c4countdown

Kevin Thurlow

"Well, that makes sense to me. Racism hurts people. Cunts don't hurt anyone."

Saying someone looks like a gollywog isn't racist, is it? You are saying someone looks like a cuddly toy!

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

I once took the surname of my boss (******) and then called a colleague a "******-brain", which was quite effective. I will shield the name of the boss here.

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

An interesting topic.... Tom Lehrer performed a song called, "Smut", celebrating obscenity, and one line is, "Filth (I'm glad to say) is in the mind of the beholder." Drifting across the Atlantic again, Lenny Bruce was somewhat outspoken in his stage shows, as shown in some of th...

Kevin Thurlow

Really sorry to hear the news - best wishes to everyone on the team.

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

A friend tells me that the reason people cut sandwiches diagonally is so you can rest them on the hypotenuse and everyone can see easily what the filling is, without having to maul them with grubby fingers.

Kevin Thurlow

"Amazing debut, best ever!"

Not sure it constitutes a debut? Excellent performance though....

Kevin Thurlow

To give a more serious answer.... I make 2 sandwiches for my lunch at work, viz. 4 slices of bread and 2 fillings. These are then cut into 8 approximate rectangles to fit in the sandwich box. It is still two sandwiches..... If I have a similar lunch at home, I cut the two sandwiches with either one ...

Kevin Thurlow

Supposing it's a baguette......?

Kevin Thurlow

"Alan Turing, who invented computer science and arguably contributed more than any other individual to the Allied victory in World War 2, was chemically castrated and subsequently committed suicide because of society's refusal to accept him on equal terms as you did with your colleagues. "...

Kevin Thurlow

"They ask the contestants which set of questions they want before they start, so I don't think this could be the case unless that whole part of the show is a charade (possible but probably unlikely following Ant-and-Dec-gate.)" They only ask who wants to go first, then pick up a few cards ...

Kevin Thurlow

I recall being on holiday with my parents a very long time ago in a small hotel in the Isle of Skye. My father got talking to a Canadian couple, and as we have Canadian relatives, asked where they were from. Having narrowed it down to Ottawa, he gave the relative's name and said it would really be a...

Kevin Thurlow

When I watch I get the impression that the questions are tailored to the "Eggheads" - e.g. if the subject is music, the challengers seem to get questions on rap, hip-hop etc, and the "eggheads" get questions on light classics..... perhaps it is my imagination - the team is pretty...

Kevin Thurlow

Well I still think the calendar is great! You should all buy one and look for mistakes to keep Stewart happy. But SUPERSEDE is correct as it comes from the Latin sedere (to sit - hence "sit above" = replace), not from cedere (to yield, which would provide the opposite meaning). I know the ...

Kevin Thurlow

To alleviate any lingering confusion.... The Calendar has a daily pull-off sheet with a "conundrum" and either a letters or numbers game. Answers appear on the next day, so it's easy to cheat. Numbers or letters games may have more answers, e.g. 14th Feb has EWIFIDRES as letters game and a...

Kevin Thurlow

"It's the way the presenters of Countdown are so obviously disinterested that really bugs me." Brilliant! I have noticed a lamentable lack of understanding of irony on the forum in general. I dislike explaining such things, but, for the benefit of the unitiated, what David is doing here is...

Kevin Thurlow

If so, that's outrageous! We already have dictionaries saying that "infer" means "imply" (instead of deduce) and "prestigious" means "with prestige" (instead of tricky). Where will it all end? It is a bit ironic for a word game to allow incorrect spellings! Un...

Kevin Thurlow

Anyone struggling to solve today's pull-off conundrum will find that the answer is spelled incorrectly....... Change the letters to SRUDEPEES and it is a bit easier!

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

"Both Dutch and Welsh have the curious property of having a letter which is clearly two characters (IJ and LL respectively) and there are probably others like this. " You could even include "oe", which is used in English - Chemicals like oestrogen and oestradiol are now called es...

Kevin Thurlow

"I'm slightly obsessed with raising bonsai trees even though I'm not very good at it."

As they're not very big, you could argue nobody is good.......

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

Completely forgot White Heat - Angels With Dirty Faces is excellent as well.

By coincidence, I finished posting the list of films last night, turned on the TV a bit later and there was Rear Window.

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

In no particular order... 1) Casablanca 2) Maltese Falcon 3) Walkabout 4) Rear Window 5) Silence of the Lambs 6) High Noon 7) Robin Hood (1938) 8) Dirty Harry 9) Way of the Dragon 10) The Day the Earth Stood Still (Michael Rennie version of course) Shame to omit American Werewolf in London, Weird Sc...

Kevin Thurlow

Kasparov doesn't really have the right style to play a computer. He does (or did!) calculate incredibly well, but does play "interesting" moves - taking risks, which may not be 100 % correct but are effectively beyond human calculating depth. The computer using "brute force" (i.e...

Kevin Thurlow

I used to throw boomerangs (the theoretically returning type), but not competitively, and was also fairly competent at catching a stationary target with a bolas(!) As I recently found said items again, I might come out of retirement as there is a large sports field where I work. The trouble with cat...

Kevin Thurlow

I made a bit of a mistake altering ALTERING at the last moment.......

Kevin Thurlow

Without looking, I imagine that Hawaii and Alaska feature, and the former more than once....

Kevin Thurlow

Useful if you fall off your stairlift or misjudge the temperature of your walk-in bath.

Kevin Thurlow

Two old political ones.... Virginia Bottomley - I'm an evil Tory bigot David Mellor - Dildo Marvel And everyone will have seen Britney Spears - presbyterians (which led to a crossword clue "would they approve of a dishevelled Britney Spears?") Tom Cruise - costumier A work colleague once c...

Kevin Thurlow

Shame about the simulator - they seem to waste time on chat and explanations of what will happen, and the assault course is confusing and shown for too long. I'm not sure I understood the intelligence test! I much preferred the original format. As for ties, if three people are equal first then they ...

Kevin Thurlow

Welcome - certainly an entertaining website.....

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

The comments after the report on http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Carol-Vorderman-s-home-Sloblock/article-590067-detail/article.html are just like the spoof ones Private Eye does, and equally funny. I'm a bit puzzled by the attacks on Rachel - even if the reports of problems are true, she has...

Kevin Thurlow

"Also raiment and minaret as they were the first word declarations on countdown"

I didn't know that! "Minarets" was my first declaration, but I had no sense of deja vu. I did watch the first show but must have forgotten by then......

Kevin Thurlow

12 am is ambiguous..... The RAF operates on a 24 hour system, and certainly used to refer to 0001 or 2359 for midnight, and used 1200 for noon. Presumably they still do?

Kevin Thurlow

SKIMMINGTON has a certain charm to it - a procession made through a village intended to bring ridicule on and make an example of a nagging wife or unfaithful husband. I like that - a local pub is the Skimmington Castle, and I always wondered how it got its name. Wickiup - a North American Indian dw...

Kevin Thurlow

And merry Christmas from me too - to the Countdown team, weirdoes, geeks, nerds and the other few people excuded from that.....

Kevin Thurlow

Er, I was just going to enter this - can we have a closing date/time, next time please? Looks interesting anyway.....

Kevin Thurlow

It certainly rains a lot in Vancouver - but (on the basis of a few days there) it looked a very nice city, and not too far from Whistler etc. If it's a clear day, looking out of the window as you fly in is well worth it, assuming you're awake as you'll then be 9 hours into the flight.

Kevin Thurlow

I like D O'D's idea of having two circles - (I got by with one) a straight line might make you just see the letters in the order they already were - so if ING appeared in that order in the slection, you might miss something better as you were obsessing about "ing" endings. There was a thre...

Kevin Thurlow

I agree with the legend that is Corby. (Same applies to Strictly - when the professionals do a demo without the celebs, quality improves massively.) I heard Alexandra's version of Hallelujah this morning - absolutely terrible, no diction whatsoever. Leonard Cohen is a poet and you need to hear the w...

Kevin Thurlow

Good point - thanks! (I sent the message from work at lunchtime where your suggestion is not an option, due to IT policies....)

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

Due to a computer related disaster, I no longer have that wonderful milf screenshot. I would be grateful if someone could tell me where to find a copy (or better still!) send me one..... Of course I congratulate him on half the new one.

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

Good final - obviously a sporting atmosphere as well. Well done Junaid and and hard luck to Charlie.

Kevin Thurlow

I thought this was going to be a proposal to have Countdown in Welsh....

"I have a nine, Jeff

LLWYNGWYL"

or perhaps not.....

Kevin Thurlow

Great site - I can see hours of fun coming up. I only managed 104 elements on Saturday, and even missed zinc and holmium, which I've recently dealt with.... so I'm going to have another go. Most people will struggle on 104 - 118, where I have an unfair advantage, as the committee emails me to ask my...

Kevin Thurlow

Terrible news - such a nice guy, friendly and funny. Condolences to his friends and family.

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

Welcome everybody that I've missed! One of the reasons Philip stuck in my mind was that Richard decided he (Phillip) looked like Iain Duncan-Smith. Carol did berate Richard for that, but Philip took it in his stride. It was certainly a close game and not exactly what I wanted at the end of a long da...

Kevin Thurlow

Sorry you're going Julian.

Good luck with whatever you're doing!

cheers

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

[quote="John Bosley"]To start with he looked a bit serious, but seems to be thawing out slightly. Was that a deliberate tribute to his frost-bitten ex-toes...? Today was the first time I saw him on the programme. His neck is a little scary, but he's great - I think he just has a deadpan de...

Kevin Thurlow

I had to log in first!

Kevin Thurlow

First numbers.....

er, did I misread it or does (50-2) x 8 = 384 then subtract 2 work? (I'm writing an article and watching at the same time!)

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

Nice one! On a similar subject, a magazine which was either "Education in Chemistry" or "Journal of Chemical Education" had an interesting game where you made as many words as possible (of four letters or more) from the symbols of the elements. The person who wrote the item said ...

Kevin Thurlow

That could be interesting, depending on how small Room 101 is. Surely it expands or contracts depending on the contents? Just to be annoying, most (alleged) witches were hanged not burnt. I haven't read the book for a while, but didn't Room 101 contain what you most feared rather than most hated? H...

Kevin Thurlow

Chess - I guess, but I hate the online stuff. A practical reason to do so is that I played a tournament in Guernsey last week and was winning in round 6, when I completely overlooked a threat by the opponent and just lost immediately. My amiable Dutch opponent said, "Ah, you were unlucky - let ...

Kevin Thurlow

Magic 105.4 announced at 0730 that Alexander Armstrong is the new host. No idea if it's true!

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

"It's truly awful. Why just yesterday I ate some tomato soup, went into my vegetable garden and vomited in just the way you described! I threw my can opener in the bin in disgust!" Nice one Jono! I suspect in those cases the words should be hyphenated, or maybe put together in the way Germ...

Kevin Thurlow

It would solve a lot of problems if fun (a noun) weren't used as an adjective. There's too much of this sort of thing - using two nouns consecutively like, "We had a fun time". "There was a hostage situation" etc. Ghastly - isn't it? They'll be allowing "text-speak" nex...

Kevin Thurlow

I didn't watch it - but surely Susie referred to "rozzers" not "rossers" near round 9? I'm amazed "conmen" isn't in the dictionary. Good to see "timbale" turnng up again.

Kevin Thurlow

I see the ABSP rating system is the same as the English Chess Federation grading system. It provides a reasonable approximation of performance if you play enough games against people of a similar ability. Obviously if you are 150 and play a string of 200s or a string of 100s, the number is not going...

Kevin Thurlow

Has anyone DNA-tested the ginger ones.....?

Kevin Thurlow

Read it and weep

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/tv/general ... 52384.html

Doncha just love the internet? Some interesting choices!

Kevin

Kevin Thurlow

The Guardian (some irony with them reporting on Countdown I think) says that audiences have dropped to about a million. I wonder how much of that is due to the 3.30 pm start time....... Myleene Klass annoyed Derren Brown by allegedly haranguing him when he bumped into Derek Acorah (I think) in a hot...

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