The family-unifying effect of University Challenge

You know you’re a family of irretrievable nerds when University Challenge is appointment TV every Monday. In fact, admitting that seems a bit shameful – like saying you enjoy dressing as an Arthurian knight at weekends, or solving complex maths problems on a Saturday night. Please don’t beat me up! You can have my Wham Bar! 

In my defence, I am hopeless at it. I sit there with the wind whistling between my ears, commenting on whether I think presenter Amol Rajan has a cold, and being critical of the pathetic mascots. The only time I become animated is when there’s a question about food, pop songs or a painting I might once have studied at art college, in between drinking £1 blue cocktails and trying not to be sick into the toaster. 

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But while my knowledge is pub quiz-level – able to spot Kerry Katona in a fuzzy picture round, maybe, or identify the first few chords of “Since U Been Gone” – my son seems to know a lot about very specific stuff. Who knew that the same child who used to have meltos in the Co-op because his banana snapped in half can now field complex questions about cells and enzymes, Shakespeare and classical music? I must have been away when we did enzymes at school – and Greek mythology, history, astrophysics and anything else they ask on University Challenge, so I can’t help being a little impressed. Mind you, I suppose his brain still young. It’s a flexible, happy little sponge, whereas mine is old and crusty, like an out of date sticky toffee pudding. And I prefer to use it to develop my real strength, which is taking the piss out of the contestants.  

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Now, I’m aware that they are mostly young people, and that even though they know the atomic number of Beryllium and what colour knickers Virginia Woolf was wearing when she wrote To the Lighthouse, they still have a lot to learn. Also, this is very much a case of pot/kettle. When I was a student I looked like I slept in a bin and my main university challenge was remembering where I lived – for the first year I had to wear my key around my neck on a string. However, as the demi-semi-quarter finals have lasted the best part of six months, there are a few very familiar faces I think I’ll always remember, that might even flash before my eyes just before an accident with a threshing machine. I mean, how can I forget these legends? 

• The annoying guy who sticks his elbow out to press the buzzer first. 

• The woman with blue hair and glasses who puts her hands under her chin.

• The haunted poet with cheekbones who looks like he takes laudanum but also is maybe in The Strokes.

• The one with the woolly jumper and frightened eyes who looks like Kurt Cobain. 

• The blonde woman with the double-barrelled German name.

• The bald guy with the glasses who sits next to the woman with the double-barrelled German name. 

• SALAMANCA-CAMACHO.  

If you don’t watch it, you won’t have a clue what I’m on about, thus faithfully replicating the University Challenge experience for the majority of people. But there’s something so relaxing about watching a revolving bunch of clever clogs knowing the answers to questions you can barely understand. Rajan is a much more calming presence than the irascible Jeremy Paxman, and I find myself happily basking on the sofa and revelling in my ignorance. 

Plus, it’s not often we get together to goggle at the telly these days. And when my son eventually leaves for university and isn’t around to watch it with us any more, I’m going to miss these nerdy Mondays. Maybe, though, one day he might be on it, and I can take the piss out of him. Now that’s a challenge I can get behind.

University Challenge is on Mondays at 8.30pm on BBC Two and iPlayer. Lucy Sweet is a freelance journalist.

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