c4countdown

Countdown Team

Congrats to Callum and commiserations to Dylan.
Great final, one of the best.
Thanks to all who took part - Merry Xmas. Time to go home.

Countdown Team

After a decent run, maybe 3, 4 wins, something like that.

Countdown Team

There's no particular reason why we can't recap the standings a few times during the series. We used to do it all the time but somehow it kind of dropped away.

Consider it reborn.

Countdown Team

Jennifer Steadman wrote:I'm almost certain it's 20th December

Spot on.

Countdown Team

Re the opening post - this idea has been delayed so will not roll-out until Series 71 at the earliest.
Thanks

Countdown Team

Corby makes a good argument. I'm largely sold. On the writing things down? I've only just read through all this properly and don't understand why there's any sort of argument in the first place. If you know your declaration needs to be written down, then make sure you write it down. It's going to b...

Countdown Team

What do OUP think about this? Loads of people must buy their dictionaries specifically for Countdown. OUP are on-board with it, Martin. The problem they have these days, is it takes years to compile a dictionary, and by the time it's left the publishers, the language has evolved and the hard-copy i...

Countdown Team

We've definitely no plans to enforce a rule that says people have to write things down. There isn't any justifiable reason for doing so. It's very clear to me (anyone else?), etc etc...... Jon- to clarify , you're asking about this scenario... Contestant A - 7 Contestant B, currently with a 6, then...

Countdown Team

Mark Deeks wrote:Hansford solved that PARQUETRY more instantly than any conundrum I've ever seen since.

Definitely floored his opponent.

Countdown Team

I can't think of any change in the history of the show which so radically changed the look and feel as much as this one will (changing to an online dictionary, that is). An uncharacteristically brave decision by Team Countdown. I suppose we'll have "Computer Corner" from now on, making an...

Countdown Team

ODO is more up-to-date than the printed ODE and it's free! I think this is a very sensible decision, Damian. I hope it works out well in terms of validation of declarations! Presumably contestants will still get a proper dictionary in their goody bags though? Yes and a shiny new Oxford Thesaurus to...

Countdown Team

It's been noticed that ODO will recognise some comparatives and superlatives of monosyllabic adjectives (from what I've seen, mainly everyday ones like WILDEST and GRANDER) and redirect you to the root word, whereas other ones (such as apterous abominations FAUXER and HINGEDEST) throw up "no r...

Countdown Team

Great move. Regarding Graeme's point, I'd think that if the search bar recognises a plural and redirects you to the root entry, then that should be taken as an unequivocal indication that the plural is valid. If it doesn't recognise the plural, then you would have to look at the entry and make the ...

Countdown Team

You allowed a cheat to win on Tuesday an it was DISGUSTING to watch! Right. The issue relating to Tuesday's show was perhaps made bigger by what happened with the 1st conundrum. I dare say if the first conundrum had never happened, i don't think many people would be crying foul over what took place...

Countdown Team

Dave Preece wrote:
I bet the 'team' don't reply!!!

There will be a reply. Only if you promise to get your blood pressure checked out first.

Countdown Team

Sorry, bad example then. TRUANCIES is a better example. What I'm getting at is, if a player offers TRUANCIES for 9, is the process: look up "truancy" on ODO, see that it's a mass noun, and disallow it; or look up "truancies", see that it gives you the entry for "truancy&quo...

Countdown Team

Oooooooh. This is gonna be massive. Mike Brown and Giles may need some help with this Apto-dic update... Also, does this mean the pencam/dictionary will be replaced by a computer/tablet device of some description? Yes, pencam binned and if necessary we'll cut up a feed of the laptop screen instead....

Countdown Team

Hi there, Just wanted to give some of you the heads-up on a major change to Countdown for 2014 (that means all shows being recorded from Nov 26 onwards). FOR ALL SHOWS BEING TRANSMITTED FROM 2014 ONWARDS, WE WILL BE USING THE OXFORD DICTIONARY ONLINE (ODO) AS OUR OFFICIAL WORD REFERENCE. (SEE THE LI...

Countdown Team

We've never once had an email, letter, phone call from any viewer suggesting that Rachel is fed answers though, so if it looks like she's being fed answers, why is nobody telling us? Because nobody's noticed, or nobody cares, or nobody's watching? I'm a viewer. I'll send you an email if you'd like....

Countdown Team

I think it's good in that it does justice to the contestant who didn't solve it exactly, but did get as close as was possible, but at the same time, it makes it look like Rachel is being fed solutions. We've never once had an email, letter, phone call from any viewer suggesting that Rachel is fed a...

Countdown Team

Zarte, it's disappointing but not surprising you've had messages from people saying what they did. As previously mentioned, Rory came up against you and lost, when he perhaps would have beaten your next 3 or 4 opponents and got into the finals himself. If we get 20 above average players in a series ...

Countdown Team

Echoing what Jack has just said, it was really tough on Zarte to meet Dylan at that stage, but one would have to back him to reappear in the finals, and hope he does after such an impressive run of 5. The obvious thing to bear in mind is that Zarte didn't meet Dylan by chance, he met him because so...

Countdown Team

Re IAN TALBOT / BATTALION......

The idea was always going to be that if the conundrum were crucial then it would be changed to something else.

It's not every day we get the opportunity to do something like that, so it wasn't going to be passed up.

Countdown Team

Claire Balding - Sport is the forte of this confused angelical bird.

Cyanide - Feeling a touch blue in the middle of the month perhaps?

Football Stadium - ANFIELD......... The second home of actress Shirley? (Shirley Ann-Field)

Countdown Team

Indeed, being really purist, if Rachel is routinely told when a numbers game is not possible she will infer from silence that it is possible. This may lead her to a solution she wouldn't otherwise have got. In the same way as when someone declares a word longer than yours, you often see it straight...

Countdown Team

Not sure we're in agreement, David. When Rachel says "no, i'm 2 away, i'll have another look" at the end of a numbers game, how can they be thinking about computers? Outsiders and non-followers of the show may be suspicious or cynical, but Countdown fans on the whole? Not at all. You can h...

Countdown Team

What do we think about Rachel announcing as a fact that a numbers game is impossible? Susie never announces that there isn't anything better. The information can only come from a computer. Where do they draw the line? If Rachel blanks for some reason, might she be fed a solution? Any rational outsi...

Countdown Team

No need to apologise, was just defending Carl in a way, as he clearly didn't play to anything like his full potential on the day, which is a something that happens from time to time.

Countdown Team

The truth was actually that Carl had actually failed his audition, but due to a contestant from Ireland having pulled out due to bad weather, they had to get someone local and available to fill in at the last minute. No idea where this came from, but in the interests of accuracy...... Carl had an a...

Countdown Team

Okay, we once 'lost' the J and V for a few months. This was , i think, because we had conundrums with J and V in, so we needed 2 of each letter, one for the reveal, one for the solution. I seem to recall that there was a shortage of such letters, so we pinched J and V from the normal letters piles t...

Countdown Team

Presumably they'd just stick the same bad consonants at the top again, rendering the exploitation fruitless, and give you a warning? Still probably worth a try! Likely that once you'd got CCCCCC and asked for another C, Rachel would tell you that you need 3 vowels now, so the first 6 letters, howev...

Countdown Team

He's an engineer.

Countdown Team

Nothing ruled out. Who knows...?

Countdown Team

Had a text from Des Lynam, who's still a huge fan and compulsive Countdown viewer. He was resident in the presenters chair when Conor first came to our screens in 2005. He was delighted for Conor and wanted to convey his congratulations. Nice touch. Read quite a bit on here about Penelope, whoever s...

Countdown Team

Now that it has ended, let's vote on the WOTT.

LORAZEPAM was DC's finest hour.

In terms of contestant words, VIHUELAS gets our vote.

Countdown Team

Well done all, thanks for everything.

From, THE Countdown Team.

Countdown Team

Jack Worsley wrote:I doubt it after this one. It'll be a long time before there's another tournament like this, if ever.

Indeed, never to be repeated.

Countdown Team

Jack - you're a gentleman and a superb player of Countdown. Blackpool's finest in fact. :D Congrats on your excellent journey over the last 18 months or so. Jono - you were in inspired form and unstoppable. I can't think you'd have lost that game no matter who you played, 99.9% unbeatable, especiall...

Countdown Team

Ryan Taylor wrote: Well done to the both of you! And to Damian for another great conundrum.

Thanks. Great that neither solved it, but on reflection, BARRYDICK was crap.
Deserved a BAGOGLORY sort of word. Gutted really. Could have done better.

Countdown Team

I think BAGOGLORY is one of the best conundrums I've seen on the show. No doubt it was saved for this situation Thanks, Jack. Indeed, trying to outfox you bastards and create some tension for the viewers at home was probably the hardest challenge i've ever faced, but seeing them miss the first one,...

Countdown Team

Food for thought?

2 x the portions of the fish in a restaurant, would you ask for 2 salmons? If so, what if goose was on the menu? Would you ask for 2 gooses or use the plural and ask for 2 geese? If it's 2 x geese, then surely it has to be 2 x salmon?

Countdown Team

That's the nature of this competition though, David. We can spend 29 seconds trying to dig out the max word, and sometimes eventually get it, only to find that Conor, Kirk, Innis, Graeme, Jack x 2 or whoever has also got it. There's not really any opportunity to then go back and revisit the selectio...

Countdown Team

Oh that makes sense now. BATONED was only really mentioned because i think everyone was confident it was in and only a last-second check of the dictionary made us realise otherwise, hence Susie bringing it up as we'd not really bothered to look for any alternatives. Not really sure how Susie would b...

Countdown Team

[quote]The fact that this was said a few days after the show was filmed shows just how responsive Mr Countdown Team is to our offerings.
/quote]

Can you explain in a bit more detail? What was said? Who, how, where?

Countdown Team

http://i45.tinypic.com/34qp5cj.jpg Here's a copy of the draw, which was made on October 8th, at 11.00am, by a randomizer at random.org There were originally 2 column of numbers, the first column is the order the names came out, the 2nd, which is obliterated by a marker pen, was the order they went ...

Countdown Team

Congrats to Jack on the 2nd highest score ever and for being a whisker away from achieving the record. As David says, the exuberance of someone aged 20 is understandable and completely forgivable, and it would be unfair for people to disregard the performance overall in favour of picking at your on-...

Countdown Team

Max game stuff was edited purely for time purposes.

Countdown Team

Think VIHUELAS was the pick of the games so far. That will surely change over the coming days / weeks. Bear in mind, the Countdown team can look things up before declaring. Susie has a dictionary. You guys have nothing but instinct, memory and skill. It's easy to find a great word under zero pressure.

Countdown Team

We don't use solvers. Never have, never will.

LORAZEPAM isn't the best DC spot ever, think it was CUNJEVOIS about a year ago.

Countdown Team

We'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part in the 30th Birthday championships of Countdown. The spirit and friendliness of all those taking part was an absolute joy to witness, and between you, you've given a TV audience the best shows Countdown has ever made. Sincere thanks to e...

Countdown Team

Jon Corby wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:0.01 that should have said.
I thought that was probably the case, but I just wanted to show that I was paying attention.

Not enough attention to spot that this thread is dated 2012 though. Call that an equaliser !

Countdown Team

Jon Corby wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:Just looked at our playback of the conundrums in 0.1 second breakdowns.

The first was 0.86 from being the board turning fully over to the button press, and the second was 0.82.

Amazing stuff.
How do you get 0.86 and 0.82 from 0.1 second breakdowns?

0.01 that should have said.

Countdown Team

Just looked at our playback of the conundrums in 0.1 second breakdowns.

The first was 0.86 from being the board turning fully over to the button press, and the second was 0.82.

Amazing stuff.

Countdown Team

It probably comes down to something tiny but essential. If I had to guess, I'd plump for this: those old displays that they must have used for about 10 years probably have RS-232 serial port connectors, and the trendy, shiny new MeDiaCiTYuK doesn't have a single computer in it that's old enough to ...

Countdown Team

Some coming up very soon, late January.

Countdown Team

FUMAROLIC - FORMULAIC.
Oversight yes. Apologies.

Countdown Team

Your conundrum wasn't affected by lap-top gate Nick, it was future shows. There are two sounds, one is a bell, one is a buzzer. It's easy to empathise with Nick H's confusion. Whenever he's addressed and yelled at normally, it's for us to stop recording and get his attention, so it's just unfortunat...

Countdown Team

Just wanted to allay any fears about the Conundrum situation. The confusion was caused because as soon as a contestant buzzes, we shout the name of that contestant to Nick H via his earpiece, so he knows who to pounce upon for the answer. In this instance, after Nick Deller buzzed, we yelled "N...

Countdown Team

First conundrum is a non-Ascension one, could be a sign of things to come! If it's not an apterous Conundrum then that's coincidence (and unusual, given that it's an everyday word). The conundrums for the whole event are done and they've not been compiled with apterous in mind at all. There are no ...

Countdown Team

Many thanks to all those who took part and all those who watched. This was a great series. On another day, Grant Waters could have won it, but for the fatigue of the schedule and the intensity of game after game. Rose Boyle was an absolute delight, Heather played brilliantly, David Barnard was so gr...

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