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

My friend Ann was the captain of Open University last night and I did a little cheer when the music round was punk women because I knew she'd be all over that. Keskin was really good though, a very enjoyable match all round.

I'm absolutely fine with Rajan by the way, he doesn't have to be Paxo and it's still early days. He's clear and concise and doesn't faff and that's pretty much all I want off my UC host.

it's nice to have someone more enthusiastic about the pop music rounds.

Oh, we loved Ann! We also think Rajan is settling in very well, unavoidable "Serato face" notwithstanding. Found it hard to make out what Keskin was saying a lot of the time, but he was phenomenal.

Keskin was good because though brilliant he wasn't an infallible machine, he got a fair few wrong including some incorrect interruptions

> (idly wondering if i can grab the uc subtitles files and if they'll be in a format where it's easy to scrape all the answers)

yes, the fabled ubuttd files are right there. here's a part

     <p begin="00:03:12.680" end="00:03:15.240" region="agr_0_20_39.5_4_after" style="S2" xml:id="C69_1">
        <span style="S3">Also known for the development</span>
        <br/>
        <span style="S3">of the lambda calculus,</span>
      </p>
      <p begin="00:03:15.240" end="00:03:19.720" region="agr_0_20_39_4_after" style="S2" xml:id="C70_1">
        <span style="S3">which US mathematician is named</span>
        <br/>
        <span style="S3">along with Alan Turing...</span>
      </p>
      <p begin="00:03:19.720" end="00:03:20.760" region="R4" style="S2" xml:id="C71">
        <span style="S4">Church.</span>
      </p>
      <p begin="00:03:20.760" end="00:03:23.120" region="R4" style="S2" xml:id="C72">
        <span style="S3">It is Alonzo Church, yes.</span>
      </p>

it's 2800 lines 8(

s.replace('</p>', '\n').replace(/<[^>]*>/, '')

forgot the global flag -

/<[^>]*>/g

awesome, Ann was great, and finally a decent music round!

Looking back overf the scores in the last few series listed in wikipedia it does look like it is a lot more common for the score to go as I had thought earlier. If one team gets much over 200 the other team seems to be struggling which may also be part of the cause. I was thinking with time constraints etc if one team does get onto a major winning curve it reduces the other teams opportunity to also be on one. Like only one team is getting all the starter questions and then the subsequent follow up round. I did see a couple of spots where a losing tema was getting 100 points plus but seems to be the alternative is more frequent.
Was just wondering what kind of scores could be got by each team if there was a more egalitarian alternating of starter question being got right by each tema and if that did mean you would have them closer and both below 200 which it appeared there were a couple of cases of.
Probably makes for a less interesting show though.

& have the rules of the set up been changed with teh new presenter or are they going to be having most teams coming back for a second chance. Not sure hwo long taht had been going on with the Paxman set up. I don't remember how long a season was when I was growing up etc.
I could see costs of extended rounds being higher and prohibitive but I assume there is a fixed audience plus for this now. Or is taht tentative with new presenter.,

It's the 8 highest scoring teams who get a second chance - sorry repechage - isn't it? Or some number n - I don't think this has changed although I obviously haven't paid enough attention to be sure what n is.

ooh, lots of food, pop culture and an easy last few, so I did ok this week.

although I thought Amol was saying "lounge" not language for the start of the SA one

Briefly:

Sheffield : -5
Loughborough : 0
Me: 10

Why was VC wearing the mask? We've taken to skipping the initial bantz.

Same here

I only watched the second half because you can't rewind live tv with the chromecast. I'll watch the first half later and report back.

absolutely no explanation.

Working on her "murder mystery" book? Hence the masquerade thing.

Maybe, she only talked about poisoned asthma inhalers and motorway service stations. I think she just does it so mooks like us will talk about it.

another good UC for me

Working on her "murder mystery" book? Hence the masquerade thing.

Ugh. This is exactly why I skip the bantz at the beginning.

huge discrepancy in the length of the names last week - an vs akarapongpisakdi

UC was incredibly literature-heavy today. not complaining but by this point it's usually very dry

Yeah, I struggle with hard science and dull history and there didn't seem as much of it as usual.

Yer Scottish lad on Open is definitely one of this year's MVPs (possibly because his literature game is strong and there was quite a lot of it)

I notice Amol is better on literature too.

He’s become a good host, I think. I don’t need to watch with the subtitles - he’s quick but clear. He doesn’t have the Pac-Man gravitas but the warmer approach seems to fit.

Autocorrect but I stand by Pac-Man

Andi Oliver is good on Pointless, I think.

Not seen her. Of the faux-Richards I've seen, I like Alex Brooker and Stephen Mangan the best.

I like Stephen Mangan the best too. I suppose I had lower expectations of Andi Oliver, but she genuinely seemed to be enjoying herself, and she was sometimes able to come up with stuff to say that she didn't have to read off the screen.

We are aware of a number of inaccurate claims being made online in relation to last night’s episode of University Challenge and we utterly condemn the abuse that has been posted and shared.

For the avoidance of doubt, this episode was filmed in March. The mascot is one of many…

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) November 21, 2023

I'm so glad it's not Giles on pointless anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9x8rBUHes0

I never thought a cuddly mascot on UC could be so deeply sinister, jfc

Adorable! As a Jew I would gladly be subjugated by this cutester

that this cuddly adorapus had the rabid racist, Baroness Foster, calling for the expulsion and arrest of the Asian student is completely evil and insane behaviour. I feel sorry for the student having to put up with this shit.

even by the standards of the mad Islamophobes and right-wing nutcases on the web this was all a bit much. At least Gary Lineker is used to being monstered by spittle-flecked bigots, he probably has a social media team to take the flak anyway. Increasingly it seems like the media and political classes think it's okay to take random members of the public (and especially if they happen to be people of colour, young and/or women) to task from perceived "crimes" like this, with who knows what consequences for the unlucky victims?

Actually, that team did get us hopping mad: they were blatantly playing for time to maintain their lead towards the end. Blue octopus, or dead cat?

comedy b vs stephen mangen on celeb weakest link just before doctor who. good job.

That was good, yes. Also enjoyed Rosie Jones on Twitter getting really enthusiastic about how she actually did work and revision before going on Celeb Mastermind and how genuinely chuffed she was that it paid off.

this week's celeb weakest link winner was Josie Long who gave the money to her own charity.

Hmm, bit weird, but at least she knows how the charity is run and how the money will be spent.

she co-founded it but isn't listed on the current board. still does a lot of fundraising for it, which i guess this was. i have no problems with this. (we were regulars at her monthly Camden thing and she'd remember us from one month to the next)

I'm currently trying to recruit her to my quiz league team!

koogs, what era? We may have been in the same room!

Not to be Cap'n Save A Josie but Arts Emergency is a charity dedicated to helping working class people break into the arts and that's a very urgent & key cause in the 2023 British cultural landscape

this was upstairs at the black heart. i was there for her 30th birthday show (she had a list of 30 things to do before you were 30) and i was at the last one and many times in between (often on my own if friends couldn't make it)

Not to be Cap'n Save A Josie but Arts Emergency is a charity dedicated to helping working class people break into the arts and that's a very urgent & key cause in the 2023 British cultural landscape

No Josie hating here! It is just a bit odd to see a celebrity giving money to their own charity on one of these things. But, as I say, at least she knows it's a properly run organization. People have been bitten in the past. Imagine if you were a celeb who'd given money to the Captain Tom thing, for example. (Although I can't think of anyone who did, off the top of my head.)

Arts Emergency is FANTASTIC and everybody who can afford to should chuck them a few quid, which is something I have been saying repeatedly to my privately educated friend whose privately educated child is about to follow them into television :)

koogs, yeah, I was a regular at the Black Heart too!

always fun seeing Nathaniel Metcalfe selling comics in the Gosh basement too, (local stand up) celebrities: they're just like us

Napalm Death and Sabbath on University Challenge: a first?

Husband doing last week's picture round on OC: "Bird, bird, bird, bird. Oh, they're all birds."

For some reason we laughed ourselves sick at this.

Radio 1 were losing it over McMillan when he gets name- called after buzzing. Chicken noises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozcHqgZiSfA

Examples: 24 mins, onwards...