Only Connect - Series 11 - Match 2

Polyglots v. Yorkers

I enjoyed last week’s first match, and was hoping to do the same with this one. The Ployglots, Dan Shane, Lyndsay Coo and captain Vicki Sunter took on the Yorkers, Jack Johannes Alexander, Joe Crowther and captain Alasdair Middleton. To the best of my knowledge I don’t recall meeting any of them before, and they all came up with clean records when I searched the archives. Which means I’ve nothing more to add before the match.

Round One – What’s the Connection?

The Yorks chose two reeds, and received the music set as a punishment. I’ll be honest, I thought it was Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real”, but it was actually the Jimmy Somerville cover version. You Make Me Feel So Young – one of my all time favourite Sinatra recordings, that – which made it clear these were all – You Make Me Feel Likes. Third was – Dancing, and last was – A Natural Woman.  The Yorks were seemingly misled by the Sylvester thing and plumped, rather in desperation one suspects, for names of cats. This gave the Glots a nice bonus, and they then opted for Eye of Horus. Lying Next to Venus (Titian) – suggested a reference to the Venus of Urbino, but what it meant none of us knew at this point. Watching Bathers – Seurat – (Bathers at Asnieres) did help though. I’d probably have taken another in the studio to be sure, but I had a mental picture of a black and white dog lying next to the sitting boy with the silly hat in the middle of the painting, so I went for dogs. If I had gone for another, then Killing Deer – Courbet (Ronnie?- Olga?) made it look a pretty decent shout. Playing Poker – Coolidge (Susan? – Calvin? – Rita?) was enough to give it to the Glots. The Yorks look to the twisted flax for their first points. Monstroso offered little, followed by Any Human Heart. Hmm – a novel I haven’t read by William Boyd. Birdsong came next. Now that I have read, and it’s by Sebastian Faulks. Both Boyd and Faulks have written James Bond novels, which would have been my guess. The Yorks went for novels set in hopsitals. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, given to the Glots as the last clue confirmed that my hypothesis was right. The Glotss could do nothing with it, though, so they opted for Lion. South Korea: Naver didn’t ring any bells with me. Russia Yandex didn’t, but the Glots seemed to like it and they took a flyer with financial Share Indices. Wrongly as it turned out. Given Japan: Yahoo! -and - China: Baidu the Yorks were able to put their first points on the board with the bonus of the most popular search engines in specific countries. Alasdair went for a conventional pronunciation of Horned Viper, and received – Regndråber drypper i mit hår - . Now, I’ve never studied Danish, but I have studied the related Scandinavian language Old Norse, which I guess is why this yelled out to me Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. Well, I think it actually translates as Raindrops are falling in my hair, but that’s close enough. Gocce di pioggia su di me –the second clue – wouldn’t have helped me any more than it helped the Yorks, but I’d already given my answer off the first clue. Regen fallt heute auf die Welt might have helped, since regen I knew as rain – I think that one of Michael Schumacher’s nicknames was something like Dei Regenmeister (the rain master). Toute la pluie tombe sur moi is French for all the rain falls on me – which interestingly is maybe as close to Why Does It Always Rain On Me? as the other song. Which is what the Yorks went for, and were allowed another bite of the cherry. It didn’t help, and the many-tongued Polyglots made no mistake for a bonus. Their last set were hidden behind water. We saw a cockerel, then a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. Rhodesian – Rhode Island Red – so either Rhodes, or simply RH. One more clue needed to be sure. What I guessed were rhodedendrons appeared next, then Wales’ own Rhod Gilbert. So rhod then. That was enough for the Glots, and so they finished the round leading by 4 – 1.

Round Two – What Comes Fourth?

For their first set the Yorks kicked off with Azinger. Since this was a sequence, I was sure we were lo9oking at Ryder Cup winning captains. Which meant that the last would be McGinley. . . unless it was American captains, in which case the last would be Tom Watson. Probably sensible to take one more clue, which is what the Yorks did. Just as well, because as soon as they saw Montgomerie they knew too. A good shout, and now they had shown they were better than their first round performance suggested. The Glots took the flax, and began with Monday: Met. Now, I think this was a five point chance. I wonder how many people, as I did, shouted out ‘Crrraaaigg DAAAvid!’ as soon as this one came up. In which case, I reckoned, the answer would be Thursday: Made Love (again). Tuesday: Went for a Drink – came next and the Glots had it worked out, but took another clue – Wednesday: Made Love – for safety’s sake. The Yorks looked to maintain their impressive form in this round with – Paul Volcker- Alan Greenspan – and at this point I knew the connection, but not who came 4^th. The Yorks did, though, and went with Janet Yellen – current chair of the US Federal Reserve. Eye of Horus gave the Glots French Head. That’s tete. Then Thierry Henri – who is titi. No comment. Still, I ventured to suggest that the final answer would probably be former Archbishop of Cape Town. The Glots needed Dorothy’s terrier – Toto – to make sense and get the answer. The last set for the Yorks began with Valerie Singleton. I wouldn’t have gambled in the studio, but at home I guessed longest serving Blue Peter presenters and chucked in the answer of the great John Noakes. Konnie Huq confirmed we were dealing with BP Presenters and gave the Yorks the connections. Not the answer though. They’re all too young to remember Peter Purves, the last clue, as were the Glots, and so that one went begging. The last set of the round went to the Glots, with a truly marvelous set of pictures. The first showed us a silhouette of a bowler. The second, Michael Holding. ‘Good Lord!’ I shouted, ‘ They’re not going to have a phallus in the last picture are they?’ – this being obviously the famous Brian Johnstone deliberate gaffe – The bowler’s Holding, the Batsman’s Willey. Well, no, they actually had a picture of the man himself, Peter Willey. The Glots had no idea of this one. A timely bonus for the Yorks meant that they’d had by far the better of the second round, and had drawn level with the Glots, 8 points apiece.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

The Glots took the Lion Wall. Straightaway I could see a set of pastries there, as did the Glots. They did just what you must do, and kept plugging away at all the possible combinations of what could be pastries until it resolved with Baklava – Berliner – Profiterole – Palmier. Good technique, that. I could see a set of comediennes as well. So did the Glots, and once again they plugged away until Osho – Éclair – Perkins and Calman resolved. They could see there was a set of blinds, and I could see a set of Art Galleries as well. Eventually they resolved the two lines – Roller – Venetian – Louvre and Roman being the blinds – leaving Tate – Hayward – Ikon and Baltic as the galleries. 10 well earned points and the gauntlet well and truly lain own.

With the Lion wall the Yorks saw a set of Lily Allen songs, but couldn’t isolate them at first. So they stepped back for a moment to work out which lines were there. Then they took out pinch – pounce – massacre and smile – all words which end with imperial measurements. Then we had sticky situations – Jam- Pickle – Dilemma – Fix. After this they went looking for tarts, and found them with Bakewell – Neenish – Manchester and Treacle. This left the line they had actually started out looking for – the Lily Allen songs – Alfie – The Fear – LDN – 22. Again, very good technique, and an impressive performance.

All of which meant that both teams were tied on 18 going into the last round.

Round Four – Missing Vowels

The first category – Enid Blyton Books – saw the Glots make a crucial mistake, giving Five Get In Trouble, rather than Five Get INTO Trouble. On such small margins – the lost point meant that the Yorks were ahead for the first time in the contest. Cliches a boss might use saw the Glots wipe out the lead – but then – disaster – another error, and just before the end of the contest. All of which meant that the Yorks won by 21 – 20.

So yes, another very enjoyable contest. Have we seen the series winners yet? Gut reaction says not, but hey, what do I know? Good show.