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?

none of you have seen the big lebowski?

This Frederick Leo guy is a lot.

his elbow gets higher for every starter question.

Dave and Lindsay had seen the Big Lebowski but didn't know what I was on about with the "watt wood/what would" thing, so didn't make the connection. Also we were knackered and filmed just after being knocked out in the last round, so weren't in the best frame of mind. I, of course, have seen no films ever. I haven't actually seen tonight's show yet, but Olly's ruff was a fucking riot. He actually had the hose as well, but chose to tone it down with a pair of jeans so as not to look ridiculous. VCM didn't mention it once until after the cameras stopped rolling.

My "fun fact" was quite the surprise as it wasn't the one we'd gone over pre-show. Which was more fun than the "here's some shite dull people put as "interests" on their CV" bollocks that they sprung on me.

I did a quiz against Freddy Leo a couple of weeks ago. He's quite intense, but seems lovely. I also got v drunk with the Edinburgh Uni challenge team (well, Matt Booth and Max Fitz-James) and none of us let on how we'd done on our respective shows.

Both the OC and UC teams this week seemed like a lovely bunch of people. The only reason I was glad that Edinburgh won was that it's always nice when an Oxbridge college does not win.

Leo seems like a total nightmare

the rest all fine

lol I'm obsessed with Leo - he says he's from Berlin but has no accent? I want to know his backstory.

He's quite intense, but seems lovely.

This is exactly what I'd expect.

I was happy I knew the pic was Natalie Wood. It's not often I get any right when nobody else does. I'm also extremely sad Olly did not wear the hose.

i would struggle thinking of more than one fun fact. and probably wouldn't need a second, let alone a 4th.

i like the way leo works things out, you can hear him thinking (it also helps his teammates contribute).

got the first 3 answers in only connect final and then nothing else.

can't believe they voice-overed the presentation of the award though.

Oh the fun fact thing..

My guess is that they have a ton of these, and you get to pick one you like or has happened to you, nearly or fully.

Yeah?

No.

Fair enough

The producers ask you a lot of stuff, you go armed with the sort of thing that's usable, they fashion them into obtuse format, they rehearse them with you, then they pass them to VCM and usually that's what is read out on screen. Though for some reason, my excellent fun fact went through the whole process for our last show, then VCM said something entirely different.

The fact that my life contains no fun facts is a big part of why i don't really apply for stuff by myself

I got the Aqua one!

Oh, the Aqua one. The Dicers buzzed in and said QI. There was a pause while producers wondered if having a Danish host made QI an acceptable answer (this was before Sandi Toksvig cropped up in the same set). This put us off, and we basically were all chatting and not concentrating while this was going on, so when it was thrown over to us, we weren't back in the right frame of mind and weren't given any time to actually think about it.

There was also a retake on Franco Baresi, which I buzzed and got but Bob from the Dicers shouted at the same time. We were asked to go again with Bob shutting up, and Dave decided on the retake to look like he'd got it even though it was *my* answer. Bad form to want to throttle one of your team mates on national telly, aye?

Ha, I have "been there"

A TV show, back in the day. They had an "anagrams" round. I know.

Anyway, I noticed, sat on the panel, that the boards for the two questions were in full view of us. So, while they were focus-pulling or whatever, I told my two team mates and we gently scribbled and worked out the two answers. At which point, the team (ahem) decided that the girl on our team should get one of the answers, and the other lad on the team decided he was getting the other one and if he didn't he'd tell the producers. So, the round came and went, and we (well, they) were careful not to buzz in too quickly and make it obvious. (There's a novel "Starter For ten" where something similar happens. Was going to describe more there, but that'd be a spoiler so no. But I did laugh)

Anyway, the series televised, and a couple of episodes later another contestant had clearly done the same thing, kept it to himself, and buzzed in like it was the missing vowels round.

Bob from the Dicers = Bob from the Poptimists, obvz.

UC is back btw!

Always a delight when it suddenly turns up again

The brainiac in the losing team this week was giving off strong "why did i get paired with these losers, i coulda been a contender" vibes in the end credits

I enjoyed the arrival of the volcano bonus questions when he flung a pointing finger at the volcano guy at the other end of the team who thankfully was able to answer them all

calm down, Wang

calm down, hardwick, you can push the button with one finger, you don't need to move your entire arm.

wang? hardwick?? you're killing me. what'll next week's annoying captain be called?

I missed it !!!

look I know this is hugely inappropriate but it's like a row of trophies on a shelf

the two faces of gareth bale here

look I know this is hugely inappropriate but it's like a row of trophies on a shelf

the first one was studying aerodynamics

lol I turned on late and missed that detail

ok i love leeks

studio ghibli effort at an oxbridge student

everybody else is more irish than that Irish lad

no place for gael-shaming on ilx

ive more gael in my clippings than yon souper

Maximum condescending mode from Paxman during the music round

It's true but in his defense it is pretty ridiculous that two teams on this show, especially Oxbridge teams, could not identify the composers of "Ave Maria" or "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring". Not to mention guessing Robert the Bruce as a fighter against the Romans in the era of Nero.

Well, I guess it was just one team that failed on "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" but I did get a nice chuckle out of them guessing Benjamin Britten for that.

Tbh the general knowledge of both classical and popular music amongst teams is generally appalling

Nah, they usually have a go-to classical music person on the team

Pop is an afterthought, but it doesn't crop up as much

Not these days, but when it does it can get so I even struggle.

I thought it was usually classical one week, pop the next - last two have been classical though.

they had a round of pop qs to which the answers were Metric, then Pavement, then one I didn't catch. Both pretty obscure by the standards of UC I thought.

Third was Kings of Leon. The questions were hard too, I didn't get the first two.

Lowest combined score, I thought that normally if one team got things wrong throughout it gavc the other team a chance to increase their advantage but i think they're at a tie for lowest winning too.

Hope this remains an outlier.

Billy Idol.

^ this

"The Byrds?" (The Velvet Underground)

Some of the guitar on that album does sound like loops of Byrds tracks. All Tomorrows Parties sounds like a sample of Chimes of Freedom
& I could see it all blending into similar sounding if you're not familiar with it. Would hope all self respecting students should be obligitarily familar with the Velvets though. Omigod the youth of today, eh?

Well glad last week wasn't quite repeated

I’ve never seen someone look that miserable pronouncing the words “mulch” or “tuba”