Only Connect

[Patrick Thistle]

VC seems to have it in for Michael Portillo. Or have a thing for Michael Portillo. She's made a few end of show jokes about him. They don't make any sense but she thinks she's funny and as along as one person is amused...

[MsD]

"Viewers of her quiz show Only Connect were thrilled that she interviewed Michael Portillo in the ceremony. During a 2012 episode, she admitted wanting to find the former MP naked in her dressing room, seated on a crate of wine. “I hope he hasn’t seen it,” she joked."

[MsD]

If you Google VIctoria Coren / Michael Portillo, a load of stuff comes up which suggests she's a bit obsessed with him.

... and this is at least the third thing about VCM that's made me think "hmm".

[Patrick Thistle]

Yeah. I don't think she's someone I'd want to work for. Or with. Or have to serve in a restaurant. There's an edge there.

You know when you meet a precocious kid who's always been told that they're really clever and the they've decided that's going to be their thing. They're going to be the clever one. So instead of just being clever, they affect cleverness. It's not enough to be clever, they need to appear clever as well. That.

[Patrick Thistle]

I mean I've not met her. She might be the nicest, kindest person in the world. Sometimes streaks of empathy show through - if a team fuck up a Wall or something.

[MsD]

Can safely say not the kindest person in the world, can’t remember if I’d said why before. Anyway, my bedtime.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I certainly don’t care about being kind to Portillo but this week’s joke (I catch the last round by recording University Challenge) was a 1970s homophobic “The Comedians” special

[tracteurgarcon]

I certainly don’t care about being kind to Portillo but this week’s joke (I catch the last round by recording University Challenge) was a 1970s homophobic “The Comedians” special

I thought the same. I actually had to rewind it and listen again to make sure I'd actually heard it correctly.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It's bizarre. Like the stuff about Whaley-Cohen the question setter. She's losing her way a bit. Still love her, though, she's done so much good stuff. Enjoyed her poker memoir and am a little way into the book she and a friend wrote about trying to produce their own porn movie.

[MsD]

Reasons I don't like her.

Her defence of her brother Giles - loyalty may be a virtue, but not when you're supporting someone as odious as that.
Her sheer snobbery, and her belief that she's some kind of bohemian (from that programme she did on same) when she's actually as conservative as they come.
Her spite - there was a blog to which she greatly contributed, naming and shaming people who go to art openings on the hope of getting a free glass of wine and a canapé. One of the people she helped 'expose' was an artist friend of mine, one of a number of poor (financially) artists who go along to these things in the hope of meeting someone who will buy their art, to support fellow artists and see what's current, or just to eat. One guy used to go as a sort of performance art - seeing how many of these events he could he get into. It's not as though he didn't wash or was rude to people. VCM has obviously never been poor or hungry, and although she's clever, she didn't get where she is on her own, so to try to get inoffensive people banned as 'freeloaders' from social events where much of the food ends up wasted, seems really mean to me. Hungry artists are part of the art scene, just as Modigliani and Van Gogh were, and none of the catering budget was coming out of her pocket.

(I just looked for that blog, and although the offensive remarks show in the search, the pages have gone, so maybe someone thought better of it or was threatened with legal action.)

Oh, just to add, my friend is now getting lots of praise and attention for her latest work, so may have the last laugh.

[Lang Spoon]

I used to really like her schtick (her BBC4 series on Bohemians was a good laugh if questionable on facts) but I can't stand watching her now, her unbearable bullying nerds into embarrassing themselves singing or whatever and the awful attempts at humour.

was it Taylor who related in the Quietus that he'd met her at Oxford and she'd never heard any Beatles songs? That kind of insulation from popular culture seems astounding.

[Patrick Thistle]

I got the Biggles characters on the wall tonight. Mrs Thistle was impressed with me. She didn't know I'd read Biggles as a kid.

[Gangster Octopus]

I hadn't heard of Tug.

[Kevin S]

PSA: just noticed we're three (ed - four now) shows into s17 already.

[nmrfox]

Having got extremely tired of VCM and her tiresome in-jokes/making contestants sing/daft monologues, I got back into Only Connect last season and I'm suspecting that someone on high has told her to tune it down a bit. Whilst she still does the occasional daft or inane aside, it's a lot calmer now and in my view, working a lot better as an enjoyable show. This series so far has been good, though I suspect that as it's the first round, I'm able to answer more questions than I can do in the latter harder rounds.

[Tratorello]

***** SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN EPISODE TWO OF THE CURRENT SERIES (17) *****

One thing I've noticed when it comes to the connecting wall section is that teams often seem to forget to use the red herring answers to help get the answers they haven't already got (if you understand what I mean).

For instance, on the episode I'm watching, the team got that HAN was part of a Chinese dynasties sequence but then they failed to realise that BEN, HOPE, MANO and NAPOLEON were all Solos, now maybe they wouldn't have got it anyway but I find that sometimes by trying to work out which answers would fit into two different categories it helps to see what those categories could be.

I don't think I've explained this very well but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.

[Mumpo]

Having got extremely tired of VCM and her tiresome in-jokes/making contestants sing/daft monologues, I got back into Only Connect last season and I'm suspecting that someone on high has told her to tune it down a bit. Whilst she still does the occasional daft or inane aside, it's a lot calmer now and in my view, working a lot better as an enjoyable show

Either that or she's concentrated her efforts on ruining Taskmaster

[Sam]

Is there a new series of Taskmaster already? They're not uploading this one to YouTube if so ...

[nmrfox]

Is there a new series of Taskmaster already? They're not uploading this one to YouTube if so ...

They've announced the contestants for Series 12 - including VCM - and filming has already begun, but no release date as yet.

[Mumpo]

Rumours abounding that she wore those glasses this week because of a task on Taskmaster. She says no.

[Sam]

They've announced the contestants for Series 12 - including VCM - and filming has already begun, but no release date as yet.

Ah, excellent. We're biding our time by watching series 2 of the New Zealand version while we wait. Glad they're filming already as that means we probably won't get desperate enough for a fix to continue with the Finnish version.

[Guy Profumo]

Just to check something, as we all seem to have developed an animus for the siblings, did we all dislike their father too, or just regard him as being more than a little bit smug?

[Gangster Octopus]

He was a bit smug, but very witty. He could make me laugh.

[BallochSonsFan]

Just to check something, as we all seem to have developed an animus for the siblings, did we all dislike their father too, or just regard him as being more than a little bit smug?

I liked Alan Coren, but I only really know him first hand from The News Quiz on Radio 4. He was on it as I started to become a regular listener. I've got the anthology of his work that was released after he died, but I have to admit that I never got round to finishing it.

I like both Giles and Victoria. I thought Giles was great in the show where the take a family through various decades of life. Sara Cox wasnt a bad replacement, but I preferred Giles. I also think Victoria would be a great permanent host of The News Quiz on R4 or Have I Got News For You on TV.

[Patrick Thistle]

I watched a episode of the new series. Victoria wore some weird hippy style glasses - another Taskmaster dare? She started with one of her unfunny monologues. They'd have room for more missing vowels questions if they binned off that rubbish.