Thanks to CeleTheRef for alerting us to a show that I think is worthy of your time – Il Più Forte (The Strongest) which airs on the Italian version of Discovery’s DMAX.

In it rugby player Martin Castrogiovanni and MMA fighter Alessio Sakara tour Italy looking for everyday sorts of people who might be “the strongest”. The first ten minutes is them going round a city selecting eight people to compete and they’re whittled down to one in various tests of strength and endurance. Contestants earn 0.5kg balls in the tests with the lowest scorers giving their balls to other players, the finalist with the most balls gets specific training with one of the hosts for the final challenge.

The games are evidently a bit low budget (we do get “hanging from a tree” in this episode) and I’m not sure the scoring system is quite as clever as it looks on the surface. However the show is beautifully directed to really show off the locations and the hosts have got a terrific chemistry going on. There’s also a rather silly sense of humour streaking throughout the whole show (today a running visual gag with a watermelon, and the idea that challenges are derived by the rugby player ‘blindly choosing’ a tattooed finger of the MMA fighter, the contestants are referred to by wrestling-style nicknames). One of the great things about the Italians I’d suggest is that because they tend to be quite expressive it’s easier to derive meaning through body language and tone of voice so don’t be put off too much with the language barrier.

Also great news for fans of Italian men with beards.

Here’s a quick run down of the challenges in this first episode, to help you follow:

• Qualification challenge – Hold up buckets of milk arms outstretched. First two to have arms drop are eliminated.
• 1st challenge – the remaining six are paired up by putting their shirts in a bag and then getting drawn out. They race to completely push out a hay bale. Three balls for winning, two for running up, one for last place. Because there are two people in last place and one must be eliminated there is a tie break, the first to thread three needles, for reasons I have yet to discern, wins. The loser gives their ball to another player.
• 2nd challenge – the contestants have two minutes to find as many balls as they can in what looks like muck that’s been cleared out of a cowshed. Two players will be eliminated here, ties broken by having one ball chucked into the muck and competing players racing for it.
• 3rd challenge – The three contestants hang from a tree as long as possible but in a twist they will also have the sack with all the balls they’ve collected tied onto them, weighing them down further. The first to fall is eliminated giving their balls to the player of their choice. The person with the most balls at this point gets special training for the final.
• 4th challenge – Pulling a tractor. Whoever wins this is the winner.

I don’t know if there’s actually a prize or some sort of grand final.

Bother’s Bar’s step-parent UKGameshows.com has fallen over and they require a bit of help with the web server. If you think you can help drop them a line at queries2007@ukgameshows.com. Thanks!

In other news I made the impossibly exciting discovery the other week that Idiotape off of The Genius theme tune released an EP back in May called Re:. It is very good. 

And so to The Netherlands where a new batch of celebs for the upcoming series of Wie Is De Mol? has been revealed.

They are, and I’m sort of having to use guesswork and deduction to get this correct from left to right so these may not be in quite the correct order (there’s a fair chance I’ve got the blondes mixed up):

• Flemish actor Thomas Cammaert
• Presenter Jochem van Gelder
• Actress and writer Sanne Wallis de Vries
• Dancer Vincent Vianen
• Science journalist Diederik Jekel
• That’s the host Art Rooijakers
• Vlogster (that’s a female vlogger, I’ve discovered) Yvonne Coldeweijer
• Voiceover artiste and radio DJ Jeroen Kijk in de Vegte
• Actress Sigrid ten Napel
• Writer and journalist Roos Schlikker
• Actress Imanuelle Grives

It’s starting off in Oregon in the USA and the first episode goes out January 7th on Avro. Fingers crossed for English subs!

Our French chum Cosser alerted us to this the other day which is actually quite exciting and also I’d wager good Sunday afternoon fare: an episode of La Carte aux Tresors with English subtitles – you’ll need to turn them on so you might need to watch this on the Youtube site. I found it quite difficult initially to watch the subs and take in the scenery at the same time.

It’s a fun episode (although there are edits, the contestant intros and the SMS game are cut) and the English subs very much help to clarify what’s going on. At this point in the show’s run the clues are in the form of “Meet [a person] with/at [an object/a cryptic place]” with a visual hint, so it’s a game of inferring significance,  going around and getting information on one half of the clue helps you solve the other. In helicopters.

I’m slightly worried about how close the contestants insist on holding the mics to the public’s faces as said member of the public is driving them around.

Tomorrow’s a big day as three of the Chasers (Anne Hegerty, Paul Sinha and Mark Labbett) go on Tipping Point: Lucky Stars (point of note, the logo behind Ben in these celeb specials features a colon but the titles do not) in what must surely be the ultimate quiz challenge. That’s at 6pm on ITV.

Tipping Point is not known for its tough uncompromising questions, I saw a celeb special a few weeks ago which had lots of questions where the answer was a word in the question, although now I can’t think of one off the top of my head.