There's plenty I can't explain about Only Connect, not least the answers, yet the main puzzle is why I like the show quite so much.
For those of you unfamiliar with the programme this is the quiz show for über brainboxes that began on BBC Four and migrated over to BBC Two. It's the show they put on straight after University Challenge just in case you didn't already feel inadequate enough as a human being.
It's infuriating, impossible, ridiculous and yet one of the few shows I truly look forward to each week.
Firstly there's Victoria Coren-Mitchell. She's normally armed with a succession of lame jokes and lines that fall flat in a 'I can't look because I'm cringing so badly' way. She also gives off that smug quizmaster air of knowing the answers, which is easy when you've got it written on a card in front of you.
Still, perhaps she's so awkward because of the slightly oddball guests she tries to coax 'banter' from. The calibre of question attracts a host of smart Alecs who veer from affable geek to smug bugger on the personality Ph scale. Jonathan Wilson, a football writer who I greatly admire, has been on the show this series. He's made a living from obscure knowledge of the wide world of football and an academic approach to the history of football tactics. He's super smart but his team lost. This week saw the elaborately named - and blue haired - Gail La Carbonara in a team which had captain with the most expressive eyes and loosest neck muscles ever. Still, they're all miles cleverer than me.
You know you're in for a tough quiz when, instead of being numbered 1-6, the questions to choose from are represented by Egyptian hieroglyphs. And why do some of the competitors prononuce it 'hor-ned' viper and not just horned? There's undoubtedly a reason only understood by those clever enough to compete.
The quiz is split into four rounds with the first seeing contenders have to guess the connection between four clues. The second revolves around guessing the fourth in a series of linked clues, the third is a jumbled wall of 16 answers to be sorted into four groups and the last is the missing vowels round.
An example of how tough it can be came the other week when the connection between four clues was that they were all forms of Synecdoche . Yeah, that simple. In fact this is a quiz so tough that you are regularly left scratching your head even when the answer has been read out. Synecdoche is, according to an online dictionary, 'a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part', an example from the show being that 'wheels' is used to refer a whole car despite, in fact, being a mere part. I would say 'you learn something every day' but quite when I'll apply this new found knowledge is, just like the question, beyond me.
The wall offers another source of frustration for my viewing experience. Not only is the thing littered with red herrings and devilishly difficult answers but it's also awkward to watch. By that I mean whoever edits the thing annoyingly devotes too much of the screen to the faces of the players, leaving us struggling to see the thing let alone pluck a rare answer from the memory banks.
The final round offers some respite in the sense that it's much easier to get an answer. Here batches of four themed clues appear shorn of their vowels for us to get. It's still pretty tricky but you do have a fighting chance. Yet I've also wondered what the skills of this round have in common with the others. A team with someone sharp at missing vowels can charge past an opponent that has toughed out a fiendish connection or two and win. Is that fair? Maybe I worry about these things too much but it adds another layer of bemusement to my experience.
So why do I watch the show? It's a puzzle worthy of the Only Connect crew themselves. The link between a cringy host, impossible questions, bizarre format and frustrating editing? A cracking show that is infinitely more enjoyable than most game shows.
Maybe it's that rare thrill of 'knowing one' that carries you through? Maybe it's the self justification for the obscure knowledge you possess (the first words of the post-2005 Doctors in Doctor Who, where and when Michael Portillo was MP, the years the monarchs called William came to the throne) that is behind the attraction?
Or maybe it's the sense that you're visiting some strange zoo which houses the super intelligent instead of members of the animal kingdom? This is their feeding time.
If you haven't already seen it I'd truly recommend Only Connect. You'll probably be, at best, baffled by the experience (if not you ought to be on it you clever sod). In spite of all the frustrations it brings I am still left fascinated and enthralled. It draws you in and gets you hooked. Perhaps that's the cleverest part of all...
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