A while ago, my dad told me to check out a quiz show on the BBC called Only Connect, which I duly did. I watched one episode and gave it up immediately. I didn’t even understand the questions.

I’m one of those people that loves to watch University Challenge in the vain hope that I might get one question right, but Only Connect is on a whole other level. It takes a different kind of mental agility which I really struggle with.

In the end, I watched an episode with my parents, and that was a lot more fun. It’s often a better experience to watch a quiz show with other people around, as it helps aid your own competitiveness, and the conversations that result can also be fascinating. Anyway, I decided that actually I kind of liked this connecting business.

It’s almost impossible to explain how the quiz works, I can only recommend watching it, and once you’ve done so, have a go at the online version of the connecting wall. It’s really, really quite a lot of fun. If you’re not sure what you’re doing (you’re on the same level as me), but the wikipedia article about the subject says:

Each team receives a wall of 16 clues and must figure out a perfect solution, consisting of four connections for four different items. The puzzles are designed to suggest more connections than actually exist, and some clues appear to fit into more than one category. Teams score 1 point for each connection spotted within 2 minutes 30 seconds. They may make unlimited guesses until they have identified two of the four connections, but have only three guesses for the remaining connections. Teams can then score 1 additional point for identifying each connection, even if they did not spot them earlier. Two bonus points, for a total of ten, are earned for a perfect solution.

Anyway, if you feel like having a go, the game can be found here. If you get lots right, don’t come back and tell me!