TV Extra

Only Connect Monday 15th December 8:30pm

Semi final number 2 saw the the Lapsed Psychologists take on the Bankers. The Bankers struggled in the first round, and picked up no points to trail 4 - 0, only to come roaring back in the second round - the what comes last in the sequence round - to lead 6-5. The connections wall did for them, though. The lapsed Psychologists took their time to get started, but a last minute flurry saw them complete the wall to earn maximum points. Unfortunately the Bankers failed to unravel any of their wall. Neither team exactly covered themselves with glory in the missing vowels round, but the Lapsed Psychologists emerged comfortable winners. so they go forward to meet the Crossworders next week. If I was a betting man then my money would be on the Crossworders, but you never know - anything can happen in a two horse race.

University Challenge

Lincoln College Oxford took on The University of St. Andrews in another enjoyable tussle. An otherwise fairly mellow Jeremy Paxman growled at the start that he wasn't going to go through the rules, since the teams shouldn't even be there if they didn't already know how to play. It was clear from pretty early on that Lincoln College had the measure of their opponents, and finished just a shade short of the magical 300 point mark. Paxman himself said at the end that he felt that the contest had seemed rather closer than the score suggested, and in a funny way I know exactly what he meant. You weren't so conscious of St. Andrews not answering, but I would guess that their bonus conversion rate was quite a bit down on Lincoln's.

Celebrity Eggheads

Well, we've had celebrity everything else in the last few years, so why not celebrity Eggheads. On Monday Nicky Campbell and assorted Radio 5 Live luminaries took on and inevitably lost to a team of the 5 original Eggies. Then on Tuesday Judith sat out and Barry came in against a team of BBC Breakfast News newsreaders. Judith lost on Music on Monday, C.J. lost on politics on Tuesday. That's about it, really. Between ourselves, I can't see that celebrities have any more chance of beating the Eggheads than any normal quiz team, and so there's not really any more entertainment value to the show than normal. There you have it.

Daftest Answers

The things I put myself through for the sake of this blog. I'm fully aware that I have not posted a daftest answer of the week for a couple of months now, and with this in mind I steeled myself to sit through The Weakest Link. As a reward for my pains these two answers seemed worthy of sharing: -

Q : What name is given to the joint between the forearm and the hand ?
A : Elbow ?

Q : Born in Hull in 1759, the MP who was a prime mover in the fight to abolish the slave trade was William who ?
A : Hague ?

Mastermind (1980 series ) Sky Arts 1 - Tuesday 7pm

You may have noticed by now a slight bias in my blog towards all things Mastermind. Let me assure you that this is purely intentional. So I was delighted to see that Sky Arts is now broadcasting the epoch making 1980 series of Mastermind. I say epoch making since this was the series won by Fred Housego, arguably the most famous Mastermind champion of all time, certainly the champion whose win made the biggest splash when it occured. I have to say that I really wanted to see a Magnus Magnusson show again, because I was certain that you could actually end up having more time to answer your questions in those days, than you do now. Now you get your 2 minutes, and this is very strictly observed, however long or short your questions are. Lo and behold though, when I timed the last general knowledge round tonight, this actually lasted for 2 minutes and 20 seconds. So if scores generally are not as high now as they were in the days of Magnus, I think that's a pretty good indication why this might be.

Ego Trip Of the Week

I'm currently in the grip of a chest infection, but my sufferings were temporarily relieved when a neighbour brought in a copy of the Christmas Radio Times, and showed me that I had a name check on p. 52, or 53 I think. There's a little section all about which quiz are you most suited to, and it mentions the last three Mastermind champions. Of coruse, it mentions questions which we all got wrong, but then that's only to be expected. As I'm sure you know, people only ever want to talk about the few questions you got wrong, rather than the many questions you got right. Such is life.