UKH

Now !

Here you go, ‘From the UK Climbing website, which of these are pointless climbing routes’…..

I’ve photoed the answers if anyone wants to guess….

Answers…

Tough! Not heard of two of them but done one of the other two. 

I watched it.  Hopelessly difficult if you're in your 70s.

strange options. wouldn't be surprised if the pointless team use AI to save their brains..

What exactly were they asking? What's a pointless route?

Or did they just mean which ones are routes?

Which ARE the routes that ARE routes that their sample failed to identify.

I think...

Yup. They got 4 actual route names from the UKC database, and two made up routes (not actual climbs). Two of the actual routes no one guessed from the sample as being an actual route. Better explanations are available! There can’t be many times that this actual website is mentioned on bbc.  

I've not watched Pointless in ages* but my recollection is that they supposedly ask a number people (which I believe you can apply to be part of) to name as many things in a given category as they can, in fixed period of time. From memory it's 100 people in 100 seconds, and I'm pretty sure it's done on an individual basis i.e. none of the 100 are aware of anyone else's answers. On that basis, I'd be quite surprised that they managed to find anyone out of a random sample of 100 people who knew any route names.

* Actually, I had an idea that I'd seen that episode back when I did used to watch it, although it's not listed as a repeat in Radio Times 

That specific round has a different purpose: if a pair of contestants score a zero, then an extra pile of money is added to the total prize fund. No one is eliminated. So two of the answers score zero, the other two score score very low, and two score an ‘X’. Don’t know any more than that. 

New routers - you know what to do,

Most confusing post on UKC I've ever read. My elderly mother used to watch with zero understanding before retuning to Hearbeat before the denouement. I loath Alexander Armstrong (have you heard his simpering delivery on Classic FM?) I'm still non the wiser which was the pointless answer. Sorry, a grumpy old man.

It's difficult to describe just how awful he is. I have the radio on in the kitchen then I can hear the music but not the announcer where I'm working, but I have to stick my fingers in my ears and scream when I make a coffee.

Odd that the only one I knew (conan) was a pointless.

Odd choices...two routes reasonably well known by UK climbers and two most climbers will never have heard of.

Scabby Buttress is obscure but at least sounds plausible.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/upper_cove-1159/sullivan-87469

Sullivan is super obscure, even for 100 guidebook writers!?

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/upper_cove-1159/sullivan-87469

I think 100 people are asked to name as many climbing routes as they can in 100 seconds. They make the list from two false entries,  two pointless and two low scorers. As such nearly all route names would be pointless.

I know what the purpose of the round is.  It was added a couple of years back as a prelude to the actual head-to-head round.  At the start of the round Alexander Armstrong states that: "We gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many <subject of the round> as they could".  I still reckon you'd struggle to get even one valid answer in the climbing routes category from a random selection of 100 people.

I too was surprised that Conan the Librarian was pointless.  I suspect they had very slim pickings in that category of answers from their 100 people (and I also suspect that Sullivan might have been a mis-pronunciation or mis-hearing - or even a crow-barring in using that as an excuse! - of Suilven).

'There can’t be many times that this actual website is mentioned on bbc. '

Should be though. Most of the solutions to the world's problems can be found here.

I'm not at all surprised that Conan the Librarian was pointless, given the wording of the question.

I think most climbers these days would view Conan primarily as a boulder problem, but I think "UK Climbing Routes" automatically makes you think of route climbing (i.e. trad or sport). 

So I would expect any climbers in the survey to spend their 100 seconds reeling off trad routes and sport routes, rather than boulder problems. I wouldn't expect any non-climbers to have heard of Conan.

My suspicion is that they must have chosen a cohort with some climbing knowledge, otherwise I I'd expect the only things that would score score anything would be things like Ben Nevis or Pyg Track.

I too think of Conan the Librarian as a Peak boulder problem but it's also a highly rated E6/7 at Gogarth...

I suspect in this case, they are given the names, and asked to say which they think are real.

I immediately thought of the route on Gogarth.

They should have used some of Redhead's route names as that would have totally bewildered them.

Agree. And then the researchers choose two that scored zero, two very low scorers (eg not Striding Edge), and throw in two total red herring wrong answers that were not even on the questionnaire because they are not even climbing routes. I think. Who knows. It’s the beeb. Could all be rigged

Me too.  I’d never heard of the boulder problem (either of them!)

No way. People would be guessing. Maybe they could be asked if they are certain the names are a real route name but I've never seen,that indicated.

Me too. I had no idea it shared its name with a boulder problem.

And...?

I think you're making too much of a light entertainment programme... I cannot see the BBC going to the trouble of finding 100 climbers, and asking them for route names (from, what, tens of thousands?), and then finding enough common ground to come up with five or six they could present. I mean, no TPS...?

And there was me thinking bouldering has come on a long way!

Yes, they could have been a lot more adventurous. An Alabuse (E2 5c) or Muff Divers (VS 4b) anyone?

It's the Gogarth Route I was thinking of.

Fun fact. Both are first ascents by Johnny Dawes but the boulder problem came first. My theory is that after the event he realised it was too good a name to ‘waste’ on a boulder problem so also used it for his epic trad adventure in Wen Zawn.

I hadn’t realised Dawes had done the Gogarth route too. The grade probably limited my interest. That said, I guess when I first heard of the great name Conan the Librarian it may have been the route people were referring to as I was left with the impression they were referring to something hard… It came as a surprise when I found it to be a relatively modesty graded boulder in a guide.

Without having any Dawes like talent and usually finding even 6a boulders pretty hard, it came as a surprise to nearly flash the boulder. Had I flashed the boulder (rather than 2nd try) I think I would have been tempted to top out for the E3 on-sight tick which could have got messy. Probably a bullet dodged.

I hadn't realised there was a Dawes boulder problem in the Peak of that name; but I knew that he was the architect of the Gogarth route; "builder" might be more appropriate because IIRC from the account at the time there was a wee bit of cleaning during the first ascent on the second pitch - although I might be remembering from one of his other expeditions on this part of the cliff.

Oh, Johnny Dawes the chipper you say! I didn’t think he had a reputation for that. When cleaning routes, sometimes you have to remove flakes and the like that you are pretty certain would explode off the wall if pulled the wrong way. The resulting scar can look a lot like chipping. Some people are a bit more heavy handed than others with the “cleaning”, it’s always a judgement call that can sometimes stray a bit close to the edge of acceptability.

Ah, I can see what's happened there - you've interpreted my post as implying he was chipping - not at all what I was getting at.

IIRC there was a description of him having to clean off loads of loose stuff as he went along on a traversing style pitch - either because it wasn't amenable to abseil cleaning or he was unaware of the exact nature of the rock - I think that was the second pitch of Conan but it might have been one of his other excursions.

"Builder" rather than architect because they don't get their hands dirty (I'm sure some actually do), "and wee bit of cleaning" was just British understatement because I believe there was a rather large amount of cleaning required.

Somebody I know recently told me that as teenager on an early repeat he had a cavalier approach to gear and loose rock and took an immense pendulum fall off that pitch when a pillar of rock he was holding on to came away. Following that pitch having read Johnny’s article I treated every hold with great care and total suspicion.