Saturday 27 September 2014

Only Connect - Match Four

Q.I.  Elves v. Bibliophiles

Now, I like Q.I. – I like books – so who was going to end up with the dubious benefit of the support from the Clark sofa in this show? Maybe the Q.I. Elves for the novelty of the crossover between shows. Aforesaid Elves were Anne Miller, Andrew Hunter-Murray and James Harkin. Victoria certainly seemed quite excited at their presence. The opposition, in the form of the Bibliophiles, were Richard Clay, Vince Milner, and Mike Hart. Now, I have to say that Richard Clay looked awfully familiar to me, but I can’t think where from. Maybe we’ve played at a quizzing event. A quick check of LAM reveals that I haven’t written about any quiz performance of his before. No matter anyway. Skipper Mike Hart has apparently only issued one episode of Doctor Who since 1978. How on earth did that happen? How dare he miss one episode? Alright, enough of such chaff, and let’s get on with the show.
                                                  
Round One – What’s The Connection?

The Qs kicked off by choosing Two Reeds. This brought an early outing for the music set. I recognized Al Stewart for the first, but not the second. The third sounded like Al Jolson – which made Als a reasonable suggestion. Even more reasonable when Al Green brought the set to a close. The Qs didn’t get it, neither did the Philes. Brownie points were awarded by me to Mike Hart for picking and voicing Hornéd Viper the way we like it. Serious – didn’t offer instant enlightenment for their first clue, but Frame and Fortune did. They were sporting autobiographies, those of John McEnroe and Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis . The elegantly titled G’Day ya Pommie B.. .. by David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd followed, and when Lance Armstrong’s ironically titled It’s Not About The Bike finished the set the Philes they were still barking up the Australian TV shows tree. It’s interesting to speculate what G’Day Ye Pommie etc. would entail if it was a TV show.  The Qs also took up the TV baton and ran with it, which was something of a surprise, seeing such a relatively benign set going begging. Lion gave the Qs Millar Fillmore. Fillmore was a US president of the 1850s, which wasn’t much help yet. James impressively supplied that he was the 13th president of the USA. Lace came next – which was surely the traditional gift for a 13th wedding anniversary. (For those interested, earlier this month Mary and I celebrated our silver 3 years ago). The Qs didn’t make the connection with 13. The next clue – the Abolition of Slavery obviously referred to the 13th Amendment, which didn’t do it for them. The last one – Floor of Roky Erickson’s elevators wasn’t something I got at all. More in desperation than anything else James tried 13, with about a second to go, and opened the Qs’ account. Eye of Horus gave the Philes a lovely set. First we saw the word rose in red – like this Rose – then tree in blue – Tree – and it clicked. These were emblems of British political parties. The Philes had it on the third – Pound . Water was the next choice of the Qs. We began with Ford Prefect. Cars – too obvious. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy characters – ditto. Now David Brent sparked something in my mind. David Brent is from The Office. Martin freeman played Tim in the same show – and he played Arthur Dent in the best forgotten about film of Hitchhikers. This proved to be a fruitful line of reasoning when Sherlock Holmes was revealed next. All people to whom Martin Freeman has played the sidekick. Taking Gandalf was enough to give it to the Qs for a point – once again a very nice set indeed. This left the Philes with a set of picture clues behind twisted flax. Right the first was a photograph of Trevor ‘Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley’ Peacock. Peacock’s perhaps? I wouldn’t have gambled had I been in the studio. The next was multi gold winning Paralympic sprinter Johnny Peacock. So definitely Peacocks. The NBC peacock came third which was enough to give the Philes the connection. So at the end of the round they led by 4 – 2.

Round Two – What Comes Fourth?

Eye of Horus gave the Qs First Manfred Mann hit. This gave them the distinct chance at a 5 pointer. The first hit was 5-4-3-2-1. So I plumped for an upper second degree at this point. I didn’t know the Noel Clarke film 4-3-2-1, but I just knew that gameshow featuring Dusty Bin would be next. That was enough for the cautious Qs, and they offered and upper second as well. The Philes’ sequence looked more difficult. Tar Heel NC was obviously North Carolina, and the nickname given to it. But were we going North from there or South? Palmetto SC answered that one. Would it be, then , Sunshine Fl? Peach GA came third. The Philes gave my answer, and we were both right. Water came next for the Qs, and began with 1990: Johnson – 1997: Booth. Well the second was the clincher. That was Cherie Blair’s maiden name. So the question was – what was Samantha Cameron’s maiden name? The Qus had the connection here but not the answer. I had forgotten it too, but the Philes knew that she was Samantha Sheffield first of all. Good bonus, that. For their own set they picked twisted flax, and I had my lap around the room five pointer. Many people know that Sir Stanley Rous was the president of FIFA, but not so many know that Arthur Drewry preceded him. Having written a world cup quiz book during the spring, I plumped for Sepp Blatter without hesitation. Stanley Rous followed, then Joao Havelange, just as I wanted. The Philes just didn’t get the FIFA connection, opting for Juan Antonio Samaranch – he of the IOC. The Qs had Blatter to claim back the bonus. The Qs last choice was Lion, and this began with 1 of 4: Battleships. Huh? I didn’t get it. 2 of 4: Clue didn’t really help. I knew that Clue is the American name for Cluedo, but so what? 3 of 4 NFL Superbowl electric Football, though, rang a bell in the back of my mind. The only time I recall ever having heard of said game was in the second Bill and Ted adventure – their Bogus Journey – where they send up the Ingmar Bergman movie, The Seventh Seal by beating Death at a succession of games. And I felt sure that Twister came next. Come to think of it, I did a lap of honour around the room for that one as well. Neither team knew this. Victoria resisted the temptation to allow the Philes to say Horned Viper again, and got straight on with the last set. Now, in the picture set we saw a pixelated blue and white image, which was more familiar on the second, and on the third was obviously the OC logo. A bit of a giveaway on the third. It meant that the Philes led 9 – 5 going into the walls.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

The Philes took Lion, and there were obviously 12 days of Christmas gifts and aircraft manufacturers in there. Fairly swiftly the Philes separated the gifts – Gold Ring – Partridge – Lord and Swan. They saw a set of Arsenal managers and isolated Graham – Mee – Rioch and Wenger. I could see that as well as the plane manufacturers there was a set of words for street sellers. It took a couple of goes, but eventually they resolved the planes – Piper – Cessna – Boeing and Embraer, which left Chapman, Hawker – Tout and Monger. 10 points thank you very much.

The Water wall saw the Qs working out what the connections were fairly quickly – Simpsons characters – Golfing trophies – Musical composers – Middle names of presidents. That done James set about the golf trophies and isolated Walker – Presidents – Ryder – Solheim. Quickly they took out Hussein – Baines – Delano and Milhous as the presidential middle names. Then, despite having the right connections, they proceeded to try to talk themselves out of them for the next half a minute or so. Eventually they decided to just try their Simpsons characters – Sherri – Martin – Nelson and Bart – and it worked first go. This left Gay – Herman – Kern and Rodgers. They didn’t know the connection, and this meant that they finished with 7. All of which meant that they trailed the Philes by 19 – 12.

Round Four – Missing Vowels


7 was a serious lead to have to overturn. Films set on Greek Islands fell 2 apiece. Sayings without the and in the middle saw the Philes unluckily lose a point by forgetting to omit the and from nooks crannies. The Qs took 3 more points to the Philes’ 1. The gap was down to 4 as we moved onto sauces in French cuisine, but it widened again, and the score finished at 16 – 23 to the Philes. The Philes were the better team on the day and certainly deserved to win. As for the Qs, well, it might be an idea to abandon the safety first tactics next time, as they could have scored more highly on the thing they knew in this show. 

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