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

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.

I got Thelonious Monk, think I got Ornette but somehow didn't get Yardbird.
Did strike me again that early Ornette sounds a lot like a continuation of Bird.
Oh yeah got Dizz too.

I could watch Zeng answer geography questions for hours. What a maniac.

Got 22 this week, or 21 if you don't count my final answer which was after the gong!

Amen, Georgia, Armenian, Minotaur, tesselation, chromosome, Egypt, Norfolk & Suffolk, non-sequitur, titanium, Boyne, Belfast, Shannon, verdigris, penalty, Paris Texas, Southwark, Lisbon, New York City, William S. Burroughs, accretion, Populus.

18 for me, Midnight cowboy, Armenian, Beatrice, minotaur, cellular automata, tessellation, lamina, chromosome, Norfolk Suffolk, non sequitur, memento mori, verdigris, penalty kick, dashiel hammett, Paris texas, NYC, Burroughs, accretion

Oh no spoilers

11 for me this week, same as last week.

I got Times Square then blanked on The Deuce while saying I watched that through & loved it. Tooth was paining quite badly & I was watching the show a day after i recorded it.
THink I did get a few others .

I could watch Zeng answer geography questions for hours. What a maniac.

King

I've noticed that they've really stepped up the difficulty of the pop music questions + bonuses of late.

I got Madonna but only because of the voice, I've never heard it before. Didn't get John Zorn so perhaps my lol at their guess of Eno was somewhat hypocritical.

They weren't really paying attention to the "New York" portion of that question, I think. They kept throwing out British names, which is normally a good instinct on UC. It was impressive to watch Hutchinson (I think that's his name) pull things out of his memory, and actually bounce ideas off the rest of the team to come up with the right answer. Good captaining.

Having thought that the series was getting harder and harder and becoming impossible, I knew ... 12 correct answers last night in the SF !!

One was Buck Mulligan.

Also Madonna: I think I shared in others' feeling of "that sounds like Madonna, but I don't think I know the song, maybe it's the very early Madonna that people associate with a cool NYC".

Madonna I got because of the Ciccone Youth cover.

I nearly outguessed myself on the John Zorn question.

Ah, I had the subtitles on and was in the kitchen when "Burning Up" came on, and yeah got that one no bother.

The music round (for me) easier than usual, didn't get John Zorn but the rest.

Had a lol at "Thompson Twins" for Kid Creole & the coconuts, but hey if you don't know then guess by all means...

Apart from that, yeah Reading in the final then. Average age is uh??

38

Hutchinson is good but he's a hard man to warm to

There is a bit of “let us pause while I consult the mind palace” about him. Don’t think I’ve heard a correct answer from the non-Hutchinson or Ounsley members of the team. I wonder if he gets a lot of INXS jokes from people who can’t remember Michael Hutchence’s name properly.

I need to check out this John Zorn fellow. Hadn't heard of him!

16 this week for me...
Dodie, Indo-European, Przewalski's horse, encephelization quotient, Cassini-Huygens, Voyager 2, Chatsworth, Madonna, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Laurie Anderson, hip, hoatzin, ostrich, Samuel Beckett, deuterium*, votes for women in Kuwait.
* answer given & accepted Hydrogen 2, but same thing.
.

Looking forward to the final.

I always find the maths questions impossible by the way!

If you answer 2 to the maths questions usually get them right about 1 in 4 times.

Yeah, I go for 0, 1 or 2

FWIW I agree with Number None and Chuck Tatum about that player. I didn't like him.

Player? I suppose the word is Contestant.

I was quite impressed when he retrieved "anderson" to go with "laurie" when he didn't immediately know it but also agree about his "mind palace" vibe

OTOH I like that Hutchinson is undefensively consultative with his team (or with Ounsley at least). I don't like captains that grandstand at their team's expense.

Hutchinson is good but he's a hard man to warm to

I just can't agree with this. His genuine delight when the picture round about absurdist theatre came up was lovely.

He's quite good value on Twitter as well.

yay

I wasn't sure who I wanted to win tonight.
So good game. Funny last minute developments.
But cool .
Glad it was so close

Well, goodbye UC, it was nice knowing you.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/16/jeremy-paxman-step-hosting-university-challenge/

Amol Rajan - the ultimate "risen without a trace" bbc presenter of this era. Does anyone actually like the odious cunt other than the management?

putting aside all the culture war content and dubious "debates" he's made his bones from, his presenting style is unbearable.

I don't like him, but he's not going to put me off watching it. Not yet, anyway. It'd have to be someone like Michael Portillo or Giles Coren before I would boycott it sight unseen.

"Look at his face, just look at his face"

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/07/11/50165641-10174307-image-a-18_1636283276609.jpg

one morning on the Today program he went into some false modesty confessional bs about how he sometimes suffers from imposter syndrome but support from his loving partner helped him get through it... yeah whatever. The insidious mumbling mediocrity should feel very bad!

Just glad it's not Osman tbh

I agree with posters above about how bad Rajan is.

I'd like to agree with poster trishyb that it won't put me off, but ... maybe it will. Sad.

It's a contrast, to my mind, with MASTERMIND's appointment of a new presenter: somehow I've always liked Clive Myrie.

Surprised Romesh Ranganathan hasn't got the job yet.

Or Micah Richards.

Why did editor Amol Rajan suddenly swing his newspaper behind David Cameron two days before the 2015 General Election?

A senior political source has claimed to The Mail on Sunday that Mr Rajan – now a rising star at the BBC – had agreed to support the Conservatives if Mr Cameron agreed to attend the birthday party of his proprietor, the Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev.

he learned early on that being an obsequious establishment creep is far more important than having ethics or actually being any good at your job, so the bbc was the perfect environment for him to prosper.