University Challenge

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?

New quizzes I've been giving a chance: The Wall wiff Danny Dyer -- absolutely awful. Only about six questions per show, and the Great British Public is not built for running around in front of a giant bagatelle willing giant balls to go into a particular hole. /FACE
Head Hunters with Rob Beckett -- I don't rate Rob Beckett as a comedian much, but he's actually pretty good as a quiz host (although he trips over unfamiliar words a bit too much. Maybe he'll settle into it), and there's quite a nice feeling of camaraderie in the studio on this one. Good number of questions, but the difficult ones fail the test of good quiz questions, in that you don't feel like you've learned anything interesting or valuable when you get them right. And the graphics are just terrible, like something they've had in a file since Going for Gold went off the air.
Yes, I work from home.

(wasn't that show where they had to get into the correct shape or get pushed into the pool also called The Wall?)

(oh, that was Hole in The Wall - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n53t6 )

Head Hunters with Rob Beckett -- I don't rate Rob Beckett as a comedian much, but he's actually pretty good as a quiz host (although he trips over unfamiliar words a bit too much. Maybe he'll settle into it)

Mate of mine worked on Head Hunters and said they had to do a terrific amount of retakes because Rob Beckett couldn't pronounce anything. Imagine what it was like before if what you're seeing is the edited version of retakes...

Clearly House of Games is the new daddy, but I love Impossible as well.

I can't get on board with Impossible. It has the same dead-air feeling as Eggheads.

Imagine what it was like before if what you're seeing is the edited version of retakes...

Good grief.

House of Games and Pointless are partly great because Richard and Xander are smart enough to join in.

That Imperial team was really impressive

Only Connect and the Orwellians are appropriately rubbish

not a quiz show but the day I went to be in the studio audience for Hole In The Wall was no joke the greatest day of my life

I watched UC and did quite well last night!

not a quiz show but the day I went to be in the studio audience for Hole In The Wall was no joke the greatest day of my life

I want to know more.

it was the second season, where Anton Du Beke was the host. We got to see Anne Diamond and Eastenders' Nasty Nick as contestants. We arrived at the end of the queue and they had over-sold the tickets to avoid there being any empty seats. There were seven of us waiting and five seats left, and the family beside us starting talking in loud Fife accents about how far they had travelled to Glasgow for this, so me and my pal started exclaiming "strewth mate, bloody 'ell" in remarkably unconvincing Australian accents and yet somehow managed to get picked ahead of the family. The warm-up act before the main show was doing a competition where they were giving away tickets to the X Factor live final, but wasn't allowed to say the name of the show and had to convey the prize by forming an X with their arms multiple times, leaving lots of people struggling to grasp what the prize was. Then at the end we hung around the BBC Studios and got a photo with Du Beke. Best day ever!

ACTUALLY the best day ever was the day we got picked to go on BBC Scotland's kids' TV show "Up For It" after submitting my Elvis-impersonating grandpa for "Groovy Grandad Of The Day", that was when I got to meet pop sensation Kavana and Scotland coach Craig Brown, as well as visit the Fully Booked set and meet Gail Porter, Tim Vincent and Chris Jarvis. We also ran into Mrs Mack from Take The High Road that day.

That does all sound fantastic.

I did a run through for The Hit List to help out a mate, and I got a hug from Marvin and Rochelle who are very lovely people. Marvin is an absolute pro at doing telly. Hanging about with telly people doing telly is fun. Also I totally want to be a contestant on The Hit List.

I love that programme. I hope they're doing more of them.

omfg how did I miss Eastham first go round?

i'm using this as general purpose quiz programme thread

celeb countdown (not 8/10 cats, just celebs head to head, slightly relaxed rules). there was a bit of a tutorial section in the middle where rachel pointed out this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQYYz92-Uk

by choosing all the big numbers you pretty much know what you're getting which helps. she went through the above technique with an example and then gave the celebs (jay raynor, jo brand) a set exercise, which they fluffed.

(the guy above showboats a bit - rather than big number * 50 and then / 100 he could've just 100 / 50 = 2, big number / 2 = answer)

(relaxed rules = loser also gets points. plus the above set exercise which was basically free points as long as you noticed that 3 * 5 = 15 is twice 7.5)

((carol also faffing about somewhat. trouble multiplying a 3 digit number by fifty? just half it and stick two noughts on the end))

((75 - 10) x 25) + 1 x (50/100)

I did a run through for The Hit List to help out a mate, and I got a hug from Marvin and Rochelle who are very lovely people. Marvin is an absolute pro at doing telly. Hanging about with telly people doing telly is fun. Also I totally want to be a contestant on The Hit List.

― ailsa, Wednesday, October 30, 2019 11:05 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I love that programme. I hope they're doing more of them.

― trishyb, Wednesday, October 30, 2019 1:10 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

S2 started on Saturday in case you missed it

It's so much up my street. I still totally want to go on it.

I was keeping half an eye on the hit list, but they didn't call for more contestants. Grr

I have never seen a bigger set of cunts and basics than on Pointless tonight

In fairness, though, that dog round was weak. A pug is an animal footprint?

Nah I hadn't got a clue about that one but it rings a vague bell now they've revealed it.

There's a lot of bank people and *spit* entrepreneurs tonite tho

It's so much up my street.

Ailsa, it would've been so much up mine 10, and even more, 20 years ago but now my reaction times have been shot through age and I don't know a lot of the modern stuff, so....

Well, that's why I'd pair up with our Alice.

Was caught out by Kate Tempest being included in a list of poets

kendrickkkkk

Good follow up joke about Kate Tempest available but ah fuck it tonight's the most coverage she's had in 5 years

Forgive me if I'm missing a joke about her ubiquity, but she's on 6 Music all the time, which is why I got that group.

So weird that whathisface knew all those 1908 books quick smart but couldn't see that Amsterdam and Atonement were written by the same person.

yeah i though they missed lots of sitters tbh

that Cavendish/Sagan one screwed Glasgow, they might have done it otherwise

I always assumed the bonus questions come up randomly but courtauld have been very lucky both times in having a lot of art questions and very few detailed science ones. Amazed they didn't get Lucian Freud though.

she's on 6 Music all the time

this is one of the many, many, many reasons why i'm not

i got those groups pretty easy btw, put Tempest in there thru logic but honestly couldn't think who it was referring to

I liked this episode of UC. 18 questions correct.

awfully likeable teams these

Bugsy Malone

And I agree with you D but my god they don't watch films

oh shit bugsy malone

(on a delay)

yanks gotten overconfident now dislike

"is that the actor from rocky"

He seems to be right on the line between arrogance and enthusiasm but that's the winning team for tis tournament right there

never predict a knockout contest lad

yanks gotten overconfident now dislike

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