Bamber Gascoigne
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Bamber Gascoigne (born January 24, 1935) is a British television presenter and author.
Born in London in 1935, after schooling at Eton College he studied English literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, followed by a year at Yale University (1958-1959). He came to fame as the presenter of popular television quiz show, University Challenge, in 1962. Although he has written several books, mostly on history, and presented other television programmes, his name is permanently connected with University Challenge in the minds of many people -- despite the fact that, since 1994, the show has been presented by Jeremy Paxman.
In the programme's early days, Gascoigne set all the questions himself. His style of presentation is often held up as an example of excellence. His questioning was firm yet polite, and his judgement scrupulously fair. A phrase he often used became something of a catchphrase: "I'll have to hurry you".
He would return in 1998 to present the Red Dwarf special Universe Challenge (a position he acquired by blowing up Jeremy Paxman (played by Chris Barrie) with a bazookoid, a weapon from the series), a contest between the actors of the show and a set of fans; the fans won.
In the 1970s he presented The Christians, a television documentary series on the history of Christianity.
In recent years he has devoted much of his time in establishing an online history encyclopaedia called "History World" [1].
In the early hours of Wednesday August 8, 1979 Gascoigne was witness to the burial by Kit Williams, the author of Masquerade, of a valuable golden hare in an earthenware jar "somewhere in Britain". The treasure hunt which followed was pursued worldwide and chronicled in the book Quest for the Golden Hare.
In the Young Ones episode Bambi he is parodied by Griff Rhys Jones as "Bambi Gascoigne" (with considerable emphasis being placed on the resemblance of his name to the Disney character). He was also portrayed by actor Mark Gatiss in the film Starter for Ten (2006).
His name appears in one version of the Monty Python Lumberjack Song when Michael Palin sings of the "Quercus maximus Bamber Gascoigneii", and in the Python song "I Like Traffic Lights" the singer points out that his name is not Bamber.
Bamber Gascoigne is also an authority on the history and techniques of printmaking and graphic reproduction, with publications such as Milestones in Colour Printing and How to Identify Prints.
[edit] Select bibliography
- Bamber Gascoigne, How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet ( ISBN 0-500-28480-6 )
- Bamber Gascoigne, A Brief History of Christianity ( ISBN 1-84119-710-6 )
- Bamber Gascoigne, A Brief History of the Dynasties of China ( ISBN 1-84119-791-2 )
- Bamber Gascoigne, Quest for the Golden Hare, J. Cape, 1983 ( ISBN 0-224-02116-8 )
