Skip to main content

University Challenged at Christmas (3) (21.12.16)


While I’m enjoying the current daily instalments of University Challenge, I’ll be glad when they go back to the standard shows.

It’s not as fun to mock the ex-students; they’re just too well-established. I’ve nothing bad to say about Samira Ahmed or Wilko Johnson, for example, and I sure as hell can’t play ‘Spot the Murderer’ with them, or ‘Sniff Out the Most Socially Inept’. The last few episodes have been so alarmingly twat-free, I’ve almost abandoned my usual piss-taking and actually listened to the questions.

See below for tonight’s Twitter banter: normal service will be resumed when they bring the knobheads back.

City - London Vs. Newcastle (21.12.16)
7:32pm: Paxman looks world-weary tonight; I bet they threatened to overrule him.

7:33pm: "Their captain has been broadcasting for over twenty years". Long programme.

7:34pm: Needell loves it.

7:35pm: Newcastle's Scales was hit by a very precise gust of wind.

7:36pm: Astley likes to spin on his chair.

7:39pm: I seem to remember someone making Scale's hair on the Great British Bake Off.

7:41pm: Look Scales in the eye and you'll be turned into stone.

7:43pm: I like a flag with festive fringing.

7:45pm: Imagine Paxman's disdain whilst playing charades on Christmas Day.

7:45pm: Is City London's mascot a jaunty penis?

7:48pm: I'm making Paxman saying "Breast-shaped hill" my text tone.

7:50pm:            PROSPECTIVE BRIDE: "Will you marry me, Jeremy?"
PAXMAN: "....no."

7:51pm: ...it's the bloody Shining.

7:52pm: "...and later popularised by Freud." Something to do with my mum.

7:54pm: Super-charismatic expialidocious.

7:56pm: Needell's slimy pervy face.

7:58pm: For the last three days, the team in the bottom half of the split-screen has lost; it's witchcraft.

7:59pm: Surely NO-ONE has to do it?

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...