c4countdown

Not to mention press coverage of contestants such as Conor, Kai and Jeffrey Hansford being massive spoilers. It's fairly easy not to go to the spoiler section of this site, harder to miss the press articles.

Despite Countdown's cult, iconic status, it's clearly not a priority for S4C. It's got a 2.15 slot, but it doesn't start until Tuesday, so they will be a day behind everyone else, so viewers relying on analogue shouldn't visit tthe spoiler section of this site. And what devastatingly important progr...

As a humble viewer with no inside knowledge I'm a bit puzzled about these 'Rachel Struggles' stories. She's only called upon to demonstrate the answer when the contestants have failed to hit the target exactly and, given the standard of contestants in the CoC, that is only likely to occur either whe...

I've seen the article and should add that it contains a small spoiler for CoC. It hints at the result of one of the first round matches and gives away a 9-letter word found by one of the contestants.

1. C4 have enough notice of interruptions to know the number of heats required for a series in time to line up contestants. 2. The rise of the nerd seems to date from the change to the 15-round format. Of the 15-round champions, only mark Tounoff and John Mayhew appear to be out their 20s. This chan...

Anyone who's seen the first episode of Countdown will realise how wooden both Richard and Carol were back then. I haven't seen Rachel yet, but she just has to be better than CV and RW were in the first show.

Is it just me, or is Jo Brand's shtick getting on other people's nerves as well. It's like a kid who, having thought up a good joke, bores everyone to death by repeating it ad nauseam.

Could anyone give any info on the Countdown in the attached, or confirm my suspicion that it's complete sloblock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Inverdale

Malcolm

And of course the "foreskin" exchange between Susie snd Jenny Bond was left in.

It's spelt Cobh.

They generally seem to give more leeway on the numbers than the letters when it comes to declaration errors, so if Peter's solution had been correctly written down, he may well have got the points.

Malcolm

To answer my own question, I presume Peter had it written down correctly anyway, so it would have been OK.

Was I the only one to mis-hear Peter, or did he really say 6 - 3 = 2, as Carol wrote? Doubtless that was a slip of the tongue, but technically it was a mis-declaration, if I heard him correctly. Also Richard was very generous to correct Carol for the error, but by then he could afford to be generous...

Congratulations to Des on his CBE in the Birthday Honours' List. Strangely in the citation they omitted any mention of Countdown!

Malcolm

R5

25 9 9 8 3 2 Target 735

(8 + 2) x 9 x 9 = 810

810 - (25 - 3) = 735

Jim Bentley wrote 19th Nov 2007 Bit of a minefield, this round, as I would have taken Carl's offering as "PORTENT" - it was Des who said "PORTANT", stressing the hard 'A', which made Alison disallow it without giving him the chance to spell it. Then again, that's just what we saw...

I agree that the willingness to learn words simply because they might be useful in some word game or other is a predominantly male trait and is likely to account for part of the difference, but, for Countdown, the knowledge of obscure words seems to me to be less important than the ability to spot r...

Martin

I don't disagree with what you say, but 94% of the population is white and 2 Asian champions out of 57 seems roughly in proportion. Afro-Caribbeans are definitely under-represented, probably due to socio-economic reasons. 50% of the population, though, are women

I don't know if the average contestant is weaker than some years ago. Since it is agreed that the standard of the best contestants has risen and that good contestants are less likely to lose unluckily, they are possibly just made to look worse by the quality of the opposition. Also, although Countdo...

I've had a chance to check the ODE and PALATISED is IN. I withdraw any slurs against the ODE and OUP.

So, let me get this straight. Some US commentator invents LOSINGEST and it's in. PALATISED is a long-established technical word, and it isn't (and I assure you that I haven't been "disproportionately exposed to this word). The ODE needs a serious look at its priorities.

If I had offered PALATISED and had it disallowed, I would have been massively aggrieved. Marginal decisions aree one thing, but excluding words which so clearly DO exist and which are in regular use (albeit in a technical sense) is another. It's no good saying "Ah, but the dictionary can't incl...

It's Chambers, but if you google "palatised consonants" you get loads of hits. They can't all be using a non-existent word. and I've heard it used a number of times before in this context.

My dictionary gives PALATISE v.t. - to make palatal.

As in palatised consonants.

I'm surprised DC (and everyone else so it seems) has missed PALATISED in round 3.

Hi! I'm Malcolm and i've been watching the programme since about 1998. No great ambitions to go on the show though.