Month: July 2017

Only Connect

Easily one of the best quiz programs on television, UK’s Only Connect asks contestants to determine the connection between four seemingly random clues, revealed one at a time. A sample question from the first series:

  • A hammer and feather
  • Six US flags
  • Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes
  • Two golf balls

The connection? (Wait for it…) “Items left on the moon.”

Some of the questions are esoteric, and some impossible to answer for someone without ample local UK knowledge, but every game has had at least a question or two I was able to take a stab at answering. That’s the gold standard for any sort of quiz shows: it’s possible for the audience to participate, but difficult.

The downside, of course, is there are no reliable sources to watch it in the US. Moving directly to England may be the only rational solution.

Video

All the Stations

I’ve become a little obsessed with All the Stations, in which a pair of YouTubers are journeying to all 2,563 railway stations in Great Britain. They’re not getting out at every station, but are at terminus stations and major interchanges, so in addition to a lot of footage of railways (and who doesn’t need a lot of footage of railways), you also see local people and landmarks and castles (so many castles).

That settles it. I need to visit these places.