Scroll down for this week's Question of the Week poll!
Warning: the following contains spoilers for Series 10, Episode 17 of Only Connect, first broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 5th January. If you haven't seen it yet go and watch it on iPlayer!
Missed last week's recap of the Orienteers vs. the Gamesmasters? Check it out here!
As the Christmas dust (and rather a lot of snow) settles, things have been rather busy at OTGA HQ. Nevertheless, the fearless doctor (AKA UCL Karran AKA Brian May etc. etc.) has kindly volunteered to cover this week's Only Connect recap. He has assured me this will be at best 'slapdash', but perhaps his unique take is precisely what the UK quiz blogging circuit needs. This was the last playoff for an automatic quarter-final place, and saw the Nørdiphiles return after their thrilling 28-26 win over the Nightwatchmen while the Bibliøphiles (now with bonus 'ø' hilarity) saw off the QI Elves way back in episode 4. Enjoy!
Round 1: What's the connection?
The questions
1) Music: Shenandoah; Zambezi; Orinoco Flow; The Blue Danube
2) Health (2008-2011); Answers (2002-2006); Reader (2005-2013); Wave (2009-2010)
3) Pictures: Atlas bone; Charles Atlas; Atlas mountains; Atlas statue
4) My Ding-a-Ling (corrupting children); Til Death Us Do Part (dirty); Panorama on Belsen (filth); The Romans in Britain (gross decency)
5) Sapporo Dome; John Smith's Stadium; Liberty Stadium; KC Stadium
6) Pineapples (unlock Mr. Sparkle blade); Pears (Worcestershire CCC); Oranges (1919 Prokofiev opera); Apples (height of a Smurf)
The answers
Our thoughts
1) Music questions have seemed way harder this series. The first two clues were basically auditory nonsense to us. Basically, we recognised the Enya song, (because we've spent a non-zero amount of time in a dentist's waiting room in the last 20 years) but didn't know the name. And we recognised the Blue Danube Waltz, because we're not bloody criminals. Not enough to go on for the answer though. I think we suggested "music used in sci-fi movies" because of Kubrick's 2001. An ok question I guess. I'm never particularly enthusiastic about the music ones, not enough death metal or Zelda remixes.
2) First clue had us all Jeremy Hunting up the place before we realised he was too recent (and a total berk). Next two didn't help us a great deal, I think Stats-bro suggested "Cash For..." scandals, but that was torpedoed by "Reader" (which made me think of that Holocaust movie I haven't seen...). On wave though it clicked and we registered that they were all defunct Google stuff. Was amused by VC not knowing what an RSS reader was, but I guess that's why she's a famous poker millionaire and I'm some chump writing Only Connect recaps on the internet for nerds. Decent question, if a bit hard for anything other than 1 point (IMO).
3) I was quite pleased (pleased in my pants) when I saw we were looking at a bone, which i immediately misidentified as a pelvis. Looking at it a bit more ('cause i was desperate to take anything vaguely medical for MAXIMUM POINTS) I realised it was obviously not a pelvis because where would the legs even go? It would be crazy. That's when it clicked and i saw that it was the top bone of the vertebral column i.e. C1, or more poetically "the Atlas". Next clue gave us something to hang a connection on (don't think we'd have recognised a bodybuilder from the 1930s otherwise) and we were happy. Generally quite liked this question though i'm totally biased because i smashed it (could have done better obvs). I still think it was legit good because it was a nice mix of things whilst also being pretty gettable for one point at the end (if you're on Only Connect and you don't know who that bloke who holds up the earth is... you're probably not supposed to be on Only Connect).
4) Hugely frustrating (for us) but reasonably amusing question, this. After two questions I was thinking Mary Whitehouse complaints because it was old people-style complaints about old people-aged stuff. But unfortunately, I basically had no idea who Mary Whitehouse really was, outside of "someone who once complained about Mortal Kombat i think", and went with the safer-seeming "BBC complaints", which was wrong. Good question for people the right age (i.e. old) and as always shows that OC has a pleasant variety of weird content in it. Chemical Elements this ain't.
5) Ridiculously hard question, I think. Having been annoyed to miss out of the tender ministrations of Ms Whitehouse, I urged us to go hell for leather on this one and we buzzed early after the first two clues to say "sports stadia sponsored by booze. Pretty cretinous buzz given that this series has had a lot of questions which looked like one easy-ish thing after two clues, but turned out to be another harder thing after all four had been revealed. Fortunately we were nowhere near the correct answer, so the statistician did not beat me up (he did say the pasta I'd made for Only Connect dinner funsies was too spicy though, which was probably unrelated). Hard for me to judge, because i am not Mr Sports, but this question seemed ball-breakingly hard.
6) Probably the hardest the two of us have ever worked for 1 point. We both recognised that the first one was obviously a videogame thing, and I (because I am awesome at nerd stuff) reasoned that it must be Fruit Ninja, despite having never played the game... though really it was probably a pretty obvious inference if you're familiar with the language of games and could put together "involves fruit" and "involves sharp things". Aaaanywho, our hopes of the next one being Candy Crush related were dashed and neither of us knew any Prokofiev operas. Fortunately the statistician is apparently intimately familiar with the anatomy of the Smurf and was able to talk me down from my belief that they were "around 8 apples" high. Basically, we said three fruits and were pretty pleased. Probably question of the week for sheer eclectic joy.
Round 2: What comes fourth?
The questions
1) African antelope; Slow underhand cricket ball; Disorderly crowd
2) 594 x 841; 420 x 594; 297 x 420
3) Nottingham = 5; Leicester = 6; Bristol = 7
4) Noah's Ark; Jack-and-Jill bathroom; Monty Hall problem
5) Pictures: Barbara Sinatra; Mia Farrow; Ava Gardner
6) Face; Arms; Speech
The answers
Our thoughts
1) Didn't get it, maybe should have? Neither of us had heard of a Kob. I was stuck between Springbok (thinking it might be a four seasons thing), Dik Dik, and Bongo, which i think are all horned african deer-type things. Not going to look it up though because it seems boring. Not much to say about this, good job to the people on the show getting it.
2) The statistician got this for the smallest number of points, which blew me away. Seemed really hard. I realise it's something one sees a lot because of the ubiquity of computer printing, but even so. Fun fact: paper sizes are totally bonkers in North America, it's all like "legal letter" size, which is near A4 but is actually some weird other thing. This video explains it quite enjoyably.
3) Didn't know, didn't super care? The statistician suggested London, and having lived in London all my life before we moved to Canada, and remembering having an 0208 phone number, I was down with it. Don't really follow why it's interesting but I presume it's the kind of thing that's just crazily ingrained knowledge if you're from the right place and the right time, which is fair enough. Not every question can be about Pokemon.
4) Never heard of a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, it sounds deeply kinky though. The statistician likes to bring up the Monty Hall problem a lot though, probably because it took him about 4 years to adequately explain it to me and it ended up being some kind of point of pride. Don't know if the most famous thing about Noah's Ark is that it only had one door, but fair enough. Interesting question. Got it for 2 points.
5) Literally within the last 7 days, we have done a quiz which mentioned like 3 of the wives of Frank Sinatra. It didn't have pictures though and so this turned into a big fat nothing for us. I think we guessed Elizabeth Taylor, much like the contestants did, because she generally seems a pretty good guess for any group where it looks a bit Hollywood Golden Age. It'll be interesting to see how these sorts of questions look in 40 years time when nobody gives a damn about Old Blue Eyes or Elvis, etc. I feel like pop culture has fragmented too much these days, for there to keep being questions where everyone should know the answer... but then again, Kanye West exists.
6) Ha ha, hahaha, ahaha hahahaha. 0 points. As I explained to the statistician I am counting this as a totes legit 0 points for me. Obviously I've seen the posters for stuff like this, but I never really paid attention because it was for plebs. I know how to diagnose a stroke proplerly and cute little acronyms aren't how we do it in the big leagues, baby! Basically, despite my terrible track-record with medical questions, I am counting this one as being "so beneath me that it's barely even a medical question". Realistically though I 100% should have got it :(
Walls and missing vowels were a thing.
Question of the Week
3 fruits. We worked ridiculously hard to get it, but also it has the diversity of clue-sources that I love in only connect. It's not just iPhone games, it's also Belgian cartoons, and cricket clubs, and Russian operas. I also liked the Atlas question, but I think that's just because I was happy to see a vaguely obscure bone that I knew.
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