c4countdown

Clive Brooker

The 1998 Anne Haley was from Todmorden, originally Lynemouth. Could well have returned "home" in the intervening years. If I had to guess I'd definitely go for her being the same person.

Clive Brooker

... the proper 15-round format with four numbers games That's quite a bold claim. I suppose the 2½:1 ratio between letters and numbers neatly bisects what was on offer under the 9- and 14-round versions, but it's still arbitrary. I suspect all the formats ever used have been influenced more by th...

Clive Brooker

Interesting, so if nobody gets tomorrow's conundrum it'll be unique. Thanks for digging all that up, how did you find it? Some kind of search on the wiki? I'm a bit nervous about explaining my methods on a forum like this in case they're really crap! To get a local copy of the Wiki data I used a 30...

Clive Brooker

That's the fifth conundrum in a row that's gone unsolved. Does anyone know when was the last time this happened, or what's the maximum number of consecutive conundrums that have gone unsolved? The record seems to be six, which has happened twice, the runs ending in episodes 261 and 2103. In the lat...

Clive Brooker

Three Ws has occurred just once, in Episode 4944. One of them was an upside-down M. http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3123 Ah. That does sound familiar now you mention it. All I was really doing was reminding anyone who might have forgotten that the pack is changed quite frequent...

Clive Brooker

I'm pretty sure the list from the Countdown Page is incorrect, for the plain reason that I know there is more than 1 W in the set. How do you know? The second W seems to be a recent innovation. It was there for the last 6 weeks of Series 61 but went away again for the first 12 weeks or so in Series...

Clive Brooker

I think the IAAF have tried to fix the wrong problem, or rather have failed to identify what the real problem is. The problem they've tackled is that of getting too many false starts through athletes trying to anticipate the gun and get as close as possible to the tenth of a second allowed. If anyon...

Clive Brooker

Tony Atkins wrote:I was pleased to get the 9 and an alt for the first numbers (5 x 3 ) + 75 x 8 - 10/10

Only 100 away.

2nd numbers: ((4x3+2)x10+1)x5. Must be wrong because Rachel always knows when they're impossible.

Clive Brooker

Mike Brown wrote:Now, if only there was an online database of all of the previous teasers...

I'm afraid I can't quite read you here, Mike. Are you saying "wouldn't this be nice, shame it will never happen"? I'm not aware of any database which enables the sort of search you're alluding to.

Clive Brooker

What about PISSEDER and PISSEDEST then? I'm sure I remember reading that participial adjectives can only form comparatives and superlatives with the addition of more and most, even if they are of one syllable. I don't think there is the remotest chance that DC would ever allow COOKEDER, SPLAYEDER, ...

Clive Brooker

Thanks Graeme. As you'll see from my edit I'd already realised I was a bit off-target. On the other hand, at risk of getting completely out of my depth, I still think the correlation might mean something in that adjectives which are used attributively might tend to be non-comparable. The example in ...

Clive Brooker

It's not helped by the fact that ODE3 doesn't indicate whether adjectives are comparable or not. As I've just added above, isn't is indicated by the [attrib.] marker? I don't have an ODE3 but I can't imagine it's changed. Examples are LAST, FRONT and MOCK, though not, surprisingly, MALE. Lexplorer ...

Clive Brooker

The definition in Collins - "having lines ruled across the width of the paper" (Collins Concise English Dictionary, 1978) - is similar to Oxford but perhaps a little clearer. Sorry about the rubbish punctuation. I've often wondered about adjectives which don't allow a comparative or superl...

Clive Brooker

If Hawkeye is more accurate than the line judges, they might as well use it for every call. You might argue that it would waste time, but presumably the drawn-out simulation we see is just for dramatic effect, and it could do it all "in its head" in next to no time. Not sure about this. F...

Clive Brooker

PAINTIER and PAINTIEST were only added recently (new in the change from ODE2 to ODE2r I think) and they're out already? Gotta love the flux of the English language. "Interestingly", they were in the NODE and all earlier Countdown dictionaries, which means (if the above is correct) they've...

Clive Brooker

James Robinson wrote:Anyone who misses those 3 9's are clearly not THAT intelligent.

I missed all three nines.

Clive Brooker

If FEINT is a one-syllable adjective then unless the dictionary specifically says something to the effect that you can't have the comparative, then FEINTER should be allowed. It doesn't matter if it seems to make little sense. That's the rules (I always thought), and vaguenesses like this make the ...

Clive Brooker

Why do you think it (COD10) would be a subset of the NODE? Things go in or out of the dictionary. For example, OUTRANGE has been allowed pre-NODE and post-NODE, but it's not in the NODE. I've always assumed it would be because it was based on the NODE (published a year earlier) rather than being a ...

Clive Brooker

If they did change custom and practice at that time, they certainly didn't tell contestants. This wouldn't surprise me at all! Lardier/Lardiest were first introduced as part of the main definition in the ODE2, but the guidance notes I received in May 2009 specifically cited lardiest as an example o...

Clive Brooker

In time, I would hope we can go through all the recaps on the wiki and weed out the other invalid words, but this will of course take some time and comes somewhere down the priority list. Fancy doing some of the COD9 ones?? :) I'd do this if I thought it was the most helpful thing to do. What I'm i...

Clive Brooker

In the COD7, two syllable adjectives ending in -Y were treated as regular, so DROSSIER, LARDIEST, etc. were fine whether specified or not. This changed in the COD8, but I'd guess that a decision was taken to continue with the COD7 rule. On the evidence of how LARDIEST has been treated over the years...

Clive Brooker

The statistics discussed in recent days lean heavily on the available max scores. As I've mentioned a few times on here, the historical recaps tend to be unfair to the players of the time because many of the max words listed wouldn't have been allowed when the games were played. The recent example i...

Clive Brooker

No bouldery in the COD7, which improves it a bit.

Clive Brooker

As a casual observer I don't see any obvious difference visually in the way the balls are behaving this year. I'm pretty sure there was a similar change in 1996 (when Sampras made the SF in Paris). That year Sampras beat two recent champions (Courier and Bruguera) and the final was contested by Kafe...

Clive Brooker

Mike Brown wrote:
Douglas Wilson wrote:Also does anybody know if there's ever been an episode where more than two have been shown, appreciate this might be difficult to answer without our resident statto around.
Pretty certain this has happened, but I can't think when.

Terry Newnham vs Carl Dundas

Clive Brooker

I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works. You can be certain that he knows exactly how it works. That's why he's against it. Maybe he does. But I'm sure there are many thousands of highly intelligent people who merel...

Clive Brooker

I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works. If so, it's a pity Humphrys made his slip when he did.

Clive Brooker

If you were happy with Candidate X in Round N then why would you suddenly stop being happy with them in Round N+1? There's no legitimate reason to change from someone who wasn't eliminated. AV is exactly like an exhaustive vote except that you can't vote tactically using information from the previo...

Clive Brooker

Sorry, Graeme, but I'm marginally less happy after seeing that cartoon. It looks like an Exhaustive Vote (right term?) scenario rather that AV, where everyone gets a chance to vote afresh in each round in the light of what's happened before. I think it's a lot easier to see that everyone gets the sa...

Clive Brooker

If your guy isn't going to win, better for you if he comes third rather than second. I think this is one of the arguments used by the "No" camp (in their more sophisticated moments) to show that tactical voting lives on under AV, but is more complicated. All the examples I've seen suggest...

Clive Brooker

OK Chris, I'll look at the example in the spirit intended. I don't think anyone should have a problem with Dick being elected because assuming that votes were cast consistently, we know that Dick would beat Tom in a two-way fight. So I would say a system producing this result is perfectly credible. ...

Clive Brooker

You said that if we think the Labour candidate should have won, we should vote no to AV, which I disagree with. I think it's wrong to base a conclusion solely on one carefully constructed, extreme example.

Clive Brooker

If you think that in the above example, the Labour candidate should have won vote NO to AV. If you think the LibDem candidate should win vote YES to AV. This is an extreme example where a comfortable win under the current system is narrowly overturned under AV. It's just as easy to construct exampl...

Clive Brooker

Have you seen the picture where No2AV imply the winner can be the one who finished last? It would be nice to hear someone from No2AV being asked to explain how that can happen.

Clive Brooker

i dunno, i dont really think much about these votes that only 18+ people can vote on because there's not really any point if you're not 18. I disagree. If you have an opinion, you can post it on a forum like this one, where it can be read by any number of people. If it's sufficiently persuasive, yo...

Clive Brooker

I think a "No" result will be interpreted as a ringing endorsement of our existing simple relative majority system. I refuse to call it first past the post since its primary characteristic is the absence of any post which it is necessary to pass. I suppose the one thing I can say in defenc...

Clive Brooker

Thomas Carey wrote: Round 7: H D Z R S O I N K

DC: (says it's a 7, looks like DISHOM which is in neither dictionary or selection. Max is a 6 though, strange.)

DISHORN, I'd imagine, which was in the COD7.

Clive Brooker

I was sat next to a bloke on a course a few years ago and I happened to see that his watch was an hour slow even though we had gone to BST about three weeks previously. I pointed this out to him. He said, "Nah, it's only for six months, doesn't seem worth it." I hope you told him it's act...

Clive Brooker

Joseph Krol wrote:Round 2: G I A O R P S T X
OT: RAGTOPS (7) (missed for second time in a week!)

Harsh, since it wasn't in the COD7.

Joseph Krol wrote:Round 4: 100, 3, 10, 5, 2, 10. Target: 882.
CV: 882. ((100+10)*8)+2 (10)

As Rachel would say - how did you get the 8?

Clive Brooker

Now that's something I didn't know happened. Damian explained a while back that they usually cover up "double not written down" rounds with a retake or similar. That neatly confirmed my impression that they're far rarer than they should be given how frequently players declare not written ...

Clive Brooker

I'll shut up about it now - unless of course anyone else wants to join in. I think it would be wrong of me not to say that I largely agree with you, John. Whether I'm the ally you really want is less certain. When Bruce Lambert got his 2nd/3rd chance it was openly talked about (a first for the show...

Clive Brooker

I would start at Series 39, since 41 and up are more or less all done, and I'm more or less finishing off 40. James, I'll be quite happy if you deal with the week I booked but haven't done yet (15-19 March 1999). Not that I don't enjoy it or think it's worthwhile - quite the opposite. I think the e...

Clive Brooker

Yeah, but "LUMBERING" isn't an anagram of "?????????". Many years ago when I first saw game summaries on TCDP, I noticed these ????????? entries in some of the older games and there was no possible explanation other than that the scramble used was not known. If Mike had used a d...

Clive Brooker

What are we supposed to be doing with maxes which weren't the max when the game was played? I've largely followed the Roboroller's lead which amongst other things means accepting the max(es) generated from the ODE2r. Obviously it's easy enough to exclude manually anything that wasn't valid at the ti...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Friday 12 March 1999. C1: Champion Stan Arnott (3 wins, 178 points.) C2: Challenger Steve Jacobs, from Abbey Wood, London. DC: Damian Eadie and Angela Rippon. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: R S A E D R M I N R02: Z N R O E P T A H R03: D C I E S R A J D R...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Thursday 11 March 1999. C1: Champion Stan Arnott (2 wins, 119 points.) C2: Challenger Sue Jackson. DC: Mark Nyman and Penny Smith. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: Y M E A T K O S G R02: Y R N I V E A N B R03: T R E I P R O G X R04: 100, 3, 9, 9, 1, 5. Targ...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Wednesday 10 March 1999. C1: Champion Stan Arnott (1 win, 58 points.) C2: Challenger Phil O'Gorman, from Dunmow, Essex. DC: Mark Nyman and Penny Smith. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: L J U E L D I T G R02: R P N E I E M H A R03: S F A I N D E N C R04: 25,...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Tuesday 9 March 2010. C1: Champion John Wright (1 win, 52 points.) C2: Challenger Stan Arnott. DC: Mark Nyman and Penny Smith. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: G D A T N E S U L R02: S T A P G O B I A R03: T B Y I E Z G U V R04: 75, 6, 5, 9, 4, 2. Target: 1...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Monday 8 March 1999. C1: Champion Christopher Russon (4 wins, 196 points.) C2: Challenger John Wright, from Dagenham, Essex. DC: Mark Nyman and Penny Smith. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: T M K A E P D A E R02: C O L T U S R I F R03: S C S A E R I D H R04...

Clive Brooker

The mass noun thread here is an absolute joke. I'm surprised you say that. I've certainly been educated - my instinctive reaction was that precedent must be king, but I now see there's more to it. Isn't that how these threads are supposed to work? Nevertheless, surely precedent must count for somet...

Clive Brooker

I'll take the next 20 episodes, which is 11 January - 5 February 1999. Done. I'll take another 20 episodes, 8 February - 5 March 1999. I've had a few days ill with flu and then grumbling kidney stones. I can recommend the latter to anyone who arrives at the studio to find they're booked to play som...

Clive Brooker

Spoiler alert - if you don't know who Jack Hurst is, watch his games first. There was a belief expressed in a spoiler thread that the victims of a recent octochamp were an unusually stong group. Here are some cold stats comparing the overall performance of these players with the following groups: - ...

Clive Brooker

Here are some numbers for starters. These are for octochamps during series 49 to 61 inclusive, using some data I pulled together a while ago. This covers 66 octochamps, 5808 letters rounds, 1584 numbers rounds. I've ignored the conundrum partly because I don't like them but more because it's usually...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Friday 8 January 1999. C1: Champion Tom Rock (2 wins, 102 points.) C2: Challenger Andrew Thompson. From Belfast. DC: Damian Eadie and Christopher Timothy. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: S F C I A R U N K R02: R M S E O J Y I C R03: P Z L A E S C A S R04: ...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Thursday 7 January 1999. C1: Champion Tom Rock (1 win, 51 points.) C2: Challenger Janet Payne. From Dagenham, she is partially sighted. DC: Damian Eadie and Christopher Timothy. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: W T F A O H A S V R02: R D M U A I R N C R03: ...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Wednesday 6 January 1999. C1: Champion Ted Smith (3 wins, 171 points.) C2: Challenger Tom Rock - Halesowen, West Midlands. DC: Damian Eadie and Christopher Timothy. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: Q S E T L I S U N R02: R Y C O E G W A D R03: P T E R L I M...

Clive Brooker

Since everyone seems to be going all over the place, I'll take all of CoC IX, then I'll see which part of which series I want next. I started series 40 because you were surging towards the end of 41; I knew I'd be slow to begin with and didn't want to delay its completion. By all means pick up seri...

Clive Brooker

ABRASION ... a mass noun and therefore not pluralised frequently enough to warrant entry into the dictionary Does ABRASION really have no countable subsense in the ODE? I can't check in my ODE2r because ... it's still in its cellophane wrapper. Daft, I know. FWIW the NODE did include the countable ...

Clive Brooker

What about the %max record, which some might see as more important than the total score?

By my reckoning, if Jack wins with 120 points today, he'll take the record as long as he drops no more than 18 points against the max.

Clive Brooker

Recalculating totals excluding the 9 bonus (Gevin scoring?) gives Jack 667 from 6, I believe. Averaging 111 in the last two games (making the assumption about winning today - I have no information) would match Beevers' 889.

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