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

I like Omid Djalili, but each contestant has slotty-in “remind me of your occupation/something interesting about you” bits that go…There.

(Ref: “Winning Combination”)

Spoilers: Bradley doesn't come up with the quips.

It's entirely possible to make up stories to get past the vetting. I told the Fifteen to One team I wanted to go to watch Andy Murray at the US Open then spent the whole time shitting myself that I was going to get a piss-easy tennis question wrong and they'd bring it up.

It's interesting how much worse Bradley is on Blankety Blank than he is on The Chase. I wonder why that is? Any insights, Ailsa?

My understanding is that he genuinely loves the Chase. It's his thing and he's made it his own (watch old ones to see how much better he's got at it over the years) - I'm pretty sure if he left, it would finish. I suspect Blankety Blank is just for the money, but I don't actually know. I should be meeting up with some people with proper insight in the pub tomorrow so shall casually slip it into the conversation, if I can bluff it without having actually watched Blankety Blank.

i did laugh when blankety blank came up in an internal video of new attractions. that's like its 4th reboot?

the christmas bloopers edition of The Chase is often a highlight of my time at home for the holidays (the only time when i watch it as part of the interminable daytime tv schedule imposed by parents)

rachel's been on mastermind before, hasn't she? i remember her winning last time. (and 15-1 and a couple of other things. i know of her through indiepop circles)

Yeah, think this is her third or fourth time.

Forgot to get any Bradley gossip at the weekend, sorry!

That was the funniest bit she's ever done on this show.

And wearing a vintage tee from her dad’s old mag.

love to see a team from Oxford losing 200-0, god damn

"Plenty of time to get going, St Hilda's", lied jeremy.

they had 20 at one point

Did they get higher and lose even more points. I wasn't paying attention to their score, I thought they actually started off well. But may have been distracted. I did see them go down from low to zero by jumping the gun re questions.

yeah, there was a bit of a recovery at the very end (in the bit i hadn't seen when i posted) had 45 i think at the end.

I don't think I would have been as much vying for a loss between Oxbridge teams as I would have between a non one and one. They were at least both ethnically and gender mixed which is a positive. So i think I would have actually liked the losers to do a great deal better.
Oh my. Seemed to have a number of passes at inopportune times.

Funny had watched Mastermind earlier where a contestant got 3 points on her first round on Goodness Gracious Me. The choice of subject matter and the low score kind of rankled. Possibly even more ironic since everybody else tied at 13 on the first round. I was trying to think what the maximum score one could get would be but haven't looked it up yet.

Not so much end recovery. I thought they had done the direct opposite earlier. Not sure how many times they got docked 5 points by giving wrong answers to incomplete questions.

This was a good episode. Cambridge team almost playing against themselves.

Yeats, Didion, Joni Mitchell on one round.

2 of the contestants got really screwed on Mastermind last night. They really should bring back the repechage slots.

Not sure how many times they got docked 5 points by giving wrong answers to incomplete questions.

I have to confess to not really understanding the interruption rule. Sometimes he'll dock them five points, but then there's no more of the question? So how did they interrupt him?

Usually it's just that they've buzzed in on the last word of the sentence in that case. I've noticed recently that if there are two parts to a question, Paxman's pauses are getting longer to an extent where it is reasonable to assume that the question is over, and that irks me to no end. For example, if the question is about a book, the first sentence might give date/theme/setting, then a massive pause like that's a complete question (and indeed it could be a complete question)... then a sentence about a notable review. If you're going to do two-sentence questions and penalise an interruption, make it clear when there's more coming FFS.

Yes, Emil.y, that annoys me too. Not sure he's got worse in recent times though.

that was the toughest ep I've seen this series. For a lot of those questions I couldn't even guess.
A measly 14 for me. Anthology, barrow, noisome, fulsome, pirouette, The Way, William III, Joni Mitchell, Seville, centromere Edward VI, Offa's Dyke, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood.

Always get Corpse Bride muddled up with The Nightmare Before Christmas, grrr!

Yes, emil.y, I was saying the exact same thing last night.

Whereas you are sort of allowed to interrupt the music round music

The lady who got 3 on Goodness Gracious me was a beaten finalist on Only Connect the season I was on it. And Andrew, one of the shafted runners up, won Only Connect last year with his wife who was in last year's Mastermind final.

i'm just enjoying the yong people correctly identifying the Dicks and building the ensueing bridges with their forebears

So Paxman believes that Webby's surname is door bwa then.
I got told it was like Du Bois. Rhymes with young males luke. Always did like the idea of webby and his brother schubert scatting away.

Doo bwa.
'Kin autocorrect

Yes, that caused discussion here. My instinct has always been to pronounce it doo bwa, but I have definitely read that the man himself said it the other way.

“Overtones”

Love it when an answer is both (a) wrong and (b) non-existent

GREEN ELVES

Oh the Overtones do exist. They are very much not punk. He was really good though, that guy.

Who is Du Bois? Might have to re-watch.

Typical score of 22 for me this week. Lindisfarne Gospels, Durham, circuit breaker, allotropy, Sandwich*, biopsy, Gladstone, JB Priestley, bone marrow, CERN, Estonia, Elvis Costello, Madness, punctuation, King James Bible, Messier, Day of the Triffids, Little Shop of Horrors, George VI / Elizabeth II, William IV / Victoria, Ken Russell, Poland.

Pre-'Grimly Fiendish' Damned is a bit of a blind spot for me, unfortunately.

* Didn't know the name of the actual golf course, but JP let the contestant have Sandwich, so I'm having it!

Who is Du Bois? Might have to re-watch.

Typical score of 22 for me this week. Lindisfarne Gospels, Durham, circuit breaker, allotropy, Sandwich*, biopsy, Gladstone, JB Priestley, bone marrow, CERN, Estonia, Elvis Costello, Madness, punctuation, King James Bible, Messier, Day of the Triffids, Little Shop of Horrors, George VI / Elizabeth II, William IV / Victoria, Ken Russell, Poland.

Pre-'Grimly Fiendish' Damned is a bit of a blind spot for me, unfortunately.

* Didn't know the name of the actual golf course, but JP let the contestant have Sandwich, so I'm having it!

> biopsy

all those medical ones were quite easy, i thought. not that i can remember them now. oh, amnio centesis(sp), lumber puncture.

Is that the one they do with a bit of 4x2?

Willy Du Bois was a black intellectual of teh late 19th and early 20th century who i'm just reading about in Ibram X kendi's Stamped from the beginning. I find it amusing to call him webby doo bwa cos its so mature and stuff and posit that he has a brother called schubert who invented doo wop. But it may not be very respectful.
He wrote a number of great books including The Souls of Black Folks and books on the Reconstruction. He also wrote a sci fi short story called the Comet where New York is wiped out by the passage of a comet poisoning the atmosphere.

Philip trying not to seem high: #UniversityChallenge pic.twitter.com/UmzH3z7bpO

— Hokusai_ (@Hokusai_92) November 29, 2021

Man, I was going to nail that alt history round I just know it

W.E.B. du Bois is the way it's always written so wonder if anybody else automatically reads initials as though they are acronymic.
I found a spider cartoon character named after him. Or is that a comic book one

I know I get told off for this, but I would definitely have buzzed for the max five points on "Cabaret + 'Maybe This Time'"

Got St Andrews, yes I did those things for raisin weekend though I don't remember what I had to carry. She didn't mention that you then go and throw flour and shaving foam at each other, or that booze is involved.

Didn't get the old course though.

I know I get told off for this, but I would definitely have buzzed for the max five points on "Cabaret + 'Maybe This Time'"

I got that too. And it's not that they were asked to create those songs, it's that you have to have at least one new song to qualify for the Oscar for Best Original Soundtrack.

That atomic number question is the worst thing I've ever seen on Only Connect And that includes seeing my own stupid face.

ha, yeah, was not impressed with that!

That question, or my stupid face?

xD

T D B
H U Q
E M !

not the best week for me - 17 only.
karyatids, Titan, San, Timbuktu, UNICEF, Aaron Copland, Venus, methane, hallelujah, ululate, ungulate, Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt, eyelid, ferns, Ursula le Guin, salt.

ululate isn't pronounced the way I've been reading it, it turns out.

i got gaugin as a blurted out guess (the picture of Rembrandt had to be easiest question of the day) and the other two sci fi authors (Rendezvous with Rama!)

I got that L/R one (after pausing it a teeny bit)!