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

Seem to be a lot of very asymmetric competitions this series. Is it just this one? One team romping home with all the points and another not getting started.

Last night's team from Royal Academy of Music and the guys who were on the other week from... maybe Imperial?.. seemed very much of the "nobody else is fielding a team, come on, let's do it, it'll be a laugh" variety. I noticed that both of the recent steamrolled teams had an American on, who possibly just wanted to have the University Challenge experience while they were in the UK.

Anyway, I got two five-pointers on OC last night, so I don't need to answer anything else correctly for the rest of the series.

oh, i've just rememberer. lol at the 'secondary characters in the thor films' answer in OC wall. i guess that's one way of getting there.

I forget what it was, but last night had the easiest question ever to be on UC.

identifying seinfeld from a picture of him and kramer and george?

(slightly biassed but the 'how many bits in a byte?' question they asked a few years ago was quite something)

((although it hasn't always been 8))

I've not watched yesterday's yet but I always seem to get the first question right. Last week was first 2 for 2 (then went steadily downhill)

I don't think it was the Seinfeld question, but

Is Seinfeld a generational thing yet?
Do these young whippersnappers remember our old time funnies?

They clearly don't, took a good few seconds before someone buzzed in (same dude also identified Curb Your Enthusiasm when the rest of the team seemed clueless).

I don't think most people know how many bits are in a byte, or what either of those things are.

Royal Academy of Music weren't helped by seemingly not knowing anything about music!

was the easy question the one about moving the bank holiday? or the rhesus monkey blood question?

(i got the scalar product of two perpendicular vectors one straight away fwiw)

> I don't think most people know how many bits are in a byte, or what either of those things are.

yes, you have a point. i wonder whether the questions that i know nothing about are as trivial as that to the people that do know.

It's kind of amazing what people don't know. I've learned not to make any assumptions (especially because answering questions on the telly is extra-scary). Though last week in my quiz league someone failed to identify Indiana Jones as the archaelogist character played by Harrison Ford in the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

(I got the scalar product of two vectors because I usually operate on the principle that the answer to most UC questions like that is either 0 or 1)

I was wondering how often trying to beat Paxman to the end of the question had to do with previously being slower off the mark answering a question than the other side. Cos i could see it being a nervous response to that.

I usually operate on the principle that the answer to most UC questions like that is either 0 or 1

Yes, it was the Rhesus Monkey question. Even the student answering looked confused like '.. really?'. Twas a bit Ben Sheppard..

trying to beat Paxman to the end of the question

My fave example was a few years back when Paxman started a question with "Which LBJ...", somebody buzzed in with 'Lyndon Baines Johnson' and the full question was "Which LBJ is a term used by birdwatchers for small, drab bird species?"

(little brown jobs)

If I am honest I did not really care for those teams also the Derrida question got me so angry I nearly turned it off

This was my best week for correct answers in a very, very long time.

On OC the Monty question was the easiest 5 pointer in a long while.

And as for the "doe" question...

I was surprised how quickly I got the upside-down calculator question on OC. Either it was an easy question or I spent too much time at high school writing boobless

Great turnaround on the winning front.
I thought this was going to be another major trounce at first. Took them an age to get out of minus then they kept getting the starter questions right.
So it can be done from initial stalling.

I thought the Oxford team were off to a flying start. Then lost it.

Warwick was where my half sister went not sure if that was undergrad or postgraduate since she grew up in the US.

glad to see oxbridge lose, sad to see a white sausage party, time for enforced positive discrimination. and for oxbridge to enter one team each.

Paxman: "Since its foundation in 1965, Wolfson college has admitted both men and women."
Camera: pans across four dudes.

glad to see oxbridge lose, sad to see a white sausage party, time for enforced positive discrimination. and for oxbridge to enter one team each.

― neith moon (ledge), Tuesday, September 29, 2020 9:01 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM, absurd to have all blokes and the College thing is an anachronism, the argument that one or the other of the Oxbridge teams would always win is horseshit

well one of them was half japanese wasn't he? Knight or something.
BUt still, yeah I was wondering how many BIPOC people had been on, made teams etc.
I think they did have a couple of trans people over teh last couple of years on the show, can't remember where their teams came from.

Neil S: the argument that one or the other of the Oxbridge teams would always win is horseshit, but one or other of the Oxbridge teams would win often enough that ppl might still consider it a problem, and not a level playing field.

The bigger issue would be how the Ox or Camb colleges would coordinate choosing a team between them. I've lived in Oxford long enough to know that they struggle to coordinate on anything!

Other universities should be allowed to field as many teams as Oxford and Cambridge field. Call them whatever they like, have an absolutely massive competition with only the final x teams making it to the telly. Although then you're diluting the best brains of the other universities, or are you opening up the competition to even better brains? It would certainly be worth a whack for at least one series to see what happens.

having joint Oxbridge teams could enable gender equality rules to be enforced (two women and two men per team, say) and I should point out it's only those retrograde types in the Fens who still have colleges which aren't mixed (3, becoming 2 next year) as St. Hilda's went mixed over a decade ago.

However, it would make fielding a team tricky for some institutions with a big gender imbalance (e.g. Cranfield) but that's their problem I guess.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the selection process is the fact that Oxford and Cambridge enter individual colleges to the contest, while other institutions compete on a university-wide basis. In 1975 the Manchester team (which included the future Times columnist David Aaronovitch) protested against this state of affairs by answering "Trotsky", "Lenin", "Karl Marx" or "Che Guevara" to every question.

independent and competing colleges though. it'd be like telling the "home nations" to send a UK team to the world cup.

but... teamGB at the olympics.

white male they may've been, still didn't know the name of the lead in the star wars reboot though.

very nearly a point in their favour

I bet they all could have named Daisy Ridley though. Probably know her parents too.

they did seem to take a weird pride in not knowing who *those* people were, added to my general dislike

i mean even i know who Boyega is, tho mostly from his brilliant Twitter work

independent and competing colleges though. it'd be like telling the "home nations" to send a UK team to the world cup.

Only far worse as there are only 4 home nations, but 39 Oxford colleges and 31 Cambridge ones!

And you can guarantee that after a while the smaller colleges would start crying foul and complaining that the bigger, richer colleges dominated the teams.

I'm sure they would threaten a boycott at the slightest hint anyway so it's not happening.

they did seem to take a weird pride in not knowing who *those* people were, added to my general dislike

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. I only got Boyega (Daniel Kaluuya is excellent in Get Out but that's the only thing I've seen him in and his name has not stuck in my brain at all), but there was something about the way in which they didn't know or even attempt those questions that felt off to me.

The bigger issue would be how the Ox or Camb colleges would coordinate choosing a team between them. I've lived in Oxford long enough to know that they struggle to coordinate on anything!

Not sure how this is UC's problem, and also Durham and York (possibly others too?) are both collegial universities and seem to manage fine

Don't Oxbridge teams win almost every time anyway as it stands?

The opposing team had their equivalent version where they couldn't name Atlanta ("Vinyl?") or Empire (Dynasty?); thankfully third question was about the v white Flight Of The Concords.

Don't Oxbridge teams win almost every time anyway as it stands?

11 out of the last 20 winners

It's great I basically don't give a shit about the teams or who wins

They've been ramping up the vector questions the last series or so. (I notice this as it's one of my Other Half's only specialist subjects). Luckily for today my specialist subject is Jesse Armstrong shows.

Paxman's fuck-up on that "double o" answer...

Overchatty winning team today. Glad the other ones are coming back

Another Rossetti question.

Blanked on a couple of questions last night, Kelmscott bring one of them, must do better.

got the kittiwake one because the same question was on OC 30 minutes earlier

but embarrasingly got my dot product and cross product mixed up even though I supposedly have a degree in maths