Weaver's Week 2025-03-09

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We're sorry to report that a lot of famous people have died this fortnight. Michelle Trachtenberg, a stupendously good actress who never heard the credit due to her talent. Gene Hackman, an actor appreciated in his own lifetime. Boris Spassky, chess champion. Kathryn Apanowicz, actress and presenter and Richard Whiteley's better half.

Two game show people also died. Henry Kelly, the broadcaster and Going for Gold host. Christopher Hughes, Egghead and genial quizzer. We're going to pay tribute to both men next week, when we're less pressed with time-sensitive news.

Contents 1 Only Connect (2) 2 University Challenge stats update 2.1 Subjective subjects 2.2 How do we see the remaining matches playing out? 3 In other news 3.1 Quizzy Mondays

Only Connect (2)

"I wanted an acrostic for FORTY containing exactly forty letters." The Crunchers won the All-Important Third Place Play Off, defeating the Cat Cows by 20-11. Misleading titles in songs, horse riding bits, Alans who spell their name some other way, the "I picked the wrong week to quit..." recurring joke from Airplane, walls with Barbie and Oppenheimer as clues, and the missing vowels answer "Vegan margarine wouldn't melt in his mouth". The most fabulously impossible clues, not least butter-related stages of grief; this column was pleased to recognise some of the answers after they'd been explained to us.

Jacob Epstein, Aron Carr, and Rafi Dover are the Four Opinions; Eleanor Ayres, Rob Sassoon, and Matt Taylor are the Tea Totallers. They are our finalists this year.

An early bonus for the Tea Totallers, spotting that these are pictures from films whose titles entered common parlance – Groundhog Day, Bombshell, and more. Their own question yields a point, with New Zealand missing from various maps – including the rugby map even though they were champions at the time.

Four Opinions hit back with a word clue: the first word is in the second word, and it's surrounded by opposites, like the "c" in "undercover" – under, c, over. Three well-earned points. Tea Totallers keep the music question in hand, getting that it's all bands and musicians with no vowels in their names.

Neither side gets the question about women who married two men in the same line of work – this blog did a lap of honour when we remembered Graça Machel marrying Samora Machel and then Mr. Mandela, as the sides both missed it. They also missed the final question, which needs to be read aloud.

Four Opinions got here with a high-scoring win over the Bean Farmers, which needed a bit of luck on a question about things happening once a year. A draw in the second round against the Cat Cows, won on the tie-break. "Losing on purpose" was not what the team did in their quarter-final against the Al Frescans, it was merely the first answer. A rematch against the Cat Cows in the semi-final went their way by two points, more because the opposition were flummoxed by their wall. Four Opinions take their name from a Jewish joke (what happens when you put two Jews in a room? you get three opinions!) and are wearing kippot with the show's logo.

Three-each going into the Sequences round: what completes this set of – are those flags? Earth, Olympics, Africa, and then one with stars representing smaller divisions. Yeah, we're a bit hazy on that one as well: Victoria might have mentioned "stars" more clearly. The flag they showed was "Citizen of the World", created by George Dibbern who was a conscientious objector to the concept of countries circa 1940.

No score there, and no score on one about four-syllable words with the stress pattern progressing through the word. Doesn't help that the first word they chose was "horticulture", which this column would say with the stress on the third syllable, "cult"; the third clue was "independence", and we'd say it to emphasise the "in" at the beginning. Maybe we've been mispronouncing words for the past goodness knows how long; maybe the editors might have put this in the Third Place Play Off or a special where taking part is the most important thing.

The scores do change with the next question, the largest cities in Georgia (where the Junior Eurovision champions come from) and Georgia (where the Indigo Girls come from). That's three to Four Opinions, and they add another with a sequence of mathematical symbols rotated through 90 degrees and turned into Roman numbers.

Four Opinions score again with a list of facts about Williams I through IV – that'll be the Presidents of the USA, ending with Bill Clinton playing the sax. They also pick up a bonus on the music sequence (yeah, that is back), songs about animals with increasing numbers of legs. Mercifully for us all, we're saved the teams singing, there's a house band to play "Incy wincy spider".

Tea Totallers took the scenic route to the final, losing their first match against the Bloomsbury Group, a ridiculous match where all the sequences were solved on the second clue. A superb performance on Missing Vowels secured their win against the Pipe Dreamers, then Too Many Cookes fell to their knowledge of numbers on a clock face. The Totallers accounted for the Introverts in a lopsided quarter-final, and great tactics on the wall allowed them to take out the Crunchers in the semi-finals.

Named for their love of a good brew, the Tea Totallers have their work cut out, trailing as they do by 10-3. But the wall falls out quite quickly, and the spoof group of difficult impossible things does not faze the team. Full marks!

Four Opinions do briefly stumble down that tricky tricksy blind alley, but quickly put that aside and find all the groups. They miss a set of connections, though: Totallers had senses with one letter changed, Opinions miss imperial measurements with one letter changed.

Missing Vowels is the Tea Totallers' secret weapon; well, not so secret, it's there for anyone who crunches the numbers. They take the first set – misnamed animals – by 3-1, and the first question on music played entirely on string instruments. But then the questions get harder, Four Opinions have enough time to work it out, and level the category. Breakfast items merged with sites of historical events gives us the impossible phrase of the night.

And from Lake Geneva to the Blueberry Muffinland Station, they'll be cheering for the Four Opinions, who emerged victorious by 21-19. Well done to them, well done to the Totallers. And well done to everyone involved with Only Connect; this was the 500th episode to be recorded (though it's actually the 504th to be broadcast, what with those extra special Specials over Christmas).

Only Connect's continued success proves that television doesn't have to dumb down, that large audiences are happy to watch some of the most esoteric brain-twizzlers around, and it proves that Victoria Coren Mitchell is as much of a dry wit, tipped with sage, as her father. Here's to the next 500 496!

University Challenge stats update

Well, this column's predictions of who would progress in the group phase have turned out to be absolute cobblers, and we'll refund every last penny you paid for our free work.

Darwin Cambridge beat UCL thanks to another bravura buzzing performance by Harrison Whitaker; eight starters, with four picked up by other teammates. The Cambridge side also had a good bonus rate, over 60% for the first time in three matches. UCL were out of it by the second picture round, Josh Mandel again buzzing well, and 55% on the bonuses shows they're good.

A massive tilt towards politics and philosophy questions in this game – previous quarter-finals have logged 5 and 15 questions, Darwin and UCL faced 24 opportunities to score. Very light on geography and history, which both offered 5 scoring ops – that's one starter and a set of bonuses. Also very light on fine arts, with 8 questions.

Bristol beat Open by 135-95, quite the painful game to watch with both sides getting less than 40% of their questions right. Indeed, after the first visual bonuses Bristol went on a run of 3/22 right – all starters – which allowed the Open side to recover their early deficit and briefly take the lead.

Subjective subjects

We mentioned last time that we'd been coding every question into one of several categories. Science accounted for about 22% of questions, Art about 16%. Then it's Entertainment, Geography, History, Literature at 10%, Leisure, Language and Philosophy at 7%, and 3% in the catch-all Other.

This isn't a perfect categorisation: Science in particular covers a lot of ground, and if we repeat this exercise next year, we'll split "science" into organic science (biology, chemistry, things that might stain your shirt when you spill them) and theoretical science (physics, maths, things you can't easily drop on your foot). A quick check suggests questions should be drawn roughly evenly between those two sciences.

There's also a blurry line between Art and Entertainment: this column reckons that anything conveyed through full reproduction is Entertainment (so film, recorded music, television), anything conveyed through notation or part reproduction is Art (that's theatre, written-down classical music, paintings). If someone else tried to categorise every UC question, they would get different results. And we don't intend to call the "entertainment" questions soft – this week's show had quotes about film directors, deep knowledge of the works of occasional film directors, jazz saxophonists, and the career of Lily Gladstone.

Our aim is to see where each team's strengths and weaknesses lie, and whether they are strong in an important category. We can also spot and quantify unusual combinations of questions, such as in the UCL-Trinity quarter-final.

How do we see the remaining matches playing out?

Elimination bracket pits Imperial against Queen's Belfast, and UCL against Open. Here's the career of the first two teams so far.

Imperial are a really strong team, they put in the round's fourth best performance to lose their last match, and continue to have a very strong buzzer game – lots of right answers and only one penalty all series. Queen's were never in their group match, perhaps conserving mental energy for the next shot.

Looking at the subject lists (we've re-coloured to just look at the eight remaining teams), we see Imperial are best in three categories, nearly best in three more; Queen's lead on History and Entertainment. We'd make Imperial favourites here, but not by much.

Both Open and UCL had two decent but not spectacular early matches, and a weaker group opener – the red shows they're below average for the series as a whole. However, UCL's "weak" is not so far different from Open's "decent"; on the other hand, UCL might rely a bit much on Josh Mandel's buzzer.

Open are the best on Language questions – though they've only been asked four throughout their entire time on the show. Both sides seem to be very weak on Science and Literature and History, all favoured by the question-setters, so this could be another low-scoring match. We reckon UCL have enough in their favour.

Winners' bracket is Christ's Cambridge versus Warwick, and Darwin Cambridge against Bristol.

Not much to choose in the top match, which we'll see next week; if we're going to get a rematch in the final, this might be it. Christ's have been remarkably consistent performers, close to 57% overall and 57% bonuses; Warwick made heavy weather of their first group match, but if you're going to have an off day and still win...

Warwick are the best in Art and Philosophy, though Christ's are very good on Science. If Warwick play to their ability, they win, but Christ's will doubtless grind to their usual high standard and will run them close.

Darwin Cambridge play Bristol in the other game.

Both sides have two good performances and one noticeably worse, and have done very well not to pick up many penalties for incorrect interruptions. Harrison Whittaker of Darwin remains the speed king, though Ted Warner of Bristol has been consistently good.

Bristol lead on Geography – they were perfect in three games until missing a starter late in this week's match. Bristol also lead on History and Science, Darwin on Literature and Entertainment. There is a gap in Mr. Whittaker's armour, he's just 1/9 on Science starters. Bristol should have the edge, but could yet be buzzed out.

Finally, the crossover matches: we project Darwin Cambridge against Imperial, which should be a cracker; and Christ's Cambridge versus UCL, which we fear will mark the end of UCL's defence.

This is the last time we plan to present these stats until the series final. Have we worked out the winner's path to victory? We're not seeing it; while some look more likely champions than others, any of the sides could still win it.

In other news

[excited screaming] One Question returned a few weeks ago, the chat-and-discussion show where Claudia Winkleman and a couple of people try to mosey their way towards the correct question leading to one answer. The series has been sitting on a Channel 4 shelf for so long that it's really showing its age – who nowadays remembers the deceased social network "Twttr", or the political career of "Matt Hancock".

When we looked at the first series – back in 2022 – we came to the conclusion that nobody would ever stop the initial phase before it's finished. Surely nobody would be confident enough to say "that's the question!" while there were still some questions to see. We reckoned without Martin and Emily, who were absolutely sure that "Smith" was the answer to "who wrote 101 Dalmatians?" They were right, of course, and took the top prize – £100,000. And we hope Claudia made good on her promise to buy some toasties in the caff.

In other news, Channel 4 has recommissioned Hunted and Celebrity Hunted. Expect to see those at some point this decade.

Race Across London Studio Lambert tell us that they've invented a completely new concept, Race Across the World but on the streets of London. In an idea completely unlike anything anyone's ever seen before, players go from one place to another, picking up clues and going to places where they're giving fun little tasks to do, eventually finding the finish location. Unlike television's Treasure Hunt and long-standing event DASH, players have to manage a budget which they can spend on such useful things as clues, and – well, only on clues. Fastest teams, and those with the most budget left, can win eternal fame on this week's leaderboard.

Yeah, we're being cynical: this blog has been doing puzzle trails and navigation puzzles since the early part of last decade. Lots of people haven't, and if a thin tie-in with a really popular television show is going to expand the audience, and introduce new people to this pastime, we're in favour of it. We're not sure what the link with Race Across the World is, a Central line train to Leyton is hardly as exotic as the fast coach to Ulaanbaatar. On the upside, it's being done with City Days, who know how to make a good puzzle trail, and we know The Crystal Maze Live Experience is in the same sort of space and has done very well.

London Screenings took place, an industry showcase. Pearson Television (Or Whatever They're Calling Themselves This Week) brought Ants, a challenge involving oversized props and time limits and isn't this just The Crystal Maze redux. Pearson (etc) have also bought international rights for Scrabble, which has "gone down a storm" Stateside with almost as many viewers as BBC2's 6.30 filler Robson Green Paints Your Front Door.

They'll be watching The Traitors in Ulaanbaatar, as Hulegu will make a version for Mongolia. Sweet TV will be doing a version where Ukraine finds The Traitors ...and there's a prize for the wittiest and most apt conclusion to that sentence.

Time Is Money for the ITV network, fronted by Sara Davies from Dragons' Den, and co-invented by David Flynn (Small Fortune, The Bank Job). Banijay offer Game of Chairs, a round of musical chairs; it fits well with Celebrity Bear Hunt (hide and seek) and the forthcoming Million Pound Musical Statues.

Quizzy Mondays

James Barrow took the first edition of Mastermind, with the specialist subject of the Isles of Scilly. A bigger subject than it sounded, having geography and geology and history and culture. Hard lines to Alex Grindley, just one point off the win after a really hard round on Derek Jarman's films. Neil Pritchard won the second show, taking the country singer Steve Earle.

A quick Quiz Digest

• Remember King Canute? The king who was so foolish as to try and command the tide to go out? He wasn't that daft: Canute went to the seashore to demonstrate that even he wasn't above nature's law, and some things were beyond his powers. [Mastermind]
• The University Challenge Boat Race takes place every spring in London. It's preceded by a ceremonial coin toss, using a gold sovereign that was found in an antiques shop by long-running commentator John Snagge. [the UKGS Research Unit]
• Jaffa Cakes go hard when they go stale, and that means they're cakes, and hence you don't pay VAT on them. Well, it's reported that Jaffa Cakes go hard when they go stale, but nobody we know has ever let that happen. [Only Connect]
• Back in 1984, Sade was the name of a band. The band took its name from its lead singer, Sade Adu. The singer was always the focus of the band, and by the 1990s, Sade had effectively become a solo singer. We're grouching at House of Games (3) and Mastermind, who have both elided this difference in the past fortnight.

Only Connect has finished, so it's going to be replaced by a new series involving a former politician who ascends ladders to replace rotten roof timbers with new material. Sorry, but we won't be seeing Michael Portillo Gets Up And Makes It Hard Again. In its place, competitive chess in Chess Masters Colon The Endgame (BBC2, Mon). A new series of The Finish Line (BBC1, weekdays), and Scotland's Greatest Escape returns (BBC Scotland, Mon).

The grand finals for Dancing on Ice (ITV, Sun), The Great Pottery Throw Down (C4, Sun), Popmaster TV (More4, Tue), and Landscape Artist of the Year (Artsworld, Wed). Bargain Hunt marks 25 years on air with a special programme (BBC1, Thu). No The 1% Club next week, but we do have Gladiators (BBC1, Sat).

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