So limber up your frontal lobes, and get ready to pit your wits against the toughest quiz on TV. Read more Look Inside Details

For fans of the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective series comes a collection of puzzles inspired by Holmes' most popular cases and adventures.

How to host Only Connect at home

USA [These are the lengths of presidential terms of office in these countries, in decreasing lengths of terms. Accept any country that has a 4 -year presidential term – there are several]

There are currently four books to test your PI skills, with over 100 puzzles in each: Code Breakers, Math & Logic Games, Visual Puzzles, and Lateral Brain Teasers. Yes and he can never think of any. The problem with restaurant critics is they know too much. You’re better off asking a normal person, who’s likely to have chosen their three favourite restaurants a long time ago and just goes to them all the time. I don’t think so. Those are quite serious shows with authoritative, grownup hosts. I love Only Connect deeply but also find the trappings of a TV quiz inherently silly, which our contestants and viewers never mind me making clear. If I hosted one of those big beasts, I’d end up undermining them and upsetting the audience. Like any gambler, I’ll bet on anything at all. There is absolutely no way to answer the second bit without getting in trouble.

I don’t think any of those particular ones are for me. I’m a big fan of Strictly as a viewer. This year, we’re very nervously and proudly watching Robert Webb in it, but he’s a fantastic dancer. I’d be awful and not even in a fun way. People would just pity me and look away awkwardly. You have a huge fanbase from hosting Only Connect . What’s the strangest thing a fan has ever done? And there’s another I’m thinking about around words that all look the same but are pronounced differently. That’s the great thing about the show, no topic is off limits.” With games to play on your own or in teams (clever names, please), The Only Connect Quiz Book will take your quizzing achievements to a new level. Read more Details It depends what you mean by “famous” and what you mean by “best”. Phil Ivey is one of the most famous players in professional poker and probably the best I’ve played against, in terms of skill and flair. Of the people I’ve played who are famous for other things, Zac Goldsmith was probably the best at poker. But in terms of sitting across the table and thinking “Wow” for other reasons, that would be Steve Martin. Or perhaps Roger De Courcey [ventriloquist of Nookie Bear fame]. You haven’t asked who was the worst but I’ll tell you anyway. It was [darts player] Eric Bristow. And you can interpret that any way you like.

I’m not at all competitive, which surprises people because I play high-stakes poker. But that’s a very particular endeavour. I don’t have a competitive soul in general. I play all sorts of games with friends and family for the sheer joy of the thing and I usually want others to win so they feel happy and up for playing again. What I enjoy is playing. The thing I badly want to win at is poker. Of course, your Only Connect withdrawal symptoms won’t go away just like that and you may find setting up a regular quiz night is easier than facing up to how empty your Mondays are without the show. That, having previously imagined myself to be a fairly anxious person, I didn’t have the first idea. There might not be big prize money on Only Connect, just a trophy and a slightly awkward presentation ceremony, but for the teams who do triumph – and I promise this year’s final is a real nail-biter – the winning alone is enough.”Those who stumbled across the show have stayed and I think that’s because it has a sense of fun that isn’t a natural part of the appeal of other Monday night quiz favourites – University Challenge and Mastermind.” Does a saucepan count as a gadget? I bought one of those recently. I was delighted. I’ve been using the same two scratchy old saucepans for about 20 years, just because they aren’t literally broken. It’s a really liberating moment when you allow yourself to upgrade. No, this was pre-internet. It was nothing that awful. I enjoyed it. I have rarely laughed as much. Certainly not while being simultaneously mildly aroused. So limber up your frontal lobes, and get ready to pit your wits against the toughest quiz on TV. Read more Details

It’s hard for me to go to a normal pub quiz now because people expect me to know everything and I can’t risk them finding out the truth. I won’t go on Celebrity Mastermind for much the same reason. Every year, I do the brilliant Christmas pub quiz run by my friends [comedy writers] Shaun Pye and Alan Connor, as part of a team that goes by the hideous name of The Funnymen. It was a stupid joke name we took 20 years ago but I get terrified now that newcomers will think we’ve chosen it with some level of genuine self-description, especially now my husband’s joined the team. It sounds awful. And yet we can’t possibly change it because, I don’t mind telling you, that name is engraved on the cup. SEVERAL TIMES OVER. Organized into a series of discrete 4-round games, each game increases in difficulty, as you try to reach the grand final. It’s like having your very own full series of Only Connect at home. With a healthy dose of trivia between games (What are the greatest ever Only Connect questions? Who is the best team of all time?) and an introduction by presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, The Only Connect Quiz Book will take you skills to a new level. Based on the BBC TV quiz of the same name, with a mix of games from the series and new ones created especially for this book, there’s sure to be something you and your family will enjoy – and it’s suitable for all ages, too. Battle it out drawing together, making connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random. April 1st-12th [the numbers are the positions of the first and last letters in the alphabet of each month. January: J is 10th; Y is 25th in alphabet.]

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Remember, when you choose your team members you will need people who not only have exceptional general knowledge but who have patience and are outstanding lateral thinkers too. It forms part of a quiz triple bill on Monday evenings , with Mastermind and University Challenge . Would you fancy hosting either of those some day? Gather together fellow Only Connect geeks to make up two teams of three. Give yourselves rudimentary team names based on the things you like doing or your occupations, for example.