c4countdown

Clive Brooker

Jack scored at least 7 in each letters round - a very rare achievement. When I looked at this before (about a series and a half ago) there were only 2 such 15-round games recorded in the Wiki, by Stewart Holden and Jack Welsby. David O'Donnell arguably has one as well, but one of his 7s was beaten.

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Tuesday 5 January 1999. C1: Champion Ted Smith (2 wins, 124 points.) C2: Challenger Bridget Holroyd. DC: Damian Eadie (debut) and Christopher Timothy (debut). CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: G M E G S A N I Z R02: R N D O E S A G I R03: X L E H W I R K E R...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Monday 4 January 1999. C1: Champion Ted Smith (1 win, 65 points.) C2: Challenger Richard Benham, from Burley-in-Wharfedale, near Ilkley, but originally from London. DC: Mark Nyman and Stephen Fry. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: R G I T K E S A B R02: T Y ...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Friday 1 January 1999. C1: Champion Emma Brown (1 win, 53 points.) C2: Challenger Ted Smith, from Great Sutton, South Wirral. DC: Mark Nyman and Stephen Fry. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: R L G D A O E F T R02: N D A T R I S E G R03: Y N M J A E O I P R0...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Tuesday 29 December 1998. C1: Champion Glynn Leaney (7 wins, 350 points.) C2: Challenger Liz Alsford. DC: Mark Nyman and Stephen Fry. CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: L Y U T A M E H X R02: B T I A R G E Z I R03: L P O R E F I P N R04: 50, 8, 8, 9, 2, 10. T...

Clive Brooker

I knew I could rely on you, James. Originally I had both players with MB's solution on R8. It'll be easier when I've done two or three and don't need to hold the instructions in one hand. Also, I know about the stats generator program but that was a bit too much to deal with on a first attempt. Edit...

Clive Brooker

OK, I've done 28/12/98. Like a moron I created 2 phantom entries in the database before I realised what I should be doing - sorry! I presume someone can clear the empty ones out and leave the correct one - at least I hope it's correct. I think I may already have been in the list of recappers because...

Clive Brooker

Countdown recap for Monday 28 December 1998. C1: Champion Glyn Leaney (6 wins, 288 points.) C2: Challenger Luke Living, aged 19, at Warwick University. Presumably a student. DC: Mark Nyman and Stephen Fry (debut). CV: Carol Vorderman. OT: Other words or solutions. R01: N C E T I D O F E R02: W R O N...

Clive Brooker

WB Clive, I've added you to the list of recappers. The password is dolomite if you didn't spot that above.[/quote]
Thanks Charlie. I'd seen the password but I don't think I'd quite twigged that there was a need to be added to a list. I have created an account in the Wiki.

Clive Brooker

I'd like to help with this brilliant project, so I'd better find out how the recapper works. I intend to start by completing the first week of S40 (2 episodes were done by James ages ago, following uploads to YouTube at a guess): 28/12/98 29/12/98 1/1/99 Edit: Actually I'd like to extend that to inc...

Clive Brooker

Congratulations on all the hard work, James, and everyone else. “Interestingly”, HAPLONT(S) wasn't in COD9 (by my reading of it), so the actual max available for R6 was 7. Unless of course there was another 8 or 9 lurking there which wouldn't be valid now, but that's harder to check. Having looked t...

Clive Brooker

I don't think there is a standard method of announcing one's retirement from this forum - I assume that here is as good a place as any. If this is a matter of supreme indifference to most members, so be it. I won't be reading Jon Corby's thread of yesterday because I know it will be too painful. Und...

Clive Brooker

A rare opportunity:

(9*3-1)*5*7-6

29ish seconds

Clive Brooker

Kate Horton not in the end credits? Has she left the programme?

Clive Brooker

Julie T wrote:Not possible to have subtitles if watching on 'catch up' though as I did this.

This may be a stupid question, but are you using iPlayer?

Clive Brooker

I think auditionees who have some idea what they are doing are almost certain to pass the audition these days. In the past there have been excellent players like Simon Cooper and Martin Gardner who have struggled to get on the show at all. During the Mearns/Cooper final RW spoke of 3000 auditionees ...

Clive Brooker

My own definition is quite narrow. For me, a MILF must be known to have a daughter who is sexually attractive, and retain sufficient attractiveness herself for the question "which do I prefer?" to leave me at least in some doubt. I suppose this is closest to 3, but sufficiently different p...

Clive Brooker

She might have been referring to his predecessor :geek: John Taverner (c. 1490 – 18 October 1545) was an English composer and organist, regarded as the most important English composer of his era. In my defence, I didn't look at Wikipedia until I'd read your post. I didn't know the old guy's first n...

Clive Brooker

The composer Susie referred to in R2, John TAVENER, has 7 letters in his surname.

Clive Brooker

Obviously the game can't end until someone picks C, and when someone does it usually ends very quickly. Thinking about it, a very simple analysis would be to track the final value of share A against the initial value of share C. In the 2 games so far in this series, C has started at something betwee...

Clive Brooker

I certainly don't believe I'm cleverer than you, Jon, but I'd be up for trying to collect some statistics from this series to see if anything emerges. I believe it's only running for five weeks which won't be long enough to show anything really conclusive. As far as I can see, the key information is...

Clive Brooker

Interesting - I didn't see the coin-toss one. I guess the key thing there is that whoever ended up with C will have felt that his/her honour remained intact. I imagine yesterday's woman would have declined that particular offer. As for Golden Balls, I always regarded that show as having no redeeming...

Clive Brooker

When the woman got home, she will have seen that her strategy worked perfectly. She got roughly what B started at, something she couldn't have achieved any other way. Opting for B early rarely achieves a quick result because it drives a wedge between A and C, not helping the other players to agree. ...

Clive Brooker

Damian, have you tried debriefing contestants to find out how it felt from their point of view, what would have helped to make life easier, etc? I know you're all busy, but it sounds as though this is important.

Clive Brooker

Has anyone used Easeus Todo Backup? It seems to get decent reviews and it's free. The backup operation has worked without obvious error but I'm nervous of trying a restore.

Alternatively, does anyone have another backup/restore tool - preferably free - that they swear by?

Clive Brooker

Given that the difference between the two versions is miniscule, I doubt even the top players will be too fussed about playing to a new dictionary. From a gameplay perspective it's virtually a non-issue, so I'd go with making things simple for the viewer. I'm persuaded. Have you deliberately used o...

Clive Brooker

Defo have to use new ODE3 at the start though, can't confuse people by accepting words on a Friday then disallowing them the following Monday, so the participants will just have to use it. I'm all for making these super-champions work as hard as possible in return for yet more television glory, but...

Clive Brooker

With all these specials going about (e.g. Kirk v Chris, Charlie v Junaid) I think it would have been nice to have one of these as the 5000th show. I'm not sure if you've been reading, Gavin, but if it was a special it wouldn't count in the tally. Isn't it 5000 regular shows and specials are ignored...

Clive Brooker

Surely EXEUNTS is nonsense? Etymologically yes ( exeunt being a plural noun in Latin) but exeunt is a verb in English, meaning to leave the stage. Same with agenda and many others. Yes, I see that, but surely "exits" is the word used when a single entity is leaving the stage, so "exe...

Clive Brooker

Surely EXEUNTS is nonsense?

Clive Brooker

But as we know, the Wiki episode numbering does have some anomalies. Examples? One is Episode 4473 - the Conor v Chris game. This was a special within the time of Series 57, but not part of that series. About three other specials were given standard episode numbers, so these four are included in th...

Clive Brooker

...but having the title Sir doesn't make you a Knight of the Round Table. Maybe I was just expecting the joke to make more sense than it actually does, I dunno. Having a King Arthur Class engine named after you does make you a character from Arthurian legend, and if you're also a Sir there must be ...

Clive Brooker

I was' surprised that SIR MELEAUS DE LILE (our George Jenkins' "King Arthur") didn't appear among the pointless - there must have a Southern railfan among the 100 :o :geek: If this is a joke I don't get it. If it's a serious point I... still don't get it. As it happens this post was direc...

Clive Brooker

Just that when an octochamp retires, anyone appearing after that is not linked via the show until the series finals. A fair cop. Possibly more interesting (to me, anyway) is to see how quickly modern players can be linked to a pioneering player, and who better than the first series champion, Joyce ...

Clive Brooker

There was a ladies' mini-series during Cheltenham week in 2003 which crossed the SC divide, as did the special between Mike Brown and Nita Marr. Not sure if there are any others, but in any event that should be sufficient to make sure that everyone who's appeared in a televised game is linked throu...

Clive Brooker

In the normal run, everyone in a series will be connected, so long as no champion retires undefeated and does not appear in the finals. And successive series are linked by CoC Just had a look, and I see the winner of the last ordinary programme before the Supreme Championship qualified for the seri...

Clive Brooker

Edit: Spoilers from today: wtf? How was the Ridgeway a pointless answer? or do I just have a weird perception of famous walks? I think this was a poor question. The three suggestions the players came up with were all real. All that seems to distinguish the one that was a valid answer is that an out...

Clive Brooker

I think I'll get used to it. My immediate reaction was to groan when AA introduced the multi-choice round, but I always used to react the same way to the not infrequent rounds (usually about films) where I hadn't the faintest idea of any of the answers. There will be fewer of these now. I assume the...

Clive Brooker

Howard Somerset wrote:Was Martin Jarvis really only on three times?

Well spotted. It's three times during Series 56-59 inclusive. About 30 times in total according to TCDP.

Clive Brooker

With Pam's return, by my calculation there are just 12 pre-Stelling/Riley regulars who have not yet reappeared. I'm defining regular to mean having recorded more than one stint during Series 56-59 inclusive. They are, in decreasing order of pre-S60 frequency: 5 Keith Barron 4 Ann Widdecombe, Rick Wa...

Clive Brooker

If Howard's willing to put himself forward as cannon fodder, I'm prepared to join him. I've been meaning to figure out how to play the letters on Apterous sometime. But they did have the same octochamp system with the 3-month series as well. And I don't think it was too bad like that. If you imagine...

Clive Brooker

Wasn't there also DECREPIT in R11 for a rather more elegant 8?

Back to sleep now.

Clive Brooker

Channel 4...had nothing to gain from a bust-up. It damages their reputation and they'd sooner her take the pay cut than have to find someone else. I don't have the sense that Channel 4 was damaged. If anything, I thought they gained respect for having the guts to follow sound financial principles a...

Clive Brooker

I spent most of yesterday in bed with a migraine (hence coming to this debate late) so it's quite possible I've gone mad.

Clive Brooker

I hadn't seriously tried to decide what I think until today. Based on the evidence I have seen, I have to say that on balance I agree with Julie. So since she's no longer responding, can you explain what's despicable? As I've already indicated, I'm firmly in the "Rachel is a vast improvement&q...

Clive Brooker

I hadn't seriously tried to decide what I think until today. Based on the evidence I have seen, I have to say that on balance I agree with Julie.

As she says, the cirumstances have been debated here often enough and I doubt whether there's any enthusiasm to do so again.

Clive Brooker

OK, David, I've re-read my "pleased to see her go" comment and realise that I'm using the assurance of hindsight in knowing that the show will go on. As for what we may say or not say at a given time, there can't be many people, whether contestants, presenters, guests or whatever, who've a...

Clive Brooker

The circumstances of Carol's leaving has been gone over a few times on here. Can you really say that she was treated well? I think she was treated like anyone else whose contract expired. She was offered a wage to continue her job, and she turned it down. Maybe I missed something in the whole debac...

Clive Brooker

Many thanks to Thomas for the upload - fantastic stuff. The bungling over the preselected word gets funnier every time I watch, and Christine Jones must be easily the most attractive female contestant to appear so far this year. In a moment of idiocy I reworked all the scores from Series 49 onwards ...

Clive Brooker

James, hurry up with the recap please. Make sure you use the right dictionary.

Clive Brooker

Small tactical point. The challenger led by eleven points going into the last letters game. Both declared dodgy sixes, MAIMER and RAMMER. Possibly both players will have both words written down, also others like RIMMER. If the challenger gives his word first, the champion can give a different one, ...

Clive Brooker

Only just watched this, so I missed all the CHOLIAMBS stuff. Have to say, like Damian, I think it's a total non-issue. But it did get me wondering whether if you wrote in about something like that you'd get a reply, and if so whether it would be similar to the response you get here. I do hope so. D...

Clive Brooker

Presumably every player has an individual profile of success rates for each selection, and I would imagine this would become quite stable once sufficient games have been played. Intuitively I would expect players' profiles to differ considerably, but perhaps they don't. The clear conclusion so far h...

Clive Brooker

A lot of newbies on apterous pick 2 large or whatever, adamant that this is their strength, but this is rarely reflected in the statistics. Interesting that you've picked up on this. I've noticed a lot of poor contestants number-wise choose 2 large on Countdown and then proceed to score nothing fro...

Clive Brooker

Charlie, I didn't quite get that last sentence right. I meant to imply that when making the decision of what to pick, a player who had looked at your data might not see a big enough difference to outweigh his perceived view of his own strength. That doesn't mean his view is anywhere near to being co...

Clive Brooker

My reading of Charlie's data is this (I could be wrong): Drawn Stronger Weaker Stronger Weaker wins wins doesn't doesn't lose lose 0 53.1 28.6 18.3 81.7 71.4 1 62.7 24.0 13.3 86.7 76.0 2 56.8 27.6 15.6 84.4 72.4 3 53.4 29.7 16.9 83.1 70.3 4 52.0 31.0 17.0 83.0 69.0 So the weaker player wanting to av...

Clive Brooker

I quite understand the reasoning that says pick 1 large to give yourself the best chance of not going more than 10 behind after R14, but there are plenty of reasons why a player might decide it is not the best play. Before yesterday, Craig's television conundrum record was (I think) 0/3, so there wa...

Clive Brooker

The gap between todays smallest and largest number targets was just 24. This isn't a record for the 15 round era, but it's rarely been beaten. Searching through about 95% of games since the start of Series 49, I can find only five where the gap was smaller, the smallest being 12 in game 3878 . Of th...

Clive Brooker

Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being. I don't understand this. The target was 767, which is close to 770. Factorising gives 7x11x10, which is easily obtainable, keeping the 2 and 1 by to subtract afterwards. I did it Matt's more intuitive way. The 770 route looks painfully obvi...

Clive Brooker

Matt Morrison wrote:more 'obvious' method for 1st numbers:
7 x (9+2) x 10 = 770, -1 -2 = 767

I did this Craig's way. Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being.

I'm liking Mark Foster on the show.

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