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

i had a ridiculous haircut (black/white striped) at the time, which loads of people seem to remember when i mention it ("ohmygodyouwerethatfreakonuniveristychallengewiththeweirdhair!!" etc).

She had an Italian name, but I have forgotten it, so no stalking for me.

-- toby (toby_ge...), January 8th, 2002.

My mate David was on it the year Durham won it - he was UCL, who were you with toby?

As part of the Lancaster team we made it to the final round of auditions two years ago. They actually interview you as if you're going onto an actual game show ("What books have you been reading recently?"), which I found vaguely disconcerting, but answers to the questions on the test we sat included "Tony Hawkes" and "Sixpence None The Richer". So that's alright then.

OK, that may be just me.

1. Stream of Consciousness

2. Greil Marcus's Mystery Train

3. something else interesting - what was it?

I thought he did well.

1970s video games? paxman was aghast that people knew all these, i thought they were piss-easy. (pong, tetris, asteroids, snake)

Perhaps we should not be surprised that you thought they were easy?

I'd like to see how many questions he was actually asked as compared to the others.

Uni Chal Mastermind and Buzzocks makes Monday night the best BBC2 line up all week.

"what's 'amped' mean then?"

I found it strange that they didn't know what COBOL or SQL were yet got the (IMO) more obscure Ada question right.

University Challenge makes me realise how much stuff there is that I don't know. I'm usually chuffed to bits if I get a run of Starter + 3 Bonuses correct.

Discovered a fairly good quiz show called Eggheads yesterday while I was off work. A team of "boffins" (I think most of them are former champions of 15-to-1 or similar) is challenged by a different team of plebs every episode. Plebs can win £20000, boffins just get to be smug about being clever. Plebs won yesterday for the first time in umpteen episodes.

UC was good, I knew more answers than usual (ie, about 5). The Greil Marcus question reminded me of RJG. I liked the set of questions where they had to say who ruled in a X-ocracy, and one of the words sounded very much like phallocracy, and they dithered and snickered and then it was something not rude at all.

I like Eggheads too.

That was because it's named after Ada Lovelace innit. I didn't know the others but I know who the daughter of George Gordon, Lord Byron was. Hung out with Babbage, nice one.

(still, not as bad as the cow-orker who pronounces "spamhaus" "spamhorse")

My old drama teacher got to the semis on MM in '86 or so.

Didn't he get a wee bit more time than the others - Humphrys explained something by way of explanation about the lipreading thing but I was in the other room so missed most of what he was saying.

I wondered about the cane too.

Was the other interesting thing the karaoke backing tracks of cheesy ballads (all of which I recognised, much to the amusement of my husband and parents)? Wasn't there a Smiths lyrics question too, or was that last week?

punk music round AND jazz fusion bonus questions tonight though!

The walls on Only Connect were too hard for round one.

We got full marks on the first one, but even with the wall resolved missed a category on the second one. Proper hard stuff, they weren't easing anyone in gently there.

I really do get irrationally angry with teams who go 'next, next' really quickly without conferring. It's talking shit out when you see things that make things make sense later in the sequence and means you might hit on something early. Rushing early to get all three or four clues on display before you start to think is never going to get you a decent score.

3 out of 4 on punk, 4 out of 4 for jazz fusion. Annoyingly thought Gang of Four were Wire.

I didn't think the walls were necessarily that difficult but it bugs me when a team ploughs on with a category there are far too many options to brute force in time and not start on other categories to thin the board down (towns/cities was pretty obvious on both boards for starters).

3 out of 4 on punk, 4 out of 4 for jazz fusion. Annoyingly thought Gang of Four were Wire.

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, dunno what that is. Thought I knew Go4 better. Will have to listen more.
But very good band who I should know like the back of my hand.

they were quick on the trigger on the second track. i'd've got it on the chorus.

both the walls suffered from a seeming group of 7 things. you can't cycle through them easily so you've got to get the other groups first. it's so much easier if you can eliminate 4 quickly.

Enjoyed punk and jazz fusion quads, also enjoyed that they fell on a week with a team that actually knew them - so many times you get people who have zero interest in popular culture that they could play Cocteau Twins and they'd guess The Beatles or something

".. round of questions about Punk"

wife: "off you go then!"

I'll admit, I was expecting Wire to come up, but I did get <hidden> obv.

Not quads, sorry, bonuses, I do far too many quizzes in real life to distinguish them from telly ones.

xpost The Who was always the default guess for the music round.

There's a bunch of questions that come up on the other quizzes where there is always one (maybe two) possible answers.

Which Canadian Rapper (DRAKE!)
Which prime minister (is always Thatch, or Church, 90% of the time)
Which position does (footballer) play? (always is Goalkeeper).

In UC any maths question which asks for a number, 1 or 2 usually does the trick.

Tru

Just watched OC and the walls were hella difficult, I don't blame the teams for plugging away with the only category they could spot, I couldn't see any others either. (Well I did guess food and fashion designers but could only see two certain answers for each.)

daube appearing in both OC and UC last night

i love early UC eps as I get/guess a fair few including q1

yesterday's felt harder/more geographic than usual. still got the food ones and not even wrong among a small number of others.

Not really vibing with this current series of Only Connect so far, they appear to have selected quite a few teams who aren't very good at it. Like after this many series who thinks "oh that is a number and a thing in a wider group of things, perhaps it's that they are that number position in some random groups of things" without considering that that's a *terrible* connection and barely a connection at all and that there's probably more to it than that?

surprising nobody, i got all the japanese files featuring prime numbers last night

47 ronin, 13 assassins, 7 samurai

there are about 1m versions of the first, i have 4, including the one by mizoguchi in the clue. the second was a remake, which he didn't mention (the original is slower, the remake has some obvious cuts for certificate, which i found jarring).

Someone naming Alan Moore as the author of The Kraken Wakes, like Moore and Wyndham are equal members of a group called "things that are old" was a very "I am old" moment

ffs I wouldn't have grouped john wyndham and robert louis stevenson together when I was college age.

Quite a terrible Mastermind last night, possibly some of the worst general knowledge I've ever seen since I was on it and forgot absolutely everything I've ever known ever. Absolutely loved the team captain of the losing University Challenge team though, she was properly good fun and also quite useful in using that to drag out answers.

"John Information"

haha yeah
i mainly only get food and word ones these days.

my mum is visiting and got at least one of the music ones right that they got wrong.

last week i got the M Theory one solely from reading Skippy Dies a few days before.

"John Information"

I know you don't get penalised for passes on UC, but I've seen people do this on Mastermind as well, and it's a smart idea.

The drawback of that is that you lose time by having the questionmaster read back the correct answer, whereas if you pass you get to the next question more quickly. at least that's the theory.

The drawback of that is that you lose time by having the questionmaster read back the correct answer, whereas if you pass you get to the next question more quickly. at least that's the theory.

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram)

Oh, I never knew why people didn't just throw out guesses all the time to avoid the pass penalty, so this makes some sort of sense. I'm not convinced the time saved is worth it but at least there's a rationale.

What made John Information even funnier to me was that earlier in the game there'd been a racing question and my "this is futile, I don't bloody know" guess had been John Honda.

Monday's music round starter question, are you fucking kidding me? That was stupidly fast.

Hieronymus bosch!!

that is probably all you needed to recognise that tune tbh. but i am surprised that they knew it given their ages Tom Tom Club. i guess it must've been on the tick tocks recently. or they knew it from the samples

We all knew music from the past that influenced current music when we were students though?

we didn't really have sample culture, but then i am old.

and it was never a big hit though, was it? (googles...) 31 in the states, didn't chart in the uk (got to 65). I'm surprised it's as well known as it is.

You can thank Mariah Carey for that!

Wikipedia goes on to say that the maria carey track was number 1

> "Fantasy" has also been credited with exposing the Tom Tom Club and "Genius of Love" to newer and possibly younger listeners

(not sure I've ever heard it)

> we didn't really have sample culture, but then i am old.

this is patently false given that hip hop existed at the time, and things like marrs was huge (and jive bunny!) but it's never been a big part of my listening and I'm not sure i can think of an equivalent of the above amongst what i was listening to.

and even Fantasy was 1995. those kids wouldn't've been born for another 10 years

Fantasy itself was sampled a few years ago for a saucy little number from Latto about having big d energy, so the influence persists.

What I mean is, it's not really that surprising when a student turns out to be a music nerd. I'm usually surprised when they aren't, tbh.

yeah. i was being a bit more specific - things i liked / knew as a student based on samples that i knew. there's almost certainly a better thread for this (planet rock...)

Amol is way harsh in what he doesn't accept.

Victoria SLAMS Connections!!

Pretty sure it's not up to him, but yeah, that Ceuta ruling was harsh. Enjoyed VCM dissing Connections.

> it's not really that surprising when a student turns out to be a music nerd

not this week 8) guessing dylan for cohen, the specials for prince buster, the kinks for bowie...

VCM hating on v-for-vendetta too

It is surprising on UC though

They're usually terrible

8) guessing dylan for cohen - Fair enough, in the ballpark if you don't know len
the kinks for bowie... Yeah, on that one he does sound a bit like Ray
, the specials for prince buster OH MAN!!!

And also, the beach boys round was clearly going to crash out after the first one was miles out - just keep saying "Good Vibrations" it might work: Oh! it did!

Feeling a bit stupid watching today, but their complete uselessness in a very easy music round made me feel a bit less stupid.

Even my wife said "oh for god's sake"

UC seems a bit easier when you get to hear the whole question!
my OH has AIWS so felt quite validated to see that come up.