John Thomson and Kate Adie are among the famous faces who will take part in this year's Christmas series of University Challenge.
Notable graduates from 14 universities and colleges will compete to become the series champions - and earn Jeremy Paxman's approval, of course.
Thomson will be fighting for the honour of Manchester Metropolitan University along with Gordon Taylor from the Professional Footballers' Association, actor Bernard Hill and Eddie Morland from the Health and Safety Laboratory.
Meanwhile, Adie is batting for Newcastle along with journalist Giles Fraser.
Other teams competing include King's College, Cambridge; Trinity Hall, Cambridge - featuring actor Dan Starkey; Royal Holloway - with a team including broadcaster Francis Wheen; and York, who will include broadcaster Adam Hart-Davis in their squad.
Warwick University have novelist Jonathan Coe in their ranks, while Leeds University, Balliol College, Oxford, Surrey University and Goldsmiths, London will also all field teams.
Meanwhile, actor Samuel West,...
Notable graduates from 14 universities and colleges will compete to become the series champions - and earn Jeremy Paxman's approval, of course.
Thomson will be fighting for the honour of Manchester Metropolitan University along with Gordon Taylor from the Professional Footballers' Association, actor Bernard Hill and Eddie Morland from the Health and Safety Laboratory.
Meanwhile, Adie is batting for Newcastle along with journalist Giles Fraser.
Other teams competing include King's College, Cambridge; Trinity Hall, Cambridge - featuring actor Dan Starkey; Royal Holloway - with a team including broadcaster Francis Wheen; and York, who will include broadcaster Adam Hart-Davis in their squad.
Warwick University have novelist Jonathan Coe in their ranks, while Leeds University, Balliol College, Oxford, Surrey University and Goldsmiths, London will also all field teams.
Meanwhile, actor Samuel West,...
- 12/5/2014
- Digital Spy
From Piers Morgan to Polly Toynbee, Jemima Khan to Jarvis Cocker – David Cameron takes questions from public figures who want answers
Hear what the Pm has to say in our audio interactive
David Mitchell, comedian
Do you wish you were less posh?
"[Laughs] No. You can't change who you are. For a long time I thought my full name was 'The Old Etonian David Cameron'. I had parents who gave me a wonderful start in life, who sacrificed a lot to give me a great education. So I don't ever want to change – I don't want to drop my accent or change my vowels. I am who I am."
Piers Morgan, TV presenter
If you could relive one moment in your life, excluding births of children and marriage, what would it be?
"God, that's a really good question. Piers, why don't you ever ask really good questions like that normally? I...
Hear what the Pm has to say in our audio interactive
David Mitchell, comedian
Do you wish you were less posh?
"[Laughs] No. You can't change who you are. For a long time I thought my full name was 'The Old Etonian David Cameron'. I had parents who gave me a wonderful start in life, who sacrificed a lot to give me a great education. So I don't ever want to change – I don't want to drop my accent or change my vowels. I am who I am."
Piers Morgan, TV presenter
If you could relive one moment in your life, excluding births of children and marriage, what would it be?
"God, that's a really good question. Piers, why don't you ever ask really good questions like that normally? I...
- 11/26/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Save Our Snipewanks!
You may have heard of the UK lawsuit where a judge just awarded £65,000 to a writer wronged by a review. Long story short, Sarah Thornton’s book, Seven Days in the Art World, was reviewed in the Daily Torygraph by Lynn Barber, one of the people she interviewed for it. In her takedown of the book, Barber explicitly said she couldn’t trust Thornton’s claims regarding her rigorous research. Why not? She’s one of the interview subjects named, she said, and she never gave an interview:
“Thornton claims her book is based on hour-long interviews with more than 250 people. I would have taken this on trust, except that my eye flicked down the list of her 250 interviewees and practically fell out of its socket when it hit the name Lynn Barber. I gave her an interview? Surely I would have noticed?”
Unfortunately for Barber, Thornton...
You may have heard of the UK lawsuit where a judge just awarded £65,000 to a writer wronged by a review. Long story short, Sarah Thornton’s book, Seven Days in the Art World, was reviewed in the Daily Torygraph by Lynn Barber, one of the people she interviewed for it. In her takedown of the book, Barber explicitly said she couldn’t trust Thornton’s claims regarding her rigorous research. Why not? She’s one of the interview subjects named, she said, and she never gave an interview:
“Thornton claims her book is based on hour-long interviews with more than 250 people. I would have taken this on trust, except that my eye flicked down the list of her 250 interviewees and practically fell out of its socket when it hit the name Lynn Barber. I gave her an interview? Surely I would have noticed?”
Unfortunately for Barber, Thornton...
- 8/18/2011
- by Hal Duncan
- Boomtron
Anonymous has been at it again. Following Primary Colors's version of Clinton comes O: A Presidential Novel. Mark Lawson on the tradition of insider political fiction, from Disraeli to The West Wing. A preview from tomorrow's Guardian Review.
Also in tomorrow's Review: Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage on why Anna Nicole Smith is a true operatic heroine, Andrea Levy on why she wrote Small Island, Stefan Collini in praise of Eric Hobsbawm and Sarah Churchwell on the scandalous Lillian Hellman
A successful political career demands a tradeoff between fame and anonymity. A leader needs to be known – an Obama, Blair or Clinton has the global recognisability of a rock star – but high-level politics also frequently depends on the exercise of secrecy. The unattributable briefing ("a party insider, speaking on condition of anonymity", "a source travelling with the prime minister") is a standard tool of political journalism, offering an early first...
Also in tomorrow's Review: Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage on why Anna Nicole Smith is a true operatic heroine, Andrea Levy on why she wrote Small Island, Stefan Collini in praise of Eric Hobsbawm and Sarah Churchwell on the scandalous Lillian Hellman
A successful political career demands a tradeoff between fame and anonymity. A leader needs to be known – an Obama, Blair or Clinton has the global recognisability of a rock star – but high-level politics also frequently depends on the exercise of secrecy. The unattributable briefing ("a party insider, speaking on condition of anonymity", "a source travelling with the prime minister") is a standard tool of political journalism, offering an early first...
- 1/22/2011
- by Mark Lawson
- The Guardian - Film News
Like his subjects in Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s—The Golden Age Of Paranoia, author Francis Wheen (How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World) sees conspiracy everywhere, which weakens the argument uniting the historical and cultural incidents over which he places his lens. But it’s hard to complain about being taken for a ride when the trip is so entertaining. Wheen ushers in the decade of mistrust with the emblematic image of the mid-term President Nixon, who had taken pains a few years earlier to remove the in-office recording system his predecessor Lbj used, quietly installing his own as a bulwark ...
- 4/8/2010
- avclub.com
In his new book, Strange Days Indeed (Public Affairs), Francis Wheen examines the paranoia of the 1970s—a decade when the delusions of leaders such as Richard Nixon, Idi Amin, and Mao Zedong pervaded ordinary people and everyday life. In this exclusive audio excerpt, Wheen describes the sexual paranoia in the United States, where feminism and the passage of Roe v. Wade inspired irrational dread and resentment in men, many of whom had recently returned from the Vietnam War unprepared for the shift in attitudes on the home front. Listen to the reading after the jump.
- 2/25/2010
- Vanity Fair
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