Just A Minute

On Thursday, August 30, 2007, at 04:42 AM, Robert L. Torres wrote:

> I mean if people are allowed to challenge themselves, they should be
> allowed to withdraw challenges. I mean, how is that any more
> offputting than allowing someone to challenge themselves? or any
> other blasted decision that Nicholas makes even in the face of
> actual correct challenges.

I'm not sure what you think would be the advantage of this, and you
haven't cited an advantage.

If someone could withdraw a challenge after Nicholas ruled, there would
be no penalty for a wrong challenge. Therefore if you have the subject,
the only way you are going to get a point is by speaking at the whistle.
Unless you think you can go the whole 60 seconds, there's no point then
to trying to get a "flow" going - you might as well stop, let someone
else take over and hope to get back in.

It also means someone can interrupt someone else without any penalty.
You might as well hit the buzzer every two seconds - there's no
disincentive as you can just withdraw your challenge.

With no incentive to keep going and no penalty for challenging as much
as you like, it would be a choppy game, full of challenges, no long
surreal Paul Merton stories. I can't see how this would be good. It
would ruin one of the main avenues of comedy in the game and just
present a string of arguments over challenges.

I know you don't agree with much of what Nicholas says. But here's
something he sometimes says that we can both agree with - the game's
been going now for 40 years and has had some success with these rules.

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