Sunday, 31 January 2010
University Challenge second quarter final match
Hi Cherryaders, January has been a bit of a blur, which accounts for the lack of posts! PHD work has been taking up lots of timeas has the preparations for my first GTA work. I start teaching two classes of English lit under-graduates tomorrow, exciting but scary too! We've still had time for nights out, will write about that as well as accounts of our last two Uni Challenge matches as soon as I have time!
So, our next University Challenge match is on tomorrow. For those of you who missed it, we won our first quarter final against the excellent St. Andrews' team by a score of 195 to their 50. However, due to the change in the quarter final stage of the competition this year, we're not yet through to the semi finals as we have to win one more match.
So, please tune in tomorrow (Monday 1st February) to watch us take on the formidable St. Johns College Oxford (who beat Girton College Cambridge 280 to 55 in their first quarter final) at 8pm on BBC Two and for a week after on Iplayer.
If we win we're straight through to the final, if we lose we play one more quarter final match to try and get through.
Hope you can join us!
Take care,
Rach Cherryade xxxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
So, our next University Challenge match is on tomorrow. For those of you who missed it, we won our first quarter final against the excellent St. Andrews' team by a score of 195 to their 50. However, due to the change in the quarter final stage of the competition this year, we're not yet through to the semi finals as we have to win one more match.
So, please tune in tomorrow (Monday 1st February) to watch us take on the formidable St. Johns College Oxford (who beat Girton College Cambridge 280 to 55 in their first quarter final) at 8pm on BBC Two and for a week after on Iplayer.
If we win we're straight through to the final, if we lose we play one more quarter final match to try and get through.
Hope you can join us!
Take care,
Rach Cherryade xxxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Monday, 11 January 2010
University Challenge: quarter final match against St. Andrews
A little last minute I know but tonight sees our first quarter final match against the formidable St. Andrews team! It'll be on BBC Two at 8pm!
This year's University Challenge is going to be a bit different in that the quarter finals are operating on a best of three basis, which means, if we win tonight we'll still have to win another match to get through to the hallowed semi finals and if we lose then we still have another chance to get through, either way it means you'll see us on your screens at least twice more!
Hope you can tune in,
Love Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
This year's University Challenge is going to be a bit different in that the quarter finals are operating on a best of three basis, which means, if we win tonight we'll still have to win another match to get through to the hallowed semi finals and if we lose then we still have another chance to get through, either way it means you'll see us on your screens at least twice more!
Hope you can tune in,
Love Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Monday, 4 January 2010
Ghost of Christmas Past
Hi,
Well, I’d meant to post about Christmas sooner but have been really snowed under (no pun intended) with work when not immersed in the festivities. Anyway, I’ve just taken the big Christmas tree down which makes me sad (though the two little trees stay up all year round along with some of my favourite Christmas ornaments like the Christmas Disney Princesses, the Santa ice cream van, the Santa ornaments whose stomaches somewhat disturbingly open to reveal a Christmas scene, a small bucket of plastic candy canes and lollipops and some realistic plastic sweets I bought for the tree but which looked so good I put them in a bowl in the lounge and hoping Adam Cherryade doesn’t try to eat them!)
Anyway, now the decorations are gone it’s a good time to look back over Christmas.
Christmas was, as usual, a delight. Adam and I spent Christmas with my mum and dad in St. Annes. Christmas week was great fun. My parents had invited some of their friends round on Monday to watch our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London (we won by the way, will post about it soon!) which was surprisingly fun and, in contrast, we went to see the Chuckle Brothers in panto the next day which was lots of fun! Wednesday was spent trying to get all the Christmas food shopping done with my parents which was quite an experience, partly because my parents are the worst shoppers in the world and kept having embarrassingly loud debates about what to buy and my dad kept complaining to staff about everything and partly because strangers kept coming up to me and saying they’d seen me on University Challenge, which is a bit odd, it kept happening after the first time I was on too, didn’t realised so many people watched it! Anyway, we finally got everything for Christmas dinner and that evening Adam Cherryade arrived, he’d had to work until the 23rd but once he’d arrived we were all set up for Christmas which was going to be a nice quiet day with just the four of us. Unfortunately first we had to spend Christmas Eve doing the last of our shopping and delivering presents. Braving Blackpool town centre on Christmas Eve is not much fun. It’s mostly full of pound shops and shops full of things nobody would ever want so trying to buy presents was proving impossible, it’s much cheaper than Manchester but much less impressive, suffice to say Adam Cherryade was close to a nervous breakdown by the time we’d finished, got spotted by more people who’d seen UC too, starting to feel really famous but also incredibly embarrassed! Anyway, after the stress of shopping we had a nice time delivering presents to Aunty Elsie and then to my old friend Rebekah who was also back from Cheltenham to spend Christmas with her family. It was lovely to see her and catch up with her and her family were all there too which was nice. We eventually got home and spent a lovely restful evening watching some great tv.
Had a nice lie-in on Christmas Day before getting up and tackling the important act of present opening. Got some lovely presents this year, new dresses, cds, a DVD of a Muppets Christas Carol to replace my VHS copy, lots of Hello Kitty paraphanalia including plates, a little tin case, a make up bag and throw, a jammy dodger necklace, jam jar and slice of toast necklace, ice cream necklace and a big fruit flan hair clip and lots of other goodies! Adam and mum and dad seemed happy with their presents too, I’d got Adam some clothes and DVDs and we’d bought my mum a black sequined parka.
It was then time to ready ourselves for Christmas dinner, it was mostly ready, mum had cooked the turkey the day before so once we’d got the veg on the go and put the sausages wrapped in bacon in the oven it was pretty much done. We did the usual round of phone calls to family members abroad then watched the queen’s speech before dinner was finally dished up and we tucked in. It was delicious as usual but we were so stuffed after the main course that we only managed a bit of the Christmas pudding, what a shame! The rest of the afternoon was spent dozing in front of the tv before spending the evening dozing in front of the tv, a lovely quiet and peaceful new years day, perfect!
Boxing Day was considerably less peaceful as my uncle Steven and Aunty Jackie, my Aunty Joyce and my cousin Katie and her husband Steven all came to visit for the day, it was lovely to see them all as I haven’t seen them since Katie’s wedding in May.
Sunday was our last day in St. Annes. It had been lovely to spend some time with mum and dad as it’s very rare that we get the chance to go and spend any time with them. We headed back to Manchester to see Adam’s parents before they left for Scotland for new year. We spent a nice evening with them had dinner and exchanged more presents. Got some fantastic presents including a Hello Kitty glitter lamp, 3 Hello Kitty beanie toys, a set of Strawberry Shortcake glasses, a money box in the shape of a strawberry cream cake with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it, a money box in the shape of a slice of cake, a trinket box in the shape of a cupcake, a miniature cake stand with tiny cupcakes hainging from it, 2 mugs with cupcakes on, Disney Princess duvet set and a Barbie bath mat (notice a theme? They all fit in beautifully in Cherryade Towers)
Afterwards we finally returned to Cherryade Towers (laden down with bags!) It was so lovely to be back, I’d really missed it! The next few days were very quiet. Nobody was back yet so we put all our new things away and I got lots of work done. New year’s eve was brilliant. We’d been invited to a party at Chorlton where our friends Dave and Kirsty (from Manchester’s premier club night Under Achievers Please Try Harder) were djing, but then we got a text from Beck asking if we wanted to go round to theirs as they were having a party. We only intended to go round for a bit but had such a lovely time that we decided not to treck over to Chorlton in the freezing cold. It was lovely to see Beck and Gaz’s new house and to catch up with Vic and Soph and the all-night games of sing star were a lot of fun, was great to celebrate the new year with babycham, like the old days! Great way to see in the new decade!
New year’s day was very peaceful as was the rest of the weekend. Normal service has resumed now. Adam’s back at work, I’m busy with uni work and nights out resume this weekend, January is always a quiet month though. Sad Christmas is over but sure 2010 is going to be brilliant! Will do a little post about my highlights of 2010 soon!
Our first University Challenge quarter final match against the excellent St. Andrews team is on on Monday (11th Jan) on BBC Two at 8pm.
Happy new year everyone and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Well, I’d meant to post about Christmas sooner but have been really snowed under (no pun intended) with work when not immersed in the festivities. Anyway, I’ve just taken the big Christmas tree down which makes me sad (though the two little trees stay up all year round along with some of my favourite Christmas ornaments like the Christmas Disney Princesses, the Santa ice cream van, the Santa ornaments whose stomaches somewhat disturbingly open to reveal a Christmas scene, a small bucket of plastic candy canes and lollipops and some realistic plastic sweets I bought for the tree but which looked so good I put them in a bowl in the lounge and hoping Adam Cherryade doesn’t try to eat them!)
Anyway, now the decorations are gone it’s a good time to look back over Christmas.
Christmas was, as usual, a delight. Adam and I spent Christmas with my mum and dad in St. Annes. Christmas week was great fun. My parents had invited some of their friends round on Monday to watch our second round University Challenge match against Kings College London (we won by the way, will post about it soon!) which was surprisingly fun and, in contrast, we went to see the Chuckle Brothers in panto the next day which was lots of fun! Wednesday was spent trying to get all the Christmas food shopping done with my parents which was quite an experience, partly because my parents are the worst shoppers in the world and kept having embarrassingly loud debates about what to buy and my dad kept complaining to staff about everything and partly because strangers kept coming up to me and saying they’d seen me on University Challenge, which is a bit odd, it kept happening after the first time I was on too, didn’t realised so many people watched it! Anyway, we finally got everything for Christmas dinner and that evening Adam Cherryade arrived, he’d had to work until the 23rd but once he’d arrived we were all set up for Christmas which was going to be a nice quiet day with just the four of us. Unfortunately first we had to spend Christmas Eve doing the last of our shopping and delivering presents. Braving Blackpool town centre on Christmas Eve is not much fun. It’s mostly full of pound shops and shops full of things nobody would ever want so trying to buy presents was proving impossible, it’s much cheaper than Manchester but much less impressive, suffice to say Adam Cherryade was close to a nervous breakdown by the time we’d finished, got spotted by more people who’d seen UC too, starting to feel really famous but also incredibly embarrassed! Anyway, after the stress of shopping we had a nice time delivering presents to Aunty Elsie and then to my old friend Rebekah who was also back from Cheltenham to spend Christmas with her family. It was lovely to see her and catch up with her and her family were all there too which was nice. We eventually got home and spent a lovely restful evening watching some great tv.
Had a nice lie-in on Christmas Day before getting up and tackling the important act of present opening. Got some lovely presents this year, new dresses, cds, a DVD of a Muppets Christas Carol to replace my VHS copy, lots of Hello Kitty paraphanalia including plates, a little tin case, a make up bag and throw, a jammy dodger necklace, jam jar and slice of toast necklace, ice cream necklace and a big fruit flan hair clip and lots of other goodies! Adam and mum and dad seemed happy with their presents too, I’d got Adam some clothes and DVDs and we’d bought my mum a black sequined parka.
It was then time to ready ourselves for Christmas dinner, it was mostly ready, mum had cooked the turkey the day before so once we’d got the veg on the go and put the sausages wrapped in bacon in the oven it was pretty much done. We did the usual round of phone calls to family members abroad then watched the queen’s speech before dinner was finally dished up and we tucked in. It was delicious as usual but we were so stuffed after the main course that we only managed a bit of the Christmas pudding, what a shame! The rest of the afternoon was spent dozing in front of the tv before spending the evening dozing in front of the tv, a lovely quiet and peaceful new years day, perfect!
Boxing Day was considerably less peaceful as my uncle Steven and Aunty Jackie, my Aunty Joyce and my cousin Katie and her husband Steven all came to visit for the day, it was lovely to see them all as I haven’t seen them since Katie’s wedding in May.
Sunday was our last day in St. Annes. It had been lovely to spend some time with mum and dad as it’s very rare that we get the chance to go and spend any time with them. We headed back to Manchester to see Adam’s parents before they left for Scotland for new year. We spent a nice evening with them had dinner and exchanged more presents. Got some fantastic presents including a Hello Kitty glitter lamp, 3 Hello Kitty beanie toys, a set of Strawberry Shortcake glasses, a money box in the shape of a strawberry cream cake with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it, a money box in the shape of a slice of cake, a trinket box in the shape of a cupcake, a miniature cake stand with tiny cupcakes hainging from it, 2 mugs with cupcakes on, Disney Princess duvet set and a Barbie bath mat (notice a theme? They all fit in beautifully in Cherryade Towers)
Afterwards we finally returned to Cherryade Towers (laden down with bags!) It was so lovely to be back, I’d really missed it! The next few days were very quiet. Nobody was back yet so we put all our new things away and I got lots of work done. New year’s eve was brilliant. We’d been invited to a party at Chorlton where our friends Dave and Kirsty (from Manchester’s premier club night Under Achievers Please Try Harder) were djing, but then we got a text from Beck asking if we wanted to go round to theirs as they were having a party. We only intended to go round for a bit but had such a lovely time that we decided not to treck over to Chorlton in the freezing cold. It was lovely to see Beck and Gaz’s new house and to catch up with Vic and Soph and the all-night games of sing star were a lot of fun, was great to celebrate the new year with babycham, like the old days! Great way to see in the new decade!
New year’s day was very peaceful as was the rest of the weekend. Normal service has resumed now. Adam’s back at work, I’m busy with uni work and nights out resume this weekend, January is always a quiet month though. Sad Christmas is over but sure 2010 is going to be brilliant! Will do a little post about my highlights of 2010 soon!
Our first University Challenge quarter final match against the excellent St. Andrews team is on on Monday (11th Jan) on BBC Two at 8pm.
Happy new year everyone and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Rach Cherryade xx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Friday, 27 November 2009
University Challenge: Our first round match against RVC
I’ve been struggling to write about what happened in our first round match. A lot of the day was something of a blur, but thanks to re-watching the match and thanks to David Clarke from the excellent Life After Mastermind blog:
www.lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.com
who gave me some helpful advice about writing about quiz experiences, I have managed to cobble together a vague account of what happened.
So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
The day started like a military operation. Adam had taken the day off work to be able to attend the match. My dad was in such a nervous state that he drove up from Blackpool to be with us by 10am. My mum was on holiday in Portugal so it seemed sensible for him to come and spend the morning with us instead of fretting on his own at home! As I mentioned in my previous UC blog entry, it was partly because of my dad that I’d applied to be on the show in the first place, he was so excited that I was going to be on the show but he was also extremely nervous. So, I left Adam to look after dad while I went to have my hair and nails done. I wanted to make sure my hair was as bright as it could be for filming as if the pink has started to fade I’m sure my brain doesn’t work as well, the Samson effect I suppose, though I don’t think his hair was pink! Anyway, I needed all the help I could get!
Anyway, I left the hairdressers, went home and got changed in record time. I had planned my outfit carefully. Though the BBC obviously doesn’t allow product placement I cunningly managed to sneak the Cherryade logo in by wearing a dress and accessories covered in cherries!
Then we set off into town, picking up Anna on the way and, for once, arriving at Granada in time!
I waved goodbye to Adam, my dad and Anna as they went off to the audience door while we were ushered past security and into reception. From there we were taken to our dressing room and then given the much coveted lunch vouchers! Though having a dressing room was very nice, I have to say that we didn’t spend any time in there, just dumped our stuff and went off to explore the culinary delights of the Granada canteen where we all stretched our lunch vouchers to the limit (I kind of understand how politicians can get carried away with expenses now!) We sat eating our subsidised lunch while looking for celebrities to spot. We met Jeremy Paxman while we were queueing, he was a gent and let us have his tray. We also saw the actor who plays Norris in Coronation Street. I must say that I get on really well with my team, they’re great guys, and so we had a nice chat over lunch before being whisked off to make-up, where we were all dolled-up ready for the cameras. The make-up artists are amazing, really lovely ladies and it was so interesting discussing their job with them, I learned that as well as doing standard make-up for shows like UC they also do special effects make-up such as fake blood and bruises for soaps like Hollyoaks. She also told me they’re often given scripts in advance so they can pre-plan make-up based on the character’s personality and situation and the conditions of the scene being filmed. I had no idea how specialised and intense make-up artistry was.
Anyway, after that we went to the green room to relax and wait for our match. At this point we found out who we would be playing. UC matches are filmed in blocks of two, they ask the four teams in a block to arrive together, but as ours was to be the second match, we got to sit in the green room with our first round opponents, The Royal Veterinary College (a college of the University of London) and watched live footage of the match before ours, between Edinburgh and University of Central Lancashire, which was shown on the screen in the green room. The green room was lovely, lots of food and drink (tea before the match and alcohol after!) and was very relaxing. It was nice to be playing the second match as we got to relax, have a nice chat, fuel up on caffeine and get a look at what the filming process involves but from the comfort and privacy of the green room!
The match before ours was over far too soon though and the nerves set in as the production team came to take us to the studio for our match, the walk down the corridor was terrifying, I had butterflies for the first time. We hadn’t had time to talk to our opposition before the match so we were very nervous as this was the first time we met. UC is filmed in front of a studio audience and the set, albeit quite basic, suddenly seemed quite big. Each team were announced in turn by the warm-up man (who I recognised because of his 2-part BBC 7 series ‘Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf’ and from appearances at the Comedy Store but annoyingly I can’t remember his name) and we walked on from the wings to applause. I hadn’t expected this because we’re obviously not being filmed at this point but it did make it feel like an event! We got settled behind our desk and did all the preparatory house-keeping stuff like testing buzzers, having last-minute make-up adjustments, etc. Then there was some discussion about the fact that I’m much shorter than the rest of the team and that this was going to look a bit weird on tv so a runner was dispatched to find a cushion, eventually I was raised up to an adequate height and we were set. The team then had to explain that the picture rounds would work a bit differently due to my Braille cards which would have to be changed between picture rounds. Matches are usually recorded straight through, unless there’s a technical problem or disputed question or something, but to take away the first set of cards and replace them with those for the second picture round would require stopping filming for a moment but it was done very quickly and worked out well and I must thank the production team for being so helpful with this and making the picture rounds so accessible. Once this was done we were able to take stock of the fact that we were actually sat behind one of the hallowed desks with a buzzer in front of us and Jeremy Paxman sat behind his desk ready to grill us for 26 minutes under the bright studio lights while being watched by a studio audience, it didn’t seem real somehow, but it was and it was too late to turn back!
Before filming starts, there’s a ‘knock-about’ game where Roger Tilling (the inimitable voice of UC) asks a couple of starters and sets of bonuses to give the teams a chance to get familiar with buzzing in and conferring and talking into the mics, this only lasts 2 or 3 minutes and also gives teams the opportunity to practise their introductions, this is more difficult than it sounds as you have to decide how you’re going to introduce your course (do you say reading or studying and if, like me, you’re doing a PHD in DIY music since 1995 in the UK and USA, do you say that and risk the audience at home sputtering over the rubbish they let students study now’ or do you, as I did, choose to say something vague like “I’m studying for A PHD in English and American Studies. Then there’s the controversy over where you come from. I’ve lived in Manchester for three years now but some people who saw our first round match asked why I didn’t say I came from Blackpool where I grew up, despite the fact I haven’t lived there since I went off to uni in Lancaster in 2003. So I think I was right to claim Manchester as my home town!). Then, without further ado, we’re into the game.
The distinctive theme music starts playing, this is really it, we sit there terrified as the music stops, Roger Tilling welcomes the audience at home and introduces our host and the studio audience claps. We have a quick breather while Jeremy makes his usual urbane and witty introduction to the show and then to our opponents (they get introduced first so we have a little breather as the camera focuses on them, but I’m too nervous to concentrate on what Jeremy says until he introduces us with some kind comments. We manage to get through our introductions without anyone forgetting their name or course, and, without further ado (Jeremy actually says he’s not going to explain the rules because we must all know them by now!) we’re off. First starter is one of those ‘which word connects…’ questions, this one is asking after a five letter word that is an archaic word for a sailor’s turn at the helm, a feat of magic, the cards played in a single… at this point I find myself buzzing in,before I really knew what I was doing, then Roger Tilling is saying Manchester Neiman and I’m saying ‘trick’ and it’s right, I can’t quite believe it. My main worry was going home without having answered a single question correctly, this can’t possibly happen now, no matter what happens from now on, I am very relieved and settle back into my chair for a bonus round on inscriptions on £2 coins which requires very little knowledge of the coins themselves, just a working knowledge of a few well-known facts, we duly breeze through the bonuses with a clean sweep. Next question is on a German composer and is quickly picked up by our captain Jakob who knows it’s Wagner, good stuff! We then have an odd bonus round on spots, another clean sweep, Jakob and Nick recall Bowdler’s objection to the Macbeth quotation ‘out damned spot’, I remember that the spots on a John Dory were said to be the fingerprints of St. Peter and Nick and Jakob remember Hogarth’s use of beauty spots to denote lysentiousness. RVC get off the mark by identifying a vandergraff generator in the next question and getting a clean sweep on constellations to close the gap. Tom impresses by a lightning quick recognition of a cultural cringe and we are offered a very tasty bonus round on pairs of words formed with the addition of an s. These are some of my favourite kinds of bonuses as I love word play and can actually be of some help! So, we get our 15 points without much ado! With considerably more ado we turn our attention to the first picture round. I must say at this point that I held out no hope of being any use to my team on the picture round as my Braille reading is appalling (I only learned it when I was 18 and have never really used it properly cause I read everything off the computer) and it was going to take me half an hour to read the few words on the card! The picture round involved identifying a poem by the last words of each line of one stanza. Tom had a guess which seemed fair enough but all credit to RVC who, to Mr. Paxman’s great surprise, identified it as Tennyson’s work. Unfortunately they were unable to identify the authors of the three poems in the bonus round, it was very tricky though!
Next starter is about a biblical tribe, Jakob has a guess at Philistines it’s wrong and is passed to RVC, Tom Shaw buzzes in and correctly identifies the tribe in question as the Hittites. RVC are given a particularly nasty bonus round on famous people from Gibrolta and unfortunately fail to convert any of them. Here comes a starter on a surname, ‘Which surname connects a serial killer executed in 1953, a writer of mystery stories…’ I go for the buzzer, I know this, if I don’t get this I’ll never live it down, it’s one of my specialist subjects, ‘Manchester Neiman’ for some reason I say ‘is it Christie?’ but I’m sure it is. Agatha Christie is my favourite author, I am obsessed with her work, I was hoping for a question on one of her novels, something to showcase my Christie fandom but this name question will do! We’re rewarded with a horrible round on opera. I know nothing about opera, we’re all looking at Jakob, our classical music expert, he makes educated guesses (more than I could have managed, but unfortunately none are right, still, we’re doing ok. Nick and RVC’s Hannah bones both have a stab at identifying a Thomas, both are unfortunately wrong, Jeremy was looking for Thomas Walsingham so we’re offered a new starter. Both Rvc’s Sid Sudunagunter and I have a stab at the next starter asking after a book in the Old Testament, once again we’re both wrong, Judges was the answer. So, another starter, someone’s got to get this! Tom duly identifies the Italian word being looked for is ciao and we have a set of bonuses about Canadian history which don’t exactly suit us and we fail to add to our point score. So, halfway mark and both RVC and us are putting points on the board. The halfway mark is, as always, signified by the music round, oh goody, it’s classical music, I’ll sit this one out! Luckily Nick is able to identify an extract of Holst’s planets in what seems like an indecently short amount of time, very impressive! Hooray, our bonuses are other extracts from The Planets and our job is to name the planet in question. I don’t think any of us were that familiar with the suite but we made educated guesses based on the mood of the music and thus were able to identify two out of the three planets correctly.
A starter on literary husbands is looking for Thomas Hardy, Tom has a stab at Yeats though so another starter goes begging. On the next starter we’re back to the planets a question about what’s missing from a planetary nemonic. The answer is Pluto and Nick once again picks it up to give us a bonus round on Shakespeare’s problem plays, we get Troelus and Cressida but fail to identify the next two from their convoluted storylines, Jeremy quips that he can see why they’re called ‘problem plays’! Nick’s on the case again with the definition of the law of diminishing return and we polish off a nice set of bonuses on WWII for another 15 points. Tom knows that Kubla Khan is the answer to the next starter and we’ve got a set of bonuses on sound in diagnosis, we manage to get two of them right so not too bad! Oh dear, a science starter, I zone out, RVC’s Tom Shaw buzzes in and gives the answer ‘entrapy’, Jeremy asks him to repeat it, apparently it’s not right, Nick buzzes in with ‘enthalpy’ which is right. Apparently ‘entrapy’ and ‘enthalpy’ are different things, but as I have no idea what either is it all seems very clever to me! Unfortunately our transport related bonuses don’t cover us in glory and we get a round 0! Ah, here’s the second picture round. I turn over my card and start to read. But, hang on, something weird has happened, I have finished reading this Latin phrase, I know what it means and nobody has buzzed in yet, this shouldn’t be happening, I go for the buzzer and offer my answer ‘love conquers all’ and it is, hooray! Our bonuses are more Latin phrases (I knew that Latin GCSE would come in handy one day!) Nick and Jakob deal with the first phrase ‘an ornament and a shield’ while I’m still reading, the second card is taking me so long to read that I’m forced to wave the white flag and the rest of the team aren’t having more luck with it, the last phrase ‘caput inter nubila’ is pored over for a bit, some jokes about nubile’ are duly made then I realise what it means, ‘head in the clouds’, I’m so excited about this breakthrough that I embarrassed myself by sounding a bit over-enthusiastic, Jakob takes my answer and offers it to Jeremy, it’s right, I’m pleased!
It would be disingenuous not to admit that at this point we were pretty confident that we were going to win the game. There were only a few minutes left and we were quite far ahead but RVC were putting up a good fight and the next question is about the founding of a newspaper, Tom buzzes in with News of The World, unfortunately the answer is The Times which is identified by RVC Shaw earning them a difficult set of engineering bonuses, unfortunately they fail to convert any of them. The next starter, asking after an industrial port goes begging again. The next question about a liquid measurement is incorrectly answered by RVC Shaw before Jakob buzzes in and identifies it as a pint for quite a pleasant round of bonuses on comparing land areas of countries to Wales, France = lots of Waleses, 7 Rhode Islands would fit in Wales and you’d squeeze one and a half Wales into Belgium! RVC Shaw fights back by identifying the Bernese Alps but the team fail to identify any of the academy award winning films that make up their bonus round.
My most embarrassing moment of the match follows as I answer a question on Katie Melua thereby giving the (entirely eronious) impression that I might actually like bland rubbish like that (like listening to paint dry), I didn’t really need to buzz in, we’d won already at this point but pointlust got the better of me! Anyway, we got a question on peristalsis, which we got then our second bonus on something complicated and sciencey but the gong went before we could have a go at answering it. At the gong the score was 235/60 to us. Jeremy tells RVC that it’s not the worst score they’ve had and that they seemed to enjoy themselves. I’d like to pay tribute to RVC who were a better team than their score suggested and who were very good contestants indeed, we greatly enjoyed playing them!
I’d also like to say that I think the rest of my team are awesome, really great people who are a pleasure to spend hours at Granada Studios with as well as being a very clever bunch! Their knowledge of such a wide range of subjects is astounding.
We had our photos taken with Jeremy behind the desk then went back to the green room to celebrate our victory with BBC wine, lovely stuff! We had a lovely chat and then eventually went off home. I was actually djing in Leeds that night so didn’t get much of a rest! Still, it was an amazing day!
Our second round match against Kings College London is scheduled for broadcast on BBC Two at 8pm on Monday Dec 21st. I’ll post an account of that after it’s happened!
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.com
who gave me some helpful advice about writing about quiz experiences, I have managed to cobble together a vague account of what happened.
So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
The day started like a military operation. Adam had taken the day off work to be able to attend the match. My dad was in such a nervous state that he drove up from Blackpool to be with us by 10am. My mum was on holiday in Portugal so it seemed sensible for him to come and spend the morning with us instead of fretting on his own at home! As I mentioned in my previous UC blog entry, it was partly because of my dad that I’d applied to be on the show in the first place, he was so excited that I was going to be on the show but he was also extremely nervous. So, I left Adam to look after dad while I went to have my hair and nails done. I wanted to make sure my hair was as bright as it could be for filming as if the pink has started to fade I’m sure my brain doesn’t work as well, the Samson effect I suppose, though I don’t think his hair was pink! Anyway, I needed all the help I could get!
Anyway, I left the hairdressers, went home and got changed in record time. I had planned my outfit carefully. Though the BBC obviously doesn’t allow product placement I cunningly managed to sneak the Cherryade logo in by wearing a dress and accessories covered in cherries!
Then we set off into town, picking up Anna on the way and, for once, arriving at Granada in time!
I waved goodbye to Adam, my dad and Anna as they went off to the audience door while we were ushered past security and into reception. From there we were taken to our dressing room and then given the much coveted lunch vouchers! Though having a dressing room was very nice, I have to say that we didn’t spend any time in there, just dumped our stuff and went off to explore the culinary delights of the Granada canteen where we all stretched our lunch vouchers to the limit (I kind of understand how politicians can get carried away with expenses now!) We sat eating our subsidised lunch while looking for celebrities to spot. We met Jeremy Paxman while we were queueing, he was a gent and let us have his tray. We also saw the actor who plays Norris in Coronation Street. I must say that I get on really well with my team, they’re great guys, and so we had a nice chat over lunch before being whisked off to make-up, where we were all dolled-up ready for the cameras. The make-up artists are amazing, really lovely ladies and it was so interesting discussing their job with them, I learned that as well as doing standard make-up for shows like UC they also do special effects make-up such as fake blood and bruises for soaps like Hollyoaks. She also told me they’re often given scripts in advance so they can pre-plan make-up based on the character’s personality and situation and the conditions of the scene being filmed. I had no idea how specialised and intense make-up artistry was.
Anyway, after that we went to the green room to relax and wait for our match. At this point we found out who we would be playing. UC matches are filmed in blocks of two, they ask the four teams in a block to arrive together, but as ours was to be the second match, we got to sit in the green room with our first round opponents, The Royal Veterinary College (a college of the University of London) and watched live footage of the match before ours, between Edinburgh and University of Central Lancashire, which was shown on the screen in the green room. The green room was lovely, lots of food and drink (tea before the match and alcohol after!) and was very relaxing. It was nice to be playing the second match as we got to relax, have a nice chat, fuel up on caffeine and get a look at what the filming process involves but from the comfort and privacy of the green room!
The match before ours was over far too soon though and the nerves set in as the production team came to take us to the studio for our match, the walk down the corridor was terrifying, I had butterflies for the first time. We hadn’t had time to talk to our opposition before the match so we were very nervous as this was the first time we met. UC is filmed in front of a studio audience and the set, albeit quite basic, suddenly seemed quite big. Each team were announced in turn by the warm-up man (who I recognised because of his 2-part BBC 7 series ‘Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf’ and from appearances at the Comedy Store but annoyingly I can’t remember his name) and we walked on from the wings to applause. I hadn’t expected this because we’re obviously not being filmed at this point but it did make it feel like an event! We got settled behind our desk and did all the preparatory house-keeping stuff like testing buzzers, having last-minute make-up adjustments, etc. Then there was some discussion about the fact that I’m much shorter than the rest of the team and that this was going to look a bit weird on tv so a runner was dispatched to find a cushion, eventually I was raised up to an adequate height and we were set. The team then had to explain that the picture rounds would work a bit differently due to my Braille cards which would have to be changed between picture rounds. Matches are usually recorded straight through, unless there’s a technical problem or disputed question or something, but to take away the first set of cards and replace them with those for the second picture round would require stopping filming for a moment but it was done very quickly and worked out well and I must thank the production team for being so helpful with this and making the picture rounds so accessible. Once this was done we were able to take stock of the fact that we were actually sat behind one of the hallowed desks with a buzzer in front of us and Jeremy Paxman sat behind his desk ready to grill us for 26 minutes under the bright studio lights while being watched by a studio audience, it didn’t seem real somehow, but it was and it was too late to turn back!
Before filming starts, there’s a ‘knock-about’ game where Roger Tilling (the inimitable voice of UC) asks a couple of starters and sets of bonuses to give the teams a chance to get familiar with buzzing in and conferring and talking into the mics, this only lasts 2 or 3 minutes and also gives teams the opportunity to practise their introductions, this is more difficult than it sounds as you have to decide how you’re going to introduce your course (do you say reading or studying and if, like me, you’re doing a PHD in DIY music since 1995 in the UK and USA, do you say that and risk the audience at home sputtering over the rubbish they let students study now’ or do you, as I did, choose to say something vague like “I’m studying for A PHD in English and American Studies. Then there’s the controversy over where you come from. I’ve lived in Manchester for three years now but some people who saw our first round match asked why I didn’t say I came from Blackpool where I grew up, despite the fact I haven’t lived there since I went off to uni in Lancaster in 2003. So I think I was right to claim Manchester as my home town!). Then, without further ado, we’re into the game.
The distinctive theme music starts playing, this is really it, we sit there terrified as the music stops, Roger Tilling welcomes the audience at home and introduces our host and the studio audience claps. We have a quick breather while Jeremy makes his usual urbane and witty introduction to the show and then to our opponents (they get introduced first so we have a little breather as the camera focuses on them, but I’m too nervous to concentrate on what Jeremy says until he introduces us with some kind comments. We manage to get through our introductions without anyone forgetting their name or course, and, without further ado (Jeremy actually says he’s not going to explain the rules because we must all know them by now!) we’re off. First starter is one of those ‘which word connects…’ questions, this one is asking after a five letter word that is an archaic word for a sailor’s turn at the helm, a feat of magic, the cards played in a single… at this point I find myself buzzing in,before I really knew what I was doing, then Roger Tilling is saying Manchester Neiman and I’m saying ‘trick’ and it’s right, I can’t quite believe it. My main worry was going home without having answered a single question correctly, this can’t possibly happen now, no matter what happens from now on, I am very relieved and settle back into my chair for a bonus round on inscriptions on £2 coins which requires very little knowledge of the coins themselves, just a working knowledge of a few well-known facts, we duly breeze through the bonuses with a clean sweep. Next question is on a German composer and is quickly picked up by our captain Jakob who knows it’s Wagner, good stuff! We then have an odd bonus round on spots, another clean sweep, Jakob and Nick recall Bowdler’s objection to the Macbeth quotation ‘out damned spot’, I remember that the spots on a John Dory were said to be the fingerprints of St. Peter and Nick and Jakob remember Hogarth’s use of beauty spots to denote lysentiousness. RVC get off the mark by identifying a vandergraff generator in the next question and getting a clean sweep on constellations to close the gap. Tom impresses by a lightning quick recognition of a cultural cringe and we are offered a very tasty bonus round on pairs of words formed with the addition of an s. These are some of my favourite kinds of bonuses as I love word play and can actually be of some help! So, we get our 15 points without much ado! With considerably more ado we turn our attention to the first picture round. I must say at this point that I held out no hope of being any use to my team on the picture round as my Braille reading is appalling (I only learned it when I was 18 and have never really used it properly cause I read everything off the computer) and it was going to take me half an hour to read the few words on the card! The picture round involved identifying a poem by the last words of each line of one stanza. Tom had a guess which seemed fair enough but all credit to RVC who, to Mr. Paxman’s great surprise, identified it as Tennyson’s work. Unfortunately they were unable to identify the authors of the three poems in the bonus round, it was very tricky though!
Next starter is about a biblical tribe, Jakob has a guess at Philistines it’s wrong and is passed to RVC, Tom Shaw buzzes in and correctly identifies the tribe in question as the Hittites. RVC are given a particularly nasty bonus round on famous people from Gibrolta and unfortunately fail to convert any of them. Here comes a starter on a surname, ‘Which surname connects a serial killer executed in 1953, a writer of mystery stories…’ I go for the buzzer, I know this, if I don’t get this I’ll never live it down, it’s one of my specialist subjects, ‘Manchester Neiman’ for some reason I say ‘is it Christie?’ but I’m sure it is. Agatha Christie is my favourite author, I am obsessed with her work, I was hoping for a question on one of her novels, something to showcase my Christie fandom but this name question will do! We’re rewarded with a horrible round on opera. I know nothing about opera, we’re all looking at Jakob, our classical music expert, he makes educated guesses (more than I could have managed, but unfortunately none are right, still, we’re doing ok. Nick and RVC’s Hannah bones both have a stab at identifying a Thomas, both are unfortunately wrong, Jeremy was looking for Thomas Walsingham so we’re offered a new starter. Both Rvc’s Sid Sudunagunter and I have a stab at the next starter asking after a book in the Old Testament, once again we’re both wrong, Judges was the answer. So, another starter, someone’s got to get this! Tom duly identifies the Italian word being looked for is ciao and we have a set of bonuses about Canadian history which don’t exactly suit us and we fail to add to our point score. So, halfway mark and both RVC and us are putting points on the board. The halfway mark is, as always, signified by the music round, oh goody, it’s classical music, I’ll sit this one out! Luckily Nick is able to identify an extract of Holst’s planets in what seems like an indecently short amount of time, very impressive! Hooray, our bonuses are other extracts from The Planets and our job is to name the planet in question. I don’t think any of us were that familiar with the suite but we made educated guesses based on the mood of the music and thus were able to identify two out of the three planets correctly.
A starter on literary husbands is looking for Thomas Hardy, Tom has a stab at Yeats though so another starter goes begging. On the next starter we’re back to the planets a question about what’s missing from a planetary nemonic. The answer is Pluto and Nick once again picks it up to give us a bonus round on Shakespeare’s problem plays, we get Troelus and Cressida but fail to identify the next two from their convoluted storylines, Jeremy quips that he can see why they’re called ‘problem plays’! Nick’s on the case again with the definition of the law of diminishing return and we polish off a nice set of bonuses on WWII for another 15 points. Tom knows that Kubla Khan is the answer to the next starter and we’ve got a set of bonuses on sound in diagnosis, we manage to get two of them right so not too bad! Oh dear, a science starter, I zone out, RVC’s Tom Shaw buzzes in and gives the answer ‘entrapy’, Jeremy asks him to repeat it, apparently it’s not right, Nick buzzes in with ‘enthalpy’ which is right. Apparently ‘entrapy’ and ‘enthalpy’ are different things, but as I have no idea what either is it all seems very clever to me! Unfortunately our transport related bonuses don’t cover us in glory and we get a round 0! Ah, here’s the second picture round. I turn over my card and start to read. But, hang on, something weird has happened, I have finished reading this Latin phrase, I know what it means and nobody has buzzed in yet, this shouldn’t be happening, I go for the buzzer and offer my answer ‘love conquers all’ and it is, hooray! Our bonuses are more Latin phrases (I knew that Latin GCSE would come in handy one day!) Nick and Jakob deal with the first phrase ‘an ornament and a shield’ while I’m still reading, the second card is taking me so long to read that I’m forced to wave the white flag and the rest of the team aren’t having more luck with it, the last phrase ‘caput inter nubila’ is pored over for a bit, some jokes about nubile’ are duly made then I realise what it means, ‘head in the clouds’, I’m so excited about this breakthrough that I embarrassed myself by sounding a bit over-enthusiastic, Jakob takes my answer and offers it to Jeremy, it’s right, I’m pleased!
It would be disingenuous not to admit that at this point we were pretty confident that we were going to win the game. There were only a few minutes left and we were quite far ahead but RVC were putting up a good fight and the next question is about the founding of a newspaper, Tom buzzes in with News of The World, unfortunately the answer is The Times which is identified by RVC Shaw earning them a difficult set of engineering bonuses, unfortunately they fail to convert any of them. The next starter, asking after an industrial port goes begging again. The next question about a liquid measurement is incorrectly answered by RVC Shaw before Jakob buzzes in and identifies it as a pint for quite a pleasant round of bonuses on comparing land areas of countries to Wales, France = lots of Waleses, 7 Rhode Islands would fit in Wales and you’d squeeze one and a half Wales into Belgium! RVC Shaw fights back by identifying the Bernese Alps but the team fail to identify any of the academy award winning films that make up their bonus round.
My most embarrassing moment of the match follows as I answer a question on Katie Melua thereby giving the (entirely eronious) impression that I might actually like bland rubbish like that (like listening to paint dry), I didn’t really need to buzz in, we’d won already at this point but pointlust got the better of me! Anyway, we got a question on peristalsis, which we got then our second bonus on something complicated and sciencey but the gong went before we could have a go at answering it. At the gong the score was 235/60 to us. Jeremy tells RVC that it’s not the worst score they’ve had and that they seemed to enjoy themselves. I’d like to pay tribute to RVC who were a better team than their score suggested and who were very good contestants indeed, we greatly enjoyed playing them!
I’d also like to say that I think the rest of my team are awesome, really great people who are a pleasure to spend hours at Granada Studios with as well as being a very clever bunch! Their knowledge of such a wide range of subjects is astounding.
We had our photos taken with Jeremy behind the desk then went back to the green room to celebrate our victory with BBC wine, lovely stuff! We had a lovely chat and then eventually went off home. I was actually djing in Leeds that night so didn’t get much of a rest! Still, it was an amazing day!
Our second round match against Kings College London is scheduled for broadcast on BBC Two at 8pm on Monday Dec 21st. I’ll post an account of that after it’s happened!
Rach Cherryade xxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
Saturday, 24 October 2009
University Challenge 2009-2010 - Making the Manchester team
I know that everyone who knows me is probably bored to death of University Challenge talk by now, but since we recorded our first round match in June and it was broadcast on July 13th and our second round match isn’t being shown till Monday 21st December I’m afraid you’ll all have to put up with this a bit longer!
Anyway, it’s been such an exciting (and slightly surreal) experience that I thought I should maybe document it for posterity.
So, here’s the story of how I ended up on the team and how we prepared for our first match, the next exciting instalment will describe what happened when we faced London’s Royal Veterinary College in our round 1 match, Hope the excitement doesn’t get too much!
To begin with, I love quizzes and useless trivia, I will watch pretty much any tv quiz and am a pub quiz regular, team Cherryade (Grant ‘Handsome Devil’ Curnow, Anna Smith, Adam Cherryade Wiseman and I, attend the Fuel Café quiz (probably the best quiz and quiz master in Manchester!) every Tuesday evening with varying degrees of success! I got into the habit of watching University Challenge as a kid because my dad was always a big fan and we used to watch it together and see who could get most questions right.
When I heard that my uni (Manchester) were holding auditions for the UC team for the 2009-2010 series, I knew I had to go along and give it a go, both because it’s the ultimate quiz and because I knew my dad would be absolutely delighted if I ended up on the team.
So, I went along to the first stage of the selection process, which involved answering 100 questions in a written test with the top 12 scorers returning later the same day for a round of buzzer questions. I should explain that the Manchester selection process is run by Stephen who has been putting the Manchester team together (with great success) for some years now. He collated the scores of the buzzer game and put together a team based on the top scores and on the subject areas covered and invited the top5 back to become the 2009-2010 team and reserve, and, to my amazement, I was invited to join the team along with fellow team mates Tom Whyman, Nick Daunt, our captain Jakob Whitfield and our reserve Jonathan Davy, a truly excellent team and me, ah well…
Once we’d been chosen to be on the team we had the opportunity to play a few practise matches against contestants from previous Manchester teams which was amazingly helpful on getting used to answering quickly and taking risks by buzzing early, plus to get the chance to practise against such distinguished quiz experts, including the unstoppable Henry from last year’s UC Manchester team and, more recently, along with our coach Stephen as part of a formidable team on TV’s most difficult quiz, Only Connect.
The four of us didn’t really know each other before being on the team, though it turned out to be something of a miracle that Tom and I had never met properly as we’re both quite involved in the local music scene and thus know loads of the same people. Anyway, I think we gelled pretty quickly as a team, we soon learned about each other’s quiz strengths and weaknesses, for example, not to ask me anything about science, maths or classical music but to bow to my superior knowledge of Agatha Christie or anything really trivial, essentially, my specialist subject was the kind of questions that Jeremy Paxman sneers at when he has to ask them! Still, somebody has to know that stuff! Oh, and I quite like word games, but not opera, definitely not opera!
To be honest, I really didn’t have time to get nervous about filming our first round match beforehand. I was very absorbed in a chapter of my PHD which was proving very exciting (though also time-consuming) and as soon as that was done we hopped in the Cherryademobile and went off for a blissful week on a Cherryade tour with two of the very best bands in the whole world, The Lovely Eggs
www.myspace.com/thelovelyeggs
and Hotpants Romance
www.myspace.com/hotpantsromance
(I’ll write something about this tour one day) from which we only returned a few days before filming.
Find out what happened when we met The Royal Veterinary College in round 1 in the next exciting instalment…
Rach Cherryade xxxxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
Anyway, it’s been such an exciting (and slightly surreal) experience that I thought I should maybe document it for posterity.
So, here’s the story of how I ended up on the team and how we prepared for our first match, the next exciting instalment will describe what happened when we faced London’s Royal Veterinary College in our round 1 match, Hope the excitement doesn’t get too much!
To begin with, I love quizzes and useless trivia, I will watch pretty much any tv quiz and am a pub quiz regular, team Cherryade (Grant ‘Handsome Devil’ Curnow, Anna Smith, Adam Cherryade Wiseman and I, attend the Fuel Café quiz (probably the best quiz and quiz master in Manchester!) every Tuesday evening with varying degrees of success! I got into the habit of watching University Challenge as a kid because my dad was always a big fan and we used to watch it together and see who could get most questions right.
When I heard that my uni (Manchester) were holding auditions for the UC team for the 2009-2010 series, I knew I had to go along and give it a go, both because it’s the ultimate quiz and because I knew my dad would be absolutely delighted if I ended up on the team.
So, I went along to the first stage of the selection process, which involved answering 100 questions in a written test with the top 12 scorers returning later the same day for a round of buzzer questions. I should explain that the Manchester selection process is run by Stephen who has been putting the Manchester team together (with great success) for some years now. He collated the scores of the buzzer game and put together a team based on the top scores and on the subject areas covered and invited the top5 back to become the 2009-2010 team and reserve, and, to my amazement, I was invited to join the team along with fellow team mates Tom Whyman, Nick Daunt, our captain Jakob Whitfield and our reserve Jonathan Davy, a truly excellent team and me, ah well…
Once we’d been chosen to be on the team we had the opportunity to play a few practise matches against contestants from previous Manchester teams which was amazingly helpful on getting used to answering quickly and taking risks by buzzing early, plus to get the chance to practise against such distinguished quiz experts, including the unstoppable Henry from last year’s UC Manchester team and, more recently, along with our coach Stephen as part of a formidable team on TV’s most difficult quiz, Only Connect.
The four of us didn’t really know each other before being on the team, though it turned out to be something of a miracle that Tom and I had never met properly as we’re both quite involved in the local music scene and thus know loads of the same people. Anyway, I think we gelled pretty quickly as a team, we soon learned about each other’s quiz strengths and weaknesses, for example, not to ask me anything about science, maths or classical music but to bow to my superior knowledge of Agatha Christie or anything really trivial, essentially, my specialist subject was the kind of questions that Jeremy Paxman sneers at when he has to ask them! Still, somebody has to know that stuff! Oh, and I quite like word games, but not opera, definitely not opera!
To be honest, I really didn’t have time to get nervous about filming our first round match beforehand. I was very absorbed in a chapter of my PHD which was proving very exciting (though also time-consuming) and as soon as that was done we hopped in the Cherryademobile and went off for a blissful week on a Cherryade tour with two of the very best bands in the whole world, The Lovely Eggs
www.myspace.com/thelovelyeggs
and Hotpants Romance
www.myspace.com/hotpantsromance
(I’ll write something about this tour one day) from which we only returned a few days before filming.
Find out what happened when we met The Royal Veterinary College in round 1 in the next exciting instalment…
Rach Cherryade xxxxx
www.cherryademusic.co.uk
www.dandelionradio.com
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