BBC 'the weakest link'

The BBC news website failed its own quiz on Malta on Monday, getting two of its answers wrong - a mistake it quickly amended after being alerted by a number of "Maltesers".

The BBC is at present conducting a series of 10 quizzes on the 10 countries joining the EU on Saturday and its enlargement quiz on Malta started on Monday.

If you fail to answer a substantial number of the 10 multiple-choice questions correctly, the computer informs you as follows: "Poor. You're no Malteser".

The BBC certainly cannot pass off as a Malteser. Its eighth question said that Malta had more public holidays than any existing or new EU country and asked how many it had, providing 15, 28 or 39 days as the possible answers. None was correct - the right answer is 14.

The quiz included another question on why Malta had a big problem with water. The supposedly correct answer was because "it has no lakes or rivers so it needs to import a lot of water". Which was wrong again.

Once the BBC was alerted, it immediately amended its quiz replacing the question on public holidays with one on St Paul's shipwreck.

The answer to the other question on Malta's problem with water was amended and the part of having to import water to the island removed.

Luckily for the BBC, it did not have to face its own television quizmaster, Anne Robinson, or the corporation might have been subjected to her gameshow's favourite catchphrase: "You're the weakest link. Goodbye".