c4countdown

Fred Mumford

Only ever went back for a bungled break-in attempt. Going back to your old school to teach seems a remarkably dull and unambitious thing to do. Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society had no credibility at all with his carpe diem and make your lives extraordinary spiel. Practise what you pre...

Fred Mumford

Who is on your ignore list? I've never added anyone. Nor had I until about 4 years ago. Far too many to name, though quite a few have subsequently been banned so I could probably cull the list quite a bit. Typically I like to avoid the rabid, venomous new type of fan, obsessed with a particular dri...

Fred Mumford

Good point re sennafan24, haven't seen him around much.

Sterzo is great, although he has been going to races since the 1950s so he was in no danger of being on my shortlist for you.

Fred Mumford

I suppose I would have considered members such as Risil, F1Frog, cpbell, gillesfan76, sennafan24, Blundle, JimmyClark, eab, NewMrMe on a shortlist. Bound to have forgotten a few others. Hopefully nothing too offensive there, none of them are on my ignore list (an increasingly impressive achievement ...

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:42 pmWhat's the conclusion then?

If I had listed 10 suspects, you would probably have been on the list, but it was by no means obvious. You're obviously much better at this than I am.

I'm not completely convinced you really had that dream though!

Fred Mumford

I wonder if there is a Venn Diagram for Countdown ears who like formula 1 Also what did you think of F1 film Fred? I did form the impression there are quite a few F1 fans here yet there's no active thread about it. Haven't seen the film yet, and probably won't before it is shown on terrestrial TV. ...

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 4:36 pm I'll post something in the stats thread in the next few days as some sort of clue, and you can reply in a similar manner if you want.

Sounds good. I will let you know how surprised I am by your identity.

Fred Mumford

It does not. Everyone posts in that thread. And hardly any of it is crazy, often not F1, and occasionally not even a sodding statistic. What you need to do is include some subtle clue in the next post you make over there, and if I can't pick up on it then I don't deserve to know. Or we could both ag...

Fred Mumford

If you aren't one of the people you linked to then I have no idea. That place must have thousands of active members. It would be much easier the other way round, discovering a Countdowner over there and having to work out who they are on here.

Fred Mumford

Fair enough. Do you post there often enough that I should be able to work out who you are? (If not, then just tell me!)

Fred Mumford

I have a chart, the first column being a list of all the Autosport forumers and the second column being the probability of being Fred Mumford, and the top name begins with C. Yep, sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do. I want to see the top 5, then I will mull over whether to be offended or not.

Fred Mumford

I met Fred Mumford at some Countdown event or something. I asked him what his user name was on the Autosport forum. He was a bit coy about it. I asked if it began with C and he said no, which blew my theory out of the water What did I look like? I do often get called something beginning with a C, b...

Fred Mumford

Any computer analysis will tell you that 2 large is the easiest selection, but for humans it can indeed be tricky because with 1 large there is an obvious first plan of attack whereas with 2 large it's not always obvious where to start.

It's the Lotus 77 of number selections.

Fred Mumford

Are you guys being serious? I should shake my head and mutter something under my breath about "typical millennials" but maybe the term really did go for a burton about 40 years ago and I never realised. I'm sure I've used it fairly recently without getting any quizzical looks though.

Fred Mumford

The Autosport forum is down now for some reason. That was a max users exceeded error too, perhaps some kind of bot attack on both sites? Having been a regular poster on that forum for 20 years, that's the first time I can remember any forum meltdown for that reason. Did Norris criticise Max or some...

Fred Mumford

Easier for a pole vaulter to do that than for most other events though. If Bob Beamon could have worked up to 8.90m in 1cm increments he'd have broken the world record over 50 times.

Fred Mumford

Did you watch the very first edition on 2nd of November 1982? Yes, and although it did sound like the kind of programme I would like, the main reason for watching was obviously to see the launch of a new channel. I think I did continue to watch Countdown for the next few weeks but after that I doub...

Fred Mumford

I had the same impression.

Fred Mumford

Stewart Gordon wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 12:43 am
JackHurst wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 9:19 pm FAQs
What does this stand for?

Lots of people have been asking that.

Fred Mumford

If you can read that then what do you need the glasses for?

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 9:03 am Top ten singles in 1984 is better somehow than top 10 singles in 1984

This made me think of another one: why do we not put a comma to separate the thousands when talking about years?

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:16 pm Edit - Perez, Ascari, Clark? Presumably Ascari and Clark got the max points from the best x of y scoring. And Perez is Max's team-mate.

Yes on Ascari and Clark. They fit the achievement better and also have the advantage of being less transient. In 5 years time the Sergio name may confuse.

Fred Mumford

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:42 pm A "Sergio game", perhaps?

I vote for an "Alberto" game (a "Jim" game is also appropriate but the name is perhaps too common), where someone gets a maximum possible points score without getting the best possible result in every round.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:24 am That you can buy mince pies with sell by dates before Christmas

I especially recommend Morrisons, where you can buy mince pies with sell by dates three weeks before you buy them

Fred Mumford

In fairness I would trust that website more for Countdown queries than F1 queries. The first thing I ever looked up on it was wrong.

Fred Mumford

I think when aged about 12 I wondered why the word was used without the "a" infront and was told that the word means 10,000 and so should have the same grammatical treatment. It had never been an issue for me since. Thanks.

Fred Mumford

Art Garfunkel's enormous moustache on the album cover photo for Bridge over Troubled Water.

Fred Mumford

Racing drivers often made that claim, especially in the days when the cars caught fire easily and the marshals wore t-shirts and smoked. I didn't know road users argued against belts on safety grounds, I assumed it was just about comfort and infringements of civil liberties etc.

Fred Mumford

A lot of drivers hated it. I spent part of January 31st 1983 gesticulating to unbelted drivers, correctly anticipating how much it would wind them up. Clearly belts are uncomfortable and restricting. That's why. How anyone could think the downsides outweigh the upsides is beyond me though.

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 7:08 pm Race walking is a joke event.

It's not even proper walking, it's basically "nearly running".

Whoever invented it should be forced to participate in a new event, "nearly swimming".

Fred Mumford

If you get the correct word first time on Wordle it calls you a genius. That's the last thing you are, you're either very lucky or a cheat. No skill involved.

Fred Mumford

There may be something important I've not considered, I suppose one concern is that reaction times would immediately be vastly improved across the board, which for sprint races in particular would mean a huge improvement in everyone's times, making comparisons to past performances impossible. Obvio...

Fred Mumford

Since Yesterday was about nuclear war apparently.

I even took years to get what Enola Gay and I Don't Like Mondays were about.

Fred Mumford

He was the one defender who had the measure of George Best.

Fred Mumford

The main character in Kokotoni Wilf looked kind of religious. Not Jesus, but thought it was worth a mention for elimination purposes.

Fred Mumford

Paul Anderson wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 12:53 pm Ha, at least it's catchy, unlike your Mrs Lincoln one, whatever that means...sounds awfully parochial

The reference is to Abraham Lincoln's assassination in a theatre, so you can probably deduce when to use it from that.

Fred Mumford

Paul Anderson wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 9:32 am Wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire?

That's a terrible saying, as I am not sure which option is worse.

Two I like are " yes Mrs Lincoln, but apart from that did you enjoy the play?" and "about as much use as a snooze button on a smoke alarm".

Fred Mumford

I was in the "got three of them quickly, but took ages on the final one" club, but would be interested to know if we all struggled on the same number. The one that took me longest was the third in Callum's list, possibly because with the others I sort of knew those numbers must be gettable...

Fred Mumford

It's like bringing in Mo Farah to do the athletics because he's a superstar athlete, but unfortunately the event required on the show is the 100m sprint. Actually I suppose it isn't really like that at all, but the point is that whilst there is some correlation between maths academic achievement and...

Fred Mumford

I noticed a few people failed on yesterday's Wordle (CATER). They got the ATER and ran out of guesses for the first letter. I went for WHEEL. Took out WATER, HATER and LATER in one go. That's how you're supposed to play, losers. I had REACT after 2 goes (5 yellows), and it took me an embarrassingly...

Fred Mumford

Philip A wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:50 pm R13: can stick the R on SUICIDE for SUICIDER.

That sounds like someone who does it on a regular basis.

Fred Mumford

Does the Flat Earth Society have a Global President?

Fred Mumford

British Bulldog played with professional teams.

Monkey tennis.

Fred Mumford

I seem to remember years ago Carol Vorderman calculating that the dead outnumber the living by 10 to 1. Whether this was on Countdown, How 2 or something else, I can't remember. I can remember a bit more than you about this in that I know it wasn't on Countdown, but can't recall what show it was. I...

Fred Mumford

I thought factoids were things that aren't really true.

Fred Mumford

I guessed you would know that.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:10 pm The Champions League final will no longer be in St Petersberg

The Russian GP might be off but Indycar is racing at St Petersburg this weekend guilt free.

Fred Mumford

Disagree about Grange Hill, I've been watching the very early series recently and am impressed by the writing - realism, humour and the absence of anything preachy.

I'm surprised they didn't bother doing re-takes whenever someone fluffed their lines though.

Fred Mumford

There's similar issues with that question about someone who has 2 kids and at least 1 is a boy - what is the probability of them both being boys? Clearly the answer isn't particularly interesting if it's 1/2, so they want the correct answer to be 1/3 - but that entirely depends on how the question i...

Fred Mumford

I'd also be interested to see how important you think the wording of the problem is It's critical. The way you have worded the puzzle, switching would not necessarily change your chances. You have to emphasise that Monty will always open an empty door. For me the biggest puzzle about the Monty Hall...

Fred Mumford

Dylan Taylor scored a debut 120 out of a max 121, so that can only be 14 maxes.

Fred Mumford

Maybe slightly under 90% if someone flags it up on a forum that gets frequented by the series producer.

Fred Mumford

Have watched this a few times now, and I find myself wondering why they bother having questions on it at all. None of the contestants ever seem to know anything, and are almost always just picking up bags at random - often displaying poor tactical play to complement their woeful lack of any general ...

Fred Mumford

Still thinking about Mama Cass and Zsa Zsa Gabor no doubt.

Fred Mumford

I remember my disappointment when I realised that the lyric in Creeque Alley about who is sat in the coffee shop is really (John) "Sebastian" rather than "the bastards".

Fred Mumford

If heart attacks are more lethal for women than men, why is Mama Cass literally the only woman I can think of (famous or otherwise) who died from a heart attack?

Fred Mumford

Emlyn Hughes once stole a win in an episode of A Question Of Sport after Bill Beaumont's team was asked the rugby question "who won the Stewart Wrightson Trophy last year?". Beaumont's incorrect guess of the Army rather gave the game away to the otherwise clueless Hughes.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 6:47 pmNot crap per se but not the best drummer in the Beatles

There's no record of Lennon ever actually saying that, even though it sounds like the sort of thing he would say. Bit like Hemingway, he sometimes gets credited for saying things he didn't.

Fred Mumford

Mark Deeks wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 6:26 pm When the electric toothbrush drops power every thirty seconds or so, it's not broken. It's a deliberate signal.

To avoid you making a fool of yourself in your first show as host, please be aware that the same is true of the Countdown clock.

Fred Mumford

Susanna Raganelli was a world champion in karting, beating the likes of all time F1 great Ronnie Peterson.

Michele Mouton was an excellent rally driver, but not quite the very best. She was runner up in the 1982 world rally championship though.

Search found 442 matches