Someone has told us that Gail is Rick Wakeman’s niece. She is also an excellent speller and has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

what is it with these achievers? Every time i turn on my TV there’s another one being good at something that I can’t do. Like when that skinny woman won the marathon – did you see that smile and wave she did? What a bitch, rubbing it in our faces, all that ‘oooh look at me run better than you, you with your rubbish cubicle job that you hate and that chip on your shoulder about going to an unremarkable redbrick university.’ Yeah i never needed no posh education. I went to a comprehensive and used to beat up the students who were brighter or less bitter than me. Why haven’t they stayed down?

Well said Cassandra Sedgwick. It is a pity that you did not write the article as it would have been more balanced. The gender and race card are always an easy way out of a debate.

What the hell are some of you moaning about? She is very, very bright, and given her intellect and the fact that she is on television (not easy to be ‘natural’ there I guess) quite unassuming it seems to me. I don’t share her gender, her background, her education, nor her age group (I’m 60) but I think it is teriffic to see someone of that age excell. Sometimes she will answer a question with such speed that it gives me a jolt, even if I half know the answer.
Good god there are enough bloody half-wits on television in any one week to last me another three lifetimes. And to all those bitching about her I’d say firstly, give her a break she is still a young woman, and secondly spend your energies sharpening your own minds. Try and match her not disparage her.

Corpus Student,
Do you realise how out of touch you sound? You accuse people of feeling like they are a “non-achiever” or even “stupid” when watching University Challenge. By saying this and then stating that you are a friend of this Trimble character doesn’t exactly put you and Little Miss Smug Smile in a good light. Luckily I know people that go to Oxford University or else I’d develop an idea that you are all self-loving snobs.
Yes, Trimble is bright and has a lot of general knowledge, but to me she seems fairly bland. She looks like she would sob if someone cut more than two inches off her hair. She may have exam/ quiz skills but does she have any social skills?
As for “proving yourself” why don’t you actually get a job instead of dossing about at uni for a ridiculous amount of years.

I can’t help but notice that all the comments by people her hate her seem to based on instant reactions to how she “looks” and “seems”. The comments that are more positive, actually seem to be based on more than just a knee-jerk reaction. The criticisms meanwhile sound like bullying the swot at school because he/she wants to amount to something.

Some criticisms also seem to be based on a hatred of anyone intelligent. The Trimble-hating comments also seem to be the comments that are less intelligently written.

Obviously we all enjoy hating people we see on TV. I even used to especially stay in on Saturday until Stars in Your Eyes was on, just to see how long it would take Matthew Kelly to say something that made me want to violently punch him in the face until his his nose caved in.

On the whole, I think she’s nice enough. She doesn’t look smug to me, to me she smiles in a self-deprecating, embarrased way. She is obviously very intelligent. I usually would say that intelligent people make preferable company to thick people. Most comedians (Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson, Ricky Gervais, Peter Kay etc etc) know a lot and would be good to have a beer with.

The evil Trimble, I suspect would be all right if you met her. She could of course be Beelzebub’s hell-whore, sent to bring ruin to smug Middle-Englishness.

Basically though, I’d probably give her one

You bunch of sneering [post moderated]. You should all be embarrassed for aiming such hatred at a yonug woman based on, frankly, virtually [post moderated] all.

Lay off The Trimble! She’s a smoking hot minx with those sturdy, yeoman like thighs itching to clamp you in their embrace. Keep working it babes. Mwahh, mwahh!

Trimble 4 Grumble!

Why no hate for Jade Goodey? Where’s your blog about that then? Now Jade really IS a patronising racist [post moderated] who has brought nothing of benefit to the country and finishes her wretched life whoring her cancerous death round the media.

Your rant is what would have been called an “epic fail” last year – your jealousy doesn’t even try to hide itself in your last paragraph.

I think you’ll find that Manchester: ‘Yeo’ is even nerdier

Your post and the vitriolic comments that have followed exhibit the worst kind of inverse snobbery against anyone who shows a modicum of intelligence. Leave this blameless girl alone and take your inferiority complex elsewhere.

what a bunch of negative peasants posting here about GT, I’m pleased she showed you scum suckers the way home…… too funny

Whatever Trimble is or is’nt what I find totally nauseating is the BBCs fauning attitute towards her..Womans Hour, Pm on Radio 4 and the 6pm news on BB1…Its clear they wanted her to win hence the cleverly loaded questions for her during the last few rounds of the final. I presume she is just what that load of Oxbridge pricks at the BBC want in a contestant…borderline attractive with a posh voice. Personally I think that it is about time that the show limited the number of Oxbridge colleges that are allowed to take part..perhaps reduced to one team just lake every other university in the country

“However, when you’re dealing with a Trimble, you just know that they’ve sneered at thick people..”

Alternatively, “when you’re a Trimble, you just know that you’ve been sneered at by thick people…”

Only in Britain, only in the area of intellectual ability, must someone apparently hide their intelligence. Sportsmen and women may revel in their ability, artists and professionals may extol each others’ virtues, but if you’re clever, best you make excuses for your intelligence lest the blogosphere take vengeance.

Reading some of these posts, am amazed this country still includes the word ‘Great’ in Great Britain, for there is nothing great in the snide and petty jealousies so willfully exhibited here. After all, this country has such put-down phrases as “too clever by half,” “clever-clogs” and the ever-endearing “my my, aren’t we a clever little [enter noun, usually 'madam'].” We really must be a sad nation of thickos to castigate anyone with fine general knowledge. Well done GT – scientia vincit omnia!

Just a hello to the knowledge-hating pratt who wrote the original. Without people like Trimble, we’d still be living in caves, where you’d still find fault that some smart-arse has tamed a thing called “Fire”.

Envy is a serious fault. It distorts every viewpoint that the envious have. Anybody who is better, works harder or is richer got there by sheer luck – the envious never had such luck – nor the guts, brains or determination to succeed.

I would guess that most of the critics are men who feel threatened by a clever woman, quite rightly.

Stupid and envious people should watch one of the easier quizzes like “Are You Smarter Than a 10-year Old?”

Hat’s off to Gail Trimble – she is smarter than me.

I love reading the majority of these postings, they remind me of why the UK is such a pit of ineptitude and mediocrity. All the whining and hatred directed at this lady, (who has done nothing but make the most of her intelligence and through hard work achieve great success) shows the modern British culture for what it is; a testimony to decline and hate.

Hate those who achieve, hate those who aspire and hate those who have what you don’t have. All of those countries like the US and OZ you look at so patronisingly and smugly, looking down at them for their base tendencies like patriotism, and ambition, a love of country, driving ambition and the drive to emulate not to tear down. That which you no longer have.

You are all a joke, and the best part is the whole world knows it!

With luck and if she has sense she will leave with the 250 000 people per year, with skills who leave these rotting shores and go to a post and a place that celebrates her gifts and leaves the rest of you who wouldn’t qualify to get into these other countries to live in a ever declining nation that was once the envy of the world for its endeavour and aspiration.

Liberals, dole bludgers, whiners and jobsworths is all that you will have left, because it s who you all are!

You know, this is all a bit rubbish. I often sit in front of the telly and take a dislike to people, both male and female, even though I don’t know them in real life. It’s what TV is all about, surely. It’s there to inform, to entertain and to provoke opinion.

I’m ambivalent towards Gail Trimble. I didn’t see her in the early rounds, and when I did I thought she was just like any other university student that appeared on the show – intelligent, geeky, and probably a bit dull. Still, you have to bow down to her superior recall and answering ability.

Hate is a strong word, but having read some of Mof’s stuff before I’m pretty sure that the use of the word was for headline purposes only. I think his argument is fair enough, I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with it but please… all these newspaper people proclaiming that the coverage is mean and this and that. Come on! Not everyone is liked by everyone all of the time, and it’s not as if TV reviewers or the red tops aren’t ‘mean’ to other people on a daily basis (oooo, look at how fat/ugly/spotty/sweaty/thin he/she is!). The newspaper articles seem to be asking whether this ‘anti-intellectualism’ is endemic and pandemic in the UK, but I note that The Sun and Daily Mail were quick to point out that she failed to answer some of their questions. Their articles had an air of ‘not so clever now are you? about these articles. Who’s sneery now?

I think Mof’s opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s and it’s equally valid to come out in support of Trimble too. Let’s not forget how all this started – someone took a dislike to someone on a quiz show. Big deal. A bit of debate on a student who appears on a quiz show is fun and entertaining, but some of the coverage has gone a bit far now.

I think I agree with you Tone. I find it amazing that it has all attracted so much publicity, but great for University Challenge and the sales of the quite good book/movie Starter for Ten I’m sure. It seems completely random and I’m sure she will be glad when she can get on with her real life. Personally I think there is something quite annoying about her, but, hey, if I knew as much as her people would no doubt find me annoying. Come to think of it they do find me annoying and I don’t know half as much as her! I don’t get this sex symbol stuff at all but each to their own.

Having heard that Gail Trimble has been widely slagged off on blogs like this one, I came here expecting the worst, scores of comments that were saturated with bile and envy. Instead I have been vastly encouraged that the majority of comments have been supportive of a clever young woman. Perhaps this isn’t such a dumbed-down country after all!

This writer who for his own safety is too cowardly to put his name to the piece, has written the most retarded, chippy, w@nkerish article I have ever read. Actually it’s not an article, it’s a polemic on class war. Get a real job. Move to Russia. Just get out of my mind.

Morons.

Lets take the post of Siany as an example of the self loathing inverted snobbery exhibited on this board.

Siany apparently only watched University Challenge because she turned over from Eastenders. Well I think its fair to say she and most of you will end up doing not much in life. Mentally by abusing this womans intelligence you have already sub conciously told yourself this.

Gail has the temerity to be clever. So what if she looks a bit smug, considering she has more brain cells than most of you haters put together and then some, I think she has every right?

Poor Gail, clever and has her [post moderated] together. Exactly the person to vilify, right? Jeez.

Face it, you hate her because she is clever. Thats it. She is holding a mirror up to the vacuous paper thin knowledge than most of you come out of school with.

I fear for our nation. Vilifying intelligent, what the hell is that about. I hope her and many like her dont be put off by the mass movement of low IQ snobbery here. Because if our brightest are then our country is going to have scientists and doctors of Jade Goody level, which most of you I suspect worship.

Sad sad sad.

It sounds as though your girlfriend is definitely jealous. Anyone who is pretentious enough to actually say things like “not a friend did she own at school” is in no place to judge Trimble’s behaviour.

Hate her hate her hate her!! What a smug b*tch. I found myself willing her to lose! I don’t get how anyone didn’t feel the same rise of boiling angry hate.