Only Connect - @PaddyP17 is in the final tonight (p3)

Davo55 · January 28

Belated congrats Paddy. Superb performances from you and your team throughout the series. Probably the most impressively consistently brilliant winners I can remember.

PaddyP17 · January 28

SporadicAddick said:

PaddyP17 said:

MrOneLung said:

PaddyP17 said:

Stig said:

Absolutely brilliant Paddy, well done!

It seemed like a big step up in difficulty for the final. The only round I ever do OK on is the missing vowels, but I didn't get one of them, they were all so fiendish.

The absolute standout was Tom on "Celsius Two Hundred and Thirty Three" - he got it immediately in the studio. Absolutely mind-blowing buzz but thankfully we weren't so impressed that we laid down for the rest of the round.

Really pleased we held it together even after I negged; teams can definitely panic at that stage. Was a great final really. I am proud of my buzz on the music, even if I have fairly been accused of bottling it after identifying the connection straight away!

If anyone here is thinking of applying at all, please, please do. It was a wonderful experience with a fabulous production team that couldn't have made things go any better.

Couple of questions Paddy

In the missing vowels round, do they add a bit of a time gap on what we see, to give the viewers a chance to have look/guess

And do you see the other team do the wall as sometimes feel there are clues from the first wall that would help in the second wall

Hello!

1) Yes, there is a gap added. The audience at home gets to see the vowels before the contestants do. The trick to telling when we have the vowels released to us is when the big table we are sat at goes back to either blue or magenta (depends what side you're on in the studio). When you buzz, it goes white, and things are "frozen out".

2) You don't see the other team do the wall. I think when they are thematically linked, which is often the case, going second would absolutely give an advantage in the solve. The team seeing that wall is the only team to see it before broadcast. It was a real joy to do that final Wall - Dan Peake wrote two absolutely beautiful walls and it was so much fun to see the second one for the first time on Monday.

Would you have done a decent job on the other wall as well?

Good question. I played along with it at home with my other half. It's tainted by the fact that we recognised some of the themes immediately but given how we did on the first, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say we'd have spotted the same connections.

However, they had the six-fer on NATO phonetic alphabet and that's too hard to cycle through efficiently in two and a half minutes (I actually think James got slightly lucky with his approach, but they'd have switched tack if not bearing fruit so it's an academic thought). But I think we'd have got "Great" epithets as I could see three (Borge, Gretzky, Catherine II) immediately, so... yeah, we'd probably have been fine with that in studio too.

Chippycafc · January 28

aliwibble said:

Chippycafc said:

What day was the show on TV. is it on catch up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002qm29/only-connect-series-21-28-final

Great stuff and many thanks. Just watched it on our meal break. Could have thrown a bit of Charlton in there though.

MrOneLung · January 28

Any other shows on your to do list paddy ?

Bournemouth Addick · January 29

Have avoided this thread until I caught up with your team's magnificent performance which I did last night @PaddyP17. It definitely takes me a few episodes every series to get my brain into seeing some of patterns, etc. each show but both sides (well all of you really) were in a different league altogether. Awesome stuff.

Well done mate.