How my heart goes out to Tom Tyszczuk Smith, the medical student who suggested on this week’s University Challenge that it was William the Conqueror who landed in Devon in 1688, vowing to maintain the Protestant religion.
For I, too, have made a bit of a fool of myself on a BBC quiz programme. Oh, all right, a lot of a fool of myself. It was some 20 years ago, when I was picked to represent the newspaper I then worked for on a show called The Year In Question.
As it happened, our team went on to win that season’s championship. But this was no consolation to me, since my own contribution to the victory, in my special subject round on the arts, was a spectacularly ignominious nul points.
Tom Tyszczuk Smith was subjected to the full Paxo treatment after suggesting on University Challenge that it was William the Conqueror who landed in Devon in 1688, vowing to maintain the Protestant religionThe mortification of it haunts me to this day. It is one of the reasons why this, my first venture onto the airwaves, was also my last.
But there are three respects in which I count myself more fortunate than young Tom T.S., after his howler for the University College, London, team in Monday’s quarter-final clash with the University of Bangor.
First, The Year In Question was on the radio, not the telly, which meant my blushes could be seen only by the audience at the recording — and no one recognised me on the bus the next morning as that prize ignoramus from the night before.
Second, my fleeting moment of broadcasting celebrity came before the advent of Twitter and Facebook, in the days when social inadequates had to find better things to do than spewing venom at strangers.
More... 'Rude' Paxo faces a Twitter tirade over savaging of shy student who dared to get University Challenge question wrong Paxman's scathing attack on BBC chiefs over handling of Savile crisis to be censored Three decades, 28 TV game shows but just one haircut: Meet Britain's biggest quiz addict, who has starred on everything from the Sale Of The Century to The Weakest LinkAnd third, the only rebuke I suffered on air was a gently pitying chuckle from the mild-mannered quizmaster, Hunter Davies, of Beatles biography fame.
Poor Tom, on the other hand, was subjected on Monday to the full Paxo treatment, generally reserved for mendacious politicians and squirming quangocrats.
His face a pantomime of outraged incredulity, his voice heavy with sarcasm and withering scorn, the BBC’s Grade One Listed presenter barked: ‘NO! William I? No, I’m sorry, that’s the wrong answer.
And you know it’s very wrong. It’s only out by about 600 years or so!
‘Anyway, no, it’s William of Orange, of course. William III.’
'NO! William I?': Paxo was in full flood and wasn't going to allow Tom's confession of his slip to stop him from displaying his own knowledgeI must confess that when I first read about the put-down, having missed Monday’s programme, my sympathies lay mostly with Jeremy Paxman.
Good God!, I spluttered. How could that young fool get a place at one of our best universities — and on its crème de la crème quiz team, at that — if he doesn’t know that William I landed in Sussex in 1066, long before Protestantism was invented? What the hell has happened to British education since my day?
But then my mind flew back to my arrival at Cambridge to read history in 1972, and the evening when I first met the fellow freshmen who were to share my staircase.
We were having a sticky conversation about Hamlet and Othello — thinking, I suppose, that this was the sort of thing you were expected to talk about at universities. Only later did we discover that Cambridge was actually about drinking too much and trying (and failing) to lure girls to bed.
Anyway, I’ll never forget the first remark ever addressed to me by the medical student in the room next to mine, who was to become a dear friend and a hugely eminent surgeon.
‘I’m not a great fan of Shakespeare,’ he said, ‘although I have read Paradise Lost.’
In the open-mouthed silence that followed, he blushed a deep purple, before stammering: ‘Er . . . by John Milton.’
Too late, too late! The rest of us, artier types, had collapsed in paroxysms of Paxmanesque mirth and scorn — and we haven’t let him forget his remark in the 40 years since. That’s what friends are for.
So, with that incident in mind, I revised my opinion of young Tom T.S., thinking that perhaps his gaffe told us more about the ignorance of medics through the ages than the state of modern education.
But this was before I’d seen Monday’s controversial quarter-final. And now that I’ve watched it through on iPlayer, I realise that the poor lad has been grievously wronged.
For it is 100 per cent clear from the recording that when he answered ‘William the First’ instead of ‘the Third’, this was merely a slip of the tongue, of the sort that any of us could commit in a high-pressure contest under the unaccustomed glare of the TV lights.
Indeed, the very moment the words were out of his mouth, he muttered under his breath: ‘The third, the third.’
'A shy boy': Tom (circled) hardly looked up from the very beginning of the show, looking no closer to tears when Paxo delivered his history lesson than when he was getting question after question right When Paxo happens to know the answer to a question, he seems to think it outrageously ignorant of others not to know it. But when he is as clueless as the contestant, he finds ignorance completely pardonableBut Paxo was already in full flood, and he wasn’t going to allow Tom’s confession of his slip to stop him from displaying his own knowledge that the Conqueror arrived six centuries before Billy of Orange. Clever old chap, eh, knowing that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066?
In fairness to Tom, I should also point out that he is very far from being a thicko who knows only about medicine. Indeed, he contributed a huge amount to UCL’s victory — correctly answering questions about Kurt Vonnegut, Titian, the Etruscans, the Arab League and the painter Georges Braque.
He also got one right about a book called Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon, by Jean-Dominique Bauby, which I have to admit was a new one on me (cue Paxmanesque contempt from those in the know).
Not that young Tyszczuk Smith needs any sympathy from me. Indeed, to judge by the thousands of comments on the internet, he has brought out the maternal instincts in half the female population of the country, clucking that he’s a sweet-looking boy and he shouldn’t listen to that horrid meanie Mr Paxman.
More from Tom Utley... Never trust anyone who is certain about anything. Of that, I'm absolutely 100 per cent sure 30/05/13 Listen up, folks, this British snob has a confession to make. Americans speak better English than us... it's a no-brainer 23/05/13 What would my old village Bobby make of these swaggering RoboCops toting assault rifles that fire 750 rounds a minute? 16/05/13 Read one grumpy column by Tom Utley - and get next week's free: Or why I keep falling for devilishly ingenious supermarket offers that actually pick my pocket 09/05/13 I hate Nimbys... but I hate the new lean-to on my neighbours' patio even more! 18/04/13 A heartfelt letter to my grieving mother and Maggie's great unknown quality - her human kindness 11/04/13 Mr Osborne looks like a French aristo in a powdered wig. But that's no reason to put on this prolier than thou routine 04/04/13 Forgive me, but there is nothing David Miliband can teach me about feeling murderous rage towards your brother 28/03/13 Repeat after me: If 100 experts say it's wrong for children to learn by rote, they must all be nitwits 21/03/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEMany said that he looked on the point of tears after his rebuke, hanging his head for the rest of the programme. May I just say that in fact he hardly looked up from the very beginning of the show, looking no closer to tears when Paxo delivered his history lesson than when he was getting question after question right.
As his own mother Renata says — and, gosh, I like the sound of her: ‘Tom’s very clever, and we are very proud. He’s a shy boy so I think at times he was a little uncomfortable, but that is just his way. He was very excited to take part and we think he did very well.’
Having replayed the rebuke several times — and it looked and sounded much more light-hearted and good-natured than it appears in print — I also believe Mrs Tyszczuk is right to defend Mr Paxman. ‘He’s always a little tough with the contestants,’ she says, ‘but I think it is all in good spirit. It is a challenge, after all.’
If I had to criticise Paxo as a quizmaster, it would be for a weakness he shares with much of the human race — and certainly with me. I mean that when he happens to know the answer to a question, he seems to think it outrageously ignorant of others not to know it. But when he is as clueless as the contestant, he finds ignorance completely pardonable.
There was a fine example of this in Monday’s show. When another student got the answer to a physics question wrong — not just 600 years wrong, but literally as wrong as it is possible for an answer to be — he let it pass without a flicker of an eyebrow. Not Paxo’s subject, you see.
The question was: ‘In optics, what is the focal length of a perfectly planar mirror?’
The correct answer was infinity. The student answered: ‘Zero.’ Yet Paxman let him off without even a token disembowelment.
That human weakness aside, I remain a big Paxo fan. Newsnight seems less weighty when he’s not on, and it’s a credit to the force of his presence that University Challenge still commands an audience of 2.89 million, without a hint of dumbing down.
As for the students who appear on it, eager to show the world how clever they are, well, they know the risks as well as any ambitious politician — just as I did, when I fell flat on my face.
