HARD-NOSED BBC interviewer Jeremy Paxman was left eating humble pie after his second Glasgow gaffe in 16 months.

Paxman fluffed his lines on his highbrow TV University Challenge while posing a question about the city's subway system.

His embarrassing blunder saw him mispronounce the name of the tube station nearest the BBC's new hi-tech Scottish headquarters He asked a team from Trinity Hall, Cambridge: "Which city's underground railway has the stations Bridge Street, West Street, Kessnock' and Cowcaddens?"

The competitors were left to work out he meant, of course, Cessnock, which lies between Paisley Road West and the Beeb's state-of-the-art home at Pacific Quay.

Paxman gave no sign of recognising his mistake.

The blunder follows the presenter's renaming of the Barras market "Barrass" in an earlier season of the show.

The BBC apologised after that slip, saying it happened in the final stage of the contest where Paxman raises the tempo of questioning to give trailing teams a chance to catch up.

Its spokesman said: "Jeremy and the production team go through pronunciations carefully."

However there was no excuse this week as the latest gaffe was made in the middle of the show.

The BBC apologised for the slip, saying "mistakes do sometimes occur".

The team from Trinity Hall answered the question correctly as they steamrollered rivals from Worcester College, Oxford.

When tracing his family tree for TV's Who Do You Thin Your Are? Paxman was stunned when he visited the East End to see where his family used to live in grinding poverty.

The intellectual heavyweight is also an in-demand public speaker in the city.