Only Connect - Round One Qualification Match One

Celts v. Cat Lovers

Both of this week’s teams had already won a show in the first round. The Celts - Beverley Downes, Huw Pritchard and David Pritchard, defeated the Cartophiles fairly comfortably in the first round. Well, the Carts are still in the competition, and one win away from making the semis in their own right. This week’s opponents, the Cat Lovers - Roger Johnson – Jean Upton and Captain Jim Crozier, just squeezed past the Corpuscles in their first match. Well, the Corps have since left the building, as it were, so by that score the Celts looked the better bet to go through in this show.

Round One – What’s the Connection?

The Celts got the ball rolling with Two Reeds. Pictures of a runway and the Las Vegas Strip gave us all Strips. Good start. Twisted Flax gave the Cats General von Cholitz: Paris – Chris Moyles:Radio One – Rin Tin Tin: Warner Bros. At this point something in the back of my mind said that Rin Tin Tin was the dog that saved Warner Bros, so maybe they were all hailed as the savior of the thing after the colon.Roland Rat and TVAM confirmed it, and allowed the Cats in for the correct answer. The Celts were cagey about the music question behind Lion. The Pointer Sisters came third, and that led me to make a desperate guess of dogs, which turned out to be the right answer, which the Celts were also grateful to hear. Water gave the Cats creMate – fEast – Covert. Now this was a brilliant set. Take out the capitalized letter, and you reverse the meaning of the word. Absolutely brilliant. A bonus for the Celts there. Felicity , California – The Forbidden City – Jerusalem on the Mappa Mundi. Well that third clue gave it away, Jerusalem being famously shown as the centre of the world on medieval maps such as the Mappa Mundi. The Celts were right on the money at the same time as well. The Cats were left with Eye of Horus. Fell=hides and skins led me to take a flyer with – mongers. Flesh=meat looked good, and Iron=household goods confirmed it. Yay – five pointer to me. The Cats took it off three clues, and therefore trailed the Celts with 3 to 8.

Round Two – What comes fourth?

The Celts began with Two Reeds. This brought a set of pictures of Blue – a Rose – which suggested Picasso, then a picture of Africa+n. I’ll admit I had the connection – Picasso’s periods, but not what came next – Cubist. The Celts had it though. A good strong team this – well worked out. Lion showed the Cats the phi symbol, then either an X – or chi – then psi, so omega seemed a pretty good bet. Surprisingly neither team had it. Twisted flax showed A division of the spoils – “5 points for Dave – it’s the Jewel in the Crown !” I shouted, recognizing the last of the Raj Quartet. Sorry about that. Mary left the room in disgust at this point. The Celts didn’t know. The Cats did, and had a bonus. An unvoiced viper gave the Cats Diana – Unity – and here Roger knew it was Mitford sisters, but not which one. Jessica was revealed, and so the Cats went for Nancy. Incorrect. It was Deborah, the youngest. The Celts picked water for 4th:Chakotay. Now, here I should admit that my love of Star Trek diminished with each extension to the franchise, so by the time Voyager came along I couldn’t really be bothered. So I wasn’t sure. But 3rd. Kira Neris made it clear that this was a set of first officers, so logically the first officer in the original franchise was Spock. The Celts took their time weighing up, but they had it alright. Eye of Horus brought the Cats 1: Faith – 2: Love – 3: Hope – and the obvious thing to say was Charity. The Cats went for cleanliness. No. It wasn’t charity either. But it was the leaves on a shamrock – so if you find one with a 4th leaf it means luck. Unlucky for the Cats, who had added just the one bonus to take their score to 4, while the Celts led with 12.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

The Lion wall , chosen by the cats, seemed to have a set of films starring pop groups. The Cats though kicked off with Bluff – Cape – Point and Spit – which were all promontories. Then they took the films – Spice World – Head – Honest and A Hard Day’s Night. I knew all of these apart from Honest. The last two just eluded them, though. When the last two were resolved we saw – Announced – Confirmed – Sure and Frank – which were all things you can say – to be- with. Made – Hazed – Drafted – Signed are all parts of initiation. A total of 5 was nowt to be ashamed of, but it did give the Celts the opportunity to take a virtually unassailable lead into the last round.

Quickly the Celts saw a set of dams, but did not isolate them at once. They switched with almost immediate success to Welsh boys christian names – Aled – Evan – Dylan and Rhys. The dams followed a little later with Aswan – Eder – Kariba and Roosevelt. With a little tinkering the last two sets also fell into place. Adol – Phosphor – Pearl and Pub they didn’t see could all be put in front of escence. Hoover – Louis XIV – Hughes – Abegnale Jr. – have all been played by Leonardo di Caprio.7 points in total meant that they led by 19 to 9. Game virtually over.

Round Four – Missing Vowels

The first set, extinct birds, fell 2 apiece. Bands overlapped with authors – a great set – saw the lead increase to 23 – 12. The Cats took another point before the end, but that was that. And so , this brought us our first set of semi finalists in the shape of the Celts, and you have to say that they looked very good value for it. Hard lines Cats – really and truly second best in this show, but still with another bite of the cherry to go.