Chris Hall

Difficult questions this week!

65 on #UniversityChallenge Only 1 starter - Julian of Norwich, 11 bonuses - Carousel, Porgy and Bess, Billie Holiday, Pembroke, Monmouth, Caernarfon, Euston, Isle of Thanet, Fulham, Delius, Delafield

I went to the Kneehigh Theatre version of "Brief Encounter" that was the subject of the question, plus A level history came in useful for the Unification of Italy bonuses

155 on #UniversityChallenge - Starters (6) - Detective, Bonaparte, Collins, Romania, Hardy, organ. Bonus (19) - Turner, Woolf, Little Dorrit, picturesque,Chepstow,Unforgiven, Happy Valley, Cavour, Savoy, Papal States, Lille, Bismarck, Brief Encounter, Browning, Churchill, Heath, Major, Staffs, Salop

I was saved by the opera houses and musicals! Plus Lenin

115 on #UniversityChallenge 4 starters - St Peter, August, Ida, Denmark. 15 bonus - Edith, Otto I, Prague, Buenos Aires, Venice, Pip, Handel, Mango, Rousseau, Matilda, Sunday in the Park with George, Lenin, Ford Madox, Hans Christian and Asia

120 on #UniversityChallenge 5 starters - Glasgow, Greece, Caravaggio, Gleneagles, Diego Garcia, 14 bonus - Duke of Wellington, Waverley, Sisyphus, Fray Bentos, Gluteus, Great Expectations,Waterhouse,Poussin, Turner, Edward I, Saxon Shore,Agatha Christie,Albert Finney,Jodie Foster

(Contd) Ingrid Bergman, USSR, Australia, Denmark

165 on #UniversityChallenge 8 starters - Pakistan, coal, Benjamin Zephaniah, Beveridge, Macbeth, McCarthy, Botswana, Lincolnshire. 17 bonus - Shakespeare, Wheeler, Gone With The Wind, Howard's End, Martin Chuzzlewit, nuclear, solar, Thomas More, Morton, Horace Walpole. Mozart, signet, Woking....

Both fathers' names were omitted from the marriage register - I guess they didn't know their names as I have since discovered that both were children when their fathers died.

Yesterday (15th Oct) was the anniversary of the 1854 marriage of my great-great-grandparents William Martin & Esther Jane Standen in St Mary's Church, Rye, East Sussex. I don't know who Bathsheba Horne who signed the marriage register was - she sounds like a character from Thomas Hardy

110 on #UniversityChallenge - 5 starters - Seymour, Charlotte, Horror, Henry II, Lombardy. 12 bonus - Juniper, Salzburg/Verona, Australia, Southwell, Herefordshire, Durham, Austerlitz, Ypres, Praying mantis, red, Cote d'Azur, drumlin

115 on Monday's #UniversityChallenge 5 starters - 8.5, M-o-n, A Matter of Life & Death, Bourbon, La Scala. 13 bonuses - Ozymandias, Worcs, Vorticism, Elephant, Purcell, Master of the King's Music, Buxton, Mam Tor, Chatsworth, A Passage to India, To Catch a Thief, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Cornwall

I did get Modric and the Chairman Mao stuff I remembered from History O level!

125 on #UniversityChallenge 3 starters-Hull,Saxony,Walesa. 19 bonus-Modric,Shirley Temple,Aylesbury,Great Leap Forward,Cultural Revolution,Gang of 4,Touching the Void,Head of John the Baptist,Jezebel, Delilah,Cheshire Cat,Mahler,Goethe,Gray's Elegy,Tintern Abbey, Sondheim,Ruskin,Arts/Crafts,Grasmere

120 on #UniversityChallenge 5 starters - Wordsworth, Canterbury Cathedral, Cliff, Blithe, out out. 14 bonus - Dunkirk, Queens Club, Phillipe Chatrier, Arthur Ashe, Monet, Dickens, Jane Austen, Tom Jones, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Ritchie Valens, Rump, Aioli, Cabaret, Janus

It was bloody cold yesterday! I managed to grin and bear it

Can't believe they didn't get Granada right!

110 on #UniversityChallenge 6 starters - Arnolfini wedding, Rear Window, Carnation, Umbria, Abraham/Isaac, Norway. 10 bonus - Chirac, China/N Korea, Mongolia, aphid, Byron, Grieg, Lady Macbeth, Manila, Damascus, Biafra

Cueta/Ceuta was a bit unfair I thought

70 on #UniversityChallenge 2 starters Leonard Cohen and Thomas Telford, 10 bonus - Breakfast at Tiffany's, George Peppard, Givenchy, Braganza, Strauss, Smetana, barley, grass, Rossetti, 10th

I had do do a lap of the running track as punishment once. Plus at other times had my ears twisted and had the Slipper. 1970s

Having been a Children's Librarian came in handy for the Children's Laureate questions

150 on #UniversityChallenge 7 starter -Mustard,Saddam Hussain,spinnaker,Finnish,Ambassadors,Gothic,Shropshire. 16 bonus-Smeaton,London Midland Scottish,Hogarth,oystercatcher,Epsom Salts,vellum,sporran,Anne Fine,Frank Cottrell Boyce,Jacq Wilson,Bosch,Manet,Saudi Arabia,UAE,Ted Roosevelt,Russo-Jap war

95 on #UniversityChallenge 5 starters - total football, Mozambique, Babylon, Jamaica, Nova Scotia. 9 bonus -All Quiet on the Western Front, Athens, Paradise Lost, Rhine, Ruhr, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Canto, North East

Went to Appledore (Kent) Flower Festival - this year's theme was hobbies - such as painting, stargazing, tennis - some very clever displays

I just about managed 50%, terrible!

St John The Baptist, Barham, near Canterbury - interesting church with some attractive modern stained glass plus a war memorial featuring Lord Kitchener, who lived nearby at Broome Park

Walk round Barham near Canterbury this morning - along part of the Elham Valley Way and other paths

130 on #UniversityChallenge 7 starters - Van Gogh, Carnegie, Marconi, Isabella of Castille, Offa, lag, Ely. 12 bonus - George, Puritans, Huguenots, Mary Queen of Scots, Blake, Trig point, Paul McCartney and Wings, Farne Islands, Tees, Rennet, Verona, Taming of the Shrew