Do the programme producers instruct the contestants to act like a fool when their names are announced?

Presumably they have been told to do so, yes.

If it was only one that did it then you could excuse it as an individual eccentricity by that one contestant, but they all do it.

It's just another example of how ridiculous this show is. "Let's get all the contestants to do a mime or a hand signal or something. That'll be really good."

No, it won't, It serves only to make the contestants look silly.

You do realise not everyone watches Eastenders, it's a good an answer as any when there is no clue in the question.
I don't watch Eastenders and I've never seen The Walking Dead.

Grimes is Scandinavian in origin you would have to know it was common in America to plump for an American show, you might have heard of John and Edward Grimes but they are part of the Irish descendants who use that surname.

Shouting Ricky is a well know catchphrase of Eastenders, that is where they might have been heading.

Another funtastic episode today. Superb duet from Bill and Cleve. Lucy, radiant as ever. What more do you want?

Comedy of Errors in the head to head today, although the Think Tank were largely blameless. The contestants knew the answers, yet somehow managed to talk themselves out of them.

In which city was the Titanic built?

"I'm thinking it's Belfast. The Titanic museum's in Belfast." She eventually went for Liverpool. it was Belfast.

Which country has the largest coastline?

This is a standard pub quiz question. The answer's Canada. It's about four times as long as the second longest. It's to do with all the islands and inlets. She mentioned Canada, then for some reason went for China.

The best one was, "In which state is the Masters golf tournament played?"

The bloke said confidently, "Augusta." But that's the name of the course it's played on and the city, not the state, which is Georgia. He didn't listen to the question correctly.

I just caught the end of it, what was more amusing was before giving that wrong answer he apologised to his fellow contestant as he was so sure he was right and going to knock her out of the game

I was cringing so much at this howler, I had to hide behind a cushion while the correct answer came up. You knew he was going to win anyway, as the other contestant was pretty hopeless.

I thought she said Dublin as well, very confusing some of the answers they go through first, then they quite often give the wrong one.

Tough question at the end: Which football league team are nicknamed the chairboys?

As it happened, I knew that right away - Wycombe Wanderers. One of those daft bits of trivia I found out years ago that's stuck in my head. But they're hardly a big club, and it's not a well known nickname. The wrong answers from the Think Tank are unlikely to be much help - after all there's 92 league clubs to choose from. Even eliminating the well known clubs, you're still left with an awful lot to pick from. Unless you know it, It's just going to be a pure guess, with not much chance of success.

The Auld Lang Syne routine had my toes curling.......please stop it

i kind of like the show
yes the questions are easy but its still a tap on the back when you get most of the questions on the show right

Tristan though is as thick as two short planks. even his guesses are ridiculous

It was awful. And they all made the very common mistake of singing, "For the sake of Auld Lang Syne" as the last line. It's not, it's just "And Auld Lang Syne" in the first verse and "For Auld Lang Syne" in the chorus. Burns never wrote "for the sake of". Even Scots often get this wrong.

I wonder who it was that decided that a quiz show would be much more entertaining if we get the people on it to sing every now and then and do mimes and so on.

I mean you don't get Dermot O'Leary saying to Cheryl on the X Factor, "Right, Cheryl, I'll ask you what you thought of that performance in a minute, but first, what's the capital of Kenya?"

No, you don't.

Likewise Peter the Pieman (or whatever his name is) and his ridiculous mimes. The "mosquito" was sensational.

His answer for the British actor who was voted Best Dressed Man was David Gandy. Who's a model, not an actor. I looked him up on Wikipedia and the only thing it says he'd been in was a Jennifer Lopez video. Which hardly qualifies as acting.

Actually, scrub that.

*****BONUS ROUND*****

Down a glass of Prosecco when Tristan gets a question right. (This is a good round if you're teetotal.)

I just caught the last five minutes of it today, so I don't know what the questions were, but I noticed that one of the contestants in the head to head didn't get a single question right. Presumably the Think Tank were as helpful as usual, then.

In the Impossible Question, one of them put Sally Gunnell for the question "Who became Britain's most successful female Olympian in 2012?"

Sally Gunnell won her only gold medal in Barcelona in 1992. Twenty years before.

I still can't decide if this show qualifies for the status of, "So bad, it's good", or if it's just very bad.

I think 'so bad, it's good' personally, watching just how brainy the contestants and Think Tank were - erm, not

I got most of the questions right without too much thinking. One of the only ones that I had no idea about was 'Angus Young is the lead guitarist for which heavy rock band?' - I just guessed by the name and went for Franz Ferdinand, but it's actually AC/DC (neither the contestant or the Think Tanker knew, and iirc the TT was Jackie who would have been around in their heyday). That and where Parkhurst Prison was based (they said it was an island and gave the choices of Isle of Man or Isle of Wight, I've never heard of the prison so would have had no idea)

Other questions included:

1. Suriname is a country in which continent? (Only Lucy knew it was South America and the contestant opted for Africa which a fair few of the TT put)

2. Which actor born in 1963, got a tattoo saying 'Winona Forever' in 1990? (Most of the women knew it was Johnny Depp but the contestant went with George Clooney, which Max and Cleve had as their answer)

3. Whose autobiography was called 'Losing My Virginity'? (Think Max was one of the ones who got this and said Sir Richard Branson, the contestant went with Madonna which a couple of them had put.)

4. In which year did England win the Rugby World Cup? (2003, the contestant chose Tristan to help her with the answer, he had no idea so they went with her birth year of 1984)

5. A 'tonsolorian' (might have spelt that incorrectly) is someone who does what specific job? (This was one of the other ones I didn't know, I thought it might be dentistry or something medically related. TT didn't know, neither did the contestant. Turns out it's a hairdresser/barber, and the contestant was actually a hairdresser herself who had never heard of the term)


I did get the Impossible Question pretty much straight away - something like that you're probably looking at a sport which has multiple events. Rebecca Adlington was a wrong answer (which I knew) so not swimming. After that, it was likely to be either rowing or cycling, and as in rowing you don't seem to compete in more than 2 events at most (can't remember anyone who's done 2 actually), chances are it was a cyclist.

Think the TTs (apart from the ones who said Rebecca Adlington) all went for athletes who only do a single event (Jess Ennis is a multi-eventer but you only get one medal at the end of it).


^ Apologies for the ramble

Of today's questions I got 2 wrong and I think I have a basic general knowledge. Why these people apply to be contestants and advertise their igorance is beyond me.

I guess if they had better Tankers they'd have to pay out more money.

There was a good one the other day.

What does the A stand for in the contact sport MMA?

Amnesia

I wouldn't have known the answer to that. I've never heard of it. I'd probably have guessed association or athletics. of course the answer (arts) is pretty obvious after you've heard it.

As far as the Rugby World Cup year is concerned, it couldn't possibly be 1984, because the tournament only gets held every four years and it's always an odd numbered year. it was held in England last year, ie 2015. There was a lot of coverage of it. Did they not notice? If you knew it was held every four years you could work back from 2015 and at least work out the years the tournament was held in. It would still be a guess but at least it would be logical. It would be better than just picking a year at random.

The round where they get two up to argue their case for their answer is daft. Most of the time it's obvious which one the right answer is.

If I didn't know the answer to a question in the test beforehand, I'm guessing. But I know it's probably wrong. Then I might have to get up and argue the case for an answer I know is almost certainly wrong, because I know that one of the two of us is right, and my answer was a guess.

Today one of the questions was, "In Cockney rhyming slang, what is a syrup?"

Jackie goes first and says, "It's a wig. Syrup of figs -wig." Which is the right answer. Then Arminel says something like, "I thought it might be syrup tart: heart.", which was obviously a complete guess. Now even if they haven't been told which is the right answer, given that one of the two options is definitely right, the one who's got the wrong answer knows they're probably wrong. But they've still got to stand there and argue their case as if they really think it's the right answer.

Well it is daft but it's the rules of the round.

I would be embarrassed to say that Mars is DEFINITELY the biggest planet in the solar system, which the old woman said the other day.

If you're not sure then you'd want to give yourself some leaway but apparently they must have been told to argue their case.

It's a bit like Would I Lie to You?
ETA: Call My Bluff is probably a better example.