University Challenge
BBC2/iPlayer
University Challenge was back for a new series with Glasgow taking on Exeter. Among the eight student contestants only one was a woman and she wasn’t on the Glasgow side. Was this really the same Yooni attended by Nicola Sturgeon and Mhairi Black?
Glasgow raced into the lead early on, though it soon became clear there were glaring gaps in their knowledge. Asked to name the estate in London that took its name from a Roman watchtower, they furrowed their brows as if the question was preposterous. “Chester?” they ventured.
“No,” sighed quizmaster and chief harrumpher Jeremy Paxman. “It’s the Barbican.”
They had a similar blind spot when it came to the round on Dickens, adopting the unorthodox tactic of answering “David Copperfield” to every question in the hope it had to be right at some point. It was not.
But they were off to the races when a question on fictional enterprises in video games turned up. “Fallout!”, “Resident Evil!”, “Assassins’ Creed!”. Even Paxo had to smile. “Dear oh dear,” he said.
Exeter began to rally, with the sole woman often coming up with the right answer only to have a male colleague repeat it back to her (been there, done that meeting). But Glasgow got lucky with a picture round, the gong struck and the half hour was up. Glasgow 200, Exeter 145.
Paxo congratulated Glasgow on “a great score”. Onward they go to the next round, fingers crossed for more questions on video games.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel