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

Kevin and I kept scores last night, which we've never done before, and I won by 11 points to 7. We didn't count any answers which the TV teams gave before us, so I couldn't claim a point for Kraftwerk.

Paxo didn't arf give Trinity Cambridge a good kicking at the end of the show, dinnee?

I mean, often it's a "well you never got going" or a "bad luck" or whatever, but I've not heard a "you'd better buck your ideas up or you're going OUT" so much..

jesus just watching back now and these lads are sharp as tacks

This fella that presents Mastermind is terrible

Unless the show has an audience of toddlers I was previously unaware of

And ffs I know it's a terrible show and you have to pad it but I dgaf about hearing how the winner feels

I wondered if they had put that bit in to bring the show up to 30 minutes of quizzing with a commercial break. If you watch the show on BBC America or on Challenge, maybe that bit's not in it?

I think you're probably right

Like the 10 minutes of shit about cameramen at the end of Attenborough shows

Yeah, Humphrys was so shit that everyone has suddenly decided that Myrie is the reincarnation of Magnus Magnusson, but he's basically shit as well.

Was about to say Beard looks like an alt right motherfucker then he says he did an MA in War, assumption proved

When you're shouting DE LA SOUL at the tv and some buffoon says Beastie Boys

If I was Jeremy Paxman I would simply buy glasses that fit

I won 15-4 tonight; obviously the Funky Drummer round was kind.

It was, a bit

Why or how is Clive Myrie bad?

RIP Bamber:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/08/bamber-gascoigne-former-university-challenge-quizmaster-dies-at-87

Got 21 this week.

Panama, Panorama, pangolin, Venice, invisibility, Rwanda, Sigourney Weaver, shadows, meiosis, Urban, patina, Tennessine, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, BB King, Sylvia Plath, Caerphilly, boron, bowler hat, in vitro, New York Dolls .

I made the same mistake as Imperial in the description of the poet which mentioned the librarian.

didn't keep score but think I did ok.
THought geezer might have been a bit more self conscious about seeming to be mainly in conversation with the guy to his left after comment o last appearance but do think he may have consciously stopped himself after a while. They did leave with points to spare again after seeming to get off to a slow start. Did look like the other team were going to keep beating them to the buzzer at teh start.
I was waiting for Zeng to zing in like. & he did seem to start at one point.

Did occur to me over the last few weeks how much information any one memeber of a team had to have circulating in their brains for some of this stuff. Or do people get a basic field of questions taht may come up. Like everybody can't actually have knowledge in all totally random areas can they?
Do wonder what info on potential questions one gets if one is being brought in for this. Otherwise like wow like.

The Reading team got most of the Music Round questions right, but oh the deliberations…

Ok, thinking Sly was Little Richard, I’ll allow.

“Oh, I’m just gonna say BB King” well, that’s wise.
But here’s a picture of Gladys Knight and the Pips. There’s a few acts that could be. But the Jackson Five are not one of them. Nor Martha and the Vandellas. Guess again. Oh, you did.

The question specifically asked 'which frontman?' and Little Richard was only ever a solo artist, AFAIK.

it seems like they didn't watch the film which I would hope was way out of step with the cultural moment or something.

THought geezer might have been a bit more self conscious about seeming to be mainly in conversation with the guy to his left after comment o last appearance but do think he may have consciously stopped himself after a while

These would all have been recorded a while back so he wouldn't have seen any comments when this was recorded.

In terms of knowing stuff, there's kind of a syllabus of stuff that gets asked in these kinds of quizzes. It's nuts. There's a whole circuit of quizbowl which is basically hothousing knowledge of the sort of stuff that comes up in quizbowl. If you've dipped your toes in those waters, it's fairly obvious which teams and players take part in it.

What a finish, Jones from villain to hero.

We had a good week: a collective score of 22 (best so far), the week after a collective score of 15 (worst so far). I’m 3-1 ahead of him.

Excellent episode, questions pitched just right too

xposts yeah, if you weren't prepared to bone up on Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, gonna have to wait.

I did find for a few years, any reference to a Canadian Rapper had me shouting "Drake" before the question finished, to Amber's eternal amusement.

And then, last year, Paxo made reference to a north-american rapper, and I shouted "Drake" for probably the last time.

Great now I'm too old for the popular music round.

Snap

These later rounds have become extremely difficult, sooner than I'd have expected.

yeah i felt there was about ten gettable questions (i did not get ten questions)

Quite a few gimmes I thought, I got about 20 which is better than I've been averaging recently.

Kevin’s best score (10) and my worst score (6).

Seemed like Kim must have read a lot of geography or maps and not heard place names. Scilly Isles and Cavan and I think a couple of others.
I mean good going but it did strike me at the time.

19 for me this week. Didn't know any of the music.

The ones I got were marble, biscuit, cod, ria, haptic, haploid, Pennine Way, Lake Baikal, Mary Rose, interrobang, Coriolis, Wuthering Heights, Lyme disease, encephalitis, Iran, Ronald Reagan, histology, mynah & magnolia, moorhen & iris.

I've known that biscuit since I was a small kid I think so it felt a bit weird to see them not get it. Its like it says it on the tin or in the construction of the word.

Had also just read Zami which must be an advantage when it came to that one. Would hope it would be widely known cos it was a good book.

bis-cuit.
Zami Audre Lorde
Skilly isles
and fun things like that.

A close but also not too exciting UC match this week. The questions were pretty tough but it's still hard to imagine that winner putting up a serious challenge in the semifinals. I think the top 2 teams have clearly separated themselves.

The 90s drum n bass and Bill & Ted specialist rounds in Mastermind this week were fun.

that flags round on UC was absolutely brutal

a bad round i thought, too complex and it killed the momentum dead

I don't remember, in years gone by, UC becoming so much harder in later rounds.

But it's certainly done that now.

I'm used to knowing maybe 15+. Tonight I managed 4: Charlier Parker, Alice James, Potemkin, Perestroika.

It can't ever be easy being on these quizzes, even in early rounds, but the obscurity of expertise being shown by winning teams at this stage is another class.

11-1 to me tonight, but he’s got a stinking cold and I’ve got a German degree. Knew it would come in handy eventually.

Definitely harder but though I got less than 10 last week I wasn't completely adrift this time and got 12: white, gestalt, palpitation & palpation, revenant & ant man, miyamoto, gentileschi, 33, alice james, titian, potemkin, perestroika, kale.

This is a radio ting but I heard a contestant on Counterpoint earlier that knew nothing about the most famous Woody Guthrie or Talking Heads songs. Couldn't tell the difference between Public Enemy and NWA. Didn't recognise a Communards song. Knew nothing about the Rock Against Racism movement in the 70's. I just wouldn't show up if I was so fucking clueless. And they didn't sound young either.

Didn't recognise a Communards song.

GASP

if only Jimmy Somerville had a more distinctive voice

i knew the miyamoto mushashi question because the book always turns up in the amazon search results when i'm looking for the mizoguchi dvd

lots of maths guesses tonight, none of them correct (and some oddness with the buzzer the one time, did i imagine that, someone buzzed but was ignored and didn't get penalised)

titian is always worth a punt. that or velasquez.

I wasn't really listening, and in any case only heard from halfway through the jazz music round.

But yeah, later rounds have always been harder than earlier, certainly during the Paxo era

Oh God, we were pitiful on the jazz round; I got Coleman, but we were kicking ourselves on all the others.

i got dizzy with a half-educated guess but for the others i was just blurting out names

I managed a "Don't say Duke Ellington, that's not a piano" but that's all.