Only Connect : Series Eleven: Match Eight

Scientists v. Builders

Right, grab a quick cuppa, for OC is about to start. In this case we have the Scientists and the Builders. The Scientists were Innis Carson, Lorraine Murtagh and Ian Volante. Innis and Lorraine come up clean on the database, but Ian appeared in the Nancy’s 2009 series of Mastermind, where a good score in the first round wasn’t enough to win his heat. Their opposition were the Builders – Robin Whelan, Max Esperson, and captain Ian Orris. Again, it’s only the skipper who registers on my database, and he too is a Masterminder. In Jesse’s 2010 series, Ian beat my mate Les Morrell in the first round, but could only come runner up to Jesse in the semi final. Ironically Les had a repechage slot and made it through to the final, still, I digress. Not much to choose between the teams on paper then.

Round One – What’s The Connection?

Two Reeds showed the builds a photo of what looked like a statue of Alan Turing. Then we had Stephen Hawking. I thought that this was either going to be characters played by best actor nominated actors at the last Oscars – or – I did know that Benedict Cumberbatch has also played both. Sensibly the Builds took another clue – Julian Assange, which meant we were looking at the Benedict Cumberbatch connection. Sadly the Builds went barking up the film tree and the Tists couldn’t get it. Water gave the Tists music – didn’t know the first but recognized The Mighty Wah! Second, and Snap! Third. So exclamation marks, and the Tists knew it at the same time that I did. For Eye of Horus the BVuilds received intensity of cosmic microwave background radiation – no, me neither. Norwegian banknotes helped me not, nor did footballers’ gestures. I’ll be honest, I probably should have got it from Dick Cheney’s residence on Google Earth, but I didn’t and that’s that. Neither did the Builds. Nor the Tists for that matter. Pixelation is the connection. Lion gave the Tists a lovely set. Milan, and Your Party saw both Lorraine and I latching on to things which Right Said Fred were Too Sexy for. Matter of opinion. Good shout. Ian opted for a horned rather than horned viper – I feared for the Builds after this, I’ll be honest – and received Abaft the Mainmast. No idea yet. The second clue 4 of 5 bells in the Elizabeth Tower, the tower commonly referred to as Big Ben, shed no light either. Every 25^th Hunger Games, though, I knew had something to do with Quarter – Quarter Quell IIRC. If the first one was quarter deck, then I felt strongly enough that I might well have gone for it at this point. Sensibly the Builds took the last clue – 113.4g hamburger – the quarter pounder, and then have the correct answer for their first point of the competition. The Tists were left with the flax, and a very nice little set gave them The Raven, and then Little Weed. Now, anyone of my vintage knows Little Weed from Bill and Ben, and knows that it just said one word – weeeeeeeeeeed. Wel also know ‘quoth the raven ‘Eat my shorts’ – ‘Nevermore’.  So I came in with- they only said one word. The Tists took Seagulls in Finding Nemo – MINE! – and that was enough to give them the same answer. This completed a good first round for the Tists who led by 7 - 1

Round Two – What Comes Fourth?

The Builds, needing to get a wiggle on, started with the flax. 35^th Anniversary LP reissue: Universal didn’t spark much in my memory to be honest, although we were clearly dealing with 1977. 1977 in music shouted punk rock, which suggested the Sex Pistols. But in what way? The Builds took the second – After one week with A&M:Virgin. Now, that made it clearer. We were dealing with record labels, and I knew that Virgin did take the Pistols on after they were shown the door by another company. I also knew that they were on the EMI label to start – in the words of the Pistols – EMI – Unlimited supply. So the first would be something involving EMI. The third clue for the Builds was kicked out after Bill Grundy interview: A &M. Ah the Bill Grundy interview. I remember being about 12 years old, watching it with my grandmother who was in her late 60s, listening in wonder to the virtuoso display of 4 letter abuse, amongst which Bill Grundy was called a ‘F”*!ing rotter’. With a totally straight face my Nan turned to me afterwards and said, ‘do people still use the word rotter, then?’ She was a class act. Going back to the show the Builds just didn’t get a record label into their answer, and the Tists couldn’t either. The answer actually was First single: EMI. The Tists opted for Eye of Horus. Ras al-Kaimah gave me the chance of a 5 pointer. This was the United Arab Emirates, and probably going up in order of size. I was fairly sure that even though Dubai gets the headlines, Abu Dhabi is the largest. Sharjah looked good for my hypothesis and Dubai hammered it home. That was enough for the Tists who gave the right answer. I could have had a 5 pointer on 2 Reeds as well. The Only Thing We Have to fear is fear itself – is a quotation from FDR. I would never have gambled in the studio, but I reckoned it could be quotes from 4 successive presidents. Therefore a JFK one would do it – I went for Ask not what your country can do for you - . That would have done, I’m sure. The Builds went for ‘read my lips’ which was George H W Bush – and I’m sorry, and don’t want to be harsh, but a set like this is the kind of thing you really should get if you’re going to make a realistic challenge for a win. The Tists offered Ich Bin Ein Berliner – correctly – which incidentally actually could be translated as I am a donut, I think.  Ian V chose a conventionally stressed horned viper, but he didn’t care, they were way ahead. RM in two different fonts followed by DM didn’t mean anything to them, but the Builds had a terrific bonus shout with Euro sign. These were rentenmark, reichsmark, deutschmark . I hadn’t had a Scooby. That made things slightly better as they went into water. We had Now Get Out of That. Sorry guys , but this was another 5 pointer chance. I knew that this was a BBC series of the 80s, and also a theme tune of Top of the Pops. If the next was The Wizard, then the answer would be Whole Lotta Love. It was. At this point the team worked it between them, and took much needed points. The Tists finished off with Lion, and set of pictures of 2 bars of music. No good for me, but they worked it out impressively off two, and Innis actually answered in the correct notes for the last one. Good shout – this was Frere Jacques apparently. All of which meant that at the end of the round the Tists led by 13 – 5.

Round Three – The Connecting Walls

A good Water wall and the Tists could be home and dry, I reckoned. This was an interesting wall because I could see a completely rogue set of Star Trek characters. The Tists didn’t fall for it – maybe they knew that Christine Chappell had double letters. So Chapel – Temple – Kirk and Church all went for places of worship. Then they started barking up the Star Trek tree for a minute, before seeing famous Bens – Britten – Disraeli – Zephaniah – Spock. They could see eponymous TV crime series – eg – Castle – and also words which are homonyms for nationalities eg deign. These resolved into Castle – Bones – Luther and Lewis, then Deign – Fin – Scott – Poll. 10 points thank you very much, and to all intents and purposes, game over.

Lion gave the Builds the 4 Cs of gemstones – cut – carat – clarity – colour. I could see a set of words the first syllables of which were the names of mammals – Category – Molesley – Pigment and Bates – but the Builds missed it. This would leave shade – tincture – tint and hue as colour variations. Again they missed these. I didn’t know that the last set – Carson – Hughes – Patmore and Barrow were all in Downton Abbey. Neither did the Builds. Receiving 3 put the scores at 23 – 8 to the Tists.

Round Four – Missing Vowels

The first set – afflictions of the ear nose and throat fell 3 – 1to the Tists, but the Builds lost a point for a wrong buzz. Things abbreviated to three letters fell 3 – 1. Shakespeare play suicides went 3 – 1to the Builds. That was that.

The final score was 30 – 12. A very good night’s work for the Scientists, who look to be a rather useful outfit. As for the Builders, well, it was one of those nights when nothing goes right and be honest, we’ve all had them in our time. They still have the chance to make amends in their next game.