c4countdown

Fiona T

Sorry I can't be at Edinburgh tomorrow - hope you all have a great time! Just a note that the focal word checker, and by associaton TCC's co-host tool has been updated with the latest ODP update as on this ticket https://www.apterous.org/ticket_view.php?ticket=7316#p104396 This more accurately refle...

Fiona T

Quite a few parkrun names contain notable* countdowner surnames Ashington Community Woodland (or any other Wood) Ashton Court Bevendean Down Brockenhurst (Sandhurst/Wakehurst) Brockwell Chalkwell Beach (or any other beach) Chilton fields Cleethorpes/Fleetwood promenade (or any other Lee) Corby Dartf...

Fiona T

I Swear biopic of John Davidson sufferer of Tourettes. One of the best films of the year very sad but also very funny. People of a certain age may remember John from the documentary John's Not Mad If it's that one we greatly enjoyed at school, then yes. Finest entertainment since Joey Deacon, at le...

Fiona T

The current guidelines don't include any examples, but I don't think minerals were included. The last time granites was allowable on apterous was 2013. OPLALINE has a definition that is not milk-glass 1.1. translucent glass of a colour other than white There's nothing to say that these different col...

Fiona T

opaline
Pronunciation: /ˈəʊpəlʌɪn/
adjective
opalescent.
Example sentencesSynonyms
noun
1
another term for milk-glass

1.1
translucent glass of a colour other than white.

Arguably, the 1.1 definition is countable.

Fiona T

Pretty sure heating sparkling water removes the sparkle. You'd be better to eat large quantities of beans for the jacuzzi (not valid in countdown) effect

Fiona T

Why don't lions get scurvy? It's a great question! Google says... Lions do not need vitamin C in their diet because, like most mammals, they can synthesize their own vitamin C in their bodies, unlike humans and other primates who require it from food. A lion's diet of whole, fresh prey, which inclu...

Fiona T

Rowland Reeves wrote: ↑Fri Sep 12, 2025 9:38 pm I am also the most socially awkward person you will ever meet

Not even close!

Fiona T

It's all done. Not a trial as such. BBC article here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj072jg59m0o "Judge Guy Mathieson said he had ruled Cowen unfit to stand trial and told jurors to instead determine the facts of what had happened. They found he had committed assault and had been in posses...

Fiona T

Ben Wilson wrote: ↑Thu Sep 04, 2025 4:40 pm A very brief one a few nigh*s ago where Fiona * banned *he res* of *he world from using *he le**er '*.'

FTFY

Fiona T

Looks like Charlie logged in at lunchtime, so hopefully is now aware of the issue if he wasn't before.

Fiona T

A discussion of what Charlie should do with Apterous probably won't be that fruitful without Charlie's involvement. But since we're here, I don't think higher prices will help. It's unlikely to be a money thing. It's just down to priorities people have at different stages of their life, and Apterou...

Fiona T

CDB seems to be having problems when I am doing recaps and you use the other words option ,it gives the message Oops, it broke. So when you enter other words by copying and pasting off other games it is laborious and very time conusuming, I am wondering if Charlie is updating CDB ? CDB uses the apt...

Fiona T

We used a supernundrum for the CO:REA 2025 grand final!
T-Cap solved it in around 20 seconds

See how you get on

Solution at https://ibb.co/6cvZfY4B

Fiona T

Full results from CO:REA 2025 Christ Church Woodley 30 August 2025 PODIUM 1st place: Thomas Cappleman (Won final 151 - 126 against Matthew Brockwell) 2nd place: Matthew Brockwell (Lost final) 3rd place: Ronan Higginson STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts ...

Fiona T

For co:Rea, Maus and I ran at Woodley, Mike ran at Reigate Priory and Sam ran at Wycombe Rye. Think that was it!

Fiona T

Thanks so much Tony - venue and facilities were spot on! Delighted that we raised £320 for the leprosy mission, and DAPSONE even came up as a max in game 1 :) Thanks to everyone who came along to make the day a success, and many congratulations to T-Cap on a very impressive winning score, and for ma...

Fiona T

Just three days till co:Rea and we're up to 30 players! Looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday!

Fiona T

Fun event, thank you Tony!

Fiona T

Apterous been pretty good last couple of days - fingers crossed! (And thanks Charlie if it's something you did!)

Fiona T

Weird that FAIRED got away with no explanation. I'm also not sure if the contestants (one or both) really knew if it was a word or just got lucky. The normal word is FARED and Colin said something about how the contestant fa(i)red well after the round, which would have been incorrect usage. I don't...

Fiona T

gorsiest as offered by DC does not appear to be valid either. No comparative/superlative specified for gorsy.

Fiona T

Well I'd suggest watching sooner rather than later!

Fiona T

https://www.youtube.com/@wheelsongenius

Fiona T

Rachel put bologne x on the board instead of BOLOGNA in R14 too.

Fiona T

Thanks - yes, that's the intention!

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Mon Aug 11, 2025 7:46 pm Having watched Only Connect - does James Haughton do parkrun?

Are you suggesting we fibbed?

A10823473

Fiona T

Have entered

Fiona T

Three weeks to go! Currently on 22 signups - optimistic we can make 30! Any questions at all, please give me a shout!

Fiona T

Maus and I did Cannon Hill

Samuel did Edgbaston

Fiona T

Wow. I had absolutely no idea in the studio a max was on, no-one mentioned it, and even watching it today it was only when we got to about R12 I started to think “hang on- I don’t think I’ve missed one yet” I was shaking by R14 watching along even though I knew how the last two rounds went. The las...

Fiona T

Might have happened in the 9 round era, losing a game with no points dropped in non-numbers rounds. Not sure about 15. Also I believe (and am reliably informed) this is the first consecutive double-century game in prelims. I think Angus has the second highest average for a non-octochamp (106.25) af...

Fiona T

Jon Stammers wrote: ↑Sat Jul 26, 2025 8:09 am I got through mine the week before so should get on some time.

Congrats! Look forward to seeing you on telly soon

Fiona T

They've been doing zoom auditions for a little while now, which must reduce the likelihood of cheating, as well as perhaps coming closer to studio pressure, so will be interesting to see if the standard generally improves and there's fewer of the "how did they pass" type contestants.

Fiona T

Six weeks to go and we're up to 17 - I'll order some trophies when we get to 20, so get your entries in!

Fiona T

David Williams wrote: ↑Sat Jul 19, 2025 11:12 am 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.

Would have been amusing if they'd come up in the same round!

Fiona T

yep in ODP none of the derivative nouns are flagged as mass, so you'd have to assume Susie would allow the plurals, hence the beloved SENSELESSNESSES of the unlimited variant players!

Fiona T

Could well be part of the reason why there's no desire to bring back studio audiences.

Fiona T

Ahmed M wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:34 pm 2.5-3 litres of water per day and a lot of practice

Is that to ensure you have plenty of toilet breaks?

Fiona T

So one of the arguments for Bristol is that it's fairer when players are ranked on wins then points. But most Bristol events now use multi-numbers, where each pair pick their preferred number selection, which can significantly change the max available for a game. Is the fairest solution to random th...

Fiona T

Keen for feedback from those who've operated or played events with RoboRiley. One request was to show a running game max, and it does seem like a nice thing to do. I've done some work on this and it works nicely for a game with single number selections such as a grand final, but for multi-numbers, i...

Fiona T

get a room!

Fiona T

Hey Graeme, I just compared Rob Foster's latest "usefulness" thing [The ROSTER] with this page on Apterous [https://www.apterous.org/dic.php?dic=0] The ROSTER says there are 27,622 nines (excluding anagrams... so the true number is higher), but Apterous says there are 21,633 nines (includ...

Fiona T

There are several impossible targets with 100 75 50 25 1 1 2 2 3 3 as the selection such as 557, 896, 907. I was checking the same thing. 3 3 2 2 1 1 25 50 75 100 has a total of 400 impossible targets. Most of them are above 600 as you'd expect, but the impossible targets below 300 are 213, 237, 25...

Fiona T

Considering how the numbers come up in a Bristol style event with multi-choice, filling from 6s to 4L right to left, then generating the same target for all the rounds, is there a fill pattern and target that would mean none of the five options could be solved exactly?

Fiona T

BORONIAS was the word DC couldn't bring themselves to spell. There's been discussion before on conundrums like OURSELVES. Not simply sticking an S on the end of course but I seem to remember some controversy. I'll have a look later. Guidelines as of May last year said - "The conundrum will nev...

Fiona T

Well I think we need to remember that just one participant in this discussion is having to decamp to bomb shelters regularly, so fun/passionate/well-intended though internet debates might be, let's recognise the human element. Similarly a "fuck them" attitude means that ordinary people, so...

Fiona T

Good game. Was a delight to have Christine back, and congratulations to her on becoming the oldest ever octochamp. Amy on brilliant form in the letters games. Rhys will be aiming to up his game and unsettle her on the numbers rounds, especially in non-1 large games, to advance to the Grand Final. B...

Fiona T

This is interesting (YMMV)

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/15/ ... _pollution

TL;DR - so much ChatGPT generated content on t'intertubes that AI is learning from AI generated content and quality gets lower and lower.
Don't throw away that set of encyclopaedia Britannica just yet.

Fiona T

Yep I'd like to see the videos say who played in them - if I want to find a particular game, there's nothing to tell me which episode it was (I mean I can probably find it on the wiki so not the end of the world). And yep, knowing who's coming up might persuade people to tune in for familiar faces a...

Fiona T

James Burley's (series 83 octochamp) stand-up gig at Glasgow yesterday to raise money for the Mental Health Foundation (link on the video). He smashed it

(shared with his permission)

https://www.facebook.com/james.burley.7 ... 5117438965

Fiona T

I don’t see how religious people can be truly moral. If they do anything to help people and it’s motivated by what their religion says and not from a pure desire to help then that just seems ridiculous to me. Also I have been in Humanists Uk for many years (since before it changed its name from the...

Fiona T

So Philip's question is what happens when you've accepted (or not checked) diopter and someone later notices? Really at co-events there's no excuse. Lincoln has a host who should be checking declarations (and often diligently recording them on the scoresheet) and Bristol now mostly displays the word...

Fiona T

This organisation is presumably trying to get people to join their cause, so "making their course free" sounds like they're trying to make it look like they're doing us a favour when really they're trying to get something from us. Plus there's likely an infinite number of (free) YouTube v...

Fiona T

Phyl Styles wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 9:51 pm Is SONDAGE allowed for R1?

One of the 92,000 dead words

Fiona T

Sorry if we’ve had this before but: Both players score 6 points for FEISTY and is accepted without asking for spelling. However, after the game has finished someone takes both players’ notepads and notices than one has misspelled it ‘fiesty’, which would otherwise have swung the outcome of the matc...

Fiona T

Humanists UK are making their introductory course free.

https://courses.understandinghumanism.o ... -humanism/

Have signed up, so will report back on whether I thought it worth it!

Fiona T

Fun event, thanks Mark! Good to see plenty of new faces too - hope they come back for more!

Fiona T

Co:Stockport - Samuel, Chris and I did Woodbank, and Mike did Northwich. Think that was it!

Fiona T

Rolled a car. That was scary.

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