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

What was so awful about having Seagull as your quizmaster, Ailsa?
I recently rejoined the Oxfordshire league after a gap of some 13 years and regularly play Darragh "the Menace" Ennis from the Chase!

I'm genuinely surprised about ailsa repping for Colin Murray over Les Dennis!

Les Dennis is a dickhead, and has always been a dickhead. When he moved to Primrose Hill BITD he sent out a round robin to the neighbours asking them to respect him and Amanda Holden’s privacy.

Now, imagine you’re a properly rich and famous person living there and… that lands on the mat in the hall.

Yeah but Colin Murray

i've heard Bobbington Livingstone Seagull do documentary voiceovers on Radio 4, he's a charmless cock

Colin Murray is an actively anti-charm cock but hey what a world we all hear stuff different

is Colin murray the guy in thinking of? 6 music show sometimes, does the non-premier League football?

(yes. it doesn't mention radio 6 but I think he must've stood in for someone along the way. and he's been doing countdown as a stand in. still, can't see it myself, seems too young)

Fighting Talk is so grim I cannot believe anyone can endure that program, yet there is always so much laughter in it. But hey ho at least the usual participants and Colin Murray are enjoying themselves.

Bobby Seagull is bad at reading, his diction and pronunciation are terrible.

Mark, some of my friends are Darragh's team-mates, so I shall mention that I know you next time I see them.

All I mean about Colin Murray is that he clearly loves the show and has actively stood in whenever it has been required, and then shunted out of the way when a replacement has been sought, in exactly the same way Samira Ahmed appears to have been treated by UC.

I was listening to Paul Sinha on a podcast this morning, and thinking what a perfect choice for UC he would be, except he probably wouldn't want to do it.

Lookit, I'm not saying I will keep watching it no matter what, I'm just saying that the mere fact of Amol Rajan is not going to put me off sight unseen. I reserve the right to decide he's dreadful halfway through his first series. Or episode, if necessary.

Murray now presents 5live from 10:30pm into the night. He makes a big deal of the community that his programme fosters.

I basically support Fighting Talk existing, a show with its own culture and mythology built up in an original way, and some people I know find it hilarious. Admittedly wouldn't listen to it myself, but as far as long-running panel shows on BBC Radio go it's probably one of the better ones (low bar as that is) and this reminds me that they finally cancelled both Quote Unquote and Mock The Week this year, so good things do happen occasionally.

Yes, my unpopular opinion here is to agree with poster Camaraderie and say that Fighting Talk is not all bad, though I can also understand why someone, like Calzino, would think it was.

The point about 'its own culture and mythology built up in an original way' seems to relate directly to Murray, ie: that is part of his schtick, to try to create broadcasting niches that will become 'legendary' in the way that the broadcasting he loved (David Coleman or whatever) did.

Paul Sinha absolutely does want to do UC. He also wants to do Countdown.

They should've picked him, then, and you can tell him that some random person on the internet said so.

Please excuse the Metro link, but thought the reporter had actually got a good source here:

https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/18/university-challenge-former-question-writer-hits-out-at-amol-rajan-appointment-17207133

UC and OC start again on Monday

followed by uc documentary and that starter for 10 film

Pass

Only realised today that Paxman is still going for this year!

I have to admit I got a little chuckle out of Newcastle captain guessing Red Hot Chili Peppers for that Outkast question.

It was especially annoying for them because one of them did say Outkast and it was disregarded.

It was good to see erstwhile ilxer Mark C aka Markleby on Only Connect this week. He hasn't aged a bit. And sounded quite wonderful when he described a red dwarf as "a small, dim, red star", which it is. Cheers Ailsa for the heads-up.

Did reasonably well on this week's UC, 20:

Pasteur, Beowulf, apoptosis, Computerised tomograpahy, acacia, Royal Navy, Tate, Switzerland, Yoruba, -int, Celtic, Leeds United, 2, stipend, Cannes, Egypt & Sudan, Aswan, Rameses, Jane Austen, crater.

Didn't know it was Outkast, but could tell it wasn't RHCP!

!

I knew I recognised the Outkast track but couldn't place it. Should have got KC on first burst but again thought it was one of several things i had. Was thinking it might be a turn of the 70s Floyd thing for a moment. became pretty obvious after that though.

Enjoyed
CANNES
NO CANNES
NO NOT THE CANNES
CANNES

I was kinda thinking all through that round, where generally I had no clue (I can recognise an Oscar, BAFTA or Grammy award - that's it) "I hope the Cannes award actually *looks* like a golden palm" and then lo & behold...

And then one of the other ones had the name of the festival written on it.

Did well this week, 24.

Holmes & Watson, Washington Monument, Chrysler Building, Lincoln Cathedral, Persion Gulf, Long Parliament, Chiron, rings, pancreas, Nighthawks, xerophyte, Carabao, orange, Mary Wolstencraft, Benjamin Britten, Diplodocus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Montreux, Charlemagne, Scoop, Gladys Aylward.

Am impressed by this University College Oxford team.

Missed one out. E, the Morse code one.

Congrats to Mark on the Only Connect appearance! Definitely a bucket list wish for me.

scumbag

who?

I got 28, probably my highest ever, despite not getting any of the music questions.

on the other hand I completely failed at the only connect walls.

scumbag

oh wait yes I remember that thing that happened a whole half an hour ago.

that was quite a drubbing on uc

but yes, scumbag is an odd thing to include in a bbc2 quiz programme, i thought

Not so much losing as anti-winning.
Has anybody had minus points at the end of a show?
JUst remembering there was one match last series where one team romped away with all teh points and the other was in double digits and giving away points towards the end too wasn't there?

Felt like one of those lucky teams who get trounced in the next round.

They really did just take aim at their own feet and keep shooting repeatedly, didn't they?

Meanwhile, the episodes of Pointless without Richard have started airing. Xander's going to have to start earning his money again.

Yes, we caught a few minutes of yesterday's and wow does Richard make it look easy or what?

Seriously. Poor Sally Lindsay. She is not a natural at this.

I didn't realise Osman was leaving so it was a complete surprise to me. That one was really bad, but it seems like they're cycling through guest co-hosts for the time being? I shall miss the big ol' centrist melt.

That one was really bad, but it seems like they're cycling through guest co-hosts for the time being?

I really hope not. Guest co-hosts work for no-mark celeb panel shows like Have I Got News for You, but Pointless needs someone who knows what they're doing. Osman's left big shoes to fill.

Yeah, sadly they are. Ed Gamble was on something recently and he said he had recorded his week in the chair. I'm hoping that now they're actually airing them, the producers will realize it's not a great idea and sort out a proper replacement.

Anyway, I got 25 in this week's UC - one up on last week, if it carries on like this I'll have a full house by season end, heh heh.

Brazil, Kings Cross, Humber Bridge, phlogistron, spontaneous generation, Breath of the Wild, Amsterdam, DH Lawrence, Erasmus, Weber, Gray, melon, Godzilla, Slovenia, coup, impressionism, naked mole rat, cassowary, honey badger, cat, Kissinger, Kurosawa, genetic, hardness, Copernicus.

Fair play to Coventry's Harrod for her name 'that tune in three' schtick to get Ariane Grande. All that music was far too modern for me. I may have got Billie Eilish if I'd heard more of it.

Also that UC proved I know *nothing at all* about the Incas!

was half watching and didn't keep notes but the things i did get that aren't in your list were the genre film questions Them, William castle, Godzilla although i did give the third answer the moment i heard him say 1954 during the first question. oh, and the Nintendo question about the instrument.

did enjoy the way the two girls were freezing out the boys on anything that wasn't history or science

Other Pointless hosts yet to have a go are Alex Brooker, Ed Gamble, Stephen Mangan, Konnie Huq and Lauren Laverne.

Every one of those people sounds a better option than Sally who just doesn't seem comfortable in the role at all.

She was Warwick Davies' stand-in on "Tenable", not great at first but got better.

I thought she was officially an alternate presenter in her own right rather than a stand-in. Not that this makes her any better at Pointless which is very much its own thing.

I really hate Richard Osman. Soz, that's the post