c4countdown

Gavin Chipper

Fucking hell.

Gavin Chipper

Yeah, maybe a 4th...

Gavin Chipper

Is there a third clue?

Gavin Chipper

To follow up on that, we have:

Buzz Aldrin (96)
David Scott (93)
Charles Duke (90)
Harrison Schmitt (90)

So we probably don't have that long to get someone to the moon if we want there to continuously be a living person who has been to the moon.

Gavin Chipper

I don't think we will ever a man walk on the moon, this century I was just going through this thread and came across this. While I'm still not sure about your claim, it seems likely now that there will be a time quite soon when there are no living people who have walked on the moon. Given the age o...

Gavin Chipper

I'm going to rewrite my list: Jon O'Neill (various, probably the first time was at Chelmsford parkrun) Mark Deeks (various, probably the first time was on election night in 2015, and he also came to mine with Jen) Matt Morrison (various, been to his flat several times) Heather Badcock (various, bee...

Gavin Chipper

Fartlek is when you're alternating running hard / easy, rather than actually walking.

Gavin Chipper

It's also a bit like MERER, MEREST. No-one ever says MERER but it's just valid because MERE is one syllable.

Gavin Chipper

We've discussed all this before. MINUTEST is in as its own thing for emphasis when something is really small. It's not there as superlative, even if it happens to take that form. (It's arguably a bizarre stance but that's why they've skipped the comparative.) As for the not enough time thing, it doe...

Gavin Chipper

Runner Jeff Galloway who "Jeffing" (meaning run/walking) was named after.

Gavin Chipper

Ian Volante wrote: ↑Sat Feb 28, 2026 6:07 pm Elo, rather than ELO

Yes, because it's from Arpad Elo rather than Electric Light Orchestra.

Gavin Chipper

On e.g. a Facebook post "Love this!" as a response seems to have become a thing and there's something quite grating about it that's hard to fully explain.

Gavin Chipper

Oh yeah. Just watched it back. I think I was having a conversation over that bit.

Gavin Chipper

Co-creator of Red Dwarf Rob Grant!

Gavin Chipper

Luke becomes the 4th octochamp of the series and it's still only February. 0 points from the last 2 rounds means 913 instead of potentially 933 but he's still number 1 seed. Did they give him a nickname? But as an MI6 spy (keep it quiet though) surely Luke the Spook. Maybe they didn't choose that be...

Gavin Chipper

I'll check this out.

Gavin Chipper

It's terrible at the moment. It's had its ups and downs but it's never been good for a prolonged time since the start of this thread. It would be a shame for the forum to die of neglect.

Gavin Chipper

According to oddschecker, the Greens are odds on to win this by-election. I'd consider this to be very good. Obviously negligible in terms of the make up of parliament, but if they win, more people are likely to see them as electable and worth voting for. And pressure from the Greens would hopefully...

Gavin Chipper

Cool. Good info.

Gavin Chipper

Here's a thing. I think the term anti-Semitic (or antisemitic) is generally not a good one to use. If someone is racist against black people, they are racist. If they are racist against Asian people, they are racist. But if they are racist against Jewish people, they are anti-Semitic. Why does it m...

Gavin Chipper

What do people think of the whole thing about the BBC broadcasting the N-word from the BAFTAs ? Personally I think (as you may have guessed) it's a bit of a non-event. The guy has Tourette's. It's what he does. You could argue the opposite and say that it's bad that they would try to hide the realit...

Gavin Chipper

Some discussion about BRANDIES being allowed but not LAGERS in the olden days.

Gavin Chipper

James Martin Ox?

Gavin Chipper

It does seem crazy but I think it was originally because some nouns listed as mass nouns had plurals given because they were "irregular" plurals which led to an asymmetry. I think BRANDIES was valid because plurals of nouns ending in Y were listed, whereas it wouldn't have been valid if BR...

Gavin Chipper

Seems a fairly straightforward mass noun. Not sure how it got into Apterous in the first place.

Gavin Chipper

When was Formula 1 on? I need to check the iPlayer for this.

Edit - oh sorry I see, not on Mastermind. On The Floor whatever that is!

Gavin Chipper

I remember looking through his games before and his solve rate was quite low. I think he probably just had the basic idea that you could split the multiplication / division to subtract 2 or whatever and he happened to hit the jackpot in that round.

Gavin Chipper

Susie said geezer could probably have stuck an S on QUINOA for QUINOAS. It's not valid on Apterous. Should it be allowed? What are the rules these days? Is there not a restaurant rule or something? People eat this stuff don't they?

Gavin Chipper

Jon O'Neill wrote: ↑Sun Feb 22, 2026 8:44 pm Not really the News, and it's also 11 years ago, but at about 10:50 James Martin talks about his epic 952.

Nice find, but how did you suddenly encounter this now?

Gavin Chipper

Me and Jono did Raphael parkrun in Romford before COLON yesterday (well Jono didn't do COLON) and there was an Adam Gillard in the results. Not the Adam Gillard it would appear though (unless he has more than one profile, runs on Saturdays etc.).

Gavin Chipper

Having done the Doddington Hall parkrun on the day of COLIN, I went on my Sunday long run the day after. I decided in advance to do 18km and just run to Doddington Hall and along the path the parkrun uses until I hit 9km and go back. The turnaround point was basically exactly the same place as the t...

Gavin Chipper

Adam Gillard wrote: ↑Fri Feb 20, 2026 10:16 am Art Attack is likely a play on words on "heart attack".

Had you read the thread on Tony Hart's death, you likely would have made the connection.

Gavin Chipper

I didn't get it, but HATORADE was in round 12. Also that final numbers that Rachel got late by doing 473 + 100 = 573, I got two completely different (and I would argue much more straightforward) ways in the time: 100*(4+1)+9*7+10 = 573 (100+9*10+1)*(7-4) = 573 Her way was (9*4+7)*(10+1)+100 = 573. I...

Gavin Chipper

Me and Jono are currently planning on doing Raphael parkrun in Romford.

Gavin Chipper

John Garcia wrote: ↑Mon Feb 16, 2026 5:20 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Mon Feb 16, 2026 5:09 pm Probably shouldn't put spoilers for later episodes without hiding it in some way. But I'm taking the points anyway.
Oops. Have amended. That's the closest I could get for hiding, unless someone has a better way?

I think that's quite a good way.

Gavin Chipper

Probably shouldn't put spoilers for later episodes without hiding it in some way. But I'm taking the points anyway.

Gavin Chipper

Recent octochamp Callum Ridley talks about his difficulties in getting a job.

Gavin Chipper

Hello Kitty is not a cat. I saw that on the BBC. I mean, if it looks like a cat and quacks like a cat... Edit - It just seems meaningless. It even has "Kitty" in the name. It would be like "revealing" that Scooby Doo was just another human character in the show. Edit 2 - OK, jus...

Gavin Chipper

(75-8×50/25)×9+100 = 739 in that numbers.

I didn't get it but it wasn't that hard really. If the target isn't divisible by 9 you can always get a number divisible by 9 by adding or subtracting one of the large numbers. Useful when there's a 9 in the selection.

Gavin Chipper

I never watched it, but James Van Der Beek from Dawson's Creek. We've not had too many this year it seems so far.

Gavin Chipper

I hadn't noticed the warning. Specifically it says "Dangerous times". I think the particular wording needs to be highlighted.

Gavin Chipper

Some good rounds today. I scored 113 without the conundrum and getting 7 for that impossible last numbers. So 126 was potentially on at one point. A "par" score of getting 7 in all the letters and 10 everywhere else gets you 120, so that would have been 6 above par. With all 7s and 8s, tha...

Gavin Chipper

Yeah, I noticed the WOMBLED and PILOTAGES thing. Also got PEAKIER. And NOURISH and ANCHORS in round 4.

Gavin Chipper

Country names seem to be used as they are in English as standard except for rare exceptions like Côte d'Ivoire and Timor Leste (instead of Ivory Coast and East Timor). I think it's to do with countries requesting it or something.

Gavin Chipper

People who creep at the traffic lights until their car is completely over the line and then stop and wait. You've already gone through the red light. You might as well just go now.

Gavin Chipper

Dr Ranj: "I went to see a psychic..."

Erm, OK.

When Les Dennis mentioned that geezer had applied to go on a show previously, our survey says 99% of people predicted The Apprentice.

Gavin Chipper

Rachel was talking about some guy who owns a private train and being the only person in Britain to do so without naming him. The only person I found was Jeremy Hosking and he seems a dubious character to say the least. Also Callum seems OK at the numbers but doing (100-3)-7×3 and 50x8+9×8, wasting a...

Gavin Chipper

It probably beats James Cleverly coming to my local parkrun once, but on the other hand, James Cleverly is following me on Strava.

Gavin Chipper

Prince Charles (or whatever he styles himself as these days) was at Sandringham parkrun today. I couldn't see him in the results, but I have it on good authority that he's the unknown in position 75.

Gavin Chipper

Catherine O'Hara from Home Alone etc.

Gavin Chipper

But the thing that gives all the words functions as a word checker anyway so the pure word checker doesn't add any value, regardless of how one uses it. I mean, it doesn't really matter on the FOCAL one but on the TCC one it's not always obvious at a glance which you're in and if you switch to the o...

Gavin Chipper

I don't know if this is the best place for this but the TCC word checker and the FOCAL one could be simplified by just having a selection checker. It does everything the word checker does and more. And if your word is invalid you probably want to know if it's got any anagrams. Not sure I get what y...

Gavin Chipper

I don't know if this is the best place for this but the TCC word checker and the FOCAL one could be simplified by just having a selection checker. It does everything the word checker does and more. And if your word is invalid you probably want to know if it's got any anagrams.

Gavin Chipper

The minuter / minutest thing came up again today, but it wasn't explicitly discussed. MINUTEST was given as a beater in one round, and then in the very next letters round minuter was offered by a contestant but rejected by Susie. It would have made sense for her to say at that point about the asymm...

Gavin Chipper

I think Wordle could be improved with a couple of simple changes. First of all, it appears that it has a list of words that could come up and picks from this list without repeating words (and maybe it will reset when it gets to the end). This means people can game the system by paying attention to w...

Gavin Chipper

No takers then? We've just had COLIN with me and Chris Marshall doing Doddington Hall, and Fiona, Thomas, Samuel and Mike doing Linkin parkrun.

I would in any case be happy to update the PB list and age-graded list from time to time.

Gavin Chipper

There was a peak around 1986 to 1988 with a lot of good players. CoC III in 1987 was a classic, especially the final with Harvey Freeman beating David Trace, both champions from 1986. It also featured John Clarke and Stephen Balment, champions in 1987. 1987 finished with Nic Brown becoming series ch...

Gavin Chipper

Welcome Paul.

Gavin Chipper

A new series started on Friday.

Gavin Chipper

Perhaps not as freak as the 83, but Conor being the youngest champion at 14 is higher than it could have been given that Allan Saldanha (10), Andrew Perry (11) and Tim Morrissey (12) were all number one seeds. So maybe not an unbreakable record across the parallel universes in the same way as 83, bu...

Search found 14520 matches