Warning: the following contains spoilers for Series 10, Episode 3 of Only Connect, first broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 15th September. If you haven't seen it yet go and watch it on iPlayer!
Missed last week's recap of the History Boys vs. the Oxonions? Check it out here!
Week 3 of All New Only Connect saw Gilbert and Sullivan fans the Wandering Minstrels against the Doctor Who loving Gallifreyans. Ah yes, light opera, the Time Lords' other other greatest foe.
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Round 1: What's the connection?
The questions
1) Rachel Carson ecology bible; Franz Gruber carol; Forensic pathology series; (e.g.) ansWer
2) Blender; Tumbler; Grinder; Flicker
3) Peggy Mitchell; Darrin Stephens; Kristine Kochanski; Miss Ellie
4) Steve Jobs; Marcus Garvey; Dave Swarbrick; Mark Twain
5) Busy Doing Nothing (from A Connecticut Yankee in New York); The Importance of Being Idle (Oasis); Lazy Sunday (Small Faces); The Lazy Song (Bruno Mars)
6) Sugar glider; Sugar Ray Leonard; Sugar Plum Fairy; Sugarloaf Mountain
The answers
Our thoughts
1) A fairly straight general knowledge one to kick off. Rachel Carson's ecology bible meant nothing to me as a clue, and little more once we worked out the answer, so the Gallifreyans were perhaps a touch unlucky to spot this early but not rake in the points (although the Minstrels were unable to take full advantage). Franz Gruber's carol strikes me as the sort of trivia chestnut that would trigger certain minds, while I assume 'forensic pathology' would get rather more brains on track. We, however, needed all four clues before the penny dropped (reverese engineering Silent Witness to give us the two clues we needed to form a link), but this seemed like a good staggering of difficulty.
2) The doctor immediately thought Blender was some sort of 3D rendering software (which it is, but it isn't Blendr) but for Internet nerds like us Tumbler really gave it away. I'm not sure whether Tumblr is really less well-known than Grindr (or at least, I'd expect the former to have somewhat less specialized penetration) but otherwise this was a neat, if a touch "easy when you know how" question, where either knowing two, or knowing one and making a bit of a leap of faith would get you the points. As it was the Minstrels needed all four to be sure, but better safe than sorry.
3) Another fairly vanilla general knowledge one this, in an area I am so terrible at it's hard for me to pass judgement on difficulty. The Gallifreyans spotted the link thanks to a familiarity with Darrin Stephens in Bewitched, which struck me as rather impressive. We completely bombed on this, only recognizing the names Peggy Mitchell and Red Dwarf's Kristine Kochanski, which was nowhere near enough for us to get anywhere.
4) This again struck us as tough, but was similarly not really in our wheelhouse. Twain's "the report of my death was an exaggeration" is of course ridiculously famous, but Twain was hardly renowned for a scarcity of good quotes. Swarbrick, meanwhile, with his "it's not the first time I've died in Coventry" gives you more of a route into this (there's far less to note about him than Twain) but I had completely forgotten it. The Gallifreyans picked up their first bonus and were starting to look good value after their early slip.
5) A relatively eclectic mix, here, which is always nice to see (or indeed, hear). Clue ordering has always struck me as particularly difficult in this sort of question, as there are doubtless plenty of people who would have recognized Lazy Sunday far easier than The Importance of Being Idle, and vice-versa. That said, the length of the Oasis title made picking out a specific link much harder (ignoring how hard the song is to identify in the first place), while the last two titles were much more to the point. It would perhaps have been neat if they'd found an alternative to using 'lazy' twice; answers on a postcard? Like us, the Gallifreyans took all four clues to get the point.
6) Like the music, an impressive range of topics covered in one clue here. I always enjoy the part of an Only Connect question where you spot a link late and then work backwards, and this one worked particularly well. After suggesting 'Sugar Plum Fairy' (we rattled through the handful of Very Famous ballet dancers or characters we could think of) we then found ourselves tasked with quickly thinking if there was a 'Sugar' boxer and small marsupial. I'm not sure how many would recognize a sugar glider without additional hints (we initially thought it might have been a bush baby) but spotting either a boxer or ballet would seem likely to cover a good chunk of quizzing society. Sugarloaf Mountain, meanwhile, is one of the more distinctive lumps of rock out there, so made for a good final clue (and duly gave the Minstrels the last point of the round).
Round 2: What comes fourth?
The questions
1) 4th: Portugal; 3rd: Angola; 2nd: Mozambique
2) a1: R; b1: N; c1: B
3) Jack Lemmon and Whoopi Goldberg; Johnny Carson; Billy Crystal
4) Picture: Florence; Rose; Endellion
5) 5: Eggheads; 4: University Challenge; 3: Only Conect
6) Subdominant; Mediant; Supertonic
The answers
Our thoughts
1) More 'classic trivia' here, which I was utterly infuriated with myself for missing (I looked this list up just the other week, and even remarked to the doctor that Portugal is only the fourth largest speaker of Portugese!). Even without the classic trivia tag this is a lovely question, as knowledge of the countries themselves, or even colonial history, gives you various routes towards the answer. The Gallifreyans took all three clues but worked it out well to kick off the round.
2) As a semi-regular chess player this struck me as fantastically easy for five, but I can fully appreciate that it's something that could really catch a blind spot if you're not familiar with the notation. In fact, I'm not entirely sure if there's much of a way into it if you aren't at all familiar with chess notation, as the a1, b1, c1, seem fairly tricky to work out from the context (not to mention with the additional 'red herring' of N for Knight). The fact the Gallifreyans had the link but couldn't quite remember their chess boards quickly enough does make me wonder if this falls a little too close to the "five points or nothing" zone.
3) After the glory of a chess question, back to one of our own quizzing blind spots with the Oscars. I even got as far as thinking it was something to do with hosts but couldn't get further than that. Another standard general knowledge (and 'classic trivia') one, this, and the Gallifreyans took what seemed a comfortable two points.
4) Unusually for us, we knew what was going on in all three pictures (the doctor even recognizing Il Duemo di Firenze thanks to his antics in the Assassin's Creed video games) but had completely forgotten what is presumably the only noteworthy thing about the Cornish village of St Endellion. This seems near-impossible with only the first two clues, and then immediately becomes a "you know it or you don't" the moment you see Endellion. The Minstrels, however, did know it, to snag an impressive two points.
5) After the chess question, another one that seemed an easy five pointer from the comfort of home. I don't know how many quizzers would see Eggheads and think of anything other than the BBC Two quiz, and from there the link to the number five seems fairly obvious. The only question then is if it's going up to nine or down to two, but if you can think of quizzes with six, seven, eight and nine player teams then let me know. While this latter observation seems fairly obvious, I don't blame the Gallifreyans for taking another clue to be sure under studio pressure (not least because they were already looking at a fairly comfortable lead). On a personal note, I was amused to see that the doctor and I had appeared on three of the four quiz shows listed; we may have to look into Eggheads if and when we move back to the UK!
6) In a sequence round where from our sofa we'd scored either five points or zero on each question, we finished off with another five that was again conveniently in our wheelhouse. The Minstrels were perhaps a bit unlucky to have chosen a team name that left themselves open to mild embarrassment at missing what is some relatively rudimentary music theory, but in fairness is something I think you're unlikely to encounter beyond the classroom. Much like the chess question, I think this suffers a little from being either trivial or near-impossible (although a bit of lateral thinking might guide you to tonic after supertonic), but the Gallifreyans were happy to scoop up the bonus. This question is perhaps more notable for the truly heroic banter that followed, where in response to the Minstrels' defence that liking Gilbert and Sullivan was merely an excuse to drink plenty of gin, the Gallifreyans' John quickly replied that they therefore should have had tonic anyway. Incredible.
Question of the Week
A lot of questions this week felt like relatively straight general knowledge affairs rather than the lateral thinking I personally tend to prefer. I'll admit we were close to taking the unprecedented step of not awarding a QotW, not because the questions this week were particularly bad, just that none particularly stood out. However, as we're only three episodes in I thought using the word 'unprecedented' just might make me look a bit pretentious, so instead we're giving it to our personal favourite: the Sugar glider... picture round! As I noted above, this one stood out a little with the range of topics it covered, as well as providing some fun work once you spot the connection to try and make it fit to the previous clues. If that doesn't convince you, then at least take it as an excuse to look at pictures of sugar gliders; those things are adorable.
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