York student is the Weakest Link
In contrast to the University of York’s successful University Challenge campaign, third year Management, IT and Japanese student David Ford was voted off in the first round of ‘The Weakest Link’ during filming this month.
Despite getting all his questions right, he failed to bank at the appropriate time and was selected by the strongest link (who he had voted for) to do the walk of shame—an experience he claims is “embarrassing”, as it has to be done several times from different camera angles.
Despite his first-round exit, Ford claims he got off lightly at the hands of Anne Robinson, the show’s infamously acid-tongued host, who merely said, “Oh, I thought you were a student” when he was voted off. Before the game he claims he was made nervous by Robinson’s dislike of students, and admitted that he was afraid of being “ripped to shreds”.
During the game’s introduction, in which all players are asked to say a few words about themselves, he said to Robinson, “I’m pulling faces behind you”, and was warned, “You’ll regret that, student”. Despite her “evil mood”, Ford said Robinson is a “nice lady off screen”, and even admits to finding her “quite hot, despite being much older than me”.
Ford said he applied for the show because he was “bored of revising” for his final exams and thought it would be “a laugh”, as well as a good opportunity to see TV production behind the scenes.
Application itself involved general knowledge tests in Leeds, which took a couple of hours.
Although Ford exited early from the show, he said it was a “good experience”, with all expenses paid and a night in a hotel. He described the experience as a “bit of a holiday” during an otherwise stressful exam period. Ford previously appeared on ‘Bargain Hunt’, a BBC programme hosted by David Dickinson in which contestants seek to make a profit by buying and selling items at antique fairs.
Chris Colyer
