525: BZZZ!

Quiz shows, I love 'em. There used to be a soft spot in my heart for The Weakest Link but thankfully I got over that a long time ago. There was the enjoyable later rounds with the more difficult questions fired rapidly for a minute or two at a time. Unfortunately there was also the offensively bad segments during which the malformed, witless, facially-twitching old hag Anne Robinson grimaced out patronising filth to the line up of stammers and desperates. These took up more and more time, becoming increasingly unbearable, until the programme disappeared right up Robinson's dog's-bottom mouth. Same applies to Chris Fucking Tarrant and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

A quiz show should be about questions. Questions, questions, questions. As much and as many with as little filler as possible. This is why the biggest and best quiz is obviously University Challenge, despite the questions being so damn hard. The weekend before last I got two questions right during an entire episode. The first was an art question about IKB and Yves Klein, the second was a science question, the jist of which has slipped my mind. Each time I got one right I leaped for joy and shouted my victory into the night sky, huzzah. It's on tonight, Manchester against some team who isn't Manchester, and I will again be trying to get a handful of questions right.

Much easier, but just as fun is ITV's excellent The Chase, where a small team take their turns to individually tet-a-tet with a big-brained giant. They each have an individual round of one minute in order to build a prize pot, then they take on the chaser who attempts to eliminate them. If they get through unscathed they take their prize to the team pot and return to the group. Once all have played, the remaining members have two minutes of solid questioning to get as many correct as possible. Then it's the chaser's turn. If the chaser matches the team, they lose; if he doesn't they win. Simple format, loads of questions, minimal amounts of amusing banter. It's good.

As you were.