Only Connect Special
Sunday, 1 January 2012
I’ve just heard (thanks to question editor Mr. Bodycombe, who knows everything) that one of our Only Connect specials will be broadcast TOMORROW NIGHT (Monday January 2nd) at 8.30pm on BBC Four!
This is a Champion of Champions über-battle, between the series 1 & 2 champion-of-champions The Crossworders and series 3 & 4 champion-of-champions The Epicureans. If we gave this match its full title, there’d be 97 “ofs” in the sentence, so it’s known informally at OC towers as Stainer vs. Stainer.
There’s another OC special the week after, and another Wall Night coming up - see the news page for more details…
Comments
David B at 5:12 pm on January 1st, 2012
And to get you in the mood, a very clever fan has put together this little montage as a taster for the All-Star Stainer Smackdown:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B2kzlWqHys
It may well be my favourite episode ever!
The Tim at 1:24 am on January 2nd, 2012
Don’t you get the Radio Times? Do try and keep up! I noticed this before Christmas and was wondering why you hadn’t mentioned it. (Did you have to repair the furniture afterwards?)
Next week’s the Mastermind Champions’ Challenge.
The Tim at 1:31 am on January 2nd, 2012
Really liked the montage - good selection - it’s so long since we’ve seen David Stainer. Gounot’s Ave Maria brought tears to my eyes.
ukgatsby.blogspot.com at 3:29 am on January 2nd, 2012
Happy New Year Victoria
Bryan W at 11:22 am on January 3rd, 2012
Quite possibly the hardest set of questions yet devised by the evil question editor Mr. Bodycombe. Even with the answer on one i still didn’t understand the connection. Looking forward to the next special.
DW at 3:53 pm on January 3rd, 2012
Wow what a show - unbelievably difficult - yet great fun. The Stainers made a mockery of my local quiz champions even entering. And Victoria your put-downs are pleasantly and funnily school ma’amish and your dress wonderful. Though your puns are still painful, my son really enjoyed the relaxed geekiness of the show especially when he got one of the missing vowel clues. Thank You again.. When is the next series and when will we see you on TV again soon? PS Did you make a smoking resolution!!
Victoria's Biggest Fan at 12:42 am on January 4th, 2012
Sorry about my absence for a while. Internet problems “/
Hope you had a good christmas and new years :)
Also loved this episode; made for great watching at about 2 in the morning. I missed the original broadcast because of work so stayed up for you Vicky :)
Look forward to a couple more eps and am applying for the new series so hope to see you on the show face to face <3 xx
The Tim at 10:28 am on January 4th, 2012
VBF, did you manage to get a team together or have you applied as an individual?
Nick at 1:06 am on January 10th, 2012
Victoria, May I just say that you even were more Sassy, Savvy & Sexy than usual on the recent Crossworders V Masterminders episode. I felt sorry for the MM, battered as they were! Victoria.. What a dress!! Nick xx
Clive at 2:48 pm on January 10th, 2012
All well and good, but I didn’t understand the joke about the dead bears in the sea and her having forgotten the sandwiches. Can you run that past me again, Vicky? I was a bit tired last night.
E Kerr at 4:34 pm on January 10th, 2012
Clive, I think that the joke about the dead bears in the sea follows on from remarks that Victoria made at the beginning of the show.
Forgetting the sandwiches is a reference to a topic from Balderdash & Piffle, Victoria’s brilliant previous show. She must have lost her mind to mention it, as of course she is now one sandwich short of a picnic. However, Victoria is so well, bread, that she will easily find kindly blokes to make her a sandwich by [MOD: SORRY, E KERR, THAT JOKE HAS *GOT* TO BE EDITED!]
Of course, if her recent article in GQ magazine is to be believed, she would prefer a less kindly bloke who made her pay dearly for her slip up.
Victoria Coren at 9:32 pm on January 10th, 2012
Hi Clive. Those lines at the end of the show were a reference back to what I’d said at the beginning… Maybe you tuned in late? Or perhaps the show was so gripping / droned on for such an age, that the opening words were no longer in living memory…
Jason Twigg at 2:01 am on January 11th, 2012
I’ve been catching up with the Only Connect specials.
Congratulations to the Crossworders as supreme Champions.
However, I suspect that if there were to be a special (like the Wall Nights), based on the missing vowel round, then the Epicureans would be the ones to beat.
E Kerr at 11:22 am on January 11th, 2012
Oops, just as well my post was edited. Quite apart from the fact that jokes are, I believe, usually funnier when you work them out for yourself, I now realise that there is another meaning which hadn’t occurred to me before I posted it. My apology to Victoria, I may still be wrong, but I, myself, don’t want to imply that she is THAT sort of woman.
I also forgot that you can always picnic on a beach because of the “sand which is there” (the Christmas cracker joke explanation).
Clive at 3:37 pm on January 11th, 2012
Yes, I just tuned in for the last few minutes, okay never mind. Mind you, the guests looked a bit nonplussed too! I expect their minds were on higher things.
Barry Tinghart at 4:34 pm on January 13th, 2012
Victoria, I read a tweet from Mr. Bodycombe mentioning your attire for the Sports Relief episode.
https://twitter.com/#!/DavidJBodycombe/status/156488833804939265
For some reason I find even thinking about it for more than a couple of seconds unbearably exciting. Was he joking, or am I going to have to install a TV in the bathroom so I can take a really cold shower while I watch.?
Victoria Coren at 8:54 pm on January 13th, 2012
Hi Barry. He was joking.
David B at 1:18 am on January 15th, 2012
Sorry Barry, but in any case I’m sure you’ll tune in for VC’s wit, the contestants’ intellect and the fun of the game regardless of whichever glam little number will be on display. In any case, I never could see the point of gymslips - such an unflattering and unathletic garment is hard to imagine, like they came from the 1896 Athens Games.
Nevertheless, I can exclusively reveal there is a little moment before Missing Vowels that you can look forward to.
Ken Singtone at 2:34 am on January 16th, 2012
I’ve really been enjoying your recent Only Connect comments. The “forgot the sandwiches” ending and admonishing the champions for their ignorance of connecting wall colours were true highpoints. (They more than atone for your cringeworthy attempt to flirt with Alex Guttenplan.)
However, I love you SO VERY MUCH for calling the Stainer vs. Stainer episode “a historic Only Connect clash”.
Nothing irritates me more than hearing TV announcers and newsreaders talk about “an historic.. [event/etc.]” (or indeed, “an horrific..”). After all, nobody writes “An history of..”.
That is why I love page 111 of your book, and am overjoyed to find out that it’s not a fluke. I must add that there are also many other pages in the book that give me great pleasure, but obviously for other reasons.
Barry Tinghart at 5:19 pm on January 16th, 2012
David B, thanks for your reply. I sort of agree with you about gymslips, but once VC’s wit has made me laugh, I am totally defenceless against her charms, and it doesn’t really matter what she wears. I will still experience her as a delightful, clever, and beautiful woman with a wicked sense of humour. I think that she can make a dress work, just as much as the converse.
Victoria, thanks for answering too. It’s so nice that you make the effort to be witty. I hope you don’t mind that so many of us men find you almost irresistibly attractive. I only wish there was some way that we could share with you some of the joy that you give us. Thank you again.
leonard foulk at 6:47 pm on January 19th, 2012
Love watching you present, ‘Only Connect’ ‘n’ reading your Observer columns, but please give up the ciggies dear, they do nothing for you.
Love ‘n’ kisses,
Lenbo
Clive at 1:17 pm on January 22nd, 2012
“Totally defenceless against her charms”? What, has someone hidden the remote, Barry?
Barry Tinghart at 4:08 pm on January 23rd, 2012
Well, Clive, a bit of poetic licence, and a smidgen of exaggeration perhaps, but I have little desire to resist the pleasure of those charms, any more than Victoria finds it easy to quit the cigarettes. In any case, it’s probably easier to solve a connecting wall, than to locate the correct remote(s) among the dozen or so required in this digital age, not to mention the odd ones accidentally imported from or exported to other rooms.
(Keep me laughing, Victoria, and I’ll be all yours.)
fingéro at 8:35 pm on February 3rd, 2012
Nice. I’m buying one each of ‘Eruption’ and ‘Cumming’ and placing them side by side in a gift box for a suitable relative.
Should I add a tub of ‘Alien’ too on the left? Or would that be too much?
Denise Gordon at 9:32 am on February 20th, 2012
When is Only Connect coming back - best prog on TV
Victoria Coren at 12:44 pm on February 20th, 2012
Hi Denise. There’ll be a new Only Connect special for Sport Relief in March, then the new series will begin some time between July and September. It will certainly appear on the ‘news’ page here when I have specific dates.