OK I’m not going to put the full vid on here as the naughty one on Youtube is cropped and might not be there forever, but Carrot in A Box from the 8 out of 10 Cats Christmas Special might have been the best and funniest ten minutes of television this Christmas. You can find it in the right place here. Somebody is channeling Sangmin here…

As a special Christmas special, I present to you a sequence question. It has little to do with Christmas (although actually there *is* a connection as it turns out), it’s not actually very hard but if you can’t work out what it is (although everyone will get it in the comments I reckon) then come back late on Christmas Day for the answer. Good luck, happy Christmas!

And the connection is they are the first four things that go round like The Windmills Of Your Mind, the song made famous by Noel Harrison on the soundtrack to the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair (Noel is the inadvertant Christmas connection).

Picture 1: Round, Like a circle in a spiral…

Picture 2: … Like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel…

Picture 3: Like a snowball down a mountain…

OK. My initial correct response to this was “or a carnival balloon” feeling that the “like” was implied, but the first acceptable answer given was from Twitter’s Bubbobz who correctly argued that the next thing that’s “like …” is “a carousel that’s turning, running rings around the moon” so I quickly made a photoshop of it. I would be hard pushed not to accept either answer, which just goes to show how hard writing really good questions for Only Connect is.

I hope you all had an acceptably good Christmas Day!

Fronting a talent contest live to millions is something that might look easy, but behind the unflappable exterior the legs are paddling like mad to keep the ship afloat. You have to be the genial host – the conduit of fun! You have to have to keep your opinions largely to yourself, whilst drawing out insight from people paid to give insight.

And then, most importantly of all you have to be able to “do” the reveal. You are the Angel Gabriel in this nativity of talent, the messenger sent to enforce the will of the people above, the first person who will tell you your life has changed for better, or indeed for worse.

Sometimes the information is on a card. Sometimes delivered through an earpiece. The most important thing, after timing your gap for maximum suspense and tension, is to break the tension by delivering the correct name at the end of it.

Poor Steve Harvey. Jump to three minutes in.

 

Embarrassing for all involved. Still, Steve’s a popular man fronting a hugely popular Family Feud revival, and so they’ll be jokes but everyone will probably be over it in the new year.

Luckily for Steve he’s in good company.

It’s 2010 and the grand live finale of Australia’s Next Top Model. Sarah Murdoch hosts. Two contestants remain. For the winner: ad campaign, contract, car, cash and the cover of the magazine. Nobody will remember the loser. Or at least they wouldn’t normally:

 

But it’s not just wacky foreigners who just can’t decide who has actually won a contest. Sometimes it happens to British TV and radio legends as well. In 2007 Eurovision stalwart Terry Wogan had to be corrected by Fearne Cotton as to who had won the right to represent the UK in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in that year’s Making Your Mind Up.

 

As it turns out Wogan might have been right to favour Cyndi over Scooch. Still Wogan’s on the national treasure list so we forgive even if we don’t forget. But woe betide you if you’re a show making a mistake when you’re in decline – the last thing you need is to give an audience more ammo to throw at you. Olly Murs was unfortunate in handling a judging situation on The X Factor correctly earlier this year. Easily laughed off in a show at peak popularity, less easy if people smell blood.

 

We have no doubt it was a genuine mistake rather than something dodgy, but if people want to believe it’s dodgy…

Occasionally it’s not the host’s fault at all and they just have to deal with an unfortunate situation, like Arisa Cox the host of Canada’s Big Brother. Big Brother Canada has a format not unlike the US one, where it’s a power struggle largely decided between themselves but with UK style loose format twists and public votes based around them. However the final is jury style, so the last seven housemates houseguests evicted vote on who they want to win and the decision is final. They cast their vote by placing a key with the choice of their winner into a keybox. Unfortunately one contestant put the wrong key in, gifting that person $100,000, but not before kicking up a fuss.

 

And sometimes the news gets it wrong. Lenny Henry is awarded a knighthood. The footage the UK’s top commercial news service ITN illustrates this with footage of Ainsley Harriot at The Comedy Store.

With thanks to various people on Twitter for suggestions. Merry Cringemas!

Saturday, 7:15pm UK / 8:15pm Europe
ProSieben or naughty internet streaming

#bbsdr

On the 23rd September 2006 a legendary TV event occurred.

Almost ten years later we have reached the final ever Schlag den Raab. Stefan’s going into TV retirement but he will be going with a bang and the musical acts are so secret they’re not on the website yet. But there’s still €1.5m on the line.

And again Bother’s Bar will be providing a live English commentary service throughout the evening, and during the boring bits there will probably be quizzes by TV legends David Bodycombe and Daniel Peake. And whatsmore if we keep our fingers crossed the Finnish internet will work and we’ll be joined by our old stablemate Lewis Murphy for the last hurrah. This is our 19th commentary by my reckoning, we’ve covered every episode live since November 2012 – remind yourselves of how professional we used to be.

We’re likely to be around for five or six hours so do listen in and tweet us. YOU’LL MISS IT WHEN IT’S GONE.

Here is the link to our commentary. This stream is commentary only. You will need to have a naughty stream running at the same time for the visuals. We are likely to be about 15-20 seconds behind the visual stream (and about a full minute behind if you’re watching an actual satellite feed), sorry.

This is the stream we will be watching. 

You can watch live coverage behind the scenes on Myspass.de from 7pm.

Follow us on Twitter for immediate news if something goes wrong. Or because we’re fun guys!!!! @bothersbar, @danielpeake, @davidjbodycombe @ogbajoj

Tschüß!

And as such there are ITV’s biggest celebrities doing their bit in a Xmas knit all day in the hope you will donate for the cause. Of interest:

• Judge Rinder for Text Santa: Featuring the actual real Father Christmas. Let’s hope he’s not the defendant, eh? (2pm)
• 1000 Heartbeats for Text Santa: Keith Lemon and Tess Daly (point of note for our foreign chums, Tess hosts Strictly Come Dancing and is Vernon Kay’s wife) play for charity whilst the evil Paul Farrer and the Heartbeats Strings try to distract them. (3pm)
• Tipping Point for Text Santa: Featuring Mark Foster, Bobby George, Chris Kamara and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. Will their sporting prowess give them an advantage over the machine? It’s all about the timing! (4pm)
• The Chase For Text Santa: TV’s Robert Rinder, Andrea McClean, Brian McFadden, and Denise Robertson play for charity whilst the evil Chaser tries to deny them. (5pm)
• Text Santa Christmas Jumper Day: The main live telethon event. It’d be easy to dismiss this as a bit rubbish, what with Children in Need and Comic Relief being a bit rubbish to watch these days, but last year had some legitimately fun moments and sketches so you never know. (8-11ish)

You can text SANTA5 or SANTA10 to 70760 to donate £5 or £10 through your phone bill, or you can donate what you like online.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been a gameshow based around Star Wars as far as I know.

So here’s an episode of Channel 4’s Star Test featuring Wayne Hussey from goth rock band The Mission.