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University Challenge superfan yet to get one correct answer



Brian Smethurst, from Bognor Regis, who has been watching University Challenge since its first episode in 1962, admitted today he has still to answer even one single question correctly. Yet this hasn't dampened his enthusiasm for the show.


He said: 'I once thought I'd actually cracked in 1981, when I said Caravaggio was an Italian motor scooter... but turned out it was an espresso machine.'


Brian's wife Delia commented: 'Bless him. He loves it and even has a tattoo of original question master, Bamber Gascoigne, on his left buttock. He's vowed to have one of Amol Rajan on the other side should he finally succeed.'


Meanwhile Brian's quest goes on, although Delia isn't holding out much hope for her hapless husband. 'I can't see him ever doing it, because so far he's spent over twenty thousand pounds entering those competitions on ITV and he's yet to get even one of those answers right.'


Photo by Vadim Sherbakov on Unsplash

University defends offering prospective students a lifetime’s supply of condoms



The University of Barking, formerly the Polytechnic of the Isle of Dogs, has defended its unusual offer to new students. To attract students through the clearing system, the University is offering a lifetime’s supply of prophylactics, in a range of styles, colours and flavours.


These are ‘inappropriate inducements’, according to critics.


Universities are engaged in a mad scramble to sign up students through the clearing system, due to better than expected A level grades. Universities are desperate to maximise student numbers, in order to maximise their funding, and have resorted to increasingly bizarre tactics to ensure success.


Some universities have offered cash prizes or rent-free accommodation. Others have offered welcome packs including fancy dress costumes, traffic cones and hang over cures. Posher universities are offering subsidised grouse shooting weekends, and one Oxbridge college is offering the chance to do a trolley dash through the college wine cellar.


The University of Barking defended its condom offer as cost-effective, as promoting student health and well-being, and as a sensible response to record levels of STIs on campus.


They neglected to mention the expulsion of a previous beneficiary of the scheme, who filled over a thousand condoms with helium and tied them to a statue of the founder. The statue had floated away and has not yet been retrieved. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it may have reached South Korea.


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