University Challenge Watch

Didn't Paxman go to St Catz Cambridge, and Amol Rajan to Downing?

 

What’s the difference between knowing the name of a classical composer and piece of popular music? It’s all just recall.

It’s no great feat to benefit from a pay school education and be able to name the things they drummed into you.

The questions have always been relatively easy to get right by simply naming the one answer you recall.

Name the physicist whose eponymous law states the relationship between pressu..BOYLE!

Paxo - Well interrupted, I was going to say who shares his name with a Scottish singer and Britain’s Got Talent runner up.

 

Are we playing High Brow/Low Brow on House of Games?

 

It would be nice for the BBC to cast its net further afield rather than go for the safe choice of an Oxbridge graduate. At least he has come from a state school background.

 

I think it's terrible that the Oxbridge college teams don't get enough help. The whole programme should be conversed in Latin. That should smite those pesky former Polytechnics and mature students studying for a part-time degree.

On a slightly more serious note, if Oxford And Cambridge University are allowed to enter multiple teams than so should all the other institutions. It would only be fair but then when did fairness ever enter things.

 

Each college is an independent self-governing academic institution though. So it’s not really a case of Oxford and Cambridge entering multiple teams; the colleges are entering the competition themselves.

 

If the 'best from the whole University' teams from York and Durham can't even beat an individual college from Oxbridge, then what hope would their individual colleges have of winning?!?!

If anything, it's unfair against Oxford and Cambridge, as their 'best from the whole University' teams would wipe the floor with everyone else even more than their college teams already do.

 

Is Intelligence simply about the ability to retain facts ?
When I was a kid the "Playfair Cricket Annual" was my Bible
I could tell you about any cricketer from any county and recite
any test match from the 70s/80s . Am I a genius ? Probably not
but for a starter for 10 which NZ cricketer took a hat trick ....
PJ Petherick

 

We need you over on the cricket thread! Especially when the county season starts…

 

70s and 80s only !!!

 

You’ve lost all interest? Surely not!

 

As a kid I was a cricket nerd . I haven't lost interest just don't feel the need to go over stats relentlessly!!

 

No worries, we generally discuss the brilliance of the Cidermen and how lousy Yorkshire and Middlesex are. Plus, a smidgeon of Test cricket.

 

Lol!!
Any time you want a chat/discuss let me know or join in and I shall be there !!

 

Not necessarily.

Their colleges are allowed to flood the competition. Why not just allow multiple entries from anywhere else. More representative of the student cohorts, gives other students a chance of entering, more chance of getting some other really good teams and less chance of getting some of the embarrassing one-sided affairs. Make it just generally fairer.

 

See post #77. These aren’t really “their” colleges in the sense you suggest. It’s totally different from a hall of residence in Nottingham or Essex, say.

There are multiple University of London teams too.

I suppose that there could be an internal college competition within Oxford and Cambridge (and London?) with the winning college going forward to “represent” that university that year. Not sure who would run that though.

 

Is Amol slated to replace Jezza? That's a poor choice. I know Amol had achieved a lot as a journo and is academically smart, but he's shown on celeb quizes that his general knowledge is appalling.

 

Even allowing for post-grads, the average number of students per college at Cambridge is under 800, and as such as Trinity have approx 1100, then some colleges are much smaller. Quite a few post-grads are only there for 2 years max and as a lot are from abroad and have no real awareness about UC, not many of them show much interest in it anyway.

However, it may at times be easier to pick a good mix of knowledge from a smaller pool who tend not to be so dispersed in various far-flung accomodations, so I'm not sure the total number of available students is as much of a disadvantage as it may at first appear.

 

I don't see how accommodation of the students would really pose any issue for finding and organising the University teams - I'm not sure exactly how they'd be organised, but I'm sure most of the potential general knowledge whizzes at each Uni who think they'd be good at University Challenge would apply to the centralised trial events.

 

The timescale involved to do that would surely make it impractical - some of the winners might have graduated by the time the college is put forward to represent the Uni on UC.

 

Oxbridge colleges were originally invited to enter separately because when UC started, not enough universities applied.

I believe some colleges and universities develop a UC culture in which membets of teams that do well set up entry competitions and mentoring to help their successors win the prize. It's very much the same colleges each time, whereas mine appears this season for the first time since I was an undergrad (just before the Norman Conquest).

My gripe is that some teams are full of 20-year-olds while others have a lot of postgrads (to make up the numbers?). I'd like it to be restricted to undergraduates.

 

Not sure that PGs are there to make up the numbers, they very often have a depth of knowledge greater than the UGs.

 

True, which is why I think that the competition should be restricted to undergrads. But undergrads are more closely integrated into college life, which is why I would think they would often or usually have first dibs. But I don't know - I never wantef to expose my ignorance by going on the programme.

 

Not many postgrads I knew had any interest in it. Things may have changed now I suppose.

 

The London ones really are separate entities though, as you are employed by the individual entity rather than University of London, like the Welsh Universities under the University of Wales umbrella.

 

But as a student you get your degree from the University of London, not the “college”.

I speak as a graduate of LSE.

 

Did you enter the lottery of whether you could graduate in front of Princess Anne? Some nice pubs in the areas around LSE and Birkbeck I seem to remember. The contrast between Bloomsbury and the sh1thole, only a stone's throw away, that was Kings X/Pentonville Road was quite stark.

 

Degree certs from Cambridge carry the University of Cambridge heading and are in the format:

'SO-AND-SO of XYZ College in the University of Cambridge' and are signed by the University Registrar and clerk.

 

Does it not say 'Polytechnic of the Fens'?

 

Top Russell Group humour there.

 

But we all live by the river.

 

This cam't be true - there is no XYZ College.

 

I think it's the one after Wolfson....

 

I see one of the contestants from the Courtauld Institute of Art had access to the dressing up box and decided to come as a WWII resistance fighter in today's show.



Meanwhile on Only Connect it was 2 family teams including an alternative suburban middle class Addams family with an Uncle Fester, Morticia, and Pugsley fit for the 21st Century.