c4countdown

Graeme Cole

You're playing Countdown on television, in a numbers round you have nothing sensible to declare. Your opponent declares first, not written down. A routine scenario so far. The best chance of salvaging a share of the round must be to match the declaration, also not written down. Did Graeme not do th...

Graeme Cole

Well done Graeme, well deserved after Mark's shock defeat and i'm very pleased you won as I can see it means a lot. I've replayed the final conundrum a few times and it sounds like "GALVANISED" is declared but then Jeff confirms it as "GALVANISE" and it is revealed as correct. U...

Graeme Cole

Matt Morrison wrote:ADZUKI

Actually, both ADZUKI and ADUKI are valid. It was the only valid five in that round.

Graeme Cole

So yeah, that's how it happened. That conundrum buzz was even more over-the-top than I remember it. I didn't even remember anything between pressing the buzzer and seeing the flippything turn over, but I was told I answered in a comically high-pitched way. As it happened it wasn't as squeaky as I wa...

Graeme Cole

Douglas Wilson wrote:Am I losing it or was there another letters round before the break there with no explanation as to why?

There was indeed, I was just as surprised as you just then. It all happened in the right order, but they seem to have put round 6 into part 1.

Graeme Cole

Thanks all. Yes, the game was played in a great spirit and Paul was a friendly and sporting opponent, as well as being a decent player who's tough to beat. At the end of R13 he was already offering me his congratulations on making the final. Incidentally, the audience member who solved the conundrum...

Graeme Cole

I don't particularly like the guy either but it seems he's become the target of something of a witch hunt. I think you've got a point there. My experience with Carl was much the same as Adam's - he was perfectly polite and civil to me, even though other stories I've heard don't match that. I wouldn...

Graeme Cole

Mark, HUGE respect for being so gracious and humorous about this, and still going through the motions of advertising your appearances on Facebook etc. It can't have been easy, especially knowing how much it mattered to you. Please don't view this as a failure. You've been amazing. This. Pretty much...

Graeme Cole

I'm guessing a few Apterites got the conundrum but weren't allowed to answer? If they did, they kept pretty quiet about it. I don't think anyone got it. Just out of interest did anyone in the audience get the nine in the final letters round? SHOGUNATE? I think someone mentioned at lunchtime that Ad...

Graeme Cole

Eoin Monaghan wrote:I'm guessing a few Apterites got the conundrum but weren't allowed to answer?

If they did, they kept pretty quiet about it. I don't think anyone got it.

Graeme Cole

Mark Deeks wrote:Heh. Awesome. I was trying not to do the smugly-sit-back thing, but wasn't sure what to do instead. It seems that this was apparent

It seems the "don't do the smugly-sit-back thing" advice hasn't yet reached down under...

Graeme Cole

I've never noticed you can see a reflection of one of the studio monitors on the set before - is that regular or just a badly-positioned monitor one-off? I don't usually spot such boring stuff so it's quite exciting for me. See what I mean in the top-right of frame when the camera begins to pan in ...

Graeme Cole

I've never noticed you can see a reflection of one of the studio monitors on the set before - is that regular or just a badly-positioned monitor one-off? I don't usually spot such boring stuff so it's quite exciting for me. See what I mean in the top-right of frame when the camera begins to pan in ...

Graeme Cole

Round 11: T P B E I E R T A C1: - C2: BIRETTA (7) DC: BERATE (6) OT: BATTERIE (8) Score: 64–54 (max 87) IMPORTANT! Didn't hear what Paul had or what else DC got because my brother was scratching a cardboard box. Paul had BEARPIT which was disallowed. It was originally allowed, but after a while Sus...

Graeme Cole

I knew that there was a nine in the DRAGLINES round but still couldn't find it. Interesting that both Mark's and Graeme's nines have both contained the eight letter word READINGS. I wonder if Mark's going to post an image of your reaction to finding the nine. :D You couldn't see it on the TV becaus...

Graeme Cole

Another one.

Graeme Cole

Gavin Chipper wrote:So did Jeff actually get 956 himself?

As far as I know, yes he did.

(Also, I got 771 the sae way as Graeme and James, you losers.)

I didn't get 771. I was dithering about at 774 or something.

Graeme Cole

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. I noticed the upside-down M at the time. Closely followed by the thought "stop nitpicking the letters and work out what the anagram is". At the time Nikki said she was about half a second behind me on the buzzer, but looking at it now it was even less...

Graeme Cole

James Robinson wrote:the #2 seed Graeme "The Reading Ramrod" Cole

Hey, how did you find out my porn star name?

Graeme Cole

Yes to food please, Ben.

Graeme Cole

Best "I've got a nine" look EVER.

Graeme Cole

But for me it still boils down to the fact that from the day she started Phyllis could ONLY qualify for the series 66 finals; it seems wrong that to do so she would HAVE to have won at least 7 games if later on others qualify by only winning 6, and with fewer points than she racked up. I'm sure we'...

Graeme Cole

Why does winning the toss put you in the champion's chair? I would call that losing the toss - in the other seat you get to choose two numbers, get a better view of Rachel, don't have a hot floor light just to your right, and don't have Gloria Hunniford in dictionary corner saying words out loud du...

Graeme Cole

Jon O'Neill wrote:Is there any point in leaving when you're behind? Seems a stupid question to ask.

If you leave, and your opponent gets locked in the vault, you win. Wouldn't have thought it's worth doing unless your opponent's only got a small amount of time left, though.

Graeme Cole

Have a grid.

No idea how difficult it is, so I've just put "medium".

Graeme Cole

I and some colleagues at work had a go at it. There are three stages, and that image is the first one. It's very computer-oriented. I won't give any spoilers away, but it's not the kind of code you can solve with a pen and paper; quite a bit of programming knowledge and tools are required to underst...

Graeme Cole

Can't remember if it's been said here but you need to book Friday and Saturday separately. Last time I checked (and this is what we did last year) it was £19 for the Friday night and £31 (ish) for the Saturday, if you book both together you pay the higher rate for both nights. Might have been the c...

Graeme Cole

Top tip: if you're staying Friday and Saturday night at the Lincoln Thorpe on the Hill Travelbodge, http://www.travelodge.co.uk seems to give a slightly cheaper rate than www2.travelodge.co.uk. The mind boggles. Seemed to have gone up to £31 per night since others booked their rooms, though. After I...

Graeme Cole

Graeme Cole

Minimum age 12 (ID required for under 16s) How do they tell if you're under 16? If it's the same way I do it, it involves a penis and waiting by the door to see if a court summons turns up. But then that's pretty inconvenient for a TV show queue, so ID is a good backup option. So you have to show I...

Graeme Cole

Anyway, turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that for the 18:20-18:50 doors you really want to be queueing up by 4pm at the latest to guarantee yourself entry to the studio. Neither of us can be even close to bothered to do this. I don't blame you, but why would you need to queue so early to "gu...

Graeme Cole

I asked about it this morning, and Damian's sent me an email which explains everything. The summary is: yes, it's true; no, they're not doing it voluntarily, it's been imposed on them; and yes, it's due to new regulations about how many hours children can perform. Damian's not going to post here, bu...

Graeme Cole

I hope this isn't true. I think it'd be a massive mistake for all the reasons James has given, assuming it's a decision they're making voluntarily rather than it being imposed on them. I watched the show at an early age, and I don't remember much of it. However, I do remember watching a nine year ol...

Graeme Cole

Jack Worsley wrote:In your defence Graeme, it was a pretty poor set of letters although I am surprised you didn't think of RAFTER.

I did. Problem is it was a few seconds after I declared.

Graeme Cole

Stewart Holden wrote:
James Robinson wrote:Round 4: M I A D X R E E N

C1: REMAINED (8)
C2: DREAM (5)

Is this the worst ever (valid) offering in a letters game?

No, round 8 in this game is.

(But at least it scored.)

Graeme Cole

Arrange Hewer for first episode - why? (9)

Graeme Cole

It's Nick Hewer.

One of those choices where at first you think it was probably a catastrophic administrative error that wasn't caught until too late, and then think about it and realise it could turn out to be a magnificent stroke of genius.

Graeme Cole

Innis Carson wrote:Was that Rob Foster who got the conundrum?

Yes, I'm almost certain it was.

Graeme Cole

Round 14: 3, 7, 10, 4, 1, 2. Target: 750. CB: - AM: 750. (7 x 4) - 2 - 1 x 10 x 3 (10) Score: 64–69 (max 112, DC Max 96) Oh, come on, I got that! (7 x (3 x 4 - 1 - 2)) x 10 That's 630. Also, in the absence of brackets you do multiplications and divisions before additions and subtractions, so (7 * 4...

Graeme Cole

That numbers miss in R5 by both contestants is... interesting... to say the least. Just studio pressure I guess. Anyone get round 10? What a load of wank that selection was. Shuffle the numbers, Rachel. 9*7*6+25+(8-7)=404. Not within the time, though. Or ((6 x 7) + 25 -9) x7 also not in time. 406, ...

Graeme Cole

Andy Platt wrote:That numbers miss in R5 by both contestants is... interesting... to say the least. Just studio pressure I guess.

Anyone get round 10? What a load of wank that selection was. Shuffle the numbers, Rachel.

9*7*6+25+(8-7)=404. Not within the time, though.

Graeme Cole

Rhys Benjamin wrote:
David Williams wrote:So do you all support the party that is the nearest to your own views? According to this that would be Labour for Rhys and the Greens for everyone else.
That was 2010 - Labour are usually in everyone else's league.

O'rly?

Graeme Cole

I thought that for life shows they used a speech recog program. For live shows, the subtitler uses a special keyboard where keys and combinations of keys represent different sounds rather than different letters, similar to the stenographer's keyboard used in court reporting. Then some software uses...

Graeme Cole

Jack Worsley wrote:At first I thought Sam said SNEAKIEST on the conundrum, which is a possible explanation for Beryl not getting it.

I thought Sam said SNEAKIEST too, but having watched it back he definitely said SNAKIEST. Jeff repeated the word back as well to confirm what he'd said.

Graeme Cole

Thomas Carey wrote:BEVATRON in the BOATMEN round.

Phantom V there, I'm afraid.

Graeme Cole

I call the rules CoGood and CoJeff. lol. The problem with the Bristol format IMO is that, while you theoretically get to play more games, the whole thing gets bogged down with the overheads of looking up 30 different phonies every round etc and ends up being slower. And giving everyone the same con...

Graeme Cole

I'd be interested to know how long I've spent playing on apterous, even though I'm not in the top 30. Or is there already a way of finding this out that I'm not seeing?

Graeme Cole

You should have an option of who you can choose as host in full custom. 80's Carol is starting to annoy me with her anti-Thatcher-ism. You think 80's Carol's anti-Thatcher stance is more worthy of comment than Morbo's blanket anti-human policy? Perhaps to balance it out, Thatcher should be added as...

Graeme Cole

I don't understand it. If Anne is leading 61-49 with four rounds to play, why does she need at least 9 points to win, while Nikki needs 13? Not sure I understand this either. The figures for Nikki look right, but Anne can still win without scoring nine points, and even if she does score nine more p...

Graeme Cole

AH: TOUNGE (6) Tongue. Actually I'm thinking of doing that POINTS etc. thing every recap for all of it. I don't understand it. If Anne is leading 61-49 with four rounds to play, why does she need at least 9 points to win, while Nikki needs 13? Not sure I understand this either. The figures for Nikk...

Graeme Cole

Not sure where to put this, as it doesn't really deserve its own thread, so I'll put it here. "Interesting" fact: all the current top eight seeds faced at least one crucial conundrum in their heats. If this is still true come the finals, it'll be the first time this has happened since Seri...

Graeme Cole

I didn't accuse Paul Zenon of claiming to be able to perform magic. I pointed out that he (and every other inhabitant of Dictionary Corner) has information fed to him through an earpiece, which is concealed from the audience. Are you sure the DC guest has an earpiece? I know Susie does, but I'm not...

Graeme Cole

You're watching QI and you keep thinking "OUTRAN".

Graeme Cole

Yes, Senor, Senora and Senorita are now disallowed because they're capitalised, but the aitchified versions of them are still okay. Accented letters don't cause a word to be disallowed.

VOLUMISE in R9, TRAITEUR in R12.

Graeme Cole

6 . Promote it better on Channel 4 - instead of "Oh, here's Countdown" as if it's not much, have a "So, Joe Bloggs won yesterday but can he be stopped? It's... Countdown.". Actually, it turns out they used to do this . Nowadays it seems they spend more time talking about Deal or...

Graeme Cole

Peter Mabey wrote:
Adam Gillard wrote:CRENELATED, CRENELATES and CRENELATING should all be in but aren't.
U.s. spellings are always out

It's not a US spelling. Dictionary says "crenellate ... (also crenelate)".

Graeme Cole

RACKETEER/CARETAKER: I remember a few years ago someone making the very same mistake; I suspect the same initial letters were used, but can't be sure. He was an ace crossword solver (D... McN... I think) and one would have expected him to win. But it was a crucial conundrum and he jumped in almost ...

Graeme Cole

I genuinely just read this topic and thought, wouldn't it be hilarious if I made a silly parody topic called "cake forks"?

Then I realised it was already there, and was there first.

So yeah, that's all I came in to say, really. I'll get my coat.

Graeme Cole

Now my views have developed and I retook the test: Economic Left/Right: 4.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 3.69 Within touching distance of Thatcher now. Is Thatcher your target? You should probably be letting your political viewpoint develop on its own based on what you think, rather than tryi...

Graeme Cole

I'm told I watched Countdown even when too young to remember it. When I was at school I watched semi-regularly, thinking that one day I'd apply to go on it. Then I stopped watching it when I was at university (the inverse of the student stereotype). After that I watched occasionally, but when googli...

Search found 2015 matches