My Time on Only Connect 2014...Part 2 - vs The Record Collectors

We took on The Record Collectors in a first round match on Only Connect last night.

The below post is going to contain spoilers but if you want to watch the episode it will be on Iplayer for the next 7 days HERE

So, following on from the last post, we arrived at the Studio and were made to feel very comfortable indeed and after a practice game we were ready to go. There was some waiting around for Victoria Coren to arrive but as soon as she came into the studio we pretty much started filming.

Seeing our opponents, we knew it was going to be a hard fought game. University Challenge winners and experience quizzers all round. Indeed you may have seen Rachel on Mastermind and Fifteen to One recently and heard her in the same heat of this years Brain of Britain as myself.

The match started off well for The Record Collectors as they nailed the first question regarding the single dot and we got stuck on identifying the origins of American city names. As the round went on we struggled to find anything and the Record Collectors raced to a 6-1 lead. Whether the rub of the questions fell either way is beyond the point. We knew we had work to do! The music question was particularly annoying as we knew 3/4 songs between us. On a personal note I got very hung up on the title of the Arctic Monkeys song which I uttered straight away then began to doubt myself all the time ignoring what the song was about. If that would have clicked in along with Lovely Ladies I may have twigged but a silly error of getting locked up in the title and trying to link to the others meant time was gone. Brendan pulling out Road Runner was a superb answer and I certainly was no where near with that one.

Into the second round then and there was work to be done. We had "401: Weather" after the first clue so were glad to pick up at least a bonus to start the round off well. I don't remember my thought processes for the Losing US Tickets questions but I don't think we got close in discussion. Similar for the Harriet VII questions which threw us massively. Bridge was pretty unplayable for a 5-pointer, Skat meant nothing to us but Cribbage made it obvious. The end of the round came and we had closed the gap a little and trailed 8-5.

The practice wall had went pretty well for us and Chris spotted Berliner and the sweet connection which was a great start and then followed it up with Tips leaving the last portion of the round to find out the Cats and Dolls. Nothing stood out and even though we knew what we were looking for we couldn't nail the right combination. Obviously, we hadn't seen the Record Collecters wall until last night and they did superbly to round off a full house and build a lead 18-11/

9 points is a lot to make up and I hadn't realised that during the game the producers decide how long each Missing Vowels will last. I think this was a 2 minute round and this was announced after the walls had been played. Maybe it is decided at some other point but Brendan and Chris are extremely quick on the buzzer so 2 minutes gave a good amount of time. We had done well on the buzzer in practice so knew we could narrow the gap.

Indeed Brendan and Chris raced through this round...Joseph Musicals, Perfumes....we were unaware until the very end of the show that we had actually tied it at 20-20. A last burst from Record Collectors though sealed the win with a 24-19 scoreline. Many congratulations to Record Collectors.