c4countdown

Ben Wilson

Last night in a semi-feverish dream, me and Dinos time travelled back to 2018 and searched around a shopping mall to try to find someone in the UK Labour Party to contact, only to realise that we'd been unknowingly staring directly at Jeremy Corbyn for over 20 minutes. Shortly afterwards, Dinos depa...

Ben Wilson

Decided to repeat the experiment myself. Going in blind... Lincolnshire- all Conservative. We have... Edward Leigh: Father of six & Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Enquiries here will not be responded to. Contact me at edward.leigh.mp@parliament.uk. Caroline Johnson (my MP a...

Ben Wilson

Question and answer in its purest form is surely fifteen to one, and the difficulty of the questions there must act in its favour.

Personally, my all time greatest is probably Blockbusters. General knowledge mixed with a good chunk of strategy is always a winner in my eyes.

Ben Wilson

Just checked the train website and it looks like rail strikes will impact travel on the day, unfortunately counting me out

it's worth checking to see which services will be impacted on the day.

Ben Wilson

Updated again to include the 2023 main event and hangover (and add a few extra pages that weren't there before). Link is here -> https://www.dropbox.com/s/ri7x8faf0bhv3 ... e.xls?dl=0

Ben Wilson

Had one removed last year or the year before, it takes a few minutes for your gums to numb up (you can go anaesthetic-free if you hate needles but really, really like pain), then they wrestle with the tooth for a couple of minutes, and out it pops... assuming they can get it out in one piece. I had ...

Ben Wilson

Player 1 buzzes Player 2 buzzes just (but very clearly) after and says the word. Player 1 says they had the word and they're reputable. Do you: Allow Player 1 to have the conundrum Use another conundrum Happened at Lincoln twice from what I gather. One game allowed Player 1 to have it. One game had...

Ben Wilson

Yeah, it's 86-76, I (ironically) struggled a bit with the handwriting. And yw

Ben Wilson

And Tim takes the title, winning 85-75 in a titanic battle for his first COLIN title win! Many thanks to everyone who came over the weekend, its you guys who make the event what it is.

I'm now going to go back into hibernation for the next 9 months. See you all in 2024 for COLIN XIX!

Ben Wilson

And the standings before the final are... STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts 1 Jack Hurst 4 4 273 2 Tim Down 4 4 261 3 Callum Todd 4 4 260 4 Thomas Cappleman 4 3 274 5 Dan Byrom 4 3 259 6 George Armstrong 4 3 251 7 Dinos Sfyris 4 3 234 8 Gabriel Thallon ...

Ben Wilson

At the halfway point of the hangover... STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts 1 Thomas Cappleman 2 2 144 2 Graeme Cole 2 2 140 3 Tim Down 2 2 134 4 George Armstrong 2 2 132 5 Callum Todd 2 2 131 6 Bradley Horrocks 2 2 126 7 Gabriel Thallon 2 2 117 7 Jack Hu...

Ben Wilson

And Conor retains the title, defeating Callum 64-50 in the final!

Ben Wilson

And the standing before the final... STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts 1 Callum Todd 6 6 391 2 Conor Travers 6 5 398 3 Tom Carey 6 5 382 4 Graeme Cole 6 5 370 5 Thomas Cappleman 6 5 365 6 George Armstrong 6 5 340 7 Jonathan de Souza 6 4 399 8 Jack Hurst...

Ben Wilson

...And after round 2... STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts 1 Jack Hurst 4 4 287 2 Callum Todd 4 4 275 3 Thomas Cappleman 4 4 256 4 Graeme Cole 4 4 254 5 Ruth Cappleman 4 4 233 6 Conor Travers 4 3 273 7 Jonathan de Souza 4 3 265 8 Tom Carey 4 3 251 9 Dan ...

Ben Wilson

After round 1... STANDINGS Players are ranked by number of wins then total points scored. P W Pts 1 Conor Travers 2 2 146 2 Jack Hurst 2 2 140 3 Tim Down 2 2 137 4 James Haughton 2 2 136 4 Thomas Cappleman 2 2 136 6 Dan Byrom 2 2 133 6 Richard Priest 2 2 133 8 Callum Todd 2 2 132 9 Fiona Titcombe 2 ...

Ben Wilson

On the subject of the Hangover, here's a chance to flex your creative muscles.

Ben Wilson

A quick one on the itinerary for the day. This is what it'll look like on Saturday: 11:00 doors open 11:30 introductions 11:50 round 1 13:10 lunch 14:00 round 2 15:20 break 15:35 round 3 16:50 break 17:15 grand final 17:30 prizegiving And the Sunday: R1 11:00 Break 12:10 R2 12:40 Final 2:00 Prizegiv...

Ben Wilson

Callum Todd wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:30 pm I hear the Fox and Hounds have closed their Mike Brown-approved kitchen. Wherever are we to scran?

They're going to have a food van on both nights. No word on whether Mike thinks the food's okay, though.

Ben Wilson

With just ten days to go, it's time for the annual outrage that is the seedings. :-D As always, the seedings are calculated by the finishing positions of players over the last 5 COLIN main events, so 2017-2020 & 2022 in this case, but with their worst finish discounted (unless, of course, they'v...

Ben Wilson

Zoomdowner Eeshan Malhotra makes his in-person COLIN debut (after finishing an impressive 10th at I Can't Believe It's Not COLIN in 2021) and brings numbers up to 29!

Ben Wilson

Series 84 contestant and ZoomDown tetrachamp- and COLIN debutant- Adam Beach brings numbers up to 27! There are still plenty of spaces available and I'll likely be able to take entries up to the day before COLIN, but the earlier you get your entry fees to me, the earlier I can buy more prizes- like ...

Ben Wilson

Series 85 contestant and COLIN debutant Gabriel Thallon brings numbers to 26 for Saturday and 23 for Sunday!

Ben Wilson

Obviously.

https://youtu.be/byDiILrNbM4

Ben Wilson

On a related note, the bass line for 'Plug in Baby' by Muse is almost identical to 'Sexy Boy' by Air. Songs I've both known for about 20 years but only had the similarity pointed out to me recently.

Ben Wilson

This seems as good a thread as any- the FOCAL website is currently down.

Ben Wilson

Octochamp, co-event debutant and CoC XVI contestant Steve Hyde bring COLIN XVIII's numbers up to XXII!

Ben Wilson

In non-leap years, January 1 and December 31 fall on the same day of the week.

Ben Wilson

Dan Byrom makes his in-person COLIN debut 4 weeks from now, having taken 3rd place at 'I Can't Believe It's Not COLIN' two years earlier!

And, you know, a series title too.

Ben Wilson

Series 83 octochamps Coral Heath and Adam Latchford will make their COLIN debuts in January and bring our total for the main event to 20! Fun fact: Adam will be the 25th different series champ to have played at COLIN! :-O The number of different octochamps (Adam and Coral included0? 64.

Ben Wilson

Seemed appropriate for this site somehow.

Ben Wilson

Annnnnnnnnd it's done. Recycled a few rounds from the 2017 edition but as it's been five years and nobody did that quiz anyway, I doubt it'll matter much. Quiz can be downloaded here for the full .docx version or here if you're Gevin and you need a pdf (this version doesn't include the audio files t...

Ben Wilson

David Williams wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:50 am No-one's even interested enough to point out you've got the year wrong.

Aww, I had Gevin in the sweepstake of who'd point that out first.

Ben Wilson

The player character in the original Doom is left-handed.

Ben Wilson

Have removed a couple of posts that threatened to derail this thread. Let's keep it about David, please.

Ben Wilson

A 2022 edition of the quizzes I wrote between 2014-2017 will be incoming in the next few weeks, once I've written it. In an uncharacteristic move from me, though, I have actually not just started, but made decent progress on it so I might have it done before Christmas! In the meantime, here's a comp...

Ben Wilson

Nothing on there I haven't already got, but I'd highly recommend Grip if you don't already have it, it's a bit like Rollcage on the PS1, which is a highly underrated game.

Ben Wilson

Dunno if it's thanks to strikes, an awkward route or whatever but I'm having real issues booking train tickets at the moment, just a load of 'fare unavailable' on the national rail website. :-/ Is anyone driving down and can swing by Lincoln/Newark/at a pinch, Nottingham who could give a co-host a s...

Ben Wilson

Tom Carey playing a mean guitar at the 0:15 mark

Ben Wilson

COLIN debutant Mike Lee makes it 6 entries!

Just because I have a bit of a tighter budget than usual this year, it doesn't necessarily mean the prizes will be cheap. Watch this space...

Ben Wilson

I saw a recent post on the Fox and Hounds site. It appears they have closed their kitchen due to energy costs. With that in mind, if not reopened for our weekend, is there a back up? A few, depending on whether or not their kitchens are also closing. The Centurion on Newark Road (next door to Asda)...

Ben Wilson

Hey, guess what? It's back. :) Yep, after a year without a (in-person) COLIN and a year with a heavily covid-affected COLIN, things are (touch wood) going to get back to normal next year as COLIN turns 18. No there won't be an 'adult' theme to the event. The afterparty... maybe. By now I'm sure most...

Ben Wilson

I avoid them where possible at all costs. The fact that they're usually covered in non-recyclable glitter just makes an already questionable idea even worse.

Ben Wilson

Just to throw in my 2p worth about divisioned events, back when there were official co-event ratings (so, like, 2007-ish) there was talk about making COLIN a divisioned event based on pre-tourney rating. Everyone hated that idea. They did, however, like the overachiever award, the tuff luck award an...

Ben Wilson

Played it quite a bit when it first came out on Xbox 360, haven't played in a while but wouldn't say no to getting back into it.

Carcassonne & Ticket to Ride too, especially the latter which is IMHO the best 'gateway game' out there.

Ben Wilson

Mark Deeks wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:14 pm Oh and because apparently all white guys look like Kirk

Further evidence: Formula E driver Stoffel Vandoorne

Ben Wilson

I had one past night where I was pissing off Jon O'Neill by hogging a photocopier. Jono wanted to print off work related documents, while I was printing off a large batch of puzzle pages for an anthropomorphic capybara.

Ben Wilson

Dream tourney for him so! Must be a personal best. Nope. Can't see it. You're gonna have to talk me through a scenario where that could be true. #1 seed has 6 wins #2 seed has 4 wins #2 seed beats #1 seed... I can't quite remember exactly where/when but pretty sure we've had at least one co:event f...

Ben Wilson

I wish I'd got a photo of it, but the post guy in our office is an exact lookalike of Mark Deeks, right down to face, hair, facial hair, height, build and dress sense. The only thing spoiling the illusion is post guy's voice, which is about an octave and a half higher than Mark's.

Ben Wilson

A game I want to play with other c4capterites is Worms, specifically Worms Armageddon (still the best in the series). It's currently 85% off in the steam sale so if you pick it up, I'll be happy to play a game at any time. Steam username is (predictably) 'nebagram'. Still true 6 years later, curren...

Ben Wilson

Presenting my latest idea that people probably won't ever play: a scavenger hunt played exclusively on Google Earth*, but with a Countdown twist to it! In this zip file you'll find 15 images taken from Google Street View as well as a map of North Hykeham, the home of COLIN for the last 15 years. On ...

Ben Wilson

Well done Dan, great game and very well played both.

Welcome to the elite group of series champions who fucked up a numbers game in the final but won anyway

Ben Wilson

It’s more like “oh, I’m sorry, as a police car the traffic laws don’t all apply to us, I didn’t realise that one still did”. This is actually a good analogy, as the usual traffic laws do apply to police cars, with the only exception being when they're actively responding to an emergency (source: my...

Ben Wilson

Just a quick comment to say that today's challenge: brilliant.

Ben Wilson

Just to confirm that COLIN will now definitely be going ahead in the last weekend of January next year under the 'slightly scaled back' regime detailed above (covid/other real world shit allowing, of course). Full details to be announced later this summer.

Ben Wilson

Paul 'not Zef/Tranmere' Thomson

Temeura 'Boba Fett' Morrison

Ben Wilson

Can confirm it's not Zef.

Ben Wilson

I think part of it is down to the bullshit notion that a person's inherent worth is tied to their career, which is itself tied to how hard a person works. Capitalism has drilled it into people's brains that if you work hard enough, there's no limit to what can be achieved, and if you're struggling, ...

Ben Wilson

It would be great to get ELO ratings for players out of this. Game order is important for this, and I am not sure if the data has this? It should do, it has round numbers per event. For events like COLIN where each round has 2 games that are effectively treated as happening simultaneously, it may f...

Ben Wilson

Mark James wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:19 pm Besides it's impossible to run an online communication forum without moderation without it being overtaken by trolls and making it unusable.

See 4chan (or better yet, don't) for further proof of this.

Ben Wilson

First of all, many thanks to everyone for their votes on the poll and your kind comments about COLIN. :-) I just want to address a few points- 'If you don't want to do it anymore, then don't' Believe me, I wouldn't, and this is far from the first time I've thought about cancelling it, it's just the ...

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