Charlie in today's Times

[Howard Somerset]

There's an interesting feature about TV game shows in today's Times. Many famous people are quoted, the most famous of course being Charlie.

[Jon Corby]

Linky

Edit:

Charlie Reams, 23, won Countdown last year

ahem.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Excellent

[Charlie Reams]

I did say everything I'm quoted as saying but, umm, not in that order or context. The comment about "volunteering to help my department's computer lab" is particularly nonsensical, given that my department is the computer lab and I get paid so "volunteering" seems a bit generous.

I know that Junaid was interviewed for this segment, did they cut him off? The racist poofters.

[Howard Somerset]

Maybe they've merged Junaid's comments with yours, Charlie.

Anyway, it made my breakfast quite different this morning. I'd planned to watch yesterday's programme, but instead read the paper. I guess it'll now be yesterday's Countdown for lunch now.

[Phil Reynolds]

Charlie's (mis)quotes aside, I found myself nodding in agreement at much of what the other interviewees had to say about the peculiar skills required to be good at general knowledge quizzes, especially this from Roger Mortimore: "All it means is that you've got a magpie eye that picks up lots of things." That's it in a nutshell. It never ceases to amaze me when people will excuse not knowing some bit of trivia like, "Who plays Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders?" by saying, "Oh, I never watch it." Neither do I, but I still know the answer.

Another common quiz show non-answer that winds me up (I know, I should get out more) is, "It's before my time." The great Ken Bruce came out with a great retort to that one a couple of years ago in the daily Popmaster quiz on his Radio 2 show. He'd asked some woman a question that could legitimately be deemed "general knowledge" (I can't remember it now, but it was something like "Which group had a hit with Ferry Cross the Mersey in 1964?"). She wailed, "How am I supposed to know that? It's before my time!" To which Ken replied: "Well, I know that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, and I wasn't around then..."

[Rosemary Roberts]

I know that Junaid was interviewed for this segment, did they cut him off?

Perhaps he didn't say anything that could be tailored to fit the prewritten article?

[Martin Gardner]

I know that Junaid was interviewed for this segment, did they cut him off?

Perhaps he didn't say anything that could be tailored to fit the prewritten article?

I was in the Morley Observer twice - in fairness, I can't think of too many people in Morley who haven't been in it! Come to think of it, I've been in it at least 4 times - at school when we had our 'international culture awareness day' which was excellent, because we basically got the day off, free finger food, and just drew pictures and stuff of European cultures. At least once for being on Countdown, although I never read it but someone told me, then twice for being in the French World Scrabble Championship, which was the only time I actually approached them about it.

There were essentially more mistakes than facts in it. They made it sound like it was a knockout competition - i.e. if you lose, you go home, which would be pretty crappy if you've come from Canada to France and you lose the first game. Then they said I got knocked out by the previous year's winner - not true. First of all I beat him, second of all, he was champion of France, not world champion. Indeed it was the first year the event was played, so there was no previous winner. Then they spelt his name without the accent, which is mildly irritating, but not awful. Finally they started a sentence without a capital letter. All this in 300 words. Amusingly my article was deemed slightly less important than "Bride visits grandparents on wedding day". In fairness, I don't particularly need the ego boost anymore, so I won't be doing that again.

[Jason Larsen]

Great people!

Then again, when Millionaire came on, it changed the face of game shows in the US, the UK (and Australia, too!) forever!

[Jimmy Gough]

Am I the only one who thought it said "Penny Wank"?

I love Olav.

[Jason Larsen]

Please don't make fun of the author, Jimmy!

[david dawson]

I did say everything I'm quoted as saying but, umm, not in that order or context. The comment about "volunteering to help my department's computer lab" is particularly nonsensical, given that my department is the computer lab and I get paid so "volunteering" seems a bit generous.

I know that Junaid was interviewed for this segment, did they cut him off? The racist poofters.

What are you like? You lanky wacky ginger racist poofter, you.