Meet the Edinburgh students who won £4,500 on Pointless and spent most of it on nights out

Two Edinburgh fourth years, Cameron Davies and Laura Khnichich, got to experience something that most of us can only dream of.

The Glaswegian duo not only appeared on a recent episode of Pointless, but they WON the £4,500 jackpot prize. In an eventful appearance where Cameron attracted attention for his colourful dress sense and his decision not to choose Scottish Politics in the final round, despite being Scottish and studying Politics, the pair emerged victorious.

We spoke to Cameron and Laura about their experience on the show and how they spent their winnings.

How do you go about applying for Pointless?

Cameron: Me and Laura really liked the show and talked about it all the time. I used to watch it most days after school, less so at uni.

She'd spoken about going on it, I'd spoken about going on it with my dad but we never got round to applying and I'd never get round to it because I'm quite lazy, but one day she just said that she'd applied for us.

Laura: The process was extremely thorough. First we had to fill in an application containing a paragraph about you and one about your teammate.

Then there were phone interviews involving a timed general knowledge quiz followed by a joint Skype interview and that’s only to be shortlisted.

Did you tell anyone that you won?

Cameron: It's not like a show like Deal or No Deal where you can't even tell your family because people bet on the show. They said we could tell our families and our close friends but not to tell "everyone". I told my mum, I sent a message of us with the Pointless trophy on a group chat and people thought it was bullshit.

To celebrate we went into London that night to do a pub quiz with my mum. We came second and won thirty quid there too, so that was nice.

Laura: I told quite a few people – and my Gran told everyone in her bridge club.

What were Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman like?

Cameron: You mostly speak to producers but they come up to you before the show when you're at the podiums. Alexander was so charming and nice, really personable and smooth.

Richard was absolutely massive, he's like 6 foot 7.

Cameron, you wore quite an eye-catching shirt, did they give you any guidance over what to wear?

Cameron: They emailed us three days before saying that we needed to bring five or six outfit choices and that we couldn't bring anything that was pale or had stripes on it, because apparently that wouldn't look good under the TV lights.

I really wanted to wear a memorable shirt because I'm only going to be on TV once, so I might as well just wear something kind of eye-catching and embarrassing.

The make-up team asked me which shirt I wanted to wear and they really liked it so that was lucky. They even ironed it and pressed it for me to make it look good.

Laura: I was told to arrive with my hair already done with no make up as that would be done for us and the make up team were the same team who do the make up for Strictly Come Dancing.

Is there actually a crowd there?

Cameron: There are about 50 people there, mostly really old or young people with older family members. They were so encouraging – if you're doing well or look at the crowd you can see the little old grannies giving you a thumbs up. It was really sweet.

How did you find the first few rounds?

Cameron: The topics were good. You calm down after the first round and the second round was on countries that don't have consecutive vowels in their names which was very good.

I thought of couple of answers like Tuvalu that were pointless but because they have that running joke that everyone says Central African Republic on the show, I thought I might as well say that and have a little joke.

I was very pleased that Laura said San Marino (a pointless answer). We'd been doing Sporcle quizzes on countries throughout uni and then getting to use that was a nice moment. She honestly had no idea where it was but it was very exciting.

Having got to the final round, you had the option of choosing Scottish Politics. Despite being Scottish and a Politics student, you opted to go for Sporting Achievements instead – something that you got a bit of stick for on the show, why did you do that?

Cameron: I was really nervous at this point and sport was the one thing that I thought I was good at. In hindsight, I should have probably have picked Scottish Politics but my family, friends and people I know would have taken the piss so much if I got a Scottish Politics question wrong.

Richard came up to me after the show and said that we so easily would have got a pointless answer on Scottish Politics. Apparently it was such an easy round.

Laura: When the categories came up in the final round I knew I wasn’t going to be much help at all so I said to Cameron to go with what he felt comfortable with.

I understand why people were surprised when two Scottish students (one studying politics) didn’t go for Scottish politics, however, Cameron’s sports knowledge is kind of ridiculous, especially when it comes to football and rugby, so I backed him.

Your winning answer of Just Fontaine was outstanding, were you proud of that one?

Cameron: Yeh that was nice, got a few kind comments about that.

There's a funny story actually as it turns out that Laura's dad used to be coached by Just Fontaine back in the day when he played football. We had no idea about the link until after we'd won.

Quite a few people Tweeted about you guys, how did you take the attention?

Cameron: It was probably about 70 per cent abuse, 30 per cent admiration. Some of them were quite angry that we said that we didn't enjoy our degrees at the beginning of the show. It was funny to read how seriously some people took it.

One woman took such a disliking to us and said something like 'hope these student twats don't win". Some of my friends were tagging me in those kinda Tweets which was quite funny.

Laura got some online admiration as well, a few gay guys called me their 'Pointless crush' – that was entertaining. The most fun ones to read though were the abusive ones though. Thankfully nothing was too personal though.

What was it like finally watching the episode?

Cameron: The day it aired was Laura's birthday. She works at 56 North so they had it on a big TV and had a big birthday party/Pointless watching party for her there.

My family really wanted to watch it with me so I watched it at home with a few family friends.

It was amazing, people were going crazy every time we got an answer right and a lot of people had no idea that we won so it was a nice surprise for them.

Most importantly, what did you do with the money?

Cameron: A week after we won, I started my year abroad in Berlin so I thought I'd have a good time out there. I said at the start of the show that if I won I'd have a really big night out with my friends. I had a lot of big nights out in Berlin.

Laura: I spent some of it on a pair of shoes and saved the rest to go travelling after I graduate.

If you want to watch Cameron and Laura's appearance on the show, the episode is still available to watch on BBC iPlayer.