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

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...

Haha, glad we weren't the only ones, hilarity in the Moose household every time Roger Tilling did his chicken impression. BirkbeckMacMillan! Bwok-bwok-mwok-mwan!

Haha, that's brilliant and I totally didn't notice that. Obvs, because I know every quizzer in the universe, I shall be making chicken noises at Danny next time I see him.

It felt like the BirBek noise got more insane with each go as well, I suspect Tilling lost some kind of bet.

Particularly when he got called to deliver the tie-break answer with a "buzz-in-early"

The noise definitely got more insane, because the competition was more tense. It was very funny, although my husband said he'd rather I hadn't told him about it because he got completely distracted waiting for it to happen. Some people will say anything to justify their low scores, tbh.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/18/bbc-called-to-defend-elitist-format-of-university-challenge

Frank Coffield otm

Yes, I was worried by that headline that it'd be about dumbing down the questions but forcing Oxbridge to field only two teams is praxis.

must remember to check my recordings are correct for the christmas editions of these things because iirc i missed one last year because they are in the epg as different things from the usual series.

Sheepishly I don't really care about the Oxbridge bias (in my mind more Oxbridge teams = more chances to see them getting whomped by teams from former polys) but the refusal to manage even basic reasonable accommodations for disabled team members (see here) is some pathetic bullshit

The great thing about the Christmas Only Connect specials is that they have proper Only Connect teams on them. Last night's Christmas University Challenge was more of a chore than a treat. Might not bother with the rest of them (of course I will, though).

celebrities: they're dumber than us

Worth it just for the answer 'Doctor Spock' to the question asking for the name of the killer in the Halloween films.

I'm always struck by how badly the journalist contestants perform -- most of the journalists I know are deep-knowledge savant-quiz-types.

But not these ones, I guess.

> Doctor Spock

the clue mentioned william shatner, but this is another level of wrong

Rolled my eyes that between the four of them they didn’t know that Frank Capra made “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

That was the one that got me. And that they appeared never to have heard of Delft, ffs.

There's nothing like shouting "Frank fucking Capra, you arseholes!" at the television to let you know Christmas has started.

Yeah there was a team on regular UC who were so bad at culture questions, and had an attitude towards them that was probably just sheepish but felt smug to me. The one where they guessed that Kant's philsophical stance was "postmodern existentialism" or something along those lines, really made me think "why are you even here".

NB I would surely do even worse at STEM-y questions and am a horrible hypocrite.

worst of last night's UC was the two minutes they were taking to not answer some of the questions

I think the new headmaster has been doing a fine job but it is true he lets the students go on a bit, one misses the iron grasp of Paxman. Always going to be worse with alumni, the older the student the more disruptive they get imo.

postmodern existentialism" or something along those lines, really made me think "why are you even here".

the best thing about the Christmas UC episodes seems to be missing this year - the olden days pictures

(they also all seem to be a bit more c-list than usual)

I was thinking they were more interesting than usual tbh

is it me or are the questions a bit tougher than usual christmases

yesterday's groaner was the person who answered "nevada" to the question that began "where in california..."

Was that the death valley one?

yep

Rolled my eyes that between the four of them they didn’t know that Frank Capra made “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, December 19, 2023 7:26 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

OK, I didn't know this :( but I did know it was set in Seneca Falls, NY because I lived near there while in college.

Worth it just for the answer 'Doctor Spock' to the question asking for the name of the killer in the Halloween films.

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, December 19, 2023 6:41 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

This was amazing.

we don't get the photos from when they were fresh faced youths any more? (in some cases just a few years ago)

Slightly surprised that there was a round in Dario Argento, not so surprised that nobody knew ‘Giallo’ as a genre.

wasn't giallo a clue or an answer just days ago (possibly on oc)? colours in foreign languages

Yeah it was on the OC wall, colours in Italian

two rounds on names of mathematical things that they were both terrible at

imaginary, irrational / i, zeta

I love it when I answer a question even faster than the teams (an extremely rare event) and then the quizmaster praises them for being so quick. "That's right, bitch!" I may have shouted at Amol.

i only catch UC when i’m over here for the holidays but i really like amol? it was cracking me up the other day when he was getting really pissed at the teams for conferring during the starter question. i really liked the team that won this year, was laughing when the losing team last night just had no idea who dua lipa & issa rae were. turn on the telly, academics!

Nice to see that they’ve ditched Amol’s Flintstones monitor and given him a better sized chair. We normally skip the Xmas specials, but he’s so adorable that we’ve watching them this year. Something about the whole tone of the show has evolved since he’s joined, and it’s a better show for it.

I hate every other media iteration of Amol Rajan, but he's really good at this, in terms of both reading and engagement (both with the teams and with a nod to the viewers), and it is much more enjoyable and much less stuffy while still being a tough quiz.

feel like the determinations made by the questioner are making the difference here so far sheff vs aberdeen, which i think ive not seen before