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17th Jan 2018

Uni students win £4,500 Pointless jackpot, spend it all on a night out

Oli Dugmore

This endeavouring pair of university students won the jackpot on gameshow Pointless – it didn’t take them long to spend their prize.

Laura Khnichich and Cameron Davies recently won the top prize on BBC staple Pointless. The two fourth year students at Edinburgh University were flown down to London where they claimed the £4,500 jackpot.

Cameron drew attention for his colourful dress sense, as well as opting to avoid questions on Scottish Politics in the final round, despite being Scottish and studying Politics. “The shirt, I just may as well look a fool if I’m only on TV once.”

The best friends had to pass a pop quiz and “surreal” Skype interview before they were invited onto the show and met Richard Osman and Alexander Armstrong, they told The Tab.

The pair pose for a selfie with their Pointless trophy

Cameron used to watch the show after school with his dad, who was gutted he didn’t make the cut: “My dad and I would always watch it together and do really well, he’s actually quite upset and bitter that I went on with Laura instead.”

But the real antics for Cameron began when he moved to Berlin shortly after winning the prize, “I felt incredibly free to spend big as soon as I got there. For ages I just felt really free and generous.

“I was drinking Sternbourg, the greatest beer in the world. It was pretty much over a period of nights out.

“Even like a year later I just excused any big expenditure as being Pointless money, went on a couple of holidays. I still do it now.”

The student also revealed the show hosts’ weak attempts to banter their contestants: “The show takes maybe an hour and fifteen mins to film, because Richard and Xander attempt lots of quite poor quality banter throughout the show – they just trim it to the best stuff.

“I had a quite boring conversation with Zander during the intros that didn’t make the final edit. I was so nervous that my chat was quite bad, under the lights you just become a different person.”

As contestants battle it out, the next batch are left in a gazebo with only a copy of the Pointless board game for company. “The day of the show you meet all the other contestants and producers while they film.

“We got on really well with some other pairs, but some were taking it way too seriously. They were just using the board game on their own instead of socialising.”

Cameron’s not sure if his dad’s forgiven him, though: “He was impressed that we won and I think quite proud. But he still probably thinks it should’ve been him up on that stage.”

Cheers dad.

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