With some of the great brains of our times appearing on University Challenge, this book will go behind the scenes of 40 years of the brainiest show on television. From Bamber Gascoigne's avuncular reign to Jeremy Paxman's sardonic delivery, the author will take us through 40 years of Britain's brainiest quiz. Including the selection process, which involves a test paper and long interviews with University Challenge staff, interviews with some of the famous faces that made their first television appearance on University Challenge, including Stephen Fry, David Mellor, Malcolm Rifkind, Clive James and John Simpson, plus some of the not-so-famous who became memorable because of their fabulous or not-so-fabulous performances. As with all quizzes, every question must be 100 per cent accurate and should not have an alternative answer. Not an easy task when you're working on the most challenging quiz of all; here the author will take us into the strange and obsessive world of the question-setter, and the even more obsessive existence of the question verifier. How do they do it? And what makes a good University Challenge question? Finally see if you've got what it takes to become a University Challenge contestant with the sample test papers and some questions, set especially for this book. Plus you can enter the exclusive competition which involves several academic disciplines and will be in the form of a riddle - not for the faint-hearted.