c4countdown

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:I might also do it with Chris Cummins for charity.

Phil Reynolds

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Who dya reckon would fare best on Countdown out of this series' X Factor contestants?

If any of them is particularly brainy, they're hiding it well (probably wisely at this stage). But I suspect Ruth Lorenzo would do rather well.

Phil Reynolds

I like how noone has replied to the last question submitted, instead you're all just listing fanciable woman contestants! Glad to find some red blooded manliness in what could have been a bunch of boring intellects! And they're all wrong too, 'cos the actual answer to the question I submitted is An...

Phil Reynolds

Just watching the start of the today's show whilst waiting for 4+1 Countdown to note the challenger's full name & bio. I recommend it to anyone, particularly the quote from some short fat woman before opening the 7th box. :D :D :D :D :D :D Please tell us what she said as I can't be bothered to ...

Phil Reynolds

PALATES to equal DC in round 8.

Phil Reynolds

Lesley Jeavons wrote:Have you ever approached Willie Russell the playwrite?

Or even Willy Russell the playwright?

Phil Reynolds

isn't the word diverse for that meaning relating to sundry? No, diverse means 'of various kinds', as in 'a diverse group of people'. It's not a synonym for sundry. I have found an archaic version written as divers but it became obsolete from the seventeenth century. Obsolete is as obsolete does. I ...

Phil Reynolds

Sundry penguins? (6) I was thinking RIPENS but I couldn't relate that to penguins ...and it would be the wrong tense to go with 'sundry'. The guy who sets the crossword tends to use compound words as a distraction. No, what I meant was - for the answer to fit 'sundry' as in 'sun-dry' (which is what...

Phil Reynolds

David O'Donnell wrote:Sundry penguins? (6) I was thinking RIPENS but I couldn't relate that to penguins

...and it would be the wrong tense to go with 'sundry'.

Phil Reynolds

Rod's with a new daughter... (4) WAND! At first I thought this one was cheating 'cos it didn't say "initially" or whatever in the clue. But, in fact (and besides "a", which obviously represents itself), all the words in the construction can be legitimately abbreviated to their f...

Phil Reynolds

David O'Donnell wrote:Nice one! I got as far as NEMESIS HOTPLATE before I gave up.

Funny, I'd got SIEMENS HOTPLATE. I used to work for an electronics company that got partially taken over by Siemens, so that particular anagram always amused me.

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:Oddly enough only 5 people didn't get BOOKSHELF

I got it at the last moment having only been able to see FLESHBOOK for about 28 secs. Which probably tells you more about me than is good for you to know.

Phil Reynolds

Gary Male wrote:Order Len's hot meat pies but get this? (15, 2 words)

SPANISH OMELETTE.

Phil Reynolds

This one amused me on a number of levels:

(What's embarrassing is that I still lost the game...)

Phil Reynolds

Jon Corby wrote:Um... yeah, it was an 'invisible man' joke which was unlikely to work when it's written down, and names you in the quote, and several other factors. But I tried

Phil Reynolds

Joseph Bolas wrote:If the Countdown studio was getting a makeover, what colour would you have it?

Apricot.

Who is the most sexually attractive Countdown contestant of all time?

Phil Reynolds

Phil Reynolds wrote:
Joseph Bolas wrote:I am thinking that you need to anagram "Len's hot meat pies"
I made PESTO MILANESE out of the letters but I had two left over.

Ditto with HOSTEL PANTIES.

Phil Reynolds

Jon Corby wrote:
Phil Reynolds wrote:Just played a game against Jon Corby and he christened me 'the invisible man'.
Who said that?

You did, in the chatroom during this game. Or, if not you, someone else called Jon Corby.

Phil Reynolds

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Gary Male wrote:Order Len's hot meat pies but get this? (15, 2 words)
I am thinking that you need to anagram "Len's hot meat pies" and that one of the words is PASTIES, but can't make anything with the remaining letters.

I made PESTO MILANESE out of the letters but I had two left over.

Phil Reynolds

Phil Reynolds wrote:Poo. I have no avatar at all now (not even the default one).

Just played a game against Jon Corby and he christened me 'the invisible man'.

Phil Reynolds

In round 1 of this game: http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=11974 I noted OXTAIL, then OXALIC. When it came time to declare, I figured the ODE (with its bizarre ideas about hyphenation) might not like OXTAIL, so I went for OXALIC as the 'safe' option - and it was disallowed. Anyone any idea why? ...

Phil Reynolds

Phil Reynolds wrote:Cheers Charlie - I've emailed you a JPEG.

Poo. I have no avatar at all now (not even the default one).

Phil Reynolds

Mikey Lear wrote:Able, dur.

I think David was subtly pointing out that ABLE, while the obvious answer, doesn't work according to the usual principles of cryptic clue construction because the components are in the wrong order.

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:The image needs to be 64 pixels high and not more than about 96 wide, JPEG or PNG format; the rest is up to you.

Cheers Charlie - I've emailed you a JPEG. It's the same pic as my forum avatar, just reduced in size to fit the criteria above.

Phil Reynolds

Joseph Bolas wrote:Is your game watchable online Phil (ie YouTube etc)?

Apart from the brief clip of my winning moment plus assorted stills on my website, no (so far as I'm aware).

Phil Reynolds

Don't have screenshots but I've had several dialogues along the lines of "I got BEATEN" and some ruder ones I can't recall. Now that this thread has been bumped (i.e. now that I know about it) I'll take more careful notice.

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:Email me the picture you want (or I can use your avatar from here.)

I'm itching to do this (as you can probably tell from the number of times I've asked about it) but I'm waiting for you to answer Joseph's question about dimension limits etc.

Phil Reynolds

Kirk Bevins wrote:Did they let you know when you were going to be on?

For the original transmission, yes. For the repeat, as I said before, no.

Phil Reynolds

But can you (or anyone else) explain why they're treated differently? Xenophobia. Um, no. That might be a glib answer to the question of why American spellings aren't allowed on Countdown, but that's not what I asked. What I asked was why the ODE defines HAULER in a separate entry from HAULIER whil...

Phil Reynolds

Martin Gardner wrote:That's the second time you've made this joke, are you trying to tell us something?

Yes - I like to tell the same jokes repeatedly.

Phil Reynolds

When were you on Kirk? Broadcast mid-February 2008. Ah right. Mine was repeated about a year after first transmission. They mix up new ones with repeats though (which is very noticeable at the moment because the new shows have different lighting in the floor and a rewritten opening spiel from Anne)...

Phil Reynolds

Joseph Bolas wrote:I believe there is nine 9-letter words that contain the letters K, I, R and K:

BRICKWORK, FRIKKADEL, KALAMKARI, KILDERKIN, KINGMAKER, KIRKYARDS, SHARKSKIN, SHIKKERED, SKERRICKS

Unfortunately though, none will ever appear on the show.

Why not?

Phil Reynolds

Oh, I thought they were referred to as 'trolls' or something? No, posting without introducing yourself first doesn't make you a troll. Posting without introducing yourself and posting in a clearly inappropriate forum and spending the whole of your first post pretending to complain about things that...

Phil Reynolds

HAULER is listed as a North American term for HAULIER (under a separate entry), whereas ALUMINUM is specified purely as a US spelling of ALUMINIUM But can you (or anyone else) explain why they're treated differently? In both cases the US version involves dropping the letter I and - crucially - the ...

Phil Reynolds

Jon Corby wrote:as you can probably tell I couldn't be arsed to embellish the recap yesterday

Yes, I suspected lack of arse was the reason.

Phil Reynolds

Keith's specious complaint about AIRPLANE does raise one interesting point, one I've been curious about for a while. What exactly do the rules say about words from US English? I've never heard them explained on air but have always assumed from the way they're applied that, where the American word is...

Phil Reynolds

I never saw Kirk's show, is there any way I can see it now? AFAIK no. It was on BBC iplayer for about 2 days then decided not to be on there any more even though it was supposed to be there for a week. There are 2 clips of it on my facebook where I answer Anne back and where I get voted off and tel...

Phil Reynolds

Joseph Bolas wrote:I've had a few straight flushes

Why are poker players so homophobic?

Phil Reynolds

As a nod to Pam Ayres being on the show, Des himself offered POETESS in Round 13. Which was nice.

Phil Reynolds

Does anyone apart from Charlie actually have a custom avatar? I think the generic dude looks quite like me so I'm in no hurry to upload mine. I recall noticing in at least one game I've played that my (human) opponent had an avatar and I didn't. Now I come to think of it, it may well have been Char...

Phil Reynolds

Now that I'm a Generous Type TM, how do I upload my avatar so it shows up in the dialogue following each round like everyone else's?

Phil Reynolds

If you were then to click on "refresh" (or press F5 on your keyboard), so the page was refreshed, it would sign you back in again There's no refresh button on the Firefox window that pops up when I sign in to apterous (nor indeed any of the normal browser buttons at all). F5 does nothing,...

Phil Reynolds

Julie T wrote:Regardless of whether we think Keith is a troll or not, maybe this thread doesn't belong in 'spoilers'. A move to 'general' perhaps?

Deliberately posting in the wrong forum was all part of the trollage. If it were up to me, I would just quietly bin it.

Phil Reynolds

David Gunn wrote:Out of interest, did anyone get NORMALITY in 30 seconds?

Yes, after about 20-25 seconds.

Phil Reynolds

Used to be very into amateur dramatics but don't really have the time nowadays. Why is the word 'dramatics' only used in an amateur context? Other people describe their hobbies as 'amateur photography' or 'amateur football' (or just drop the 'amateur' altogether - 'my hobby is photography' etc.) So...

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:Non-contrib members don't get shown the bots (since they can't play against them.)

I can see them now.

Phil Reynolds

Which of these do you see when you enter Apterous Phil? Picture 1 or Picture 2 When you first sign in you get Picture 1, but if you refresh so you automatically sign back in, you end up with Picture 2 instead :D Not quite sure what you mean about signing back in, but anyway from memory I think it s...

Phil Reynolds

I usually see words developing as the letters are put up on the board and, if there's an obvious 7 or 8, I've very often got it by the time the clock starts. However, when that doesn't happen and I have to start from scratch with the clock, it can take a lot longer. In an apterous game yesterday I w...

Phil Reynolds

Charlie Reams wrote:
Phil Reynolds wrote:In the list of online players, why are some names in bold and others not? What's the difference?
Unless there's a bug, the only name in bold is your own.

There's a bug.

Phil Reynolds

In the list of online players, why are some names in bold and others not? What's the difference?

Phil Reynolds

Howard Somerset wrote:First time, to my knowledge, that I've ever sparked off a discussion in a ladies loo. Or a gents either, I hope.

Only after you've left.

Phil Reynolds

Ben Hunter wrote:I'm doing straight maths

Why are mathematicians so homophobic?

Phil Reynolds

I swear John Matthews has been on before. He's not on the Wiki though. I thought I recognised him, but then decided that he just reminded me of someone who's been on a lot of TV quizzes, including People's Quiz and Are You An Egghead? . I think the guy I'm thinking of is called Mark Labbett. He dis...

Phil Reynolds

David O'Donnell wrote:On the upside my brand new spanking password arrived.

What is it? Hope it has nine letters.

Phil Reynolds

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Also sometimes the -ING is thrown in as a double bluff

I think you'll find that's only a single bluff.

Phil Reynolds

Jimmy wrote:I didn't think it was worth opening a new topic about but I was wondering why there are no -ING, -NESS, -LESS, etc. conundrums on apterous. Is it that they don't do them on the show anymore?

They frequently have conundrums whose solutions end in -ING on the show.

Phil Reynolds

Kai Laddiman wrote:SHEERING ain't a word, I'm afraid.

Why not? SHEER can be a verb (as in to sheer off from an intended course), so SHEERING should be allowed.

Also, it's listed as an equaller in today's recap.

Phil Reynolds

harry wrote:I've decided not to apply until I've thought of something original to say when requesting the numbers.

If/when I get on I plan to ask for a "Hallwhite" - i.e. an inverted Whitehall, or 2-1-2-1.

Phil Reynolds

For a start, TEAPOT is one word and is allowed - no idea where you got that idea from. Next, you moan that some well known words aren't in the dictionary and then moan when Susie looks up well known words!? Surely she is trying to be as fair as possible. Perhaps you can give us some concrete exampl...

Phil Reynolds

It's about time that there was a new dictionary. When used recently with the 'wordcamera' (one word or two?) I saw above and below the word being shown, the 'words' Ann Boleyn and Ann Of Cleeves! What kind of dictionary has names in it? Perhaps contestants might stand a better chance if a better on...

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