[Closed] And the BBC get it wrong again...

rules are rules. the guy should not have been on the panel.

It's not poor sense of judgement it's abiding by the rules, life's shit sometimes isn't it?

and if they had said nothing , Stoner, you would have flamed them for covering it up.

Rules were broken they played an ineligible team member who had a very important role to play in the final. Thats what rules are for.

It is called UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE not trainee accountants challenge

indeed there are rules, but in this instance, you had a very clear statement from the losing side saying that they didnt consider it a matter of note, it was a very small technical breach of a rule, not like having a ringer or something and the rule break has not cost anyone substantially. Even more oddly in invoking the rule so brutally they have rather sullied the achievement of Miss Mensa bird who is the kind of anti-hero they should be promoting through such a programme.

A well written statement along the lines that it was regrettable that there was a technical breach of the rules, with no intention to deceive and after careful consideration and discussion with the losing side in the final and with their support and blessing they let the result stand in this case but will in future ensure that all compeititors meet the requirements before each filming of the show.

But these people have been used to an unfair advantage all their lives, they cannot be expected to play by the same rules as those who have come through the state system. Very clever but not clever enough to read the rules. Still a few years and they'll all be running banks.

rules are rules

It's a quiz programme FFS. There was no need to pursue the rules with such zeal imo. I agree that they made the wrong decision in this instance, but it should never be forgotten that quality stuff like U.C. is invariably shown on the BBC. And no other broadcaster touches the BBC when it comes to quality.

No doubt many students have been unable to participate due to this rule so it's fair that as the rule was broken they should be disqualified. A rematch might make for popular viewing though - maybe with the remaining 3...like footy...sort of.

The guy wasn't very clever if he either thought he could break the rules and get away with it, or didn't understand the rules to begin with. I'd say that natural justice has been served.

university challenge, you gotta be a student.

if he finished in june, he's not a student.

therefore he shouldnt be there.

its the whole point.

oh, and the whole university challenge thing is taken well seriously by lots of (usually post doc) students, especially in thier last year, because most unis have strict rules about being finished and getting in. if they broke the rules, sling em out. why should an exemption be made? theres probably some poor sod who didnt get in and had to miss out.

you a student stoner? does it affect you? or are you just having a nice rant at the telly?

Personally, I think the rules for eligibility for University Challenge perhaps need changing slightly. Just like "Under 18" means "as long as you were under 18 at the start of the season, if you're 18 now it's ok, in sport, I think the rules should be changed so that as long as you are/were a student of said University when the competition begins, if you have finished/graduated by the end of the competition but your team is still in it, you should still be allowed to participate.

That said, you can't just change the rules mid competition, so you must uphold the current rules no matter how stupid they are. Definitely think they should change them for next season though.

Even worse, it means that the team coached by my cousin now "won" the final.
Meaning that I will simply not hear the end of it at family gatherings.
Gutted.

I watched the final. IIRC, Manchester started really well and CC only pulled it back after a correct answer from Mr Kay....

I actually thought Manchester were the better team until Mr Price Waterhouse answered a starter for 10 and seemed to turn the competition around. It was also odd that Paxman also started asking more literature based questions at that point (a subject that Trimble was strong in)!

[i]Even worse, it means that the team coached by my cousin now "won" the final.
[/i]

UC teams have coaches?

/boggle

UC teams have coaches?

that Manchester bunch were all whacked out on EPO and billtong.

Have I missed something? The guy lied to the BBC, where did BBC get it wrong?

They didn't.

Their poor sense of judgement and inability to reflect the moderate middel-ground of the nation that they broadcast to just gets worse and worse.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7919830.stm

They just cant get it right, whether it be that ****t Ross and his baboonesque sidekick or the Gaza appeal, and now they think this is the right approach. So little common sense, so much committee. They almost become a paraody of themselves.

One of the best, indignant, letters to the Mail style rants ever. A sense of simmering anger, barely concealing long held but pointless grudges and an underlying current of despair. Strong work.

10/10.

The BBC were right.
The guy cheated, was caught and the team have been eliminated from the competition. Nice to see someone at the BBC has a pair.

What makes it even sweeter is Paxman's regular fawning over the Oxbridge teams throughout the competition.
The interview with him last night was priceless. He implied that it was a hell of shame and a pity that anyone noticed - Probably played soggy biscuit with Kay Sr.

They did right not wrong, the team did wrong.

you know the real problem with this story is that you you can't easily add - 'gate' to the end of it to make a headline - how will people know how to refer to the story in the papers?

Balls did he not intend to mislead! He knew the rules and he wasn't a student at the time! when asked what he was sttudying he said "chemistry" clearly you AREN't any moer as you work at PWC!!!! Chump!
Not BBC gettin it wrong, rules are rules!! IF you enterd BUSA MTB race and winnder was someone who had left uni 5 months previously you'd be pi**ed off that they weren't a student and it was the student champs and you woudl expect to see them excluded! no different here.

Far more worrying though is that Manchester Yeo can get a PhD in 'The history of the Book' but that the Corpus Cristi fella was ruled inelligable because he couldn't get funding for Chemistry PhD. A damming inditement of the priorities of this Country.

Can't have those posh Corpus folks winning, now can we, let's have some good honest working class students win instead...

Well I think it's a shame that someone studying chemistry at a top university goes into accountancy; he took the place of someone who could have made a good chemist....

well there you go.

it appears that the majority of you disagree with me.

I shall go and consider my position...

still think it's petty officiousness on the BBC's part. But I see that STW has come over all upstanding and lawful for a change...no more cheekytrails for you lot! 🙂

Now now Captain, wind your old school tie in.
The guy cheated and was caught.

Perhaps I should have put a smiley face after my Paxman comment, but several other friends, of widely differing social backgrounds, have noticed that his sympathies seem to lie with the Oxbridge teams. I should also mention that I am a Mancunian, so obviously this has coloured my viewpoint.

If the programme was hosted by, oooh, Johnny Vegas f'rinstance and he was fawning all over Wigan Technical College I'd be just as miffed.

bigrich - Member

oh, and the whole university challenge thing is taken well seriously by lots of (usually post doc) students

[Pedant mode] Postdocs aren't students, post implies after hence its what you do after you've got your doctorate. I think you mean PhD students. [/Pedant mode]

Oh and back on topic its pretty straightforward. The rules are you have to be a student all the way through the competition, the guy wasn't and given that he answered several 'starter for 10' to enable the human google to warm up its only fair they got disqualified.

just had a quick look at the guardian over a coffee and there on page 3 is an editorial which puts into words far better than I managed last night just what I was ranting about, not the enforcement of a rule, but the lack of consistency and discretion from the BBC:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/03/bbc-university-challenge

The BBC complaints procedure: not so much University Challenge as universally challenged. The corporation simply lurches from one PR disaster to another with a cackhandedness that Jeremy Paxman would doubtless sneer at.

When decisiveness was required in the wake of Sachsgate, the Corporation misread the tone and delayed its response. Eventually it was forced to suspend presenter Jonathan Ross for his part in the spectacularly misjudged phone messages to Andrew Sachs.

Now when a certain lightness of touch would probably have sufficed, the BBC has used a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Manchester's University Challenge team had been graceful in defeat after the revelations that Corpus Christi's team included someone who was no longer a student.

"I am firmly of the opinion that the best team won on the day," said Manchester's captain Matthew Yeo, announcing that they would not seek a rematch. Unfortunately the BBC was too busy investigating the allegations to pay any attention to Yeo's example of how to handle a media controversy with style.

Ask the BBC to make a response to a cock-up, and invariably it comes up with the wrong one. It's not like it hasn't had the practice. The corporation has spent the past couple of years mired in stories questioning its values and competency - from the Blue Peter cat to Carol Thatcher, from Gaza to the Queen, they've just kept coming.

The BBC seems to have only two speeds of response when faced with a newspaper reporter and a story. It either refuses to acknowledge it at all, allowing the affair to spiral out of control while everyone denies responsibility, or it reacts so quickly that nobody has time to think sensibly about the response.

Which explains why, after Yeo had dug the corporation out of a hole by not demanding a rematch, the BBC reached for the shovels and started tunnelling.

If yesterday's announcement was an attempt to kill the story off, it has been unsuccessful. Instead the story is once again about the BBC's misjudged responses

Mr_hoppy - Member

Far more worrying though is that Manchester Yeo can get a PhD in 'The history of the Book' but that the Corpus Cristi fella was ruled inelligable because he couldn't get funding for Chemistry PhD. A damming inditement of the priorities of this Country.

rubbish, he may have not got funding because his proposal was useless, unsound or he was deemed academically inadequate to persue a PhD in that field. Universities don't offer PhDs in 'a subject' you choose your research and put forward a proposal

I don't see them as a related item though, if one of the students on the quiz had stood up and said "I ****ed Andrew Sachs daughter and I liked it." then they'd be related.

Stoner, sadly "BBC get something right" is not a news story.
The Guardian, no matter what the right wing press say, is no friend of the BBC, it is a direct competitor.
It is also a business, it's purpose is to make money, not to reflect the truth.

Who cares tho?*

*and yes i am aware of the irony of taking the time to post as much 😉

[img] [/img]

"
If the programme was hosted by, oooh, Johnny Vegas f'rinstance and he was fawning all over Wigan Technical College
"

maybe one for a christmass special? Former Polytechnic challenge?

CaptainFlashheart - Member
Can't have those posh Corpus folks winning, now can we, let's have some good honest working class students win instead...

Wonderful chip/shoulder moment from the cap'n there.

PMSL at The Young Ones

'Give us some easy ones, Bambi, you big bottom-boil!'

I rather agree with Stoner. But I refuse on principle greatly to care. 😉

But these people have been used to an unfair advantage all their lives, they cannot be expected to play by the same rules as those who have come through the state system.

Do you know for sure none of them came through the state system or are you just making an assumption? 4 members of my family either went to or got places at Cambridge and didn't take them, they were all state educated.

He didn't cheat, apparently. He put his course dates on the application form and it was accepted - so perhaps a clerical error? They do happen, unfortunately.

I'm of the opinion that rules are rules. So many people these days try and get away with stuff because they think the rules can be bent. Sometimes, you just need to take it like a grown-up and stop whining. Which incidentally, the people in this particular story aren't doing. He's owned up to a mistake, and everyone's being decent about it. Which is a contrast to the way a lot of 'adults' behave 🙂

Universities don't offer PhDs in 'a subject' you choose your research and put forward a proposal

Not strictly correct, you can apply with your own proposal, you can even apply and self fund if you can find a supervisor. But a lot of PhDs, if not the majority, are linked to existing work. A group will be working on a particular project, they need to explore an avenue but cant justify using a post-doc on it, so they offer a PhD in the "area". Students then apply to work on that project, though the research may stray a little from that initial area during its course. The supervisor will guide the student in the direction he would like the research to find his answers while still allowing the student to find his own interest in the field. Certainly this is the case with technical PhDs - engineering/physical sciences. Funding for projects usually comes under the strict proviso that you provide funding for X PhDs in that area to pass on the knowledge and produce a continuing research team.

Of course Manchester Uni would say "Oh, it doesn't matter", the fact that every-one is being all nice and middle class, about it doesn't change the fact that the Comp has rules, and they were broken, it's not any one's fault particularly, no-one's dead, it's just a cock up.

It's not worth getting worried about it.

"rar rar rar, we gonna crush the oinks" classic telly

Weren't the BBC in the crap a while ago for basically doing just what Stoner suggests over things as important as naming the Blue Peter cat? You can't have it both ways.

I wasn't being serious mrsflash, I've no idea what education they've had. What I will hazard a guess on is that if the situation were reversed and Manchester had broken the rules in this way and had won the majority on here would be saying they should keep the title. But as Monty Python showed all those years ago with Upper Class Twit Of The Year there is nothing funnier than seeing the percieved posh fall on their arse. The real problem with the competition is that the filming schedule bares no relation to the academic year. The final was apparently recorded in November. Bamber was on radio 4 last night saying how absurd the filming was and how it restricted who was elligable to participate.

Anybody else see Starter for Ten when it was on the telly recently. Not a bad film with a great soundtrack and a disqualified team.

I wasn't being serious mrsflash, I've

ps thought starter for ten was rubbish.

Well I liked the music, perhaps it's an age thing

Wonderful chip/shoulder moment from the cap'n there.

As one absolutely sick of flash's chip/shoulder when I've been perceived to have a tap at the inbreds, well said that man!

The Guardian, no matter what the right wing press say, is no friend of the BBC, it is a direct competitor.
It is also a business, it's purpose is to make money, not to reflect the truth.

That really is a load of nonsense.

The Guardian is [i]not[/i] 'a direct competitor' to the BBC. For a start the Guardian does not produce programmes for broadcast, and the BBC doesn't produce a daily newspaper. Yes they are both news providers, but most people can handle reading a newspaper and watching TV - although obviously not necessarily at the same time.

The Guardian is very much in the business of 'telling the truth' - as it perceives it. In fact that's why it was set up in the first place - to tell the truth about social conditions after the Peterloo massacre. It's central objectives are today, the same as they were when it was first founded, and any profit it makes is only solely to further those objectives.

BTW - none of this detracts from the fact that I am not a supporter of the Guardian's general editorial stances, which I consider to be hopelessly romantic idealism - I don't buy into the bourgeois liberal concept of a benevolent capitalist society.

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Getting back to the OP, I agree with Stoner that BBC got it wrong. Yes 'rules are rules', but the time to worry about that was [i]before[/i] the contest, too late worrying about them [i]after[/i] the contest. As I said before it's only a quiz show, and there isn't even any cash prizes involved. Taking the title from Corpus Christi College was petty imo. Anyway, if everyone now wants to start getting petty, why was Corpus Christi College even allowed to compete ? After all it's called University Challenge' [i]not[/i] 'College Challenge' and I'm pretty sure that Corpus Christi is not the name of a university.

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Unlike Drac, I [i]do[/i] see the connection referred to in the Guardian article between this 'wrong decision' and previous 'wrong decisions'. IMO opinion there has been a radical change in the confidence of the BBC in recent years. And the responsibility for this I firmly place with New Labour. Ever since the Director General of the BBC was sacked for offending New Labour, the BBC has imo become neurotic, nervous, and jittery of making decisions which it might be slated for. Now when people become neurotic, nervous, and jittery about making wrong decisions and screwing up, they invariably make the wrong decisions and screw up.

I think it's of supreme irony that the BBC having survived a decade of Thatcher more or less intact, got shafted by New Labour, for telling the truth about New Labour lies. Unbelievably, the only person who lost their job because an illegal war based on lies, was the head of the BBC 😯

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Incidentally for me, watching University Challenge is only really worthwhile if it results in posh upper-class public school educated toffs, being humiliated by sons and daughters of the common people 8)