c4countdown

David Williams

Not to mention Joey Jones' teammate, Kevin Keegan.

David Williams

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Tue Jul 22, 2025 3:44 pm i (the square root of -1) and minus i have exactly the same properties and are indistinguishable.

Not true, surely? i + i = 2i. i + (-i) = 0.

David Williams

I don't think it would have been an easy decision if it it had come up in a programme where BIGAMIES had been disallowed. As with most of these, no criticism of the Countdown team. It's the dictionary that's the problem.

David Williams

In my trusty print ODE bigamy is a mass noun, with derivatives bigamist (noun) and bigamous (adjective). No argument there. But there is also an entry for trigamous with derivatives trigamist (noun) and trigamy (noun). No mention of mass noun. So TRIGAMIES is OK. You are the ref . .

David Williams

One of the numbers games came down to (25 x 16) + 10 = 410

My solution was (25 + 16) x 10. Unusual.

David Williams

My car was parked on the road and I was unlocking the boot. There was a stream of traffic on the other side of the road. I heard a screech of brakes behind me. I didn't even look, I just leapt on to the pavement, with sufficient impetus that I bent the key in the lock. As I landed a car knocked my c...

David Williams

How do you remember all this stuff??

David Williams

Is that the highest number necessarily included in a solution ever?

David Williams

I've never seen anyone being timed out for delaying their declaration length before. I remember once previously (years ago) someone was agonising over it and said something like "Can't the other geezer declare first?" and the host (probably Whiteley) was like "Nah, mate - this is how...

David Williams

The term "astronaut" (star sailor) always bugs me a little. They don't really get any closer to our own star, let alone visit any others.

David Williams

Surely she's just missing (missed?) three consecutive days filming. Diary cock-up?

David Williams

Or allow driverless cars to hit you if you're being antisocial. Not hard enough to kill or injure, just enough to make you drop your phone.

David Williams

I'm afraid I've reached an age where increasingly drivers stop and beckon me across even when I don't expect them to. But I do think what is antisocial now wouldn't be in the driverless era. You're dealing with an inanimate object rather than a human you can see (passengers don't count), and what st...

David Williams

But why assume people would do that though? It's just another form of antisocial behaviour. People do engage in antisocial behaviour but it's not something that's just continuously happening everywhere you go, which is pretty much what you're expecting. Why is it antisocial? In the early days of mo...

David Williams

I'm hoping for the day that self-driving cars become good enough to render human drivers obsolete. If this did happen pedestrians wouldn't need to look before crossing a road. Your presence on the pavement would have been noted, so a car would definitely stop before hitting you whatever you did. Mo...

David Williams

I'm hoping for the day that self-driving cars become good enough to render human drivers obsolete. If this did happen pedestrians wouldn't need to look before crossing a road. Your presence on the pavement would have been noted, so a car would definitely stop before hitting you whatever you did. Mo...

David Williams

1999. Before that I thought Countdown was a show presented by William G Stewart where they started with 15 contestants and counted down until there was only one left. I appeared on the show less than a year after I started watching regularly, and I still watch regularly now. What did you think 15 t...

David Williams

1999. Before that I thought Countdown was a show presented by William G Stewart where they started with 15 contestants and counted down until there was only one left. I appeared on the show less than a year after I started watching regularly, and I still watch regularly now.

David Williams

The restaurant rule was brought in because words like BRANDY and LAGER had no count noun specified. Last time I looked they had put count noun meanings in the dictionary. The same is true of many other mass nouns whose plurals were deemed acceptable. The rule is pretty much redundant.

David Williams

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2024 7:52 amlast VP to run America was Lyndon B Johnson , and we know how that turned out

Civil rights and Vietnam. Bit of a mixed bag.

David Williams

There's only one day in a season when games kick off simultaneously. And if you're telling the typical supporter that he's going to miss his train home because there's been a floodlight failure at Brentford and we've got to wait for them to catch up, I agree that this would be an unpopular opinion. ...

David Williams

It would be fairer to simply follow the dictionary, which they did for ‘poteen’, and disallow all plurals of mass nouns which don’t offer a [count noun] sense. After all ODP is based on usage. Agree. The rule was introduced because words like BRANDY and LAGER had no count noun meaning. That was a n...

David Williams

It's not the first time POTEENS has been disallowed and I don't follow the reasoning. If you can allow a plural of every other food and drink what is so different about poteen? You wouldn't order two because it's so strong? Even if that was the case (and there's no reason to think it is) it's allowe...

David Williams

Spain is the only country I know of that has airport-style security to board trains. I can't imagine Spain is any more vulnerable than any other country, so either all countries should do it, or Spain's stance is disproportionate. So why do they do it? Because 193 people were killed by bombs on trai...

David Williams

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did...

David Williams

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did ...

David Williams

R3 Alt. 9*8*8 + 100 = 676

David Williams

If you're postulating a universe where given identical circumstances you will get identical outcomes, then if you were to go back in time that is already inevitable and always has been. It makes no difference. You were already there. Isn't the question really whether the consequences of a butterfly ...

David Williams

Presumably this means Susie asked him to spell it, but that was edited out of the broadcast. Reassuring if that happens regularly. I've often wondered. Words like SEAPING being disallowed "because you need two E's". But if there had been two E's as well as an A would it just be accepted wi...

David Williams

It wasn't spelt out by either the champ or Susie. You'd assume it wasn't done off-screen either. I played it back and Colin's pronunciation was definitely that bit different to the other two, so I'd give the benefit of any doubt to the champ.

David Williams

Anyone else notice that Rachel put PUTRIFY up on the board, and Colin at least pronounced it that way? It's PUTREFY. Not to mention PRETTIFY.

David Williams

Occams Razor didn't help the sub-postmasters much Indeed. Can anyone explain to me in simple terms what was wrong with the Horizon system. If you sell someone £10 worth of stamps, there is £10 more in the till, and £10 worth fewer stamps. If the system is telling you there should be £20 in the till...

David Williams

Occams Razor didn't help the sub-postmasters much Indeed. Can anyone explain to me in simple terms what was wrong with the Horizon system. If you sell someone £10 worth of stamps, there is £10 more in the till, and £10 worth fewer stamps. If the system is telling you there should be £20 in the till...

David Williams

Didn't the letter J disappear for months once, till someone found it down the back of the sofa? Gevin will remember.

David Williams

It's 8:00 isn't it? Hardly that late. It could be nearly 11 pm by the time it finishes. Old people and school children need to go to bed at a reasonable time. It's not like it's in a different time zone Germany is definitely in a different time zone. And the kick-off is even later virtually everywh...

David Williams

What are the rules? I thought they didn't have plurals for conundrums, and SECATEURS is a plural noun, even if it doesn't exist in the singular. If it had been crucial, and the loser claimed to have seen it and rejected it?

David Williams

Normally these things seem to be awarded to celebrities, politicians or party donors Normally? There are many thousands of MBEs and BEMs out there. The British Empire thing is stupid, and the nomination and selection process may be too random, but who would oppose the notion of giving some recognit...

David Williams

For each of the last 3 completed series (or more if the data is easy to obtain), how many points were scored in letters games by the picker compared to the non-picker? Am trying to establish the advantage (if any) that there is between picking and not picking in letters games on TV. Would also be i...

David Williams

In the meantime he can come round and look at my teapot any time he wants.

David Williams

Graeme, this may belong in a different thread, but years ago you gave figures for how the two of them compared at solving the numbers. As I recall, Rachel was better, but when you broke down Carol's performance by age, Carol in her twenties was very similar to Rachel in her twenties. Now that Rachel...

David Williams

I read that it was cancelled because viewing figures had fallen to 700,000. I do sometimes wonder how Countdown survives on rather less than that, and still manages to pay presumably hefty sums to four presenters.

David Williams

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2024 4:36 pm A malevolent look is baleful, not baneful

That's as maybe, but baneful is the adjective derived from bane (a cause of great distress or annoyance), as in "the bane of my life".

David Williams

So UNFLYABLE is a word and BANEFULLY isn't?

David Williams

In those days there was nothing like as much mid-week football as there is now. Fewer European games, fewer internationals. Replays were the middle of the week following the first game, and if necessary they could even play three games in a week. What really killed multiple replays was the police in...

David Williams

Second replays were always at a neutral venue. I remember well that there was a time when either club could elect that the venue was decided by a coin toss. Liverpool were drawn away at Luton at the time they had their infamous plastic pitch and total ban on away fans. The game was a draw. Liverpoo...

David Williams

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 5:34 pm I remember trying to play FUCHSIA at a game of scrabble and had my attempt challenged off twice

If it helps, FUCHSIA is named after someone called Fuchs. And Klaus Fuchs was a Russian spy. That's how I remember that one.

David Williams

Could the same not happen anyway in the non-replay? How do they decide where to have the first match? Couldn't that be at Compton Pauncefoot Rovers' home stadium? Is it the home fixture or the away fixture that most benefits the smaller team? In the FA Cup, for most of the early rounds, the ticket ...

David Williams

Nah we would have got a new government, though maybe 6 months of Truss fucking up the country rather than 6 weeks (was it even that long) My point is that if replacing a leader means a general election, and a leader can only be removed by his party's MPs voting him out - they aren't very likely to ...

David Williams

Relating to my politics thread post I think if a leader of the elected government leaves or dies in office it should be in the constitution that a general election should be triggered within 6 months I disagree with that. We elect individual members of parliament, and the government simply forms fr...

David Williams

I saw FOULEST as well but jargons isn't on Apterous. Maybe a mass noun but possibly someone with Premium access can adjudicate. I can now! Two definitions for Jargon but both are mass nouns. Actually came here to check that the comparative and superlative rule still applies to one-syllable adjectiv...

David Williams

It's possible I was aware of this at the time but forgot, but India apparently overtook China as the most populous country last year. Both countries combined constituting more than a third of the world population is insane Similarly, the US still being third if you added another billion people to i...

David Williams

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 11:55 pm For some reason people learn (25×75+x)×50/100 but not the others as well.

Yes, I was quite pleased with (50*75+2)*25/100 = 938, but they are really all just 25*50*75/100 +/- a fraction of x.

David Williams

I've always assumed the sign is a representation of what you should be able to see through your windscreen. At the minimum, as you drive over a chevron, there should be one chevron clearly in sight and another one appearing from under the car in front. Whatever they mean, that feels like a minimum s...

David Williams

I didn't go to the shell cos the Asda 200m up the road was 1.2p / litre cheaper. The engine warning light on my car came on a few weeks ago. I phoned the dealer. "Filled up with petrol lately?" "Er, yesterday." "Asda, by any chance?" (Asda being by no means my local su...

David Williams

It would be nice if the wider McDonalds-eating community acted in similar fashion.

David Williams

Why did people have to wire their own plugs in the past? Stuff came without a plug on. Insane. I think it was only after the war that the square pin fused plug became standard, and that was only for new houses. I can remember houses with round pin sockets. Maybe we'll go back to wiring our own plug...

David Williams

Good stuff - a very impressive time too! Course sounds lovely. I'm committed to Birkenhead as that's where I'm staying but will look it up next time I'm in the vicinity. Change of heart - unless the weather is really grim, I'm going to try and get to Crosby - it looks lovely! If you're there, look ...

David Williams

Do they even check IDs? Is there anything to prevent me registering as a 100 year old woman? Or using the barcode of an actual 100 year old woman? Are they concerned that there are people with age-related scores greater than 100%? FWIW I did my third ever parkrun yesterday. If anyone's considering C...

David Williams

She looked as if she saw the right answer as she was actually half way through giving the wrong one. I wonder what they'd have done if she'd said something like "UNPOWD ... Oh no, GUNPOWDER". You are the ref . . . I think I'd have to say that she lost, and she shouldn't be able to profit b...

David Williams

There's an article about Jona Lewie in today's Sunday Times. He says that he wrote Stop the Cavalry as an antiwar song, but the single line "wish I was at home for Christmas" meant it made sense to release it in December. It topped the charts in France at the height of summer. It's the Die...

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