Only Connect - Quarter Final 2

Listeners v. Rowers

The Listeners are Andrew Lyman, Jane Teather and captain Dave Tilley, who you might remember beat our own Hugh Bennett in the first round.
Jason Gray, Dominic Guinness and captain Chris Harrison , who collectively make up the Rowers beat the Linguists in the first round. In show 7 the Rowers won 16 – 14, and in heat 6 the Listeners won by 23 – 19. Bearing in mind the relative strength of the opposition in the first round, you’d certainly have made The Listeners favourites going into the show. But upsets can and often do happen.

Round One – What’s the Connection ?

Dave of the Listeners opted for Twisted Flax first, and found the music clues . On two clues they incorrectly plumped for bands known by their initials. Emerson , Lake and Palmer, and Crosby Stills and Nash might certainly have led them to jump to this conclusion. They weren’t far off, but a blast of Earth wind and Fire and Peter Paul and Mary gave the Rowers the right answer – that they were all bands with three names in their title. The Rowers picked water and found Spanish Prisoner – Boiler Room – and then tried the answer that they are all philosophical puzzles. Not right, I’m afraid. Given pump and dump, and mock auction, Andrew tried methods for buying and selling shares. Not quite close enough, said Victoria, since they are all financial swindles. The Listeners went for Two Reeds, and found the pictures. We saw a snowboarder, then a painting of a ship on a stormy sea, then a bat , then a flying fortress – which gave it to me. It didn’t help the Listeners, nor the rowers. Think Flying Fortress – Flying Fox – Flying Dutchman etc. Horned Viper revealed Steiff – Veuve Clicquot – Deutsche Grammophon – Boddingtons. Again, neither team could crack it. All of them have yellow labels. Yes, makes perfect sense when you know it. ( I didn’t either )Eye of Horus gave us John Quincy Adams – Richard Nixon – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg – and that was enough to give Dave the answer, that all were played by Port Talbot’s favourite son, Sir Anthony Hopkins. With just Lion left the Rowers found “For Sale Baby Shoes Never Worn” – Green Eggs and Ham ( I had an inkling here ) – Are You Dave Gorman – Round Ireland With a Fridge. The Rowers didn’t get it , neither did Jane. The last two are favourites of mine, and I knew that the last three were all written as part of a bet. So at the end of a testing first round, the Listeners led by 2 points to 1

Round Two – What Comes Fourth ?

Listeners liked the look of two reeds. The first was Magna Carta signed. The next was Battle of Agincourt. That was enough for me, and enough for them as well. They opted for Waterloo, that happening in 1815. Magna Carta – 1215 – Agincourt – 1415 – you get the point, I’m sure. Lion loomed for the Rowers, with Mount McKinley – Vinson Massif – and here they knew that we were dealing with highest points of continents – Cerro Aconcagua – and then they went for Everest. Incorrect, I’m afraid. The Listeners took Kilimanjaro – for they are the highest point of each of the continents from west to east. Eye of Horus revealed 3rd Corinthian – 2nd Corinthian and here they gambled on 1st Romans – unsuccessfully. The Rowers took a good answer with Doric – as they are the architectural styles on the Coliseum. Bloomin’ good shout that. Twisted Flax gave the Rowers pictures of a safari , a car bumper, a firefox – and when you think that the bumper was made of chrome you’ll know, as did the Rowers, that the next is Internet Explorer. The Listeners took millstone – before millstone – doglike and had a wild guess, which was wrong. So was the Rowers’ guess. But with a little thought its gettable, especially if you think of doglike as canine. Types of teeth then would give us cutter – for incisor. Finally behind water the rowers found home – brain – heart – Neither team could see it. But when it was explained – as things which the heroes of The Wizard of Oz wanted, it was a bit of a d’oh moment. As my dear old friend Allan always used to say , the best kind of question to ask is the one which has people saying ‘I should have known that’ after the answer is revealed – good set. So this round saw the Rowers increase their score to 4, but the Listeners had increased their lead slightly to 6.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

The Rowers took the Water wall. They knew that there was a set of camps there – Prison – Summer – Fat and Nudist – but it did take a while to untangle them. They also managed another set before the time ran out – devil – sous vide – poach – coddle being methods of cookery. They froze the wall after . Fenwick Symes – Last – Boot – Blanche they didn’t see as characters in the novels of Evelyn Waugh. Pontil – Hawk – Knee Kicker and Jointer they nearly had. They offered tools in carpet laying, but that was actually too specific. They are professional tools – not all used by carpet layers. This gave them 4 points.

The Listeners tackled the Lion wall. They saw a set of famous cemeteries were there quickly, but as did the Rowers, they took a bit of time to unravel them. In fact they found stations on the Northern Line of the London Underground first – Oval – Bank – Highgate – Angel , and then they found Oasis – French Connection – Jigsaw – Monsoon- high street clothing chains. Then they quickly found Desire – Kismet – Morocco and Shanghai Express – Marlene Deitrich films. Not easy , that, and they didn’t get it. They had, however found their cemeteries in Bunhill Fields – La Recoleta – Pere Lachaise and Arlington. So this gave them 7 points and increased the lead. They now had 13 to the Rowers’ 8 .

Round Four – Missing Vowels

The first set were all Geological processes. The Rowers needed a blitz start, but didn’t get one as the category fell to The Listeners by two to one. The next category was They Married Royalty . They did slightly better, winning 2 – 1 themselves. The next category was song titles which didn’t appear in the song’s lyrics - :Listeners lost a point, and the rowers took two, but it was too late, and the end of the quiz. The Rowers had improved to 13, but the Listeners’ 16 was good enough. So well done Listeners, and hard lines to the Rowers, but there’s no shame in reaching the quarters. But it’s the Listeners who join The Antiquarians in the semis. Well played.