#jeremy paxman

[263adder]

BBC Room 101, Season 7 Episode 2 (Jan 2018)

[ministerforpeas]

Is Paxman a sex symbol?

[weaversweek]

An appreciation of Jeremy Paxman.

A quick visit to his old school, and his time at Cambridge University.

The journalist training in Brighton, then to Belfast and other troublespots.

Newsnight is going to be his best-remembered programme, Paxman redefined the political interview as a hostile, aggressive experience, producing more heat than light. He's also written some books.

For this blog, Jeremy Paxman will be remembered as the host of University Challenge.

For almost thirty years, great student minds have pitted their wits against questions from his mouth. He's worked gently to make the show more inclusive - welcome women, steer the questions towards minorities and groups under-represented on mainstream telly.

And now, while the mind remains sharp, Paxman's body has begun to let him down. He feels it's time to get off the stage, which is terribly sad, and an excuse to pay tribute to a television legend.

[internationalintelligencefirm]

Look what my mobster scum for brains hacker just did, besides turning my comouter cell phone and lights on and off he doesnt give me the right to administer my own laotop !! My entire hardrive is crashedvnow, diagnostics said it,

[international-intelligence-inc]

#gazawar #jeremypaxman #jilllouisestarr

[thaissa1918]

video5857479804193870402 (youtube.com)

[thequietabsolute]

Sob & sniff 😢🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[theuniversitychallengereview]

Ep 5 - Cranfield vs Royal Holloway

Right, gang - I got distracted watching skits about contact tracing on Twitter so I now only have thirteen minutes to write this intro rather than the thirty I had initially planned for (its remarkably easy to fall down a ‘skits about contact tracing��� rabbit hole, and it's a surprisingly deep rabbit hole), but we’re going to give this a go anyway...

Something football fans will idly do if there aren’t any matches on, or if the only match thats on is something like Burnley vs Watford (mid-October, not mid-March in the depths of a relegation battle), is idly speculate about what the ideal lineup of Premier League teams would be. Unlike American sports in which there is no promotion and relegation, the football pyramid is a constantly shifting chimaera, meaning that you can never have all of the most “noble and historic” teams in the top division at the same time.

Indeed, they did try and engineer a version of this for teams across the European continent in the form of the European Super League, but this was shouted down for being one of the most soulless and corporate ideas ever to come out of soulless and corporate modern sport. But it's something fun to think about, anyway.

I actually have a list of 22 teams for my dream Premier League on my phone, dated 5th January 2019 (just so you know I’m walking the walk as well as talking the talk here). I’d share, but the controversy would likely be too much for me (and you) to handle. The thought processes behind this decision making are very abstract and unknowable, but essentially, in most people’s cases, it probably boils down to two things: one - who used to be really good, ages ago?; and two - who was sort of okay when you were between the ages of five and thirteen. This is why my particular list contains Nottingham Forest and Portsmouth, despite neither of them having been in the top division (until Forest’s ascent this year) for quite a while.

You may also have noticed that my league has 22 participants, while the actual league only has 20. This is because of a third aspect of the decision making process - the idea of the golden age. Despite the fact that I was never alive when the Premier League had 22 teams, it feels to me like football must have been better, and more pure when it did.

Nothing can be as good now as it used to be.

This is a truism in more than just football. When we look at the past, we look at it with rose-tinted glasses.

I imagine you’re wondering what the heck this all has to do with University Challenge, and you’d have good reason to. Your wondering will likely not be abated by my explanation either, because the observation it is based on is far from universal.

When choosing my ideal 28 team lineup for University Challenge, I’d have all of the major players - your Yorks, and your Edinburghs, your Durhams and Warwicks and Imperials and St Andrewses. A sprinkling of the most successful Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, Trinity, Magdalene, Corpus Christi… The Open University. I’d also have one of tonight’s teams, despite them only having appeared four times in the Paxman Era.

However, in one of those four appearances, Cranfield made the final, so in the hours I have spent on the University Challenge Wikipedia page over the years, scrolling through the list of past finals, they must have seeped into my head as an absolutely classic UC team. They’ve not been on the show since they were beaten in the Grand Final by Birkbeck in 2003, but I’ve absorbed that name over the course of countless repeat visits to that one webpage, to the extent that I had written all of that stuff about the Premier League without even checking their overall record. Still, they make my roster regardless.

Unfortunately, Royal Holloway, with their pair of second round appearances, do not. But that’s quite enough nostalgia for one intro, lets get on with the show (this has taken me twenty one minutes, so I’m going to be watching on a delay, but that ain’t half bad for seven hundred words I don’t think)

The first starter goes to Brown of Royal Holloway, winning the race to Renee Zellwegger. They pass on a very guessable bonus- as in they should have at least given a guess, not necessarily that they would have got it right - which is not the most promising of signs, but they get the third at least. Brown then takes another starter, and they took two bonuses on the Copley medal.

Suri gets Cranfield off the mark with pop art, and they get two bonuses on the letter X, before Keenan takes the first picture round to bring them within five points. Two bonuses on proposed new states reversed the deficit.

Harvey gets a starter for Holloway, and I was about to chastise them for saying snapping turtle instead of snapper turtle on a bonus, and chastise Paxman for allowing the answer, but a quick Google has revealed that it was I who was in the wrong. How embarrassing. At least I didn’t publish that without checking, though.

Cranfield’s double act of Keenan and Suri take another ten points each to reclaim the lead for the Bedfordshire quartet, but Harvey swiftly pegs them back with a starter of his own, and Holloway are five clear going into the music round.

No one gets the starter, despite some accidental conferring from Holloway after Cranfield skipper Stephenson had buzzed in with a wrong answer. Abramovich hears two-toed on the next starter and buzzes in with sloth, as any good quizzer should. What other animal is defined by its having two toes?

On a bonus about The Haunting of Hill House, Cranfield’s Chivers comes so close to the correct answer that it's such a shame to hear him say End instead of Hill, but them's the breaks. Holloway follow this up by giving sea urchin instead of sea cucumber, but that only has two words in total so it's less sad.

The second picture starter goes to Brown, who recognised a still from the Danish show Borgen. They clean up on the bonuses, and Paxman takes his chance to patronise them for knowing stuff about TV shows. I know it's his last season and all, but it should be pointed out that he himself is literally on a TV show at the exact moment he makes this comment.

On the next starter, which also goes to Brown, you can sense him gearing up to correct her pronunciation of Karamazov before she’s even finished giving her answer. She won’t care though, because Holloway are more than fifty points clear with only a few minutes remaining.

A late rally from Cranfield brings them above one hundred points, but Holloway aren’t threatened, and win by a clear margin at the gong.

Final Score: Cranfield 110 - 155 Royal Holloway

So, Cranfield not doing much justice to my selection of them to the Hall of Fame lineup there, but congratulations to Royal Holloway, who advance to the second round for the third time in three appearances. Here’s hoping they can go one better this time.

See you next time for Glasgow vs Queen’s Belfast, and as always, thanks for reading. Subscribe if you never want to miss a post, it really would mean a lot to me.

[futuristicballoondream]

The only thing better than University Challenge...is the roasting of UC mid/post show.

[hiddenfolk]

I fundamentally lack the emotional strength to watch university challenge. I do not have the strength of character.

[spotlight-on-a-lake]

Closure on University Challenge?????

[peachessndreamss]

Michael Gavey would join his college University Challenge team, he'd fucking love Jeremy Paxman, and he'd wear a different maths joke shirt every episode he was on.

[weaversweek]

Ireland's Smartest gets the review this week.

It's a promising quiz from RTÉ, and lives up to its aim of finding a great quizzer.

Two minutes of general knowledge questions, a minute and a half on broad topics chosen by the producers.

You can buzz in to each question for two points, or incur a time penalty and pick from options for a single point. Everyone plays solo, there are no bonuses, nothing's passed over.

Bottom player is dropped, the two remaining try to get ten correct answers faster than the other.

The questions are properly searching without being too hard for a primetime audience. There's a good sprinkling of Irish culture - more than a token, less than domination.

The first series feels a little wobbly, as if it's finding its feet, but does feel like it could be around for a long time to come.

Also, Jeremy Paxman's final final on University Challenge, and the absolute success of The 1% Club.

[international-intelligence-inc]

THE LAST PHOTO OF HER ALIVE. BY JILL STARR

[thaissa1918]

Dear Jeremy: For over six months now i Have some stalker hacking into and destroying everything I do on the computers. He also can shut off my two cell phones whenever he wants to and almost murdered me over this past weekend. He can hear very ell what I say. I was having chess pains from the stress this person is constantly terrorizing me daily He heard me say "I am having chest pains from his stress, and I need to call either an ambulance and/or doctor. When I went to pick up my phone to call my cardiologist the man shut off my cell phone service on both my phones and I had a heart attack right here in the apartment. Last week when I felt suicidal, I went to use my cell phone to call my psychologist. When I picked up the cell phone this bastard whomever he is stopped my cell phone service for over 8 hours to try to murder me by letting me have a heart attack and not being able to call anyone. I found him on my cell phone recording my voice to murder and having an album cover .He is trying to murder me using the same type of murder weapon's my father and the mafia uses as a regular hobby. He has all types of head and screen shots of me. He is putting in what he 2was in a file called my last words and DIE/ARY called "DIERY QUEEN<" he has recorded all the shit things I have said about the mafia and you and I being in danger from the mob etc etc and his album cover even has my photo a photo of my head. He calls it his furze "art work: He has files calling them "CL/ASS/WORK KILL ASSSASSINATION WORK. My father taught me the assassination contracting business since I was born and I have killed and assassinated everyo0ne from Africa President to being a child soldier in Africa and was also a soldier with Daddy in Vietnam etc.. so I know what I see and am saying is right. He plan's to murder you too #jeremypaxman Last night I threatened to take a hit out on him and I did with Al Qaeda. Then he started showing me unfinished album covers with your photos on it and songs with your voice on them meant that he was going to kill you too. Be careful AND IF YOU WANT TO TALK MORE JUST CALL ME love Jilly

PS: I am always on your side Paxo I WAS WRITING TO YOU MORE AND THE MAN SHUT OFF MY KEYBOARD PLEASE HELP ME JEREMY. JILLY He can stop my keyboard my cell phone and he plans t murder and I have no where to go and no help from law enforcement To hell with probation. I just want peace and the human right to life and in the USA I dont even have that right. Arnold A Stark told me and I used to have a recording of it saying "I have never seen more egregious human rights violations against any US citizen but you in America it is jus like you have been living for years in North Korea right here in Passaic County. TRUTH. I I took hits out everywhere

to remove as many La Cosa Nostra members as possible since i get mine for free they came to over 2000. Since my father is ready to drown all of Brooklyn with a 8,.0 Ramapo Fault line earthquake to "tie up all his loose ends (he kills all his contractors that is how he taught me he got to be the BIG SHOT HE IS by taking care of those old contractors before they get caught by the FBI and talk ," Now he is coming for all his old acquaintances in Brooklyn." How? He has two low grade atomic bombs in the Hudson River to go off and set off the Ramapo Fault Line which runs from NYC right down to nearly touching Langley and Fort Detrick biological Warfare base. When that goes off those two bomb's Irv Starr says "It will move the systematic plates of the Atlantic Ocean cause an 8.o earthquake (Ground Zero) United Nations NYC. He says every single President will drown on that day because all presidents will be in NYC at the UN for some special occasion on that particular day. I don't know the date and Irv Starr you can cook dinner and grind him to death, and he will never tell anyone that date no matter what torture anyone puts him through. I was little but I asked my father I asked "and we were standing in Bloomingdale NJ at the time. I said "Dad, how fast will the wave be when you make it?" Irv Starr said "It will be at least 5000 miles an hour and it will wipe out the entire Bloomingdale NJ Police Station...

I then asked Daddy," Daddy, how high will the waves be IM scared?" Dad replied "They will be as high as the lights by the Bloomingdale Police Station that light up at night." I then started shaking and said "DADDY! IF I AM STILL AROUNF BLOOMINDALE NJ AT THAT TIME HOW DO I KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO LEAVE?!" Daddy responded by saying this: "Jill when the first two systematic activities take place on the Ramapo Fault line one being a 3.2 and the other a 2.7 (to the best of my memory) run like hell away from Bloomingdale NJ and keep running from NYC all the way to Middletown NY where Aunt Joyce lives because that Tsunami is going to kill everyone in its path up to Middletown NY where your Aunt Joyce lives. ." I said "Why are you going to do that Daddy?" Irv Starr replied "Because I am retiring the richest man in the world Jill, and no one is going to have a chance to be arrested to start singing about me and the ICA and my contracting business to ruin that for me they all have to die and Treetop are where the majority of my contractors are in this area and the Tsunami will reach Nick and Dora Los Gatos in Syosset where the other majority of my contractors are Jill.," Then I have to take out Harry J Shortway from Nam (Vietnam) so the Tsunami has to take out Susses and it will end before my sister Joyces house in Middletown." Then I said What about Paxman are you going to kill him too?" Irv Starr said," He is one of the biggest lose ends I have besides you Jill. if I have to I will blow up all of Buckingham Palace, Mi6 and all the BBC just to murder Former Mi6 Director General Sir Howard Andrew Parker." We used to work at Babcock and Wilcox you remember him dont you Jill from there?" I had to tell him "Yes." It is true.

[buttsniffingdyke]

Really unfortunate that bill maher and joe rogan and just honestly podcasts in general have so influenced public consciousness. People think that softball questions and “conversation” are journalism when what journalism really requires is Jeremy Paxman talking to Michael Howard