Humiliation the Big Quiz Hit in Britain By Paul Majendie LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to export humiliation around the world from Japan to Finland. For that is the key to a hit quiz show that has turned its fiery presenter Anne Robinson into a gay icon and even prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) to adopt her venomously delivered catchphrase. ``Sad old blokes, I'm told, now dream of me with a whip in hand,'' said Robinson, astounded by the success of the low-budget BBC television quiz ``The Weakest Link.'' ``The number of foreign broadcasting companies hoping to buy the idea and make their own version is staggering,'' Robinson told the Times newspaper in a recent interview. ``Seventeen, including Japan, Italy, France, Finland, Australia and of course America.'' They say the only problem is finding a host nasty enough to front the show. The idea -- as in all the best quiz shows -- is simple. Nine contestants answer quickfire general knowledge questions. At the end of each round, they vote off the worst performer. The last survivor scoops all the prize money -- up to 10,000 pounds (US$15,000). After bombarding the dejected failure with insults, Robinson dismisses each loser with the crisply executed command: ``You are the weakest link. Goodbye.'' That catchphrase has now caught on around a country already obsessed with answering the questions in ``Who Wants to be a Millionaire?,'' another British quiz export that has spread like wildfire around the world from France to the United States. Robinson is constantly pestered by kids wanting her to record it as the answering message on their mobile phones. Blair shouted across parliament to opposition Conservative leader William Hague: ``You are the weakest link. Goodbye.'' Aston Villa soccer club supporters, fed up with their chairman Doug Ellis, held up a giant banner at one game with the same blunt message. Veteran feminist Germaine Greer hailed the program as the finest of the year while university psychologists said it encouraged bullying. Robinson, best known for her dogged defense of dissatisfied customers in consumer watchdog programs, awaits the inevitable arrival of the quiz books, mugs, aprons, chocolates, novelty keyrings and mousepads. The TV Times magazine named her the rudest person on television, and Robinson, still shaking her head in bewilderment amid all the media hype, said: ``I have also apparently become a gay icon, the heroine of the Pink Paper (a gay newspaper).''
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