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

i had a ridiculous haircut (black/white striped) at the time, which loads of people seem to remember when i mention it ("ohmygodyouwerethatfreakonuniveristychallengewiththeweirdhair!!" etc).

She had an Italian name, but I have forgotten it, so no stalking for me.

-- toby (toby_ge...), January 8th, 2002.

My mate David was on it the year Durham won it - he was UCL, who were you with toby?

As part of the Lancaster team we made it to the final round of auditions two years ago. They actually interview you as if you're going onto an actual game show ("What books have you been reading recently?"), which I found vaguely disconcerting, but answers to the questions on the test we sat included "Tony Hawkes" and "Sixpence None The Richer". So that's alright then.

OK, that may be just me.

1. Stream of Consciousness

2. Greil Marcus's Mystery Train

3. something else interesting - what was it?

I thought he did well.

1970s video games? paxman was aghast that people knew all these, i thought they were piss-easy. (pong, tetris, asteroids, snake)

Perhaps we should not be surprised that you thought they were easy?

I'd like to see how many questions he was actually asked as compared to the others.

Uni Chal Mastermind and Buzzocks makes Monday night the best BBC2 line up all week.

"what's 'amped' mean then?"

I found it strange that they didn't know what COBOL or SQL were yet got the (IMO) more obscure Ada question right.

University Challenge makes me realise how much stuff there is that I don't know. I'm usually chuffed to bits if I get a run of Starter + 3 Bonuses correct.

Discovered a fairly good quiz show called Eggheads yesterday while I was off work. A team of "boffins" (I think most of them are former champions of 15-to-1 or similar) is challenged by a different team of plebs every episode. Plebs can win £20000, boffins just get to be smug about being clever. Plebs won yesterday for the first time in umpteen episodes.

UC was good, I knew more answers than usual (ie, about 5). The Greil Marcus question reminded me of RJG. I liked the set of questions where they had to say who ruled in a X-ocracy, and one of the words sounded very much like phallocracy, and they dithered and snickered and then it was something not rude at all.

I like Eggheads too.

That was because it's named after Ada Lovelace innit. I didn't know the others but I know who the daughter of George Gordon, Lord Byron was. Hung out with Babbage, nice one.

(still, not as bad as the cow-orker who pronounces "spamhaus" "spamhorse")

My old drama teacher got to the semis on MM in '86 or so.

Didn't he get a wee bit more time than the others - Humphrys explained something by way of explanation about the lipreading thing but I was in the other room so missed most of what he was saying.

I wondered about the cane too.

Was the other interesting thing the karaoke backing tracks of cheesy ballads (all of which I recognised, much to the amusement of my husband and parents)? Wasn't there a Smiths lyrics question too, or was that last week?

the ex-ilxor had a good Only Connect last night

Last night's UC teams had only one scientist between them, so I was expecting low scores all round - but by some extraordinary coincidence there were very few science questions. Hmmm.

They do tailor the bonus questions somewhat to the teams' subjects - of course if you get a starter you might bonuses designed for the other team.

Yeah, but then you get to "waste" the points they would have gotten.

My gf's sister was on this tonight!!

UC or OC?

that ABCD one was one of the easiest one they've ever had, surely?

Got 27 this week
Lowell, Mars, cantaloupe, pumpkin, pitch, Shanghai & Beijing, William Shatner, Eric B & Rakim, Cornershop, moon, fermium, goldcrest, finch, ash, Andrew Motion, St. Sebastian, IBM, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Mel Brooks, Xanadu, roe, ore, spit, Titicaca.

Watching the Robert Gordon contestant arguing in favour of Norman Cook was painful.

UC!

I'm currently sitting in a pub with one of the perpetrators of that Norman Cook foul-up. They consider themselves told

(although they were arguing for Cornershop!)

Blimey, it's a small world a bit.

I knew I shouldn't have Twitter-searched 'university challenge' ffs

Yes, never Twitter search any of the Monday night quiz shows unless you want evidence to discredit the idea that they are TV for smart people.

Especially if your irl fam is on the wrong end of the bullshit

Or your actual own self. Just saying.

it's holiday season. so UC is on Mon-Fri and there's a festive OC on Friday

3 more OC specials next week, themed episodes on Boxing Day & Tuesday and Champion of Champions on Wednesday.

jfc I can scarcely manage one uc & one oc per week.

ffs listen to the questions soas

I would be very annoyed if I were the other two people on the losing OC team last night. Their captain did not listen to them, and gave wrong answers to a couple of questions as a result. Maybe her earpiece wasn't working correctly?

Did Paxo hint that the graduate festive UCs had somewhat less demanding questions than the regular ones? For if so that wasn't reflected in my scores.

Univ/Glasgow last night got a reminder of the rules whereas SOAS/Balliol on Monday didn't. Possibly as a result of JP realising his assumption that the contestants would be familiar with them was an incorrect one.

3 more OC specials next week, themed episodes on Boxing Day & Tuesday and Champion of Champions on Wednesday.

What would the fourth be?

(hem hem)

UC, all those people graduating in 20xx disgust me

Brookmyre was on last night. was he ailsa's backup specialist subjecy when she was on mastermind

the four OC specials appear to be

1 (23rd) Christmas
2 (26th) Mystery
3 (27th) Love
4 (28th) Champion of Champions

re hardness: watching last night's UC now and i think the follow-up questions at least are tailored to the guests (although often they go to the wrong team)

But isn't it the same on regular UC? Don't they sometimes tailor the bonus questions to people's specialities (or is it specialisms? I can never tell anymore)?

I think the Christmas starter questions feel easier, because the answer is often something festive.

Yeah, there was a bunch of (classical) music questions, fairly obscure. Paul Gambaccini had nothing to say: it wasn't his team.

Christmas questions are definitely easier than 'normal' ones in my view! The later in the series, the harder they are too (normal ones). I've had to quit in recent series because it just got boring not knowing anything.

Brookmyre was on last night. was he ailsa's backup specialist subjecy when she was on mastermind

Had no idea! Weirdly I've just read/ re-read a whole ton of Brookmyre books in the past few months.

(i could be wrong! but istr it was a scottish author i hadn't read anything by)

Yes, hello, I did the Jack Parlabane books as a specialist subject a few years ago.

(Jack Parlabane is a character in a series by Christopher Brookmyre, if that isn't clear)

Captains rushing in to answer without listening to the actual correct answers coming from their teammates is a bit of a theme on the quizzes at the moment.

Grinds my gears something fierce

Not as much as being told "no no no, it's not that.... We don't know!" by our quiz captain. Not TV, just our local pub quiz league, still though..."

(ignore that last quote mark)

paxman in a christmas jumper is just wrong

So, was that the last ever Paxo?

it's back to the normal series next week, i guess the end of that will be the last

I think that was the last he recorded, was what I meant

The Christmas UCs haven't been very Christmassy imo. Token 'Letters of the word MISTLETOE' but no 'if Santa goes down the chimney with radius X' etc etc. Still, I've been getting a bunch of them right which is more than I do in the usual series!

Only Connect was tough tonight. That Roman numeral question, aargh!

Not normally wound up by UC contestants, but was by St Andrews's Cryan tonight. He really did talk too much.

Anyway, 17 for me tonight.
Romola Garai, Crewe, Perth, Robert Koch Institute, Max Planck Institute, Galilean telescope, Bulgaria, Slovakia, erratic, drumlin. moraine, collage, Suzanne Sontag, Dorothea Lange, Maximillian, Sweden, philology.

Cryan didn't know any answers, but certainly knew when his teammates were wrong.

Anisimov had great eye rolling energy on UC.

Brown from Royal Holloway was really good, but man, did that drag tonight, the conferring was at Christmas special level of "get on with it".

Yeah, St Andrews (and Cryan) were doing my head in

Brown was great though, and she had a lovely soft-spoken manner

ursula le guin as an answer two weeks in a row.

I like this Robert Gordon team a lot. Very strong performance from their captain Cullen.

A solid 30 for me x-ray, covalent, Constantine, Dominican, Avignon, Ozymandias, Wexford, garlic, celery, goosegrass, Tasmania, Liberia, Creation, Rough Trade, Def Jam, border, Albanian, Francium, John Lanchester, Scott, Shackleton, okra, primates, chain, polymerase, period, war, Yemen, Oman, Peru

I had no idea amino acids had code letters to identify them, let alone which was which.

think I got 25.

Lol, students have no idea who Joanna Newsom, The Byrds or Jefferson Airplane are, I should be on there instead (though I would be useless for all the other questions)

Oh I got those. And Linda Perhacs.

But, nobody else home to witness, so hey.