University Challenge (also featuring Only Connect and other BBC quiz shows)

Who's a pretty boy then?

^ just realised what a weird thing that is to say to a parrot, budgie, cockatoo, w/e

Parrots are the least attractive of all avians.

you don't say it to a parrot a parrot says it to you!

You have to say it to the parrot first tho

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110727-coslog-xiaotingia-9a.photoblog600.jpg

Silly

I knew someone who had a parrot who used to squawk "Say Hello", because everyone used to go up to it and shout "Say Hello!"

was watching some old QI the other night and they reckoned that parrots have never been observed imitating sounds or movements in the wild, its only a behaviour in captive birds. Sinister.

remember some prog with footage of some birds in the wild doing the sound of trees falling down and stuff and then after they'd been filming them for a while they would do the camera autofocus sound too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

aye that's right

scored 115 points
or 17 answers

though I can't tell you what the scientific alphabet equivalent of the words asparagus or bananas are.

that round was easy but unfair to the other team. took far too long stitching together the answers for 9 and 10 letter veg . if I was on the other team I'd be raging

Is this the thread where we say well done/commiserations to NV?

Come And Have A Go

That fruit/elements round was fucking infuriating. Genuinely never seen anyone get that long to confer before. Paxman chuckling away

^^^ terrible question

'awright'

Shut your face and get off the show, son, you don't say 'awright' to paxman

don't watch this but there's not a lot to choose between some 'student oik' and prissy fuckhead paxman

cute posh dr is killing it imo

oi mates some big brained bird is etc etc

that was a massacre, ffs, paxman should have stopped it in the fifth

i got so many right tonight, i should have kept count. perhaps my greatest performance.

Just catching up on this week's episode and I really want those smug fucks from UCL to be eliminated. Their endless, chortling conferring sessions are really, really annoying. They're getting one more chance thanks to whatever the hell the qualifying system is now though.

Hear hear

"GVIME"!

Seriously pissed off that I didn't get that one in time.

Also, Paxo gave Manchester way too many benefits of the doubt.

he has his favourites

On Challenge +1 you have just missed Zaphod Beeblebrox guy giving 'jizz' as an answer on a repeat of Pointless.

just caught the last seconds of that episode yesterday. I hate him so.

he's just this guy, y'know?

I've noticed they seem to have totally done away with the popular music questions on UC which is quite vexing. Hasn't been one in ages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxA0a5G6ccg

Jamie Karran @cee_eph

i can't believe i saluted at the end of that #universitychallenge i can see why people think i am a huge twat :P

^ Zaphod Beeblebrox dude on twitter. He seems quite alright, actually.

Manchester's captain is actively ruining the show for me now

wasn't paying attention tbh

It's the same deal as UCL. They have these jokey conferring sessions that last forever (which get worse the further ahead they get) and Paxman totally indulges them.

it's hard to judge how bad it is with quiz shows because those gaps are edited to suit the show pacing

it's his face too tbh

and his voice

I do sympathise w/ Jamie Karran, it's not that 'it's harder when you are up here' as most quizmasters say, but the temptation to get silly/daft can be huge...

he actually wasn't as bad compared to this dude. Still no pop music round as well

well, tbf, most of the time he had more of a clue than the two on his right. The older dude on his left just about paid his way too.

oh he knows his stuff, not denying that. No need to turn it into a performance though

I'm so glad to be back home and able to watch this again. Something very comforting about it. My version of UC is to guess the subject of each student before they're introduced - I'm getting shit hot at this. The girls are always English or Classics except for the really obviously Maths ones (I say this with love). Team captains are slightly "trendy" or at least far too confident compared to the others and usually studying Politics.
Despite not knowing 75%+ of the answers and being extremely impressed when the students do, I count it as a victory over all of them (like conkers) if I get ones they don't - which weirdly are often the only ones I know (they don't). E.g. dressmaking or Japanese food or popular music (if it's an opera one it's game over for me).

ha, that game is fun, yes. such pride when you boldly go all out guessing a very specific subject and get it right.

one time we were watching Mastermind and as the show started i remarked that it was weird someone hadn't done The Wire as a specialist subject yet. As they were announcing the contestants the camera settled on a youngish vaguely trendy type, before John Humphrys could say anything i announced in solemn tones: "The television series The Wire" only to be echoed seconds later by the man himself. I felt like a god.

haha!