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

ooh thanks Number None

honestly, a solid week of besting my nearest and dearest at UC is my favourite part of Christmas

There's some OC specials coming up next week as well, featuring contestants of yore rather than zelebs.

hard to keep your dignity when your conferring is too high in the mix

or when your captain spends the entire episode rolling their eyes and mugging for the camera

Well yeah

anyway that question about "broadcast" was a fun fact I did not know

I actually got that one right!

That girl kind of looked like a less hot Roxy but omg he was so obnoxious.

*she*

question about Only Connect for ailsa.

where are the other team when you're doing your wall?

lol I got the Scooby doo one after 3

They're outside the studio in the reception bit, with locked doors and various TV peeps in the way. You do pass over the corridor when switching over though - I did an excellent psychological fake-out on the Three Peaks who were utterly convinced we were shite and they'd caught us up - you genuinely don't know until VCM reads the scores (unless you ask your opponents, I guess)

xpost

Interesting, thanks.

I was thinking, perhaps a bit too much about this. First two rounds you get a chance to score points if they drop the ball, the wall section you don't, and in the last section you don't either but they get penalised for a wrong answer (which is probably to stop them answering quickly but deliberately wrongly to stop the other team getting anything). It's like 3 different scoring mechanisms there.

(Does the studio have a dalek in reception?)

VCM is the perfect OC host. it would be so easy to fuck that role up, especially by being too knowing and above it all

She's incredibly lovely and professional irl. Also we could totally see her bra at one stage and weirdly the two straight girls in the team noticed and the straight bloke didn't. Quizzers, eh?

btw, I did not stand on Rob Kardashian's foot in a shop. That's my "fake quiz show anecdote" made up of two things that happened in close proximity to each other on the same day. I used the same anecdote on Fifteen to One but it was edited out. My actual good anecdote was ditched as well, so I spend the next n+1 (where n is a number greater than or equal to zero) episodes being described in appallingly dull terms.

Also, no dalek in reception, just a lovely woman called Nia. There is more than one TV studio in Cardiff.

My worst ever interview was for a BBC website job - there was a lifesize model dalek in the room, pointing its plunger at me for the whole interview.

Model?

(there's one in TVC, one in BH, two in the studios in Manchester, one and the dalek half of Davros at the archive. I assume Wales has a bunch because of the museum)

(Davros bottom is a bit of a mystery apparently because it's not real. They think it's a prop from some other show that did a spoof)

catching celebrity episode from last night and look its not my shtyle to notice but

jeremy vvvv quick to bark at brunel for time while the decidedly posher and whiter reading are being woejusly indulged

The only thing is that the edit means you can't really tell how it played out in real time but I wouldn't give that dick the benefit of the doubt

BRUCE DICKINSON <3

he seems hugely endearingly ADD

OC cupwinner's cup is barely entertaining - it's far too difficult for us mortals.

Ah, the missing vowels round is always a good pub closer

not that one! missing owls!

that's usually the round i do best on - i got all of them on monday, all before the teams (yeah, there's a delay). i got two tonight. (nght, and two of the cluedo things slower than the teams)

Weirdly I had a brilliant night tonight - five in R1 and R2 on the second clue and both complete walls before every missing vowels.

So, you up for a team next series?

(I'm not, hoo no)

I'm not nearly good/dedicated enough.

Do it. I genuinely can't recommend it highly enough.

fuck a sports theme, imo

Yeah, didn't enjoy that very much.

was waiting for the "bt tldr nds htt lcck" missing vowels clue. it never happened.

oh cmon that was totally gladys knight

the arsehole on the left seems to be an arsehole

I had one of those OC moments when you come up with a different but valid sequence in R2.

(The one where the substituted letters were Q-U-I-Z, they also substituted the first, then second etc letters so the fourth could have been COUNT>COURT.)

and i came up with a third, unless i misremember the letters switched in each instance were alphabetically sequential so my answer was a pair of four letter word where the last letter of the second was +1 of the first

but i couldn't think of one

PI>QI
BALL>BULL
can't remember the third

chop-> chip

oh well it was a good theory in real time

Pretend you've received a condescending VCM look to keep you warm.

'A jolly roger for Michael Portillo'? I'm going to need some help here.

i think it's a thing, innuendo aimed at portillo

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/24/call-me-anything-but-humourless-michael-portillo-only-connect

"It was mainly an excuse to mention Michael Portillo. My Only Connect persona – who is very like me, but just different enough to maintain sanity – is always talking about Michael Portillo. He’s perfect for her. Dark, enigmatic, faintly Spanish… Knowledgeable, quirky, with hints of a sexually adventurous past… I once ended a show by saying: “I’m going to hurry back to my dressing room where I hope to find Michael Portillo, sitting naked atop a crate of rioja, challenging me to wrestle him off.” (I was quite proud to get that past the censors.)"

i see. her sign off gags usually have a bizarro world feel to them, this explains if not excuses.

"I said Biggie Smalls"

Those high fives were grim also

I watched Only Connect before and one of the teams was called The Poptimists

OC cupwinner's cup is barely entertaining - it's far too difficult for us mortals.

This is how I feel about Champions League Popmaster as well. I've stopped listening to it. I never get a question right.

We did abysmally on OC last night. Our worst performance in ages.

i remember shouting answers at the tv last night, can't remember whether it was OC or UC.

i live alone, there is no reason to shout anything.

We did abysmally on OC last night.

Surely kbrady got Cadabra for 5? Privileges removed if he didn't get it at Backrub.