University Challenge

The disability fiasco was intriguing. They failed to make allowances for a visually impaired contestant, which is simply inexcusable because they've adjusted the picture rounds for blind contestants successfully in the past (using Braille images).

But another contestant had a processing issue I think and they fudged the question of whether they could make allowances and then failed to deliver on their promises at the time, rather than simply saying "no, sorry" immediately which would probably have been the right answer (depending on the specific details, I've only seen a summary report).

The Christmas editions have also done away with the photos of contestants from when they graduated/were at university. I expect that’s because the difference in some contestants is too…….great? <diplomatic>

I haven’t been enthused by this year’s anyway, even before having to boycott episodes where womanface is being worn imo. There were 2 team members who had to ask for their first rounds to be withdrawn, as apparently the BBC were unable to ensure essential accommodation for disability, which is very poor.

One of my favourite moments in the last Paxman series was in the final when a team who were brilliant on quantum physics/high literature/obscure rivers etc failed to identify Rock Lobster by the B52s.

The all male team got their arses kicked by a team with 2 women on it!

University Challenge frequently has all male teams. All other things being equal, in the competitive normal season the producers will pick a mixed team over an all male team, but they don't always have a sufficiently good mixed sex team to choose - it's quite a sex-skewed hobby.

And they've included questions about popular culture for decades now. The panic on the faces of a team of very middle class, very white, nerds from Balliol when they realise they've got to answer a round on West Coast Rap or Grime is one of the great joys of UC.

There was that team last series from the last remaining all-woman college at Oxford, or just possibly Cambridge [a non-Oxbridge person writes]. They were marvellous!

Ahh it’s only the Christmas one! The questions are never easy enough for me

It is always a wondrous moment when a university challenge team has two women on it. That never happens.

PS Just got to get this off my chest - Alex Bellos, captain of the CC team, is a dead ringer for Michael Sheen. Anybody seen them in the same room at the same time?

I agree that it was a very poor show for Bangor to be unable to find a single female graduate to represent them on this team. I didn't think you were being coy, just obscure.

I don't think there are any rules for the universities on how to put their teams together, but for PR purposes I'd have expected most of them to want to select a genuinely diverse group of alumni of all ages, from several fields of study including at least one person with a scientific background, more than just White British ethnicity represented, both sexes, and successful in a range of careers since graduation.

We are rooting for Corpus Christi Oxford, but Middlesex are a strong team, so should be a good final!

Just say it straight out. Bangor had Juno Dawson, who is a transwoman. Edinburgh had Freddie McConnell, who is a transman. Neither did particularly well, as it happens, but they weren't alone there.

There is no rule that University Challenge teams have to be mixed sex. There was a season where a member of the production team tweeted that all universities had been asked to ensure that there was at least one woman on every team. That person doesn't work for UC any more though, so I'm not sure anybody is trying to put that pressure on now.

The questions for the Christmas specials are never as taxing as the ones for the normal programme.

For a number of years there have been grammar questions that relate to the Y3/4 English curriculum, so age 7-9. To be fair, many adults wouldn't be able to answer them.

After you......

What? Get a Grip.

Really stupid, dumbed down questions this year. Surely University Challenge is meant to be about university subjects - you know, Keats, Wordsworth, Proust, D H Lawrence, Picasso, quantum mechanics, etc. Not tennis and rap music!

In the grand scheme of life and patriarchy I am for them to take University Challenge!