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Only Connect

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:32 pm
by Matt Morrison
Where the fuck's Jojo Apollo to remind you of this stuff when you need him?
Just realised Series 4 is 10 episodes in and I haven't seen any! Quite a joy to have them all to watch, but frustrating nonetheless.

Thought I'd thread it in case anyone else hasn't realised either. Guess I'll have to avoid the thread now til I've caught up, haha!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 6:40 pm
by James Robinson
I've seen them all. Quite interesting to see Egyptian hieroglyphs, as opposed to the Greek letters this time round.

Still the same high, high standard as ever though. ;) :) :D :mrgreen: 8-)

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:19 pm
by Jeff Clayton
I think Victoria Coren would make a very good DC guest. Thoughts?

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:34 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Jeff Clayton wrote:I think Victoria Coren would make a very good DC guest. Thoughts?
Agreed.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 5:53 pm
by Jon O'Neill
Ryan Taylor wrote:
Jeff Clayton wrote:I think Victoria Coren would make a very good DC guest. Thoughts?
Agreed.
I reckon she'd be willing too, I'm pretty sure she's into Scrabble so maybe she likes Countdown too.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 7:34 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Jon O'Neill wrote:
Ryan Taylor wrote:
Jeff Clayton wrote:I think Victoria Coren would make a very good DC guest. Thoughts?
Agreed.
I reckon she'd be willing too, I'm pretty sure she's into Scrabble so maybe she likes Countdown too.
Yeah she's into Scrabble although I remember on HIGNFY quite recently that she tried to be all clever when it came to the points value of each tile in Scrabble and she got it wrong but not picked up on by anyone.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCN_vmxnZY Skip to 5:06.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:40 pm
by Craig Beevers
Yes Victoria Coren did an interview about a year ago for the ABSP's bi-monthly publication. So yea she's enthusiastic where word games are concerned and would make a nice DC guest.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 6:24 pm
by James Robinson
Note for fans of the show, the new series of Only Connect starts in just over an hour's time on BBC Four. :D

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 12:01 am
by Steve Balog
And I can't watch this show here either due to regional stuff even though I want to and US game shows on average make Deal or No Deal look really fast-paced. Any ideas for a UK proxy or something for me to watch older episodes of this (or perhaps other UK game shows, also)?

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:24 pm
by Mark James
I usually like Vicky Coren on tv shows but she seems a bit of a cunt on this.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:02 pm
by Matt Morrison
Anyone know when this is repeated, we've missed the first episode. Onthebox.com seems to only show it is repeated on Tuesday morning at 2:25, which seems odd as it's only a few hours after the original screening.

As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:51 pm
by Rhys Benjamin
Matt Morrison wrote:Anyone know when this is repeated, we've missed the first episode. Onthebox.com seems to only show it is repeated on Tuesday morning at 2:25, which seems odd as it's only a few hours after the original screening.

As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.
BBC Iplayer?

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:33 pm
by Matt Morrison
Rhys Benjamin wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:Anyone know when this is repeated, we've missed the first episode. Onthebox.com seems to only show it is repeated on Tuesday morning at 2:25, which seems odd as it's only a few hours after the original screening.

As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.
BBC Iplayer?
True. Forgot we had an HDMI cable.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:47 am
by Jon Corby
Matt Morrison wrote:As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.
I could be out-of-date as I haven't had Sky for about 4 months now, and you might be talking about something else entirely, but the A-Z listings only ever cover(ed) the next 24 hours.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:19 am
by Matt Morrison
Jon Corby wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.
I could be out-of-date as I haven't had Sky for about 4 months now, and you might be talking about something else entirely, but the A-Z listings only ever cover(ed) the next 24 hours.
Oh really? That's useful to know, thanks. I think we're talking about the same thing but I'd never investigated enough to notice they only covered 24 hours, you'd think that might be mentioned somewhere on the page as I always just assumed it listed everything and have probably missed at least two programmes in the last five years by relying on it to list everything when I clearly shouldn't have.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:27 am
by Jon Corby
Matt Morrison wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:As a side note, how shit and unreliable is Sky's A-Z listings? Only Connect wasn't listed there even once, despite the fact I'd already added next Monday's to record.
I could be out-of-date as I haven't had Sky for about 4 months now, and you might be talking about something else entirely, but the A-Z listings only ever cover(ed) the next 24 hours.
Oh really? That's useful to know, thanks. I think we're talking about the same thing but I'd never investigated enough to notice they only covered 24 hours, you'd think that might be mentioned somewhere on the page as I always just assumed it listed everything and have probably missed at least two programmes in the last five years by relying on it to list everything when I clearly shouldn't have.
Yeah, it should be quite a useful tool, but I hardly ever used it because it was so user-unfriendly. I was never quite sure how it categorised stuff, so usually would end up having to use the 'All Programmes' list. If you were looking for something in the middle of the S's you'd have hundreds of pages to go through one at a time - why not allow you to enter more than the first letter? Also, I seem to recall that you'd almost always end up with pages of porn at one end of the range (can't remember if it was at the start or the end). They always censored the names by leaving the first letter there and then covering some with Asterix, so if you were searching for something beginning with C, you'd end up with page upon page of "C*m in my gran's a**" or something. Not great if the kids are around.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:45 am
by Phil Reynolds
For heaven's sake, have you people never heard of the Radio Times?

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:00 am
by Jon O'Neill
Jon Corby wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:I could be out-of-date as I haven't had Sky for about 4 months now, and you might be talking about something else entirely, but the A-Z listings only ever cover(ed) the next 24 hours.
Oh really? That's useful to know, thanks. I think we're talking about the same thing but I'd never investigated enough to notice they only covered 24 hours, you'd think that might be mentioned somewhere on the page as I always just assumed it listed everything and have probably missed at least two programmes in the last five years by relying on it to list everything when I clearly shouldn't have.
Yeah, it should be quite a useful tool, but I hardly ever used it because it was so user-unfriendly. I was never quite sure how it categorised stuff, so usually would end up having to use the 'All Programmes' list. If you were looking for something in the middle of the S's you'd have hundreds of pages to go through one at a time - why not allow you to enter more than the first letter? Also, I seem to recall that you'd almost always end up with pages of porn at one end of the range (can't remember if it was at the start or the end). They always censored the names by leaving the first letter there and then covering some with Asterix, so if you were searching for something beginning with C, you'd end up with page upon page of "C*m in my gran's a**" or something. Not great if the kids are around.
I almost posted this exact observation just before you. Nightmare.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 2:13 am
by Lesley Hines
Sky+ HD :) - Search by title and it'll give you the next week's 8-)

Btw, what's a radio?

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:23 am
by Marc Meakin
Lesley Hines wrote:Sky+ HD :) - Search by title and it'll give you the next week's 8-)

Btw, what's a radio?
Its called a wireless, still,l in my house lol.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:37 pm
by Rhys Benjamin
Bloody Hell! It's a Lamborghini, not a Lotus!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:57 pm
by Joseph Krol
Quick Countdown and Pointless mention there. (second connecting wall)

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:34 pm
by Phil Reynolds
It's that time of year when new issues of Radio Times come through the letterbox thick and fast, as the publication schedules are accelerated ready for the big Christmas double issue. The December 10th-16th issue arrived today, and I bring you the exciting news that Monday December 12th on BBC4 is Only Connect Connecting Walls Night. Eight former teams return to play a series of walls in a knockout tournament, spread over two shows at 8.30 and 10pm. Exciting stuff.

I just submitted a wall of my own to the Fan Wall site. Here it is if anyone fancies having a go (it's pretty easy I think, but then I would).

Code: Select all

CATCHPHRASE    COUNTDOWN     DESTINATION    FANTASY
 LONGBOARD      PIPELINE         TUN         WIPEOUT      
  BARREL      BRAINTEASER     BULLSEYE       BUTT      
  FURLONG      HOGSHEAD       KILDERKIN    KNIGHTMARE 

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:49 pm
by Matt Morrison
So you have to wait for it to be approved or some shit? Stick with the original and whack it up on Puzzgrid and I'd love to give it a go!

By the way your OC news is just amazing. Can't wait. Even though I'll miss the missing vowels like mad.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:36 pm
by Phil Reynolds
Matt Morrison wrote:whack it up on Puzzgrid and I'd love to give it a go!
#1619

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:47 pm
by Matt Morrison
Phil Reynolds wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:whack it up on Puzzgrid and I'd love to give it a go!
#1619
Thanks Phil. http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid/1619

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:53 pm
by Matt Morrison
10/10 but with only 16 seconds left on the groups - knew three of the groups from the off but took me ages to work out what went where! The fourth came to me whilst I was answering, which was nice.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:35 am
by Clive Brooker
Medium?

Having been totally humiliated, the least I can do is try to retaliate. I've probably embarrassed myself by describing this as "hard", but you never know:

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid/1621

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:42 am
by Phil Reynolds
Clive Brooker wrote:Medium?
I initially rated it "easy" - it's since been upgraded. :P
I've probably embarrassed myself by describing this as "hard"
We've all been there.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:44 am
by Jon Corby
Phil Reynolds wrote:We've all been there.
Hahaha :D

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:54 pm
by Charlie Reams
Phil Reynolds wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:whack it up on Puzzgrid and I'd love to give it a go!
#1619
Nice one. Got it in just under 1:30, but I put "volume units" or something for the beer sizes link, which I guess is not quite right.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:15 pm
by Liam Tiernan
Charlie Reams wrote:
Phil Reynolds wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:whack it up on Puzzgrid and I'd love to give it a go!
#1619
Nice one. Got it in just under 1:30, but I put "volume units" or something for the beer sizes link, which I guess is not quite right.
So close *** Warning: Spoilers***

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:10 am
by Phil Reynolds
I've done another one. This could become mildly addictive.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:28 am
by Matt Morrison
Phil Reynolds wrote:I've done another one. This could become mildly addictive.
Keep it up Phil! Have to say I found that one bloody easy. Possibly helped by knowing what propolis is (sometimes in psoriasis creams).

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:08 am
by Phil Reynolds
Matt Morrison wrote:Keep it up Phil! Have to say I found that one bloody easy.
Yeah, and I see my first one's been downrated again too. :P I was quite pleased with some of the crossovers in this one though, which hopefully confused you for a few seconds at least. I'll make my next one hard just for you. (Leave it...)

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:14 am
by Phil Reynolds
OK Morrison, suck on this.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:31 am
by Matt Morrison
Phil Reynolds wrote:OK Morrison, suck on this.
Haha, good work. So I got 5/10, and actually only attempted 4 groupings in order to complete the 3 sets required which impressed even me, but without luck involved that score could have easily been much lower:
- just went for ones that looked like surnames to start with, but my best guess was 'Robin' as in Robin Hood which was the only one that inspired me to go the surname route - not good with my poets, only knew Blake
- spotted 'green' stuff just off of 'screen' so that went nicely
- was feeling the B words, included BLITHE the first time so took me the 2nd attempt, didn't take too long to think about the grouping to be honest but wasn't particularly near the S-swap thing even though I could definitely feel it had something to do with word structure
- absolutely no idea about any Noel Coward stuff - my best guess was words associated with Dad's Army or something haha

Considering you were trying to hurt me, I'm fairly pleased with 5/10!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:59 am
by Matt Morrison
Here we go then:

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid.php?id=1625

This is my absolute first ever go at creating a grid in any medium. I personally designed it to be hard and rated it as fiendish, so I hope it fits somewhere between the two rather than being too easy or nigh-on impossible. Good luck, constructive (or otherwise) criticism requested!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:43 pm
by Phil Reynolds
Matt Morrison wrote:Good luck
0/10. :cry:
Didn't manage to get any of the groups within the time. I guessed "scents" as the link for the aromatherapy oils one, which was as close as I got to any of them. GUM is a bit dubious I'd say - I've never heard it used to describe the wood of the gum tree, and the online OED doesn't list it in this sense. But an excellent first effort!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:59 pm
by Matt Morrison
Cheers Phil. Charlie pointed out (on Facebook) that the 'no rhymes' group was a bit dubious as it matched too many other answers; it was the last group I created and I didn't check back through the rest to see what matched. Realised at the time I was probably going over-the-top with the overlapping though. And as far as your Gum thing, my research amounted to looking through the list of common woods on Wikipedia and picking out some ambiguous ones and then a Google image search for "gum wood" came up with plenty of images using that same phrase so that was good enough for me!

Hopefully next one will be more manageable.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 1:39 pm
by Jon O'Neill
These are rubbish, I've got about one row from everyone's so far.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 2:02 pm
by Clive Brooker
Since someone has evidently attempted my first grid (and upgraded it to fiendish - oops) I'm encouraged to have another go. If I'm excommunicated for using one particular word, I maintain it was absolutely necessary.

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid/1626

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 2:10 pm
by Matt Morrison
30 seconds in and I can tell I'm not getting any of these groups, Clive.
Clive Brooker wrote:If I'm excommunicated for using one particular word, I maintain it was absolutely necessary.
Combination of shocked and disappointed that "Cunt" wasn't one of the clues.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:49 pm
by Mark James
I've done one for you all. #1628

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:12 pm
by Matt Morrison
Mark James wrote:I've done one for you all. #1628
Only 3/10. I didn't even think twice before declaring "terms for marijuana" for the -pool group considering it was you making the grid, though I did think to myself "hmm never heard it being called CAR before" - still, the other three fitted!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:58 pm
by Clive Brooker
Matt Morrison wrote:Combination of shocked and disappointed that "Cunt" wasn't one of the clues.
OK, so I'm a bit off target with judging the difficulty of the connections, but I found a good way of ensuring it got looked at!

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2011 5:53 am
by Steve Balog
I've written about 6-7 of these or so in the past, search in the late 1300s numberwise for anything by Insane Steve and those are there.

I might make up a couple more actually, ideas for things like this come fairly easily for me.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:02 pm
by Liam Tiernan
Steve Balog wrote:I've written about 6-7 of these or so in the past, search in the late 1300s numberwise for anything by Insane Steve and those are there.

I might make up a couple more actually, ideas for things like this come fairly easily for me.
I found most of them pretty tricky, especially as there were a few connections that would be difficult for non-Americans to spot.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:10 pm
by Paul Howe
Heres my first effort. I've aimed for medium difficulty but its really hard to tell.

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid.php?id=1634

As an aside, can you delete grids you've already submitted? My first attempt at submitting this grid was a dismal cock up.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:26 pm
by Liam Tiernan
Paul Howe wrote:Heres my first effort. I've aimed for medium difficulty but its really hard to tell.

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid.php?id=1634

As an aside, can you delete grids you've already submitted? My first attempt at submitting this grid was a dismal cock up.
Medium to hard. I got 6/10 (spotted the third set of connections just too late). Some nice crossovers on the connections.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:13 pm
by Graeme Cole
Have a grid.

No idea how difficult it is, so I've just put "medium".

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 7:38 pm
by Charlie Reams
Graeme Cole wrote:Have a grid.

No idea how difficult it is, so I've just put "medium".
Quite a nice one, got it in 1:10 but I think we're on a similar wavelength for a few of the niche aspects (without saying too much) so that's probably an underestimate of the difficulty.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:13 pm
by Graeme Cole

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:37 pm
by Liam Tiernan
Graeme Cole wrote:Another one.
Very tough (for me anyway). Score: 0, even after the grid was solved.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:05 pm
by Matt Morrison
2/10 for being a computer geek

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 9:12 am
by Phil Reynolds
7/10. :ugeek:

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:46 am
by Matt Morrison
Genuinely quite pleased with this one. I think it's a lot more doable and cleverer than my first attempt whilst (hopefully) still being a bit of a challenge:

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid.php?id=1651

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 11:13 am
by JimBentley
I am absolutely shit at these. I've tried about six of the ones posted and my combined score so far is 2.

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 4:41 pm
by Joseph Krol
Just made one myself. I'm not sure how hard it is.

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid/1652

Re: Only Connect

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 5:07 pm
by Phil Reynolds
Matt Morrison wrote:Genuinely quite pleased with this one. I think it's a lot more doable and cleverer than my first attempt whilst (hopefully) still being a bit of a challenge:

http://www.puzzgrid.com/grid.php?id=1651
Torn? :?