Thursday 9 June 2016

CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG BUT .....

.... I am an old curmudgeon and, over the last few years decades The Old Girl and I have bemoaned the decline of values in society. It seems to us that morality, responsibility, ethics and 'brotherhood' have taken second place to a 'me me' culture that is being reinforced and perpetuated by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and that odious Tinder.

Alas, like the tender young things who have a 3 minute concentration span at best, I too can't be bothered in writing a considered and balanced essay on this subject but I will provide an example of the malaise that is evident in popular culture.

I like some of the UK game shows - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Mastermind, Tipping Point etc and, for this example The Chase.



The Chase is a game show where 4 contestants take on a quiz show expert (The Chaser) for general knowledge.
How it works is that each member of the team faces a rapid fire quiz  with points of 1000 quid given for each correct question. The highest pool I've seen attained is 9000 quid with the average around 3 or 4.
The contestant then faces the 'Chaser' - one of 4 experienced 'Mastermind' type quiz people. This Chaser gives them the option of keeping the pool that they have won or a low option or a high option.
The low option means that there will be an extra gap given in 'The Chase' over the standard two gaps and the high option means that the gap narrows to one space.

The high option can be as much as 50,000 quid which is pretty attractive but puts the contestant at a greater risk of being caught.
The low option can be 1 or 2 thousand pounds but usually is a negative amount meaning that the scrote contestant can elect to take this thereby reducing the team pool (often based on hard-won efforts by others) just to get back into the final round with a chance of sharing the winnings.


What I've noticed in watching this programme over the last couple of years is that most contestants feel that it isn't honourable to take the low offer especially if it is a negative as it is unfair to the team members. The minority that elect to take this offer are, by an overwhelming percentage, the younger players (18 to 25).

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE

Why aren't I surprised?



2 comments:

Robert and the Catholics said...

yes I have noticed that but they give the team an important point by being there and often do contribute to the team win...

THE CURMUDGEON said...

Sorry Second. Reasonableness isn't in a curmudgeon's repertoire.