c4countdown

Auditioned for this on Saturday. I'm not even an average pub quizzer so was way out of my depth. My team weren't much better, so we ain't going to make it to the televised stages. But I just wanted to talk about me for a minute. Hi.

Mark Deeks wrote:Auditioned for this on Saturday. I'm not even an average pub quizzer so was way out of my depth. My team weren't much better, so we ain't going to make it to the televised stages. But I just wanted to talk about me for a minute. Hi.

Haha yeah I vaguely remember you, you were that guy who done something weren't you?

Or was that me?

Michael Wallace wrote:Clearly a deliberate loss to maximise screen time (maybe). Twitter is becoming more and more love/hate with him, but it's hard to see which side is winning. It seems an awful lot of people take the show so seriously that they find it necessary to tweet about how much they hate him for not taking it seriously, which is amusing.

Really? I can only assume the people moaning at him for "not taking it seriously" just don't have a sense of humour. It's quite obvious that CF's providing great entertainment - "je ne comprendez pas" and the skateboarding move answer for an ice-skating question being the highlights - and I look forward to his next appearance. Who was it who buzzed for a bonus question (one directed at the other team)?

Graeme Cole wrote:Who was it who buzzed for a bonus question (one directed at the other team)?

It was the guy on CF's left, wasn't it? (Andrews?)

Graeme Cole wrote:Really? I can only assume the people moaning at him for "not taking it seriously" just don't have a sense of humour. It's quite obvious that CF's providing great entertainment - "je ne comprendez pas" and the skateboarding move answer for an ice-skating question being the highlights - and I look forward to his next appearance. Who was it who buzzed for a bonus question (one directed at the other team)?

I think it was Andrews who committed that buzz, which is easily done.

I'd really like to meet some of the people who tweet really extreme views. Most of us are of course familiar with the "Internet hate" you can get for going on TV, but there just seems something particularly weird about the sort of person who would watch UC but also tweet threats of violence/murder towards a contestant on it. Any Countdowners had similarly extreme experiences?

Michael Wallace wrote:

Graeme Cole wrote:Really? I can only assume the people moaning at him for "not taking it seriously" just don't have a sense of humour. It's quite obvious that CF's providing great entertainment - "je ne comprendez pas" and the skateboarding move answer for an ice-skating question being the highlights - and I look forward to his next appearance. Who was it who buzzed for a bonus question (one directed at the other team)?

I think it was Andrews who committed that buzz, which is easily done.

I'd really like to meet some of the people who tweet really extreme views. Most of us are of course familiar with the "Internet hate" you can get for going on TV, but there just seems something particularly weird about the sort of person who would watch UC but also tweet threats of violence/murder towards a contestant on it. Any Countdowners had similarly extreme experiences?

I had one person say my voice was making her want to bash her head against broken glass. I retweeted comments that had some sort of humour value like that. Others said that I was a freak, or a faggot, or similarly erudite evaluations which I ignored.

A few days after the final there was one person who found me on Twitter and started hurling insults, apparently because I'd initiated a handshake with Carl Williams before a crucial conundrum [1] [2]. For all that's been said about him on here, it must be said that Carl read these tweets before I did and put him right, pointing out it was a "best of luck" handshake which I'd have thought would have been obvious to everyone anyway.

To Mr Elliott's credit, he was one of the few twitterers who spelt my name right, even if it was to call me a twat.

It's not an isolated issue. Even when you have a contestant who brings bagfuls of humour and personality to the proceedings (I'm thinking particularly of CF and Mark Deeks), there will always be internet critics who are determined to see the worst in everyone (true in both examples). It seems it's an unavoidable part of appearing on TV.

Fucking loved it. It's rare to find yourself A-LOLling at UC but each time he/his team are on I've done it at least once. For me it was the bird bonuses early on that was just hilarious, and then the shove-popit(?) answer and then I have never spoke a word of French so I'm guessing he said "don't know" or something along those lines? Either way, hugely entertaining and they're a decent side too. Andrews was clearly told by CF to press his buzzer to put Worcester off!

Bit unlucky this time in the way some of the questions fell and also some incorrect interruptions in the final half. The other team had 3 gimmes on capital cities (OK I didn't know them, but I'm guessing that's something that at least one person in each UC team is pretty up to speed on). Narrow defeat. I really like the Worcester team too by the way because they also don't seem to take it all that seriously and they all have nice smiley faces.

I got all of the ice-skating questions right. Was a case of guessing which way round Axel and Salchow would be I suppose. The Badcock concurs.

As for the humour or otherwise of the boy with the hair, it's a bit childish really, bloody students. I'm sure I'd be more amused if I knew him - without a context, he comes across to me as a bit of a dick!

Can't believe no one has yet mentioned the loud belch that was heard right at the end of the foreign riddles round and which somehow escaped the edit. It's at 10'07" on iPlayer if you don't believe me.

Also, how did Moss from The IT Crowd manage to sneak onto the other team?

Pop shove-it.

http://thequizaddict.blogspot.com/2012/ ... al_24.html

Charlie Reams wrote:Pop shove-it.

I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for a day and that's as much as I've been exposed to skateboarding.

Ryan Taylor wrote:http://thequizaddict.blogspot.com/2012/ ... al_24.html

Charlie Reams wrote:Pop shove-it.

I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for a day and that's as much as I've been exposed to skateboarding.

I wasn't correcting you (I didn't read your post until afterwards), I just thought I would quote it for posterity.

I read that CF is back on our screens next week when UCL play Balliol College, Oxford.

And that will complete the semi line-up.

James Robinson wrote:I read that CF is back on our screens next week when UCL play Balliol College, Oxford.

And that will complete the semi line-up.

Correct. Although I prefer to call them by their proper name: Balli-lol.

To add to the Countdown/University Challenge crossovers, I'm going up to Manchester this weekend to film our (New College, Oxford) first round match. I think we're the last match, before the highest-scoring losers, so won't be shown till late September/early October.

Thomas Cappleman wrote:To add to the Countdown/University Challenge crossovers, I'm going up to Manchester this weekend to film our (New College, Oxford) first round match. I think we're the last match, before the highest-scoring losers, so won't be shown till late September/early October.

Awesome stuff, good luck (unless you end up against one of my former colleges, of course ).

Another impressive win there for CF and co.

Seemed a bit quiet tonight until the booby and Uranus came up.

So hope they get to the final.

Somewhat surprised to see CF shuffling alongside Olly Murs on BBC's Let's Dance for Sport Relief at the weekend.

Ah university challenge, an insanely hard quiz but thats why we love it

unlucky! It was so tense right up to about 3 minutes to go. The long pause on that Strait question was dramatic! I felt for sure someone would stab for a British strait (given both guys mentioned were British) but no (one of the few I'd have got right). Awesome display though throughout, how on earth the teams know so much is beyond me, I find myself just sitting back and enjoying the contest rather than taking part as I know I can't compete. Magnificent run by UCL and thoroughly refreshing (so relaxed and cool even for a semi-final).

Tom Andrews for me in the last 2 games now has come out with absolute corkers for answers that have had me lolling. He's almost up there with Jamie for funny moments!

I should be cheering for Pembroke in the final since it has Ben Pugh on the team but I'm gonna cheer on the underdog I think next week. And I naturally like the Manchester team better, they're smilier.

That Pugh looked like a cock to me with his annoying hand gestures and celebrations at the end. You shouldn't be allowed to celebrate anything on such a serious quiz. But mainly because you're not CF.

Matt Morrison wrote:That Pugh looked like a cock to me with his annoying hand gestures and celebrations at the end. You shouldn't be allowed to celebrate anything on such a serious quiz. But mainly because you're not CF.

Tbf, Pugh is clearly a pretty phenomenal quizzer, across all his shows he's demonstrated a staggering breadth of knowledge. Unfortunately the rest of his team were really boring (and apparently terrible at chess). At first I was with you on their high five celebrations being a bit annoying, but then you realise that they're such rubbish high fives that I actually find them endearing.

Who are people rooting for in the final? I think I prefer Pembroke as a team (Pugh is fun and they don't have any old people), but if Manchester win UCL will have beaten the UC champions which would be pretty cool.

(And before anyone tries to infer spoilers from that, we didn't stay at the studios to watch the final because we were all knackered and wanted to go home.)

Was really gutted for UCL losing, they were brilliant all series. I'll be honest, I was expecting Pembroke to win given how good they've been all series but when UCL lead for most of it I was really hoping they'd win. Unlucky to them.

This is the first University Challenge series I've watched and I've actually impressed myself with the amount I can get, I got 8 correct last night which I was happy about.

I'd like Pembroke to win, I think they deserve it and I've never really been too keen on Manchester all series, they seem a bit boring, but then again, it might be good to have a non-Oxbridge team to win.

Our school enters a quiz competition rub like UC which we came third in the UK last year and it's starting soon so I'm hoping to do better this time around.

Looking forward to the final!

Was on holiday last week but we had a night in on Monday so I suggested to the other half that I'd quite like to watch UC "as it's a semi final, oh, and I've met the boyfriend of one of the team captains". Having identified which captain during the intros, I realised I was getting some hard stares during the first round so I felt compelled to say, "Er, his hair normally looks better than that."

I should totally take up TV reviewing.

Michael Wallace wrote:Unfortunately the rest of his team were really boring (and apparently terrible at chess).

It was as if they didn't even know how the pieces move....

So... last night's final, anyone see it? Personally, I thought it was a bit of an anti-climax, with Manchester dominating for the majority of it. I guess they deservedly won, having seen that they had the higher average of the two going in beforehand and were definitely much better on the night. It's also pretty cool that UCL beat the winners (the same as last year). A great series IMO and I can't wait for the next one.

Yeah, agree it was a bit anticlimactic. I found it a bit odd when, with 5-10 minutes to go Pembroke started to really get into it, but Paxo didn't do his normal thing of reading the questions really fast (maybe he was knackered).

The presentation at the end was really weird, though, it was just super awkward and just a bit cringeworthy. Would have loved to see CF meeting Camilla though

The first episode of the new series has just finished. Trinity Laban (debutantes) played York University.

Loved the question on band Venn diagrams - one of my favourites for a while

Jeremy Paxman having a chat with John Humphrys about UC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 753665.stm