alanconnor.com/log

Great fun working with Robbie again and Jonny and Georgie on this:

• Interview in the Times
• Special Guardian puzzle

PREORDER: Local bookshop | Amazon | Waterstones | more

Travel around these islands enjoying our many kinds of rain and the words we use for them.

‘Alan knows everything, knows everyone, and writes beautifully too.’ – Richard Osman

‘I’ve always been in awe of Alan Connor: the man with the contents of the Oxford English
Dictionary stored just above his left eyebrow … and he’s quite funny too.’ – Rory Cellan-Jones

‘A gorgeous, funny tour of the British Isles as seen from the clouds.’ – Konnie Huq

Goodreads | Librarything
BBC Books, 14 Nov 2024
ISBN: 9781785948541, 320 pages, £16.99

Good times being profiled by James Peak for this documentary.

And an Everyman puzzle to match.

Radio 4, 7 April 2024, 1915

Choose your way through the story, plus some new games, out 23 November:

I’m right at the end of today’s episode:

Series seven:

On bookshelves 22 September.

Series six:

More detail than you could reasonably expect on Inside No 9’s Riddle of the Sphinx and Two Girls, One on Each Knee …

… in this podcast episode.

• My other books

Series four starts on 12 October. Happily (for me), the question-editor bit of production preceded … the Unpleasantness.

See also: my book for Penguin, The Joy of Quiz. And, to a lesser extent, the official spin-off book.

You should watch this episode first …

… then listen to the podcast to discover my indirect association.

The book in question is The Joy of Quiz.

See also: The Riddle of the Sphinx

For every Shipping Forecast area, you find the places on the map indicated by various clues. Join the places to form the shapes of letters. Join the letters to form a sea shanty.

Out 5 November from your local bookshop / Penguin / Waterstones / Amazon etc.

It also gives a flavour of what it’s like to be in each of Dogger, Fisher, German Bight…

• BBC Books / Ebury Publishing
• ISBN: 9781785945106
• 240 pages; 216 x 135 mm
• Goodreads · LibraryThing
• Previously: Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword; The Joy of Quiz

Crikey.

Series three of House of Games; 100 episodes.

See also: my book for Penguin, The Joy of Quiz

I am proud of this book, which comes out on 17 October.

It has some games from the TV show, and some new ones and, with a couple of exceptions, all new questions. There are some imaginary behind-the-scenes conversations and general nonsense.

• Previously: Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword; The Joy of Quiz
• £14.99 RRP hardback
• 17 October 2019 hardback
• BBC Books
• ISBN: 1785944622 and 978-1785944628

Blurb:

Do you know how many post boxes there are in the UK? Could you guess how many times the word ‘goat’ appeara in the King James Version of the bible? Fancy playing a game of charades where all of the books, films and plays are entirely made up? Now, look around the room. Is anyone there the kind of person who’ll say ‘I just don’t understand this’, when faced with something that’s not just perfectly easy to understand, but is … well, fun? Ask them to leave. Have they gone? Good. Now welcome inside the House of Games.

A Smashed Hits about (the) Eagles’ Hotel California:

“Vaguery is the primary tool of songwriters,” Frey told a journalist during a 2003 pro-am golf tournament in California’s Pebbel Beach, where he was partnered with Huey Lewis. “It works, it means whatever the listener wants it to mean.”

Sources: History of the Eagles; Hit Story: It All Started Because Of Rattlesnakes; Rockin’ ‘Round The Round, SF Gate; Jennifer Parker’s McBusted: The Story of the World’s Biggest Super Band and this lovely data collection from Southern California Public Radio.

• More Smashed Hits
• The Magus
• Image: San Francisco, 2006

A quick piece for the BBC about double negatives:

It’s hard to understate how often we find ourselves using two negatives when we don’t mean to – in fact, this sentence begins with a common example

See also:

• Election Lexicon | BBC
• Guardian crossword blog

Series two begins on BBC2 today.

particularly pleasing… This is trivia, plus; it requires a bit of wit, and imagination, even, certainly silliness — Sam Wollaston, Guardian

…just how much I loved BBC2’s new quiz show Richard Osman’s House of Games… Like all the best TV quizzes, ROHOG scores very highly on the playalongability chart – so the half hour fair flies by — Ian Hyland, Mirror

the BBC’s new infectiously funny prime time show… deserves praise for finding a sweet spot which fits all audiences — Adam Bloodworth, Metro

it shouldn’t be a surprise that [Richard Osman’s House of Games] is terrific… The victor gets to choose between a dartboard, pasta maker, cushion and dressing gown, but really, we’re all winners here — Robert Epstein, Independent

viewers couldn’t stop laughing… The show’s debut was a success by all means as fans loved Richard’s new format — Helen Daly, Express

• BBC Two, 6pm weeknights from Mon 29 May
• See also: my book, The Joy of Quiz
• Also in quiz: Only Connect

A piece for BBC News about the use of Stand By Me at the royal wedding:

That’s why Harry and Meghan’s choice of song meant more than if they’d gone with, say, Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You. And the performance by the Kingdom Choir takes Stand By Me back further still, re-infusing it with the defiance as well as the devotion of gospel.

(more…)

I am a panellist on Heat Map this Sunday.

Under discussion: cultural appropriation, Kanye West and The Communist Manifesto.

My choice of intro music:

• See also: 5Live’s Arts Club
• Other episodes
• Image from Kew Bridge series