Friday 15 May 2009

Challenge yourself - University Challenge

Advantages: Keeps your brain sharp

Disadvantages: Jeremy Paxman presents this

University Challege is a TV quiz show where teams of university students (four to a team) battle it out to be the winning team at the end of a series. 

It is quite simple really. The presenter (currently Jeremy Paxman) asks a starter question (worth ten points) to both teams. The team that buzzes in forst and answers correctly gets the chance to answer the next three (worth five points each). 

And so the show goes on till they run out of time (denoted by an iconic gong). 

The appeal of this show is being able to keep my brain active by answering as many questions as I can - and they are tough. I do manage to answer about a third to a half of them, but to be honest with a lot of the questions, the answer is hinted at in the question. 

Jeremy Paxman is a good presenter and often chastises the students for getting a question wrong. However, I really don't like the tone of how he does. Not because he is berating someone, more because of the subtext, which goes something along the lines of "How dare you let the educated elite down". 

Paxman to me has proven elsewhere that he is a bigoted snob, and to be frank, as much as I admire the guy for doing his job well, I can't stand his pompous, anglocentric snobbishness. 

Originally presented by the laid back Bamber Gascoigne, the show has taken a bit of an air of seriousness under Paxman. 

A great and enjoyable quiz show, but bring back Bambi.

Summary: Academic quiz show

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