BBC2 has it all wrong

Regular readers will know that Monday night is Quiz Night on BBC2. Very entertaining and stimulating it is; our public service broadcaster has a duty to inform, educate and entertain.

Tonight, Quiz Night is cancelled in favour of...bloody football! And not just any old football, it's the mighty clash between...Northern Ireland and Germany. Oh my!

A few points to make here.

1. The BBC has a Northern Ireland channel, as variants of BBC1 and BBC2. Just as viewers in Kent get your local news and weather on BBC South East and we in Cornwall have BBC South West, so the lovely folks in Belfast can get their own stuff. Which could easily show the footy and leave the quizzes for the rest of us.
2. Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge regularly pull in one and half (Mastermind) and two (the others) million viewers. Let's be conservative and assume there are all the same people - devotees like me.
3. The population of Northern Ireland is roughly 1.9 million. Let's assume that half them are women and 100,000 are boys below the age of 5, based on recent census data. I'm not being sexist, just making a reasonable assumption that the goodly ladies of Derry have better things to do than watch their awful (FIFA ranked 71st in the world) football team lose to Germany (9th). Take away the 18,000 who will actually go to Windsor Park to watch the game, plus let's say 15% of the men who couldn't care less about football, and you are left with a potential audience of (being generous) around 700,000. 

So how does the BBC justify junking a 2 million Quiz Night audience for 700,000 Northern Irish football fans who could actually watch it on their own local channel?

It makes no sense.

But I will get to watch England's Under 21s play live on YouTube, without missing any quizzes!

A century

In Japan, you get a silver sake cup when you turn 100. Some Swiss cantons give engraved cowbells. Ireland gives a €2,540 "centenarian bounty" - not a once-off, you get it every year until you die.

I asked ChatGPT how many centenarians the Irish currently have, who is the oldest living example and who holds the longevity record. Apparently around 600 currently alive. As for examples, you can imagine records might be a bit patchy - and maybe private; a woman died last year aged 111, another born in 1911 died aged 113. Women worldwide average around 5 years longer lives than men.

More generally around the world, centenarians get a letter from the monarch/President/local Mayor and sometimes elaborate public celebrations/raucous parties. In Israel centenarians are invited to the President’s Residence for tea, group photos, and a party with other 100-year-olds. Sounds a riot.

The 600 Irish centenarians cost their taxpayers €1.5 million a year in total. Peanuts in overall terms. Good for them. Despite UK politicians' best efforts, we could probably afford that. Better than a letter/telegram/WhatsApp message from the King.

By the way, Japan (123 million population) has over 92,000 centenarians. That’s by far the highest per capita anywhere in the world. It's the sake.