What kind of name is 'City' for a university? It's like having a football team simply called 'Football Team' or naming your son 'Male'. It's rubbish. Anyway, it matters not now because City lost to St John's Cambridge, who have been featured on these pages before (see links below), in the quarter finals of University Challenge (BBC Two, Monday, 2 February, 8pm)... and boy... was I bored!
Related: Shit Lookalikes: Some lad from University Challenge and the yodelling guy from Focus | That Trimble Nonsense | Some more Trimble nonsense
I don't know what's happened. For a good few years, I've tuned in to University Challenge without break. I've always enjoyed the knowledge on show and love it when I get a dozen questions right. I've also enjoyed trying to spot potential winners early on in the competition, and then keeping an eye on them as they progress. However, something has changed in my attitude toward the show, which I can only hope is temporary.
Basically, for the past couple of weeks, I've been faithfully tuning in for the show and being bored off my tits. I can't work out why. The format is refreshingly unchanged, the questions are pleasingly difficult and Paxman is still a wonderful bloke to have on the box. So it's me then, right?
Maybe it has something to do with that whole Trimble business we've had on here. For those that don't know, I did a flippant, throwaway article saying I hated her and her smugness. Even now, I'm getting irritated thinking about her. However, I tried to qualify it by telling you all that I was a 'thicko', and thereby, discrediting everything I'd written as pointless fluff. Somehow, it snowballed into something... hateful.
So now, when University Challenge comes on, I'm not only feeling a bit guilty because I've potentially upset a complete stranger, but also, reminded of that horrible old-school university thinking as documented in 'Eton Rifles'.* Worse yet, I seem to have started Oxbridge bashing, which is fine when you're down the pub... but a bit grim in a public forum.
This article, irritatingly, won't be half as read as my other piece, which means, if it's an apology (which I think it might be... a half arsed one at that), it'll slip under the radar. Our follow-up piece got loads of comments. My piece got loads of comments. This one will invariably be ignored and the row will depressingly rumble on. That's life I suppose.
*I'm pretty sure that my level of knowledge about the world is shown bared for all to see with that analogy.
It's called City University because it's located on the outskirts of the City of London (that is, the part of London where St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower, and the Bank of England are located). It's one of the so-called plate glass universities, receiving its Royal Charter in 1966.
This last quarter-final wasn't much to write home about, but it wasn't dour either. It was even stevens up to the music round, and City were still in it at the second picture round, but then St John's and their three Irish contestants proceeded to run away with the match.
you seem to be correct in radar guessing, judging by the number of comments - so I offer this, as consolation, one that reflects in its lonliness another aspect of how we are media frenzy feeders - virtually all of us, including me.
I do have a problem with the general level of scorn regarding shows of intellect in this country - but re-reading your original I did pick up that apart from a (mis-)perception* of smugness you are generally in favour of people trying to better themselves.
I do think the fact that intelligent kids get bullied is shameful - and its not the result of being socially unskilled - it tends to happen the other way round, easier to be dumb and gang up on the bright ones than try and be friends and learn from their intellect whilst helping them become more socially skilled.
*and I say mis-perception of smugness because I know that on TV you are not generally fully yourself - I have been on eggheads and CJ is far nicer in person than he is on camera, and I thought I looked smug when in fact I was just nervous, honest.
Is Gail Trimble sexy? errrm,
definitely more so than Jodie Kidd or Katy Price, less so than Joan Bakewell (in her prime) and Mariella Frostrup - and none of them could hold a candle to that bright, beautiful, intelligent, Katherine Hepburn.
genuine intelligence, that which couple intellect with emotional maturity and the ability to mend a bicycle, is very sexy...
I'm glad you've posted this. I think it would be a good idea to link to this in the original article (not just halfway down the comments), if you're serious about trying to put things right.
Both articles are indicative of the need for the author to take a closer look at himself and the motive for which he exists. Not many really know, but this individual seems more wasteful of his existence than the average. The apology is largely as puerile and self-centered as the pointless, pathetic article about the student.
Your original article and indeed your 'apology' say more about your hang-ups than about Gail Trimble. To rant in such an extreme way about someone who just happens to be widely read and to have very good recall suggests that a deep-rooted intolerance of such people. One can only wonder how you behaved towards them at school. What worries me most is that your comments imply that 'normal' people don't go to Oxbridge - it's difficult enough as it is to persuade talented people from state schools to apply.
I would just point out that that isn't an apology. All you're saying is you've marred your UC-viewing experience because now you remember being annoyed by a woman who showed satisfaction when she helped her team win a competition testing intelligence, and writing a pretty boring article about it that rightly had you pilloried for suggesting ignorance and intelligence are equally valuable traits in the modern world. What you're embodying in the article is the endemic malaise that believes not only that they're equal, but that anyone who suggests intelligence is a better state than ambling ignorance is a smug, back-slapping Oxbridge student embodying all the privileges you didn't get, which simply isn't true.
Incidentally she stated she'd go into an academic profession, which isn't paid the millions you foresaw her going on to earn. But I suppose you think money's the most important thing in the world and the ultimate end we're all reaching for.
Oh dear. An apology from a nonentity who is arrogant enough to think we care. F**king chav.
Jesus bloody Christ.
You, my friend, are guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your original blog was slightly amusing; not laugh-out-loud funny, but certainly not insulting and no different in tone to a million other blogs out there.
Let's go back a couple of weeks to a Daily Mail editorial meeting. There's this girl doing rather well on UC. It's a great feelgood story, but that's not good enough. They need another angle. How does Paxo react to her? Damn. He rather likes her, by all accounts. And so some cub turns to the blogsphere for inspiration...
And they find you. You are the 'anti-Trimble backlash' they've been reporting - that's how much this has been blown out of proportion. Why? Because this is how journos make easy money. Your little blog has sparked a multitude of hand-wringing pieces about how we devalue intelligence in this country, about how we wouldn't be so critical if she were a man, about how we celebrate superficialness and ignorance over grace and nous. The journalists love you; they've got thousands of easy words out of your blog, and they don't give a crap that the vultures are circling around you now...
Console yourself with the fact that most people who have taken the time to abuse you won't have actually read what you wrote. You're an easy target for the ambulance-chasers and screamongers, that's all. Let them wail all they like. They'll be off elsewhere the very next time Wossy is on TV, I guarantee it.
Peace, mate. Take it easy. And thanks - you've introduced me to a damn fine site.
*cheers for SJG*
what i wanted to say but put far more elegantly and with less expletives than that which i could have managed.