University Challenge 2007
After sitting through four rounds of
exams and personality checks, I have been chosen to be the Vice Captain in the
University of Sussex
2007 University Challenge team. Apparently I am the first environmental
scientist on the show, ever!
I am completely chuffed about this as I have been a fan of the TV programme all
my life. The programme started in 1961, a year before I was born and it has only
taken me 44 years of training to make it this far!
The next round takes place on the South Bank, London on 18/05/07 and is not filmed. If we
pass that round, our team will make it onto the television programme, which will
be filmed this summer in Manchester and shown in the autumn. I think we have a
pretty good team, all from different disciplines, so we are full of hope. I for
one will be happy just to appear on the show and leave without making a complete
fool of myself. Hopefully we will all enjoy ourselves in the process.
Sussex University were champions in 1967 and
1969 after which, we were barred from the programme for 25 years because of
anarchic rebellion.
25th May 2007
Well the first round went reasonably well although I don't think I did too well.
The 40 questions were read out very quickly from a CD and we had 10 seconds to
write down the answer. It was all over very rapidly. Afterwards we were
interviewed as a team by 3 researchers. That part seemed to go very well.
So now we are waiting to hear if we are going to be one of the lucky teams to go
on the show (There were 130 teams and they only want 28). They were supposed to
phone our captain on Friday to give the answer but there has been no call so
far.......................
30th May 2007
Well unfortunately we did not make it through to the televised rounds.
Apparently there was a great response from the universities this year and a
large number of extremely good teams applied to go on the show. We are all very
disappointed, but now we can get our thoughts back to our studies instead of
nightmares of being harangued by Paxman!
Here is our team. From Left to right: Mike (reserve),
Ariana, Roger, Laura (Captain), me (Vice Captain)!
Just a small reminder of how the game is played.
