This Blog is 10 Years Old! And an Announcement

Sooooo... this blog is now ten years old! I know, I don't believe it either.

I set this blog up ten years ago when I was 18 and had literally just finished school (or, at least, was in the process of doing so). My original plan was that I would review University Challenge, Deal or No Deal, and anything else I felt the need to.

My weekly Deal roundups would last less than a year before I eventually discontinued them, which was probably for the best given that the show would take a definite and irreversable turn for the worse just a couple of months later. And, while I did plan to talk about other shows as well, and did for a while (the third series of Radio 4's The 3rd Degree), I eventually was happy to just settle on UC every week. (Here's a link to every review I've done so far; I'll go and add the current series once I've finished this)

 

Then, about two years into this blog's lifespan, I developed acute OCD, which is why my UC blogs became/have become so formulaic and reliant on the same phrases over the subsequent years. I also sporadically changed this blog's colour during those first two years, before I fell out of the habit and stuck with the blue we have to this day.

I did start reviewing Only Connect as well eventually; the first time was S7, but they were very basic reviews because Dave C. was doing more comprehensive ones on LAM at the same time. Then, in S11, I decided to start doing fuller ones again; these were fun, but a lot more time consuming than my UC ones, which is why I discontinued them after four series.

Then, two years ago, while a bit bored during lockdown, I decided to write a great big long blog about the BBC era of UC; pretty much everything I wrote in that blog is still my view, except that I would now put the 2014-15 series in the 'Second Peak Era'. But still, that blog is undoubtedly the best thing I've ever written on it IMO.

I used to write opinion pieces about various UC related subjects quite a lot in this blog's early days, but I can't remember the last time I did so; certainly not in the last few years I believe. I also did a particularly infamous one about OC and how some people hated Missing Vowels, which was later described by a UC contestant on Twitter as 'the hottest take'!

But anyway, this blog is now 10 years old, and I have no intentions of stopping it any time soon, even if I am just going through the motions reviewing UC and giving quick summaries of the other Monday night quizzes.

Still, I feel like I ought to do something to mark this blog's tenth anniversary.

So, starting from Monday, I'm going to be going back and re-reviewing the first series of UC I covered on this blog! That'll be the 2012-13 series of our old friends Jim 'King's' Gratrex and Adam 'Welshguy' Pearce for those who don't remember back that far.

I'll do four shows a week, except in a couple of weeks' time when I'm (currently) going to be away for a couple of weeks, with a weekly summary every Thursday evening (I hope). These reviews will maybe be a bit more snarky than my usual unbiased write-ups, because this is a different sort of review; a look back rather than reporting for those who haven't seen it yet. It'll probably run into the new UC series, which'll mean fewer retro-reviews a week, but we'll wait and see how we get on.

So, that'll be starting next week. I hope.

In the meantime, thanks very much to everyone who has read, commented on and supported this blog over the past ten years; here's, hopefully, to many more to come!