Tuesday 14 February 2012

Pointless pontificating and a bit of Bergman

If, by some unfathomable sequence of events, I were to become controller of programming at ITV (just go with me on this one) the first thing I'd do would be to schedule Ingmar Bergman's Persona for 8pm the following Saturday on ITV1. That'd wake the buggers up / traumatize their children / make them switch over to ITV2 / get me the sack immediately. Good film though.



(The film's up in its entirely - well, in eight parts - on YouTube if you fancy it.)

Actually, me putting Bergman's name before the title there reminds me of a bloke - let's call him the wazzock - who appeared on Pointless the other night. In the final (because he made it to the final - of course he made it to the final) the wazzock was asked to guess any films that had won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival since 1975. So this he duly did, but not before he'd shown his expertise by blithely and needlessly announcing the names of each film's director before giving each answer.

This extra director information really wasn't necessary, so the wazzock was to all intents of purposes showboating when giving his guesses as "Roman Polanski's The Pianist", "Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies" & someone or other else's something or other else, rather than just naming the films. Oh, and of course one of the answers - Secrets & Lies - turned out to be pointless (of course it was) and thus earned wazzock that day's jackpot. I don't have a picture of him to hand but his expression immediately afterwards was much like this:



So anyway, the moral to this tale is this: if you're good at trivia and you ever happen to appear on a TV quiz programme where such knowledge is a boon, don't embellish your answers unnecessarily. It just makes you look like a massive arsehole.

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6 comments:

dickvandyke said...

So help me with this Kips. (I always miss that quiz show due to my love of commuting on packed trains and sneaking for a quick sherbert).

When I got in yest, my daughter said there was a question about British female singers having had a (solo) No 1 in the UK. Evidently, there were 9 'Pointless' answers? This set me thinking. I would struggle with any names from the past 10 years or so, but what were the answers?
I would wager, Mary Hopkin, Tamsin Archer, Lena Martell, Helen Shapiro, but struggling after that.

Kippers said...

Tasmin Archer & Lena Martell were definitely two of the Pointless answers (spotters' badge for you Dicky!) & I think Helen Shapiro scored 1 point. Gabrielle was also a pointless answer but I'm struggling to remember any of the others at the moment.

I thought Sonia might be one but her name didn't come up. (While there were 9 names mentioned yesterday that doesn't necessarily mean that there were only 9 pointless answers - sometimes there are so many that they don't have time to list every single one. That's what I keep telling myself anyway.)

But this programme is head & shoulders above every other quiz on TV at the moment, and the humorous, relaxed banter between the two hosts is remarkably refreshing to behold in this otherwise hopelessly hyperbolic day and age & all. Well worth iPlayering or recording for those times when you're not commuting anyway!

dickvandyke said...

Just had an inspirational flash about Kelly Marie, Anika and her 'Japanese Boy'.

And that girl who did 'I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker with ... er, Flowers In My Hair!'

Kippers said...

Kelly Marie & Anika: correct! (Anika's Japanese accent was so convincing an' all.)

dickvandyke said...

Hmmm. Good job she wasn't singing about a Pakistani Boy.

Kippers said...

Goodness gracious me.