Chessmen
v. Linguists
You may well remember the Chessmen from series
2, where they won the third place play off. Henry Pertinez, Nick Mills and
captain Stephen Pearson were reckoned by many good judges to be one of the best
teams not to make the final of Only Connect. They were in the same series as
The History Boys, who became the first team to reappear in a regular series a
few weeks ago. The Chessmen’s opponents were Virginia Fassnidge, Gail La
Carbonara and skipper Tom Fassnidge. Virginia is Tom’s mum, and Gail and Tom
live together. No previous form guide on the Linguists, but if they were to
live with the Chessmen they’d have to be good.
Round
One – What’s the Connection?
The Chessmen elected to put the Linguists in
first. They opted for water which revealed N.E.Smith – Jon E S. – and Tom at
this point had it. They were ways of writing the surnames of members of the
Monkees. A little bit of an oddity that one, but fair play, Tom had it long
before I would have done. Lion gave the Chessmen Bundeskanzlerin (gesundheit) .
Henry knew that this meant the Chancellor of Germany – good shout, that. The
next clue was Boat Race Dead Heat. This required some nifty footwork, as Henry
realized that the form of the german word is the feminine form and so could
only apply to Angela Merkel. To date there has only been one dead heat in the
boat race, and so unique things provided the connection off two. Twisted Flax
began with 19 hand in cribbage. Never played that myself so I had no idea. Cry
Baby by Jemini though virtually cried out for the answer – 0 points. That was
the famous UK no point entry to Eurovision, where poor Chris Crombie and Jemma
Abby were left pretty much high and dry by the Beeb. Tom felt so, and so the
first three sets had each been taken on the second clue, but to Victoria’s
amazement. The Music set was lurking for the Chessmen behind two reeds. The
first I didn’t know, but the second was Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins. We
heard Love Can Build A Bridge, then Deck the Halls. The Chessmen just didn’t
have it. If it wasn’t cards, then the only other thing I could think of was
parts of a ship. Given the chance of a bonus captain Tom ignored Gail, and took
the Tintin option. The Linguists disappointed by not voicing the second vowel
of Horned Viper, for which they were given a picture set. We saw part of the
titles of Dad's Army, an easyjet airplane, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds LP, and
the Only Connect title slide. The connection, seen by neither team nor by me,
was that they all have the same typeface. The first three all have it, but the
OC title slide had been changed to have cooper black as well, I didn’t notice
the change until it was pointed out. Left with Eye of Horus the chessmen began
with apt – apposite – awl. That was enough for all of us to realize that you
can change the a for an o with each of them to form new words. That was enough
for the Chessmen to close the gap so that they trailed 5 – 6.
Round
Two – What Comes Fourth?
Often we’ve seen round two sort out the sheep
from the goats as it were. The Lings took Lion to start, and they found Thames –
which gave a couple too many possibilities for my liking, followed by Dover.
Now, devotees of the shipping forecast will, like me I’m sure, have chanted - Wight – Portland. The Lings needed Wight
next to make sure of getting Portland. The Ches took two reeds, and Birmingham
1992 came up. Now, I took a long punt at the posts with London 2012. Birmingham
applied for the 1992 Olympics. The second – Manchester 1996 fitted the pattern,
and I predicted that Manchester 2000 would be third. It was. The Ches had
unsuccessful Olympic bids at this point – but I was sure it was going to be
successive British bids – and we didn’t bid for 2004 or 2008. They barked up
this particular wrong tree and offered London 2004. This left the field open
for the Lings who also barked up the 2004 tree. My 5 pointer came in. The Eye
of Horus kicked off with Move MS Word scrollbar left. Hmm, I didn’t know. Bleaching
allowed made me think of those cleaning symbols that some question masters are
so fond of, and I thought it was something like a plain triangle for that. The
Lings certainly thought so. Play, the last one, is a triangle with the point
facing to the right – so what they were looking for was a downward pointing
triangle. I suggested a give way sign, or possible the old YMCA logo. Tom had
it, but didn’t give an example. It actually was a give way sign as the example –
yeeesss! Twisted Flax gave the Ches – eg SDR, DDR – which meant nothing immediately to
any of us – then Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe – which are the surnames of members
of REM. – Blackberry creators - I’ll be
honest I was nowhere near it, but the Ches worked out that we had RAM – REM –
RIM so the last would be ROM. Well done! Now, with water for the Lings – 4th:
Exploded on stage irresistibly suggested to me Spinal Tap’s drummers. I think
Tom had it as well, but like me, was struggling for what 1st would
be. 3rd: Spontaneously combusted confirmed my thoughts. I dredged my
memory and something about a bizarre gardening accident came to mind. 2nd:
Choked on vomit was the third clue, and immediately after that Tom gave the
right answer – which made me think he might well have had it earlier. Once
again, the viper was left as the gift nobody wanted to be the last set on the
second round. Picture clues showed us what looked like a Distillery, Muddy Waters, some knees and lower legs
running. Now, this needed a little lateral thinking. With a still to start,
then waters – then run all that was needed was something deep. I suggested Deep
Purple ( and any of you who said the word throat should wash your minds out
with soap.) That’s a really nice set – kudos to the setter. All of which took
the score to 12 – 9 to the Lings.
Round
Three – The Connecting Walls
The Ches opted for the water wall. The first
set they saw was a group of Barry Manilow songs. I could see a set of Muses
there as well, and this set – Erato – Urania – Calliope and Thalia were the
first to fall. This left Clio looking like part of a set of Renault cars. Which
left in turn a set of beaches. Knowing what all the lines were, all the Ches
had to do was to untangle them. The Kangoo – Clio – Laguna and Wind were the
cars. The Renault Wind? Yes, apparently so. It only took two goes to untangle
the others. Venice – Boulders – Bondi and Copacabana were the beaches, leaving
Mandy – Could it Be Magic – Daybreak and Bermuda Triangle as the Manilows. 10
from 10.
Lion wall saw the Lings see a set of pastries
early doors. I could see a set of terms from Star Trek, but then that’s my
problem. Actually the first line they isolated were parts of a loom – shuttle –
treadle – warp beam and Heddle. Looking at beater, capper, pie and row I could
see that we had homonyms for greek letters too. Tom saw this one. The Lings
took a little while working out the lines after isolating the first, but this
meant that when they went back to pushing buttons they took out the pastries in
one go – cobbler – crumble – strudel and turnover, and then did the same with
the greek letters to solve the wall. The star trek things were transporter,
tricorder, phaser and hypospray. Lovely work – a pleasure to watch. 10/10. So
the Lings retained their lead with 22 to 19
Round
Four – Missing Vowels
3 points is not necessarily much of a lead when
it comes to the vowels. Countries that start and end with the same letter began
with that old Pointless Favourite, Central African Republic. The other three were
all taken, and two fell to each team. The second set were chance cards in
Monopoly. This set wiped out the lead, as the Ches answered two, and the Lings
lost a point for an incorrect buzz. Idioms found in Aesop’s fables fell 3 – 1 to
the Lings, and as Victoria announced the next category the background music
ramped up, and it looked like we wouldn’t have time for any Olivier Award
Winners for Best Musical. We didn’t. The Lings ended up winners with 26 to 24.
Well done Lings. But what a good match! Both of these teams showed themselves
to be teams to be reckoned with, and nobody will fancy having to beat the
Chessmen to go through in their next match. Great show.
3 comments:
You often mention recidivists in your posts. A related point is the cross fertilisation between the different top flight BBC quiz programmes (Only Connect, Mastermind and University Challenge). It is uncanny how often I spot a player in one of these that a recognise as a previous player from one of the other two.
I'm not sure whether this has always been the case and it's only in these days of catch up TV that I've actually noticed, or whether this is happening a lot more than it used to. In other words once BBC knows someone, are they more likely to select them, or even positively encourage them to enter? Cuts both ways of course: I've read somewhere - here probably - that players from the top flight show are barred from some other shows such as Pointless.
The odd player I've seen from all three shows.
This week a couple of the chessmen looked very familiar. One of them, captain Stephen Pearson, featured on the University Challenge documentary about how teams get selected; he was on Manchester's team early on in the Paxman era, and has since acted as coach to Manchester's UC teams in subsequent series.
The other, Henry Pertinez I also recognised from a much more recent UC series; I speculated that all three were in fact UC Manchester alumni, and this was in fact confirmed by a colleague at work, himself a Manchester UC alumnus.
No major issue, more an observation.
'In other words once BBC knows someone, are they more likely to select them, or even positively encourage them to enter?'
It won't be the BBC, as such, but the producers of individual shows. I got an 'Only Connect' application form last year (although didn't end up applying because one of my team had to pull out). There's quite a large box on the form where you have to describe in detail your entire previous involvement in broadcast quizzes.
The wording makes it seem as though they're asking you to own up to a previous conviction, as though it's some sort of CRB check. However, it's obvious from the people who get on to the show - and there was another all-Manchester UC team in the last series - that it's actually a method of positive selection.
Hi Gavin, Hi Stephen,
I don't know of any production company who have ever come out with a clear and open statement on their policy towards applicants who have already appeared on other shows before. So what follows is based on my own experience and deduction.
Some shows have or had a no reappearance policy. For most of its original run, once you were out of Fifteen to One you couldn't come back. Mastermind you couldn't come back until 1995. Only Connect when I was on series 4 told us that the policy then was you couldn't come back.
As a rough rule of thumb, I would say that the greater the monetary value of the prize the less likely that players with a long list of previous appearances are to get on. It can happen - I have been to two auditions where the researchers hadn't actually looked at my previous appearances on my form, but it's a lot more rare. I don't know that you could say that it's anything in the way of an outright ban. I think all production companies would tell you, with some reason, that they consider each application strictly on its own merits. For example, Dave Bill, one of the Gamblers who won series 3 of Only Connect, went on to win in Pointless, and to play in Breakaway. So it can be done.
At the serious end of the market appearances are far more common. It's only natural for a good quizzer to apply to Mastermind, OC, BoB and 15 to 1, for example, and it's important to each of these shows to put forward some contestants of a high calibre.
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