University Challenge

[Cockney Sparrow]

Off topic. Elizabeth Alker is on 'Pointless Celebrities' tonight, 2nd Jan, so we can put the voice to the person. (Presumably).

Maybe I'll take a look. In the view of many here, myself included, not a good fit for R3 weekend Breakfast but I hope she comes over as having strengths in other respects.....

[Nick Armstrong]

Black marks for Paxo/his producers: in the question about death scenes from Shakespeare, Paxo was wrong about both blanked out names in the first question...

[Serial_Apologist]

Black marks for Paxo/his producers: in the question about death scenes from Shakespeare, Paxo was wrong about both blanked out names in the first question...

That is just totally unacceptable, and one of the many reasons I refuse to watch this programme. More important than "so, why am I complaining?" is what can be done to redress or at least change this sort of thing? I have similar doubts about consistency in Mastermind - last night being an instant in point, in which the first contestant had answers on his science specialty* to questions which seemed much longer to read out, either in themselves or because Humphrys was having difficulties with the long words (!) than those given to the other three. There was no chance this guy winning the first round, I told myself, and sure enough he only got 5 points, despite answering most of the questions correctly and promptly.

*(My spell checker says specialty? )

[oddoneout]

That is just totally unacceptable, and one of the many reasons I refuse to watch this programme. More important than "so, why am I complaining?" is what can be done to redress or at least change this sort of thing? I have similar doubts about consistency in Mastermind - last night being an instant in point, in which the first contestant had answers on his science specialty* to questions which seemed much longer to read out, either in themselves or because Humphrys was having difficulties with the long words (!) than those given to the other three. There was no chance this guy winning the first round, I told myself, and sure enough he only got 5 points, despite answering most of the questions correctly and promptly.

*(My spell checker says specialty? )

Your spell checker is American. Given what happens to the likes of 'secretary' and February' when spoken, and the unquestioning use of spellcheck and cut and paste, the english form will disappear before too long I imagine.

[Serial_Apologist]

Your spell checker is American. Given what happens to the likes of 'secretary' and February' when spoken, and the unquestioning use of spellcheck and cut and paste, the english form will disappear before too long I imagine.

Special K goes back at least to the 1960s.

[ardcarp]

I have similar doubts about consistency in Mastermind - last night being an instant in point, in which the first contestant had answers on his science specialty* to questions which seemed much longer to read out

Yes, I felt very sorry for that nice young man who chose the Periodic Table as his specialist subject., and not just for the reason you highlight. Had he been grilled upon the Periodic Table as we know it and which is internationally accepeted, I'm sure he would have scored very highly. But the questions were, to say the least, oblique to the modern table, and seemed to dwell on others' historical efforts to put the elements into some sort of order. IMO he had every reason to feel unfairly treated.

[oddoneout]

Re specialty v speciality I have just come across (in a child's book about Victorian life I am sending to granddaughter) a reproduction of a Pears soap advert which uses the American version, although the advert is from a British magazine - I checked. Looking further afield out of curiosity as one does,I came up with this identical image https://www.granger.com/results.asp?...flag=3&itemx=6 which is from an American magazine, so I don't know...
I also note that the apostrophe from the original is now, in modern times, either omitted completely or has become a tiny TM logo
Apologies for the OT diversion.

[Nick Armstrong]

Change of topic: heartening to see Ade Edmondson doing so well for Manchester celebs and being a collaborative team leader to boot. I'd only ever seen him as a raving punk buffoon on TV before.

I’ve found myself catching up with these Christmas ones, and yes it was fun seeing Adrian Edmondson.

Surprised no one’s mentioned the presence of Colin Matthews on the Nottingham team... what an intro to his achievements from Paxo. (Just about to watch the programme itself though, so not sure how effectual he was in this context)


PS Colin Matthews was pretty good. Amusing that his first musical contribution was “Vera Lynn”!

[Nick Armstrong]

I failed almost all of this week's questions

Me too in this week’s first semi-final Very difficult questions I thought, very ably dealt with by Magdalene & Birkbeck.

.

Still catching up with Christmas ones, and was dismayed to see that the ignorance about classical music noted in current students extends to the middle-aged former students of New College Oxford and Reading - most heinously among the latter, a Newsnight ‘cultural correspondent’ and BBC Four arts documentary maker

[Nick Armstrong]

the ignorance about classical music noted in current students

To be fair, not the case among the Durham students this week, who did well with piano quintets

[gradus]

To be fair, not the case among the Durham students this week, who did well with piano quintets

Exception/rule?

[Nick Armstrong]

Exception/rule?

Another exception yesterday, in that case: Kohn of Imperial a classical music star (not least getting the starter within fractions of a second)...

[Rolmill]

Another exception yesterday, in that case: Kohn of Imperial a classical music star (not least getting the starter within fractions of a second)...

Yes, that was very impressive - much quicker than me! Makes a nice change from shouting "Oh, come on!" at the tv whenever a classical music question comes up on any quiz show.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, that was very impressive - much quicker than me! Makes a nice change from shouting "Oh, come on!" at the tv whenever a classical music question comes up on any quiz show.

Is it just me or are the classical music questions getting a bit harder?
Also - most welcome- I think there’ve been more humanities questions recently which makes a change from endless rounds on the periodic table and sub-atomic particles .

[gurnemanz]

To be fair, not the case among the Durham students this week, who did well with piano quintets

I was disappointed Durham lost. Not just because they knew about classical music (unlike Paxo who can't pronounce Tannhäuser) but because they had a woman in the team and I was a student there umpteen years ago.