Only Connect clues

[Bertie]

This is the first topic that I've started.

Just wondering if anyone would be interested in one setting questions based on the Only Connect show?

I've made up plenty of walls over the last few years that are in the style of the Only Connect walls. For those who don't know - there's 16 one word clues that you have to put into 4 groups of 4. The extra layers of difficultly being that sometimes there's red herrings that can fit into more than 1 group, and a group or more can sometimes be made up of anagrams, homophones, hidden words within words, etc. So, for easy examples of the latter types: Blackpool, Greening, Blueberry, Redmond - all start with a colour. Flow, Toga, Toast, Garbed - all anagrams of animals (Wolf, Goat, Stoat, Badger).

So would anyone be interested in that if I set the first wall (hopefully my description hasn't put anyone off)?

[Moonraker]

Give it a try, although I can't guarantee I'll participate!

[Bertie]

OK, I'll give it a go.

A reminder of the rules as outlined in the OP:

There's 16 one word clues, that you have to fit into 4 groups of 4. There's potential red herrings - words that could fit into more than 1 of the groups. And some of the groups can be things like surnames of connected people, or just surnames of people that share a first name (or the other way round), anagrams, hidden words inside the longer words, words that you have to add / change a letter in each of the words to make the connection, etc. Hopefully, if all that sounds confusing, it'll be clearer once the first one is posted below.

[Bertie]

It's tough to know which to pick. But I'll go for...

Rochester. Miles. Windsor. Leeds.
Stanwyck. Bush. Ludlow. Corfe.
Castle. Kes. Dover. Frankenstein.
Warwick. Carlisle. Crewe. Eden.


You don't have to solve them all before guessing, as it's tough to narrow them down sometimes with the red herrings. Just have a guess at a group or a connection if you want and I'll respond as quickly as possible to say if it's right, wrong, or on the right lines.

[Barnard]

Perhaps Ludlow, Windsor, Warwick and Carlisle form a group as they are all towns with racecourses.

[Bertie]

No, that's not a group or a connection.
Unlucky though, as the racecourse connection for those 4 is a good one that I didn't know about.

[Barnard]

Bush, Stanwyck, Eden and Castle all have the first name Barbara. Is this correct?

[Bertie]

Yes, that's close enough.
Stanwyck was a red herring for that group. And I went for Windsor as the 4th one.

So the first group:
Barbara... - Bush, Eden, Castle, Windsor.

[shadow]

I'm going for castles - Ludlow, Warwick, Leeds, Corfe

[Bertie]

There's plenty of castles in there.
While it's the first one, I'll accept the connection and the two you spotted (there's plenty of red herrings for that group!)
I went with:
Castles - Ludlow, Warwick, Dover, Rochester.

So that leaves the last two groups and connections.
Remaining clues - Corfe, Frankenstein, Leeds, Kes, Stanwyck, Carlisle, Miles, Crewe.

[Katharine]

Well Corfe and Crewe both make me think of railways, but I can't see any connection with any of the other words.

My husband always watches Only Connect, and I'm always rubbish at it.

[shadow]

I'm always rubbish at getting the connections as well.

No idea on the remaining ones, so a guess at

Towns in England - Corfe, Leeds, Carlisle, Crewe

[Bertie]

No one is close to the last two groups / connections yet.
I'll give the hint that they're both 'word' ones - in that they're the kind you need to do things like change a letter, or look for hidden words, names, etc, within each of the 4 clues.
For one of the groups, think about Ship of Adventure.

[Barnard]

I have never watched a complete episode of Only Connect. I only see the last couple of minutes while waiting for University Challenge to start. I think the presenter of Only Connect is too smug and the ‘witty’ comments she makes at the end of the programme are not funny. And so, I shall stick to University Challenge.

[Katharine]

Frankenstein, Leeds, Stanwyck, Carlisle - the connection being that the first part for all of them is a male name? (ie, Frank, Lee, Stan and Carl)