TV Watch Part Two

Are You An Egghead - Monday - Friday 4:30 BBC2

For a third week 10 contenders took the stage to attempt to earn their places in the next round. I noticed several luminaries, including Diane Hallagan, Shaun Wallace and Olav Bjortomt. Surprisingly Diane was knocked out by a chap I didn't know at all. He obviously knows his stuff, because if I heard him correctly he said that he sets quiz questions for a living. As it was it all came down to sudden death, and he probably had the benefit of the easier of the two questions, before going on to make a cringeworthy speech along the lines of he played terribly, and he is normally much better than that. Diane is a truly excellent quizzer herself, so I can just imagine how that little speech must have made her feel . Shaun Wallace I haven't met, although he hails from Wembley, just a couple of miles away from where I grew up. Still, I know all about what he did. Shaun won Mastermind in 2004, incidentally becoming the first black person to do so. He retired from quizzes after, but has been persuaded to make a comeback. So its difficult to know exactly where he fits among the champions since the programme returned in 2003. His was the best match of the week. He played against Richard - sorry, I didn't catch the surname, who won a ton of cash on Duel. And once again it came down to one question in the final round. Shaun described him as the best opponent he has ever faced. Hmm. I think you might be in for a shock in your next match up, Shaun. Then there was Olav. Olav was up against a very nice young lady from Coventry. Apparently her qualifications for the show were enthusiasm, and a crush on Kevin Ashman. Neither of which, it must be said, gave her much of a chance against a quizzer of the calibre of Olav, and lets suffice it to say that she will not feature in the second round.

So, for me this week has highlighted two of the flaws with the show. Firstly, the fact that the questions are , at times, as badly matched as they are on the original Eggheads show. They range from ridiculously difficult, to insultingly easy, and there seems no attempt to match up pairs of similar difficulty. Secondly , some of the contenders are , frankly, not up to it. That's not their fault. But on a show like this you really don't want amateurs, because it is a little embarrassing.

Oh and one last observation. Nobody knows everything. Not one of the Eggheads knew that it was Brian Ferry who recorded The In Crowd - and - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall - in the 1970s

Other Shows

I'm still enjoying Only Connect, although I will make one little observation. No I won't. I'll ask a rhetorical question. Why on earth do they feel that they have to give the teams names that have something to do with each other ? Its a little twee.

Still no University Challenge. I do hope that its back on Monday.

Thank God for the Brain of Britain. No pyrotechnics this week, like we heard from Geoff Thomas in the previous heat, but still a good match up. The standard of the questions on the show is always a pleasure to listen to , even if the standard of the answers given isn't. Mind you , the listener's question in the middle of the show was a little on the easy side. If none of the competitors had known what Walt Disney's initially intended name for Mickey Mouse was, they should have given up and gone home then.

Its a terrible thing, getting old and losing your memory. I heard a wonderfully stupid answer in Friday's Weakest Link - but I didn't write it down, and I've since forgotten what it was. So alas, no daftest answer of this week.