05 October 2023 , 16:18
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It's time to put yourself to the test. And there's no better place to find a challenging question to test your mental capacity than looking back at old episodes of University Challenge. If you've not heard of it before, University Challenge is a British game show known for assembling the nation's greatest minds to compete against one another to determine which university is the smartest.
Students are asked a variety of seriously tough questions which leave the majority of people watching at home completely stumped. Jeremy Paxman was the host of the iconic programme from 1994 to May 2023 before stepping back after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Throughout his 29 years at the helm, Jeremy didn't go easy on his guests and was well-known for his disapproving glances and clashing with the contestants. He certainly didn't make it easy, which helped test people's intelligence. Jeremy is currently the longest-serving quizmaster on UK TV and here, we have shared one of the most difficult questions he asked while on the show, can you answer it?
Q: In Gulliver's Travels, which island is separated from Lilliput by an 800-wide channel, the two empires involved in an ongoing war over which end of a boiled egg should be broken?
A student from Imperial interrupted and got the answer wrong, while King's College stayed silent before Jeremy revealed the answer - but we won't be sharing the answer just yet! This has been deemed as one of the most difficult questions from the show - and we can see why.
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If you need a minute to think about it, we don't blame you - it's seriously tough. But the answer is coming right up, so if you're still thinking about it, don't scroll further.
A:Blefuscu.
The fictional island nations Lilliput and Blefuscu appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbours in the South Indian Ocean and as the question states, they’re separated by a channel 800 yards wide.
The conflict started over the question 'At which end should the faithful break their eggs: at the big end or at the little end?' According to what's written in the novel, the Blefuscudians break theirs, in the original style, at the big end but the Lilliputians must break their eggs at the little end. Did you get the answer right? Let us know in the comments below.