Only Connect - Match 14

The History Boys v. The Felinophiles

On paper a very serious contest between Rob Hannah, Gareth Kingston and Craig Element, the History Boys who comfortably beat the Oxonians in the first match, and the Felinophiles. Simon Turmaine, Helen Lippell and Simon Koppel also scored a ten point win in their first match against the politicos. Knowing Rob, Gareth and Craig I fancied the Hists to go straight through after this one, but then the Clark tip has been fatal to many a team in the past. Let’s see what actually happened.

Round One – What’s the Connection?

The History Boys chose Lion first and kicked off with Oswald Mosley Group, 1934. I idly toyed with blackshirts, and British Union of Fascists as did the Hists. The second was Polish rebellion 1863. Wisely I think the Hists took the third – number 1 single for Pilot 1975. Now that I knew for a fact could only be January – which the Hists knew full well. I stuck on January, while the Hists twisted and took the final clue – Betty Draper 2007. Betty Draper was played by January Jones in Mad Men – apparently. Never mind – much better to make sure of the point. After being told off by Victoria for being Felinophiles rather than the probably more correct ailurophiles the Fels opted for Twisted Flax, and GB1331655:Flying Saucer. Huh? The second – GB1426698: Cat flp/Peace keeping bomb shed a little more light. This looked like patents . The third – GB1333548 – Exploding nail was enough to convince the Fels, and they took the two points. Opting for Eye of Horus the Hists received Meher Baba. Nope – didn’t know him. Cuzco, Peru for the second clue was the capital of the Incan Empire. The boys toyed with going for capitals of ancient empires – just as well they took the next clue, for this one was Peace. Did they all have roses named after them? I mused. Stumped, they opted for the final clue – LGBT Community. All I could come up with were rainbow flags – which the History Boys went for as well – and was correct. So far the Hists had come up with the harder sets. The Fels now took full advantage of being ahead, and opted for all the blessings upon their houses that pro0nouncing Hornèd Viper doubtlessly brings. Lara Croft:Tomb Raider suggested possibly Angelina Jolie films, but that was surely too straightforward. Wall Street, the second clue, was a film, but I didn’t think that Angelina Jolie had been in it. The Pursuit of Happyness came third and I had an inkling. Angelina Jolie – star of the first, has a film star Dad, as does Michael Douglas, star of the second, as does Jaden Smith, star of the third. The Fels were in with this idea as well and pointed out that Will Smith was also in the third. So did their Dads all appear in their film with them? On Golden Pond, the last clue, fitted that very well. A bit mean the adjudication. When they gave a general answer the Fels were asked for more. They went for fathers and sosn – not correct. The Hists went for fathers and daughters – not correct. Fathers and children PLAYING fathers and children was the answer. Fair enough.  The Hists took their last clue of the round with Two Reeds and the Music set. The immortal Hayzi Fantayzee with John Wayne is Big Leggy kicked off, followed by Scritti Politti which suggested groups/artists with rhyming names. The Hists needed Milli Vanilli to get there. This left the Fels with Water and pictures. The first was a ladder in a lady’s tights, with a big red circle and diagonal bar across them. No ladders then. Huh? Next a silhouette of a family with a small dog, and the circle and bar through the dog. So no dogs. Huh? Simon had it at this point. It wasn’t a ladder – it was a run. Dog was too specific – it was a pet. No running – no petting – surely they weren’t going to also include no peeing in the shallow end? No, thankfully – the missing ones were ducking and bombing. That was a timely answer off two for the Fels, as it meant that they had a lead of 5 to 4.

Round Two – What Comes Fourth?

The Hists started again with Lion. 3: Connecticut didn’t look very helpful to me. They ingeniously came up with the fact that there are 3 Cs in Connecticut. The second – 2: Florida didn’t help that hypothesis. However 1. Maine did help . They worked out that it’s borders with other states, and knew that they could go with 0: Hawaii or Alaska. That was a well worked out set. 2 reeds gave the Fels pictures – the first of which looked like an Alsatian or German Shepherd dog, the second a springer spaniel and the third a cocker spaniel. I reckoned that these were most popular breeds in the UK, the 4^th of which ahd to be a Labrador. The Fels didn’t get it going with poodle, and the Hists aren’t going to turn their noses up at that kind of bonus. Gareth too offered Hornèd for the Viper, and this gave the Hists Battery LR8D425 – Highest credit rating. Well, the highest credit rating is Triple A, presumably the battery was a quadruple A – so what we were looking for was something A – eg. -  highest mark in an exam. That’s what the Hists went for, correctly so. Up against it the Fels opted for water, and immediately encountered Count Dooku. OK – so we had a dark lord of the Sith from Star Wars – but where would that lead? Next was Qui-Gon Jin. Right – I reckoned it might be that he trained Obi Wan. Which gave us a problem – since to some extent Obi Wan trained both Anakin/Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Mind you – Yoda also trained Luke – and Anakin was his official apprentice, so that was what I went for. The Fels went for Luke and were denied,since Luke was not Obi Wan’s Padawan. There you go. Bonus for the Hists. Eye of Horus gave them a musical sequence, and Hit the Road Jack, by Ray Charles, The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba by Handel, and In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg were a lovely little sequence. I predicted Ace of Spades by Motorhead. The Hists just didn’t see it. The Fels went for Ace of Spades, which was indeed the example. A much needed bonus there, and they finished the round with Twisted Flax. The first clue – E:13.6.10 meant nowt to me. S:17.3.19 didn’t help. The Fels were thinking about compass points, and the next was W: 8.11.14 didn’t discount this. I had no idea nor, really, did either team. The answer – N:5.20.1 came from the sections of a dartboard. Fair set – it just didn’t click with me. Ironically I think that the letters on each really didn’t help. Well, it’s often said that the second round is the one which seperates the really good from the nearly good, and plain fact was that the Hists now led by 11 – 6.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

The Fels opted for Water. Extremely quickly they sorted out Help The Aged – Common People – Disco 2000 and Mis-Shapes, all linked by Jarvis Cocker/Pulp. Mencap – Scope – Save the Children and Refuge fell very quickly as well, as a set of charity organisations. I could see Agony Aunts and TV cops in the other sets – Ironside – Proops – Sanders and Rayner being the Agony Aunts, which left them Drebin – McNulty – Mcmillan and Lacey.  Think the key was getting the songs first – that helped make the wall – which wasn’t easy – look easy.

So the Hists needed a full house to preserve a serious lead. Lion wall offered them Muse rather than Pulp songs, but they still found them quickly – Starlight – Hysteria – Uprising and Knights of Cydonia. There looked to be Expresses, Bears and heaven alone knew what. Shanghai – Pineapple – Midnight and Von Ryan’s were the Expresses. Left with two lines to solve they worked out that there was also a set of words with numbers spelled out in them. Bingo. Quinine – Weighty – Network and Honey left bear – Polar – Cinnamon – Spectacled and Brown. A full house asked for, and a full house supplied.

Round Four – Missing Vowels

So, at 21 – 16 it wasn’t over, and we’ve seen bigger turnarounds. It was asking quite a bit though. The first set were all domestic assistants, and they fell 2 apiece. I thought that Gareth might do well on former English football league grounds, but the Fels also managed 1 to 3 for the Hists. Chemical elements and symbols seemed made for the Hists as well, being good old standard quiz stuff. Again these fell 3 – 1 and the game was as good as over. Actually, come to that, it really was over. Winners by 29 – 20 were the Hists – when you got right down to it they just had too much all round knowledge for the Fels. Don’t count the Fels out yet though – if they win their own next match, then they also go through. Well done boys – good performance.