Konnie Huq: “I’m not sure if Charlie Brooker and I actually got married!”

What are your credentials for presenting a new game show called King of the Nerds? I’ve got quite a lot of nerdy qualities. I love education, I think knowledge is key, knowledge is power! I presented Blue Peter for 10 years.

What’s the aim of the game? It’s a bit like The Apprentice meets University Challenge. There are 13 contestants: gamers, cosplayers, mathematicians, someone who’s on the Mars space programme, and they’re split into two teams. Although your teammates are your allies, you’re eventually up against them. The gameplay can be quite Machiavellian.

I didn’t think nerds were like that, not being one myself obviously? You’re too cool to understand. It’s not nerds, it’s humans in general. Though if you like gaming, and doing well in education, there is a competitive element in being a nerd.

What’s your nerdy speciality? I love playing Words with Friends. It’s awesome. You’ll never go back to Scrabble once you start – the board is much bigger, you can score over 100 points with one word!

People have realised it’s more shameful to be a vacuous airhead

You’re assuming everyone plays Scrabble. Don’t tell me you don’t play Scrabble every day! Oh, I forgot, you’re so cool…

When I was young and pretending I didn’t watch Blue Peter because it wasn’t cool to do that, nerds would be the people who got straight As and were bullied. Now all you have to do to be a nerd is watch a lot of TV, right? When you were little I’m guessing there were five channels. TV was a rare commodity, whereas books were not. Television is the new books. But I don’t think nerds watch a lot of TV, maybe a lot of targeted TV.

People want to be crowned King of the Nerds, where’s all the embarrassment and shame gone? People have realised it’s more shameful to be a vacuous airhead, which seems to be the mainstream now – dumbness.

Is dumbness a word? Yeah.

I’ll need to check my Scrabble dictionary. A normal dictionary will suffice. I don’t believe you have a Scrabble dictionary.

I used to have one. Do you know all the two letter words?

I’m not sure I studied it very closely. You’d know fascinating things like an em is a unit of measurement or that xo is a mountain goat.

There are guest judges on the show. Did you have any favourites? I’m married to one of them [Charlie Brooker], so if I don’t say him I think I’ll be getting a divorce shortly. Although, we were married in Vegas and my friend’s friend was also married in Vegas. They went to get a divorce and found out that their marriage isn’t recognised over here because they didn’t send the paperwork off. I don’t think we sent the paperwork off either.

So you’re not actually married? I don’t know… we’re probably… maybe not. You have four years to send it off but it was in 2010.

Does it help for your spouse to have compatible geeky tastes – even if you’re not actually married? I think we’ve got different geek traits with some overlap. He’s not into science as much as I am, he’s into gaming much more than me. I’m trying to think where the overlap is… I’m struggling! Maybe we should get a divorce.

Luckily you don’t need to! Oh yeah…

King of the Nerds is on Sundays, Sky 1