21 Questions Wrong HOTSEAT Festive Season 2013

By | December 24, 2013

Alright, last post before Christmas. Last year’s 21 Questions Wrong Hotseat seemed to go down well so here’s another festive (it was only meant to be five or six festive questions mixed with normal questions, it turns out to be five or six normal questions mixed with festive questions) twenty-one for you to lord it over the dinner table with after Christmas dinner. Best played with a fast-talking quizmaster and about six people I reckon, but there’s no upper or lower limit.

If you don’t know what this is, it’s the endgame from LEGENDARY Italian quiz Avanti Un Altro multiplayered up. We used to do it on the radio and who knows may yet still again at some point, and not forgetting top celebrity Tom Scott partook in a live action version months ago.

Here is this year’s quiz (corrected) – it includes notes and the rules after the list (which is designed to fit onto one sheet of printed out paper). DO NOT READ IF YOU INTEND TO BE A PLAYER. As ever the questions run the gamut of difficulty – don’t assume they start easy and get gradually harder (the difficulties are mixed to try and trip people up, and part of the fun is the thrill of the chase) but the last two are always difficult but knowable (Q21 is hard at this time of year, much easier a few months later). No question will ever ask what is *not* something as I consider that unfair in the circumstance, and we won’t ask questions that are “according to polls” (unless it’s really really famous).

If you enjoy that and find you can’t get enough I did two more sets last year you can use for yourself – here’s Xmas 2012, and here’s New Year 2012. There probably won’t be a separate NY edition this year unless I’m really bored over the next week.

If you do play let us know how you get on.

AS WELL AS THAT, Fifty 50 Show reaches its landmark 46th episode and Lewis Murphy chats with Daniel Peake and Andrew Sullivan with regards to this week’s hugely exciting Schlag den Raab as well as some other things, I’ve not listened yet.

We’ll be around over the Christmas period, although there probably won’t be a huge amount of updates. Whatever you’re up to, have a good one!

It’s the Only Connect Final

By | December 23, 2013

The Board Gamers face the Bakers in the series eight grand final, tonight at 8:30 on BBC4.

It’s also David J Bodycombe’s last edition as question editor. What will the show be like next year?

Happy birthday Noel!

By | December 22, 2013

It’s Christmas! And that means it’s Noel’s birthday, and this year he can claim a bus pass as the erstwhile Deal or No Deal host turns 65. I expect he’s not about to retire any time soon!

So in the spirit here’s a clip from Noel Edmonds’ Saturday Roadshow, made in the days when the BBC could afford to build a different lavish set every week. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to find full episodes of this precursor to Noel’s House Party, but thanks to gunge fetishists (I’m not asking) there are plenty of examples of the Gunge Tank Game (in actual fact called In Other Words) played every week, or at least the aftermath.

Usually played with a celeb and a civilian, the civilian who stands to be gunged gambles on whether they’ll get 3, 4 or 5 word puzzles correct within 90 seconds for better prizes. Noel would try and convey words to a celeb, and when they said the word it would go into a puzzle, and if you say all the words in a puzzle together and in a certain way they’d usually make the name of something. If the civilian doens’t make the bid, they get gunged. If they do make the bid, they usually get gunged anyway. The contestant doesn’t have to wait for all the puzzle to fill in before guessing.

This clip comes from one of the later episodes and the rules are slightly different – the contestant gets a list of prizes and picks one prize per puzzle. Each prize comes with an attached point value but these are unknown to the player (but the bigger prizes tend to have higher points). The player must not only complete five puzzles in the time but they must not go over 100 points, otherwise they meet a messy end.

That’s the game, they’ve set this one up slightly differently. Fun game and a great little clip.


Merry Christmas!

It’s the last Schlag Saturday of the year (21/12/13)! #bbsdr

By | December 20, 2013

schlagdenraabIt’s Christmas and that means it’s time for the Schlag den Raab traditional non-Christmas special. In this last SdR of the year, Stefan Raab will be taking on allcomers in a bid to defend €3m of his production company’s money. That’ll be some Christmas bonus. And once again we’ll be attempting to provide a live commentary on a Google Hangout delay inbetween bits where we jump around live streams that get taken down.

We’re also promised the musical delights of top guests Casper! Thomas D! And Placebo! It’s like the last fifteen years haven’t happened. Incredible scenes.

The fun starts at 7:15pm UK time (8:15 local time) for the contestant picking, the games don’t begin until 8pm (9pm CET) and is likely to go on until around midnight, so feel free to dip in and out as you see fit. And hey! Don’t forget to get in touch via our Youtube comment stream or #bbsdr on Twitter and we’ll probably read them out, because we’ve got about five hours to fill.

This is the standard stream will we basing our commentary on.

Back-up stream.

Commentary Part 3:

 

It’s the last live Millionaire tonight

By | December 19, 2013

ITV, 9pm.

Find out which of Sir Eamonn Holmes and Alex Ferguson, Caroline Quentin and Carol Vorderman and Kian Egan and Rebecca Adlington gets stiffed by the klaxon for the last time ever.

It’s not quite the last ever episode (although it is effectively the last one being made), two more have been pre-recorded this week for going out whenever. Which seems the wrong way round to be doing it, but whatever.

Travis Penery

By | December 18, 2013

I discovered this morning that Travis lost his stroke battle this morning at the age of 30 (edit: apologies, 29, 30 next month), which is no age at all. Our thoughts are with his family.

Travis was a regular contributor to the comments of this site (his knowledge of contestant minutiae remains unmatched), and was a source for much of our feature material. He will be missed.