I would not be surprised if they did not even actually work for Talkback and were just on a freelance contract.

Got the logo on the 2nd picture (squint and it's obvious). Can't believe nobody got the sporting biographies ( I've read the John McEnroe book).
Btw lots of 'didn't Victoria / Anne look lovely' from the male posters on here! I quite liked the sweet smile of the Benedict Cumberbatch lookalike ( not as pretty as BC but with a nice smile) on the QI elves team.

Enjoyable enough quiz, but the two things that annoy me about it are the pretentious use of Egyptian hieroglyphs (especially the 'hornéd viper') and the scoring if the wall whereby the 8th correct answer is worth 3 points.

The first couple of series used Greek letters; they were accused of being pretentious and deliberately changed them to something even more pretentious - Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I don't understand your problem with the scoring of the wall. They just get a bonus for getting the whole thing right.

And if you want pretentious, it's spelt hornèd, not hornéd.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-...e-the-qi-elves

Blimey, that seems like a pretty small thing to get annoyed about. It seems fair enough to me that you get an extra little bonus for completing the wall - it's hardly the one show to give you a bonus for a 'perfect round'. What about Countdown - eight points for an eight-letter word but 18 for a nine-letter word? (Which is basically pretty similar to the 50-point bonus for playing all seven tiles on your rack in Scrabble.)

Meet the Elves: http://qi.com/people/elves

I agree with the pronunciation being needlessly pretentious. It was quite funny when they made the deliberate move to something even more pretentious than the original Greek letters. But to BBC2 OC newbies who're unaware of the reason, it'll just seem silly. They should have at least changed the pronunciation for the move to BBC2.

I don't see either as particularly pretentious, just different, perhaps a little obscure, but as an astronomer I use the Greek letters all the time. The title of the programme is pretentious.

Its pretentiousness (and utter disregard for those who complain about it) is one of the most refreshing things about OC imo. The fact it’s unapologetic about being an intellectual quiz is great, and whilst some may feel it’s been dumbed down a little since its early days it’s certainly nowhere near the level of “in it to win it” or any of the flashier quiz shows.

It depends on the team captain. Some of them saying horned viper even when it was on BBC4.

I think they should have change to something like Latin or Aramaic

Erm no. I somehow doubt there'll be anyone in the entire world who thinks OC is now on the same difficulty level as In It To Win It....

Hi guys. I need to share something with you that I think is pretty amazing... I was out walking my dog before the show and was thinking about OC and quiz questions. I WAS THINKING ABOUT A QUESTION WHERE IT WAS THE FOUR US STATES WITH 'NEW' AT THE BEGINNING. I'm not kidding - amazing, right?

I was like > when it came up as a question. And then I was like > and then I was like >

Good score this week for the winning team, but it was an easier week. I know this because I got several right before they had spluttered out the answer.

Also, does anyone think they add time to the missing vowels round? What I mean is, I find the missing vowels round has been easy this series, and I am a silly person. I get plenty of them straight away. And I am a fool.

I understand that they have to reach across and buzz (it is easier for me to 'think' it on my sofa than for them to 'think, buzz and say' in the studio) but I do feel that there are several seconds where they are staring at obvious answers. I guess on some occasions they are looking for something harder than what it is, but in general I wonder if they edit in a pause for us to read the vowels at home and feel involved. Just a thought.

Nice to see Zorko back!

Seems to have dropped Morley though. Presumably they didn't keep much in touch after UC!

Can anyone explain the sequence in the royal wedding dress question in last night's show?

It definitely wasn't *all* royal weddings because it skipped Anne, Andrew and Edward. Then I wondered if it was weddings of the first in line to the throne, but that can't be right because the last one was William and Kate. I think VCM said something like "future monarchs" but that still seems vague. Oldest sibling maybe? I think the sequence was 1947 (Elizabeth and Philip), 1981 (Charles and Diana), 2005 (Charles and Camilla) and 2011 (William and Kate).

Anybody...?

I can't believe that I didn't get the Hitchhikers books connection. I have read them all many times and know them off by heart. Sometimes you are just too close to an answer to see it.

Dress designers for the weddings of future monarchs

Norman Hartnell designed the wedding dress for Princess Elizabeth, who would then go on to become Queen.

David & Elizabeth Emanuel designed the wedding dress for Lady Diana Spencer, who had she stayed married & lived would have been Queen Diana to King Charles.

Robinson Valentine designed the wedding dress/outfit for Camilla Parker-Bowles, who will become queen when Prince Charles takes the throne.

Sarah Burton designed Catherine Middleton’s wedding dress, and she will become Queen Catherine to King William.

Royal weddings have happened inbetween, but these were not weddings of future monarchs (excepting some terrible fate befalling the royal family and meaning the 22nd-in-line to the throne becomes monarch)

But wouldn't Sarah have been queen to Andrew when he ascended the throne, assuming they'd stayed together? Ditto Sophie/Edward? Andrew and Edward are still future monarchs surely, by degree?

I'm usually rubbish at this show but I did get the Radiohead connection

I got that one right (partly because it was the only really big royal wedding of recent times, and so I could work out the year and the designer!) but, like you, I was puzzled as to why it was those four in particular. Princess Anne didn't exactly go for a big ceremony the second time, so it was perhaps understandable to miss her out. But Fergie and Sophie had the full works for their weddings. Are Princes Andrew and Edward no longer royalty??

William isn't next in line to the throne, so why put him in? Was it just royal weddings restricted to the first two in line or something?? I suppose you were expected to work out that it was the 'major' royal weddings based on the sheer number of years in between each of the options. All the same, there was no real logic to it.

I think Charles' second wedding should have been the last one, and then we could have said that it was weddings of the next in line to the throne. (Admittedly, that would have required knowing a pretty obscure dress designer though, whereas at least the Emmanuels and Sarah Burton have been highly publicised!) Oh well.

Shame DB isn't still in charge. He would probably have strolled along and explained it to us!

I agree it's a bit of a tenuous connection. You could argue without the Kate/William answer it would have been weddings of 2nd-in-line royals, but William being 3rd-in-line scuppers that.

I suppose "future monarchs" was interpreted as “those who are the in all probability going to ascend the throne in the future”, rather than “will potentially ascend the throne if there’s a massive disaster that wipes out half the royal family”.

It's Royal weddings in the order of succession to the throne. They started with the Queen when she was Princess Elizabeth so the next three in the sequence are Charles and Diana, Charles and Camilla then William and Kate. Andrew would have been 5th, Edward 8th and Anne 11th.

It is in order of the line of succession.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/ThecurrentRo.../Overview.aspx

Charles got in there twice because he's been married twice. Might have been difficult if he hadn't because George is next after William and he's a bit young to be thinking about wedding dresses

That makes a lot more sense than the garbled rubbish I was coming out with

I think I was trying to get at the same thing but the thoughts just didn't quite "connect" in my head but I decided to post anyway lol.