Only Connect’s on tonight

By | September 23, 2013

New series after University Challenge, 8:30 on BBC4. Enjoy it before it goes all mainstream.

I’m sure there was something else I was going to bring up but I’ve forgotten it.

Edit: Oh that was it, not gameshow but tangentally related as likely of interest – excellent and funny board game review site Shut Up and Sit Down are attempting some crowdfunding. If you like what they do it’s worth chucking them a few quid, and if you don’t know what they do you should rectify that, it has basically single-handedly rejuvinated my interest in the hobby.

Also friend of the bar, BBBOTS digiman and CELEBRITY The Line Up contestant Ian Symes is in a sitcom called A Brief History of Time Travel which is a thing that you can buy. Also Robert Llewellyn off of Scrapheap Challenge is in it.

12 thoughts on “Only Connect’s on tonight

  1. Daniel Peake

    So, according to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24202939 – there’s a slight change in how the Eurovision Song Contest will work next year.

    Basically, because of allegations of vote buying in the jury members, next year they will reveal the identities of the jury BEFORE the song contest, rather than AFTER as it usually has done.

    Now, is it me, or does this mean it’s easier to find out who the jury members are and then go and bribe them?!

    One more slight change – individual jury member scores will be available after the contest (that one should help).

    Reply
  2. Mart with a Y not an I

    But that is just a minor cosmetic change, whilst ignoring the real herd of elephants in the room of Eurovision voting which is – they simply have to stop (or greatly reduce as much as possible) neighbourly voting, and this won’t stop it.

    Elsewhere on the inter web, I’ve made a couple of suggestions which would help. Here they are.
    1 – No country can award more than 6 to a country that borders theirs either by land or sea.
    Or
    2 – Separate out the loosing semi finalists (and non takers apart) into 4 graphically diverse groups, then combine those countries marks in to the usual 1-8, 10, 12 plus and additional 15 and 20.

    Option 2 is more simple to do on the fly, and would help level the playing field and try and drag it back to a singing competition rather than an example of voting for another country because you just happened to be next to each other on the overhead view of Google Maps.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Well number one is a bit rubbish in that it arbitrarily penalises large countries and countries that border large countries.

      Reply
      1. Mark D

        I never really understood the frustration at voting for neighbours. It is likely that countries geographically close will share similar cultural preferences (i.e. musical taste).

        I would suspect that even if the Eurovision was done blind where no-one knew which country was which the results would be similar.

        it is often the best song that wins and always one of the better songs.

        Reply
      2. Mart with a Y not a I

        Thank you Brig. Exactly the point I was making. Bigger countries with many land borders are more likely to ignore a good song/performace and just vote for ‘them next door’

        In my Direct land/sea borders system the UK therefore would not be able to give more than 6 to : – France, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Germany.
        Obviously there is nothing to stop a mass ring-in for Ireland, but with a good number crunching excel speadsheet working away in the background, that would be leveled out before the marks are typed up onto Scott Mills autocue..

        In response to MarkD, the frustation lies in the fact that you can predict with some degree of increasing purple faced rage and which countries are going to give the 12, before, the inane and awkard pre-mark announcement ‘chat’ is over – and then be totally correct (see, Greece & Cyprus, awarding of the 12 marks through history).

        They tried ‘dynamic’ awarding of the votes over the past couple of years, to smooth out the treadmill of 12’s, and to try and increase the expectation of a ‘up on the rails’ winner, when in all reality one country has already bagged the win at the half way stage. Didn’t work.

        Final thought from me on Eurovision.
        Please BBC, next year put someone who can use a calculator in the comms box with Graham Norton for the voting awards, to do the sums.
        He was utterly hopeless this year, claiming someone (Ukraine?) could still win when Denmark were so far over the winning line, they were already thumbing through the Copenhagen telephone directory looking for suitable indoor concert venues for 2014 even before the last 3 countries had awarded the marks.

        Reply
        1. Nico W.

          There is the same problem with the calculations in Germany as well. But we have to get rid off our host anyway, as he is just rude against the ones he doesn’t like (He is very conservative and you can tell he doesn’t like gay people by most of his comments), but not rude against the ones that are actually really funny or bad. He is one of the worst hosts in Germany ever! (I think it’s the reason why he may only host this event and nothing else but some minor radio shows every year.)

          Reply
  3. David (AU)

    How about regional semis? Between the glut of countries in the former communist regions an east/west divide won’t work (even before you consider countries like Finland that fit better in the wrong regional group), but as evidenced with this year’s results that’s not the problem. A north/south divide would work better, but even then you’d probably never get a country like Portugal out of the semis when it’s competing with no bloc against however many ex-Yugoslav countries there are now.

    So what about splitting semi-finalists into six smaller groups (say, Scandinavia, Western Europe, Central Europe, North-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and ex-Yugoslavia), putting three groups on in each semi, and having countries award 1, 2, 3, and 5 to their favourite four acts in each group? It would help stem the bloc voting very quickly if it was structured so that voting en masse for a neighbouring country was a direct handicap to your qualifying for the final, and yet there’s no actual handicap against bigger countries.

    Reply
        1. Brig Bother Post author

          Indeed, I wondered if it had been quietly shelved which I thought would be unusual for a BBC show, but there we are.

          Reply

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