Chuck Woolery, host of Love Connection, dies aged 83

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Admin

A musician, the original Wheel of Fortune host and later a rightwing podcaster, Woolery died at home in Texas

Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of Wheel of Fortune, Love Connection and Scrabble who later became a rightwing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about Covid-19, has died. He was 83.

Mark Young, Woolery’s podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early on Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote.

University Challenge special axed over lack of support for disabled contestants

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Admin

Christmas alumni episode had one blind entrant and another who was neurodivergent, both of whom say they did not get help

The BBC has apologised and pulled a Christmas episode of University Challenge after two contestants complained about a lack of provision for their disabilities.

The festive spin-off from the BBC Two quiz show, hosted by Amol Rajan, features teams of distinguished alumni who compete on behalf of their former universities.

Jeremy Paxman bows out as host of University Challenge

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Admin

Former Newsnight presenter, 73, will end stint as longest serving current quizmaster on British television

Jeremy Paxman’s stint as the longest serving current quizmaster on British television will come to an end on Monday night when he presents his final edition of University Challenge.

The 73-year-old former Newsnight presenter is bowing out from the show after revealing he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

BBC accused of ‘hiding’ Oxbridge bias on University Challenge in deepening elitism row

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Admin

Corporation rejects freedom of information request from campaigner who claims show is ‘rigged’

The BBC has been accused of “hiding” the extent of its Oxbridge bias on University Challenge in a deepening row about alleged elitism on the show.

The Guardian revealed that Frank Coffield, a Durham-based emeritus professor of education at University College London, is campaigning for fairer entry rules for the show for what he says is a rigged contest.

‘Just for the fun of it’: Countdown star, 17, targets more TV success

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Admin

Eton scholar Jasamrit Rahala, a Child Genius finalist at 10, is in the knockouts and already looking for his next test

If TV quiz fans think Jasamrit Rahala’s face looks familiar, they would be right.

The 17-year-old from Slough has reached the knockout finals of Channel 4’s Countdown, having been a fan of the programme since primary school. But for Jasamrit, identified as a maths prodigy aged nine, Countdown is just the latest in a string of gameshow endeavours, having become the youngest finalist on Child Genius aged 10 and competed in Britain’s Brightest Family.

Let’s have an answer! Take our fiendish University Challenge quiz

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Admin

Ahead of the grand final of the brain-squeezing series next Monday, test your mental mettle with 15 questions set by the show’s quizmasters

The opening scene of which of Shakespeare’s plays comprises just 61 words, the longest of those words being "lightning", "hurlyburly" and "graymalkin"?

Macbeth

Twelfth Night

Timon of Athens

Comedy of Errors

What term for a type of particle accelerator also applies to a type of electromagnetic radiation generated by charged particles spiralling in magnetic fields?

Cyclotron

Gamma

Synchrotron

Collider

The works of which Italian artist, born in 1449, include St Jerome in His Study and the frescoes for the Sassetti chapel in Florence? His numerous apprentices included Michelangelo.

Fra Angelico

Domenico Ghirlandaio

Leonardo Da Vinci

Sandro Botticelli

For which film set in Rome did Paolo Sorrentino win the 2014 Academy Award for best foreign language film?

Life Is Beautiful

The Great Beauty

Parasite

The Postman

What bird does the British Trust for Ornithology describe as: "By far the biggest passerine, with a similar wingspan to a buzzard. The bill is strikingly long and heavy"?

Long-tailed tit

Rook

Raven

Tawny owl

In March 1969, the Ussuri River was the scene of armed clashes between which two major powers?

China and the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union and the US

China and the US

The UK and Argentina

In April 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly solo over which body of water, crossed earlier by Louis Blériot?

The Channel

Atlantic Ocean

Black Sea

Lake Superior

Described as "the little town keeping the lights on in France", Arlit in Niger was until 2021 the site of one of the world’s largest mines of which toxic metal?

Bismuth

Mercury

Lead

Uranium

What colour links the field of the flag of the Basque country, William Morris’s house in Bexleyheath and leading football clubs in Belgrade and Salzburg?

Red

Green

Purple

Blue

Who wrote the Nebula-award-winning novels Doomsday Book and All Clear?

George R R Martin

Neil Gaiman

Connie Willis

Ursula Le Guin

Nenagh, Clonmel and Cashel are towns in which inland Irish county, bordering Galway and Cork?

Kerry

Tipperary

Kildare

Offaly

According to Jeff Bezos, what "has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in the human being"?

Online reviews

Social media

Hunger

In materials science, the ratio of the contractile to the tensile strains is named after which French scientist, born in 1781?

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Charles Friedel

Siméon-Denis Poisson

Louis Pasteur

Which English cathedral is noted for stained-glass rose windows known as the Dean’s Eye and the Bishop’s Eye?

Lincoln

Durham

Ely

York Minster

Totem and Taboo, and Civilisation and Its Discontents are early 20th-century works by which thinker?

Otto Rank

Frantz Fanon

Carl Jung

Sigmund Freud

15 and above.

You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

14 and above.

You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

13 and above.

You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

12 and above.

You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

11 and above.

You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

10 and above.

And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

9 and above.

And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

8 and above.

And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

7 and above.

And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

6 and above.

And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

5 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

4 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

3 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

2 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

0 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

1 and above.

Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

The University Challenge grand final airs Monday 5 April at 8.30pm on BBC Two

No conferring! Take our devilishly hard University Challenge quiz

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Admin

Are you a brainbox like Brandon, or even half as wise as Wang? Ahead of Monday’s final, pit your wits against our truly tricky questions, as compiled by the show’s question setters

In which present-day country is the ancient kingdom of Sheba, whose queen visited King Solomon?

Oman

Yemen

Saudi Arabia

Which Latin-derived philosophical term was popularised by Ivan Turgenev’s 1862 novel Fathers and Sons, where it was used to describe the crude scientism espoused by the character Bazarov?

Nihilism

Nominalism

Probablism

Which US state capital was named after a dukedom conferred on the future James II (James VII of Scots) in 1664?

Albany

Hartford

Bismarck

More than 80% of compounds used in nuclear medicine are labelled using which radioisotope? It has atomic number 43 and mass number 99.

Gallium

Thallium

Technetium

Appearing in the title of an opera by Philip Glass, which term did Mahatma Gandhi use for his policy of non-violent resistance to British rule?

Satyagraha

Pratyahara

Swaraj

Named by the US sociologist Robert K Merton after a book of the Bible, which "effect" can be summarized as: "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer"?

Mark

Matthew

Genesis

Depicting an impoverished pea-picker and her children in 1936, Migrant Mother was a celebrated image by which photographer?

Dorothea Lange

Jack Delano

Arthur Rothstein

Polka dots and "infinity rooms" with mirrors are a characteristic feature of the installations of which Japanese artist, born in 1929?

Yayoi Kusama

Tatsuo Miyajima

Yoshitomo Nara

What term denotes the boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium? It lies about 123 astronomical units from the sun.

Heliopause

Heliosheath

Heliotrope

The first independent French-speaking African state, which country did Ahmed Sékou Touré rule from 1958 until his death in 1984?

Ivory Coast

(Republic of) Guinea

Mali

Describing an allegorical place populated by women of "great renown", The Book of the City of Ladies is a 1405 work by which French author?

Marie de France

Christine de Pizan

Clémence de Bourges

In transport history, the Rainhill Trials - won by Stephenson’s Rocket - took place towards the end of which decade?

1780s

1820s

1850s

Expressed in metric tons, what is one gigagramme?

1,000

10,000

100,000

Changsha is the capital of which Chinese province, the birthplace, in 1893, of Mao Zedong?

Hunan

Hebei

Hubei

Which Swiss architectural firm designed the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 summer Olympics?

Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Mario Botta Architetti

Herzog & De Meuron

15 and above.

Wang, is that you?! If those were all guesses, then they were superb

14 and above.

Wang, is that you?! If those were all guesses, then they were superb

13 and above.

Wang, is that you?! If those were all guesses, then they were superb

12 and above.

Wang, is that you?! If those were all guesses, then they were superb

11 and above.

Wang, is that you?! If those were all guesses, then they were superb

10 and above.

And at the gong ... looks like you’ve done a more than respectable job!

9 and above.

And at the gong ... looks like you’ve done a more than respectable job!

8 and above.

And at the gong ... looks like you’ve done a more than respectable job!

7 and above.

And at the gong ... looks like you’ve done a more than respectable job!

6 and above.

And at the gong ... looks like you’ve done a more than respectable job!

5 and above.