UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

© BBC

Do you know University Challenge? If you hail from the UK, and you have a television, there is no doubt you do. For those who haven't lived here, University Challenge is THE best quiz show ever to grace our TV screen. It was launched in 1962, and has been running ever since with only a few years' interruption in the late eighties.

The principle of the game is very simple: it pits two teams of four competitors from the best universities in the UK, to whom are asked very diverse questions of general knowledge. But the quality of the questions, as well as that of the contestants makes all the difference, and this is probably why the program has lasted so long. By most measures in fact, it is as famous here as Who wants to be a Millionaire: it has its catchphrase that found its way into everyday language ("Starter for ten"), and that catchphrase is also the title of a novel based on the quiz show, as well as of the film derived from it. Granted, the film did not win 8 oscars, and all you get for winning the four rounds of the competition is just a book-shaped piece of glass. But no game show on the planet has had so many contestants go on to become famous: actors Stephen Fry and Myriam Margoyles, writers Sebastian Faulks and Julian Fellowes, politician Malcolm Rifkind and David Mellor, journalist Jon Simpson, historian David Starkey or TV presentor Clive James all appeared on the program as students. I wonder how many The price is right alumni have known a similar fate...

In any case, there was a controversy two weeks ago, a bit of a storm in a tea-cup, as you often get in the UK. It was revealed that Sam Kay, a member of the winning team (Corpus Christi, one of the colleges of Oxford University) was not a student any more when the last rounds were recorded. After it was made public, the BBC decided to disqualify the winning team, and award their prize to the runners-up, Manchester University, who seemed less than pleased with the accolade.

The fact is, stripping Corpus Christi of their title was the wrong decision on many levels. First, without belittling Kay's contribution, he was part of a very good team with a truly exceptional captain. Gail Trimble, dubbed since "the human Google", scored personally a record 800 points over the whole of competitions, which is two thirds of her team's points. She has so impressed the UK public that men's magazine Nuts apparently tried to contact her to arrange a "tasteful" photoshoot. Yeah, right! Even the Independent, reputed to be a serious newspaper, was wondering in an article who could win Gail's heart. Can you imagine that if the team's captain had been a man? Of course, they would be thinking of his career prospects...

But what makes the BBC's decision even more unfair is that for reasons only known to them, they record the program in two stages: one in March, and the other one in November, or in other words, in two different academic years. Sam Kay, who was still studying when the first recordings were made, failed to get funding for his planned PhD, and had to start work in September, and so became ineligible. So, the BBC did stick by their rules, but those were made absurd by the corporation's own lack of common sense. In fact, it looks like Corpus Christi is being made to pay for a couple of recent, more high-profile, scandals that have involved the Beeb recently, and where they had been criticised for their lack of a quick reaction.

I personally remain unmoved, and still consider University Challenge to be one of the best programs on British television. All that it lacked was a (moderately) juicy scandal to while away the weeks until the next series: what more can we ask for?
Maybe some tasteful photos...