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

Ya

smh on that Frankenstein starter

a child would watch a Hammer film on Channel 4

haha otm

already knew Will Hutton was a disgusting savage but he proved it on this last night

bruce dickinson and tony james have been on the last couple of xmas episodes. tony james didn't recognise 12xu by wire. fail...

Bruce Dickinson is a v cultured man and so expressive! Loved him kicking himself for failing to recognize Fine Young Cannibals.

bd knew nietzsche, even if he couldn't spell it*. the others just had blank looks even after he'd said it out loud.

* me neither

one of them tried to do bantz about it too, very bad form

Yeah, I couldn't spell Nietzsche out loud under any sort of pressure. But fair fucks to him for having a bash at it. Yesterday's lot were v poor. Iwan Thomas really would turn up to the opening of an envelope - I'm sure if he tries enough celeb guest spots on stuff he'll find something he's good at eventually (it's not dancing or cooking or surviving on an island or being on Countdown or quizzing).

I thought it was rather pathetic that no one knew who FYC were.

And that one whole team had never heard of Nietzsche.

And that Chiles thought the definition of 'Oxford comma' (as including the name of a city) led to the answer 'semi-colon'.

I've recorded them and just catching up. no-one's mentioned Lee Adama?!

yeah he was a surprise package

Punk songs when your team has him out of Generation X in it is a fucking gimme.

Still didn't guess Wire!

xpost he was really pretty good, more so than some of the stuffy old academics who seem to think anything outside of their comfort zone is entirely beneath them.

Katy Brand surprisingly good too (actually not that surprising if you've heard her on Infinite Monkey Cage)

The other thing I find a bit o_O is the number of people who graduated after me

Very chatty tonight.

0

This Newcastle team tho

The stop-start animation one, three.

JS Bach was none of the musics fyi

I know because I said it three times and all were wrong

Got two of the chapters of great manifestos tho

I got "Swan Lake" after 0.025 secs, like everyone else.

This utter cock

A friend just messaged me to say that

Ya but which....

Fucking Coco

Just checking

Urgent boy is urgent tho

The captain? He's quite annoying but I just assumed my class bigotry was showing

all 8 of them look like a panel out of Viz's Student Grant

He was also a pushy dick to his teammates and it would not be like me to imagine he was moreso to her

When Maloney gets one right, Howe sarcastically repeats his answer to Tindall.

I got all the file compression questions right. Just saying.

lz is something I associate with the Amiga, was never really popular on Windows (which favoured PKZIP) or Linux (gzip)

Can we talk about why the BBC moved Only Connect to the earlier slot?

I mean, OC is fine (I guess), but it's clearly the optional digestif not the first course

Victoria Coren is also fine (I guess) but her patter is reaching Kaufmanesque levels of punchlinelessness

I kind of enjoy that. I choose to see it as schtick rather than incompetence

it's very much a deliberate production choice

i agree it's wrong bumping UC tho, I'm not that fussed about watching OC nowadays

True - it often feels like a "how far can I push this" joke with herself. I don't mind it, but my partner hates it, I can feel her teeth gnashing every time Coren does a routine.

Oh yeah I mean you could see that

We're always watching OC on catchup anyway so I just fast forward past VC's ramblings. Can you imagine the smugbucket conversations she and Mitchell must have at home?

Find woodland painful

has my brain shrunk or have the questions gotten dead hard?

There were very few gimmes tonight imo

NB doesn't mean yr brain hasn't shrunk ianad

My scoring system is: 2 points for correct, double if you get it and nobody on the show does, and 1 point if you give the same wrong answer as a contestant.

This week, I scored one point (Purcell)

Ah now I'd have been up on double figures at least under yr system

I knew 100 points' worth of questions.

I liked the name Woodland.

Its a leveller, basically (xpost)

I was forced to take a two-term long module on Alice Walker at university, so I finally had some closure on that trauma tonight (although they were all very easy questions).

I liked Woodland, cosplaying as an early 90s indie nerd

Chemistry is bullshit and chemistry questions are bullshit

Lol at the Presbyterian getting mad excited at the old testament tho

Chemistry is bullshit and chemistry questions are bullshit

Here now.

Not like a politics student to have no general knowledge and no leadership skills