I was reading the Saturday paper in one of my breaks from writing, and I noticed a bit about University Challenge. This year apparently one of the boys answered nearly all the questions for his team, and has been praised and already has a 'fan club' - bit of a contrast to when a girl did the same thing and was more or less told off for hogging the limelight and being a 'know it all' - in these days of 'equality' should someone be writing a thesis on why this should be? - or do we already know the answer??:-)

This has been a VERY hot topic on another forum I frequent. They love a bit of a debate about feminism. However, I essentially was chucked out of the forum for saying that many of the UV contestants are socially retarded :$ - they are a bit though aren't they!?? (please don't chuck me out!)

Never having been invited to participate (although my daughter was) anything I could say about them could well be construed as sour grapes - but you could well be right. however since Bambi stopped doing it I have noticed a distinct whiff of superiority from Mr P creeping in (but then it is so much easier to chuckle when he can't pronounce stuff, which I notice is often scientific) The real question is though, why do they still allow Oxford and Cambridge so many more goes than other universities? and incidentally what was it this year with the strange second round bit, that was really odd.

my friend was on it last year, and she was great on it, but unfortunately for her team, they were all undergrads. Most of the winning teams seem to have people that have done about 7 undergrad degrees and 5 PhDs!

I noticed that too, I suppose once upon a time it was all taken more as a bit of fun, nowadays it is far too serious. but then in the beginning they had different points for the follow up questions instead of the standard they have now, so a team could get into their swing a bit later than the other one, but still win because their follow up questions had had more points attached.

have to say that although I usually get a few per show - mostly music and art (even though I do psychology :$ ) I wouldn't actually want to know some of the stuff the contestants do - I don't want to be THAT geeky lol

I must admit I can guess some answers, although sometimes its more of an 'if its a play, guess shakespeare' assuming its the right era,or 'if its a pic with trees guess Constable - or if its got a horse in it guess Stubbs' etc. :$. The best ones are the maths, a whole load of numerical bits. and cos I can't write it down I've forgotten half of it before its finished, i usually guess one, or 0.5 and sometimes its even right! :-). What gets me though is when someone gives an answer and Mr P. looks scathingly at them or raises his voice in mock surprise that they could even consider that could be the answer, me. I would probably think it was a valid guess!

I do think he's a bit generationalist (if that could ever be a word!) in that he expects us (the younguns) to know certain stuff that happened in HIS generation, but ask him a question about facebook functions or snow patrol and he would be at a complete loss.