c4countdown

David Williams

Thomas Carey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 3:24 pm Yeah I hate when I'm watching football and the players are better than me.

If you equate watching football with watching Countdown, and your objective watching Countdown is to prove to your mum that you're better than the contestants, I'm inclined to believe this is true.

David Williams

If I was the producer of Countdown I'd be trying to do two impossible and contradictory things. To remove all subjectivity, so there is no doubt about whether a word is valid or not. And to make it as difficult as possible to learn all the valid words. As an aside, I imagine it would be possible to ...

David Williams

I've never been able to get away from the image of someone buying a quiz game and then spending many hours learning the answer to every single question. Amazing to watch them, but it does render the game pointless for their opposition, and fewer people will want to play them. I suggest that Countdow...

David Williams

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 5:08 pm Maybe when Damian retires the new person will have the vision to make the change.

In similar news, Manchester City and PSG are hoping the next head of UEFA will have the vision to change the Financial Fair Play rules so that clubs without rich owners are disadvantaged in some way.

David Williams

Is it definitely only an issue for comparatives and superlatives of derivatives, or one affecting derivatives generally? There used to be several aspects of derivatives needing some dictionary corner common sense input because there was no information in the dictionary. I remember coming across &quo...

David Williams

It's not so much about whether the word is reasonable. If OAKIER and OAKIEST are not specified that isn't because the comparative and superlative are unreasonable, it's because they think that correct and common usage is MORE and MOST OAKY. Which is nonsense. In the olden days there was the situatio...

David Williams

Astonished that BEIGE is not an adjective. It's an adjective in my NODE, and a noun as a subsidiary meaning. It's also a count noun as well as a mass noun (matching fawns and beiges), so if there is more than one BEIGE, surely one thing can be BEIGER than another. It is also used to mean safe or bor...

David Williams

If the decision is anything other than Player 1 wins, then the logical thing for all players to do is shout out the answer as soon as they see it, while also pressing the buzzer. Can't lose, might just gain. A variant is if Player 2 shouts out, say, CAFETERIA. Player 1 says "Yes, CAFETERIA"...

David Williams

Made notes of some of them when poring over 9-letter words lists, purely on the grounds of them being multi-faceted in terms of endings and beginnings. Some were seen when reading recipes (tomatillo), sheet music (cantabile andantino), lo-cost ice was written in chalk on a board outside the entranc...

David Williams

Feeling quite pleased with myself for WHITHER and SOCIOLECT. Not that I'd ever heard of the word. Most of the current run seem to involve finding a suffix/prefix and seeing if the remaining letters can be made into a plausible prefix/suffix. I'd be interested to know how they actually found them all.

David Williams

DOUGLA is apparently sometimes derogatory, whereas GIAOUR is always derogatory. GIAOUR last appeared as a losing declaration in the Grand Final only six months ago, so could easily have been cut or re-filmed, but wasn't. Over the years I've learned that many things I think of now as obvious, probabl...

David Williams

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:55 pm Also are we saying that any sort of "dummy" in any sort of competition is unfair? Declaring an 8 with confidence in Countdown when you know it's really dodgy.

That's OK. Declaring an 8 as dodgy when you are 100% sure it's OK is more debatable.

David Williams

When a footballer fakes a shot so that the goalie dives and makes it easier to score with a real shot, what they've done is essentially lied. This creates a culture of dishonesty. Is it any wonder players also pretend to be fouled to win free kicks and penalties? I doubt if you do actually believe ...

David Williams

STEALING is another word for THEFT, which is countable. But there are two senses of THEFT, one countable, one not. You can commit several (countable) thefts, but the crime you will be convicted of is theft (mass noun). I'd suggest that STEALING is only a synonym for the latter. Taken all in all tha...

David Williams

Rhys Benjamin wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 5:38 am self-depreciation

Maybe we should be teaching English a bit longer as well.

David Williams

Messrs Chipper and Team being nice to each other? What's going on here? As someone who's never been an apterite I have to agree with CT. CANTABILE and ANDANTINO are both words I knew, but there are plenty of words that come up that I have never heard of and couldn't even make up. I saw CANTABILE ins...

David Williams

Or maybe they'll troll us again with all -INGs except in the final Out of interest I had a browse through that. Episode 1331 contains 25 5 2 6 3 6 → 682 CV: 681 Best: 682 = (6 + 3) × 6 ÷ 2 × 25 + 5 + 2 I think 682 = (5 x 6 - 2) x 25 - 3 x 6 is better, seeing as it only uses each of the numbers once.

David Williams

Ben Wilson wrote: ↑Fri Dec 30, 2022 12:15 am In non-leap years, January 1 and December 31 fall on the same day of the week.

And if you get married on a Saturday your ruby wedding will be on a Sunday.

David Williams

Worth remembering that this is day 1 on the job for the guest hosts (bar Sir Trev's special a few months back). Whenever I start a new job I spend the first day finding the coffee machine and trying to remember the way back from the toilets! Any of us who have hosted a game at a co:event know it ta...

David Williams

Ben Wilson wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:03 pm
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.

I can only assume he didn't know.

David Williams

No-one's even interested enough to point out you've got the year wrong.

David Williams

On a related topic, England won the 20/20 World Cup but it was definitely not thrust down my throat like other sporting things, so it seems not be be at or near the top of the general pecking order. Think you'll find it was the T20, rather than the one for those with excellent eyesight. It did seem...

David Williams

I wonder how they decide which one of the two celebrities turning up for a day's filming is going to do which job. You might have thought Dan Walker would be the host, marvelling at how clever Richard Coles is, rather than the other way round. Maybe next time they could swap? Chopping and changing e...

David Williams

If you're going to have a different celebrity host every week, do you really need a celebrity guest as well? How many celebrities do you need to contribute virtually nothing to the actual game, which could be perfectly well run by Susie and Rachel on their own? It's just padding. I disagree. It wou...

David Williams

If you're going to have a different celebrity host every week, do you really need a celebrity guest as well? How many celebrities do you need to contribute virtually nothing to the actual game, which could be perfectly well run by Susie and Rachel on their own? It's just padding.

David Williams

Even better if everything in the last three days was deleted and a few bans were issued.

It's rather like when someone doesn't observe the minute's silence at a football match, and some moron thinks the appropriate response is to bellow foul-mouthed abuse.

David Williams

Cryptic crosswords (hello Dave Gorman in DC this week). You might hear one clue and think "That's clever" but then you realise how formulaic, samey and boring they all are. Maybe not quite as bad as Sudoku but getting there. I don't think this is a line you should be pursuing on a Countdo...

David Williams

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:33 pm Given that today was game #8 of a notable Octorun, anyone who:-
1. Does not know by now
2. Would read this forum (or go on social media etc.) before watching todays show
is not a big enough fan, and hence does not deserve to be protected from spoilers.

That would be me, then.

David Williams

Did Colin cost Alan seven points there? If Alan hadn't agreed with him that he was "thinking of putting the 'I' in to make "LUSTIER", would Susie have asked him to spell his word, or would she just have taken it for granted that it was LUSTRE? No. Alan cost himself any points at all ...

David Williams

Did Colin cost Alan seven points there? If Alan hadn't agreed with him that he was "thinking of putting the 'I' in to make "LUSTIER", would Susie have asked him to spell his word, or would she just have taken it for granted that it was LUSTRE?

David Williams

Philip A wrote: ↑Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:40 pm Unfortunately, Mike Daysley, the winner of Series 79, has not been invited. I feel sorry for him.

As consolation, he will remain a member of the elite group of the undefeated.

David Williams

The guidance notes for contestants tell you not to say "Please" every time you ask for a consonant. You probably wouldn't even realise you were doing it, but it can get irritating. You'd like to think that similar guidance might be offered to presenters. At least with Colin it's just askin...

David Williams

the percentages are biased towards females and old people. It's much easier for e.g. an 80-year-old woman to achieve a particular percentage than for a 25-year-old man. Have to disagree. The world records that the percentages are based on are biased towards females and old people, for the reasons y...

David Williams

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 10:00 pm I did the 43×14 thing as well. Much nicer.

Possibly, but if you've got 7, 8 and 9 you know what you have to do.
7*8*9 + 6*8 + 50 is the standard method, surely.

David Williams

Seconded (76.22%). Though it's a completely different dataset. Your best time isn't necessarily your best age grade ranking.

David Williams

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:44 pm I may be wrong but once Edward Abdicated his potential children wouldn't have been in direct line.

You're correct, but my point is that by then it was very likely that he wasn't going to have any.

David Williams

Unlike his mother who was 10 when she knew she would be the Head of State. I've never really understood the suggestion that the abdication changed everything for her. When she was born, she would only become queen if her unmarried 30 year old uncle had no children, and her own parents didn't have a...

David Williams

I remember at the time of Princess Diana's funeral it was pointed out that the last one of a similar prominence, Churchill's, coincided with the Fifth Round of the FA Cup. No-one even considered postponements. I'd be prepared to bet that if the Premier League were to announce that all matches would ...

David Williams

Where do you stand on rats, mosquitoes and locusts?

David Williams

If we're reforming the tax system, I've never understood why there's so much opposition to inheritance tax. Nowadays you're probably in your sixties when your parents die, mortgage paid off, kids off your hands. If there's ever a time in your life when you can afford to pay some tax it's on an inher...

David Williams

I suspect the reason that income tax and national insurance have never been combined is that however you do it, it's a massive vote loser. Simply increase the basic rate, and lose the vote of every pensioner in the country? Or only increase the basic rate for the working population, and bring it hom...

David Williams

There's no practical reason whatever why there shouldn't be a women's game in a Premier League stadium. But Premier League games are virtually sold out anyway. Season-ticket holders are not going to agree readily to paying extra, and they're going to take even less kindly to being excluded altogethe...

David Williams

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:29 am
Fiona T wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:29 pmHow about Saturday afternoon games played back to back - ticket holders can stay for both!
That's a great solution

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:17 pm There would have to be a suitable gap between each game to clear the stadium

Think this idea needs a bit of fine-tuning.

David Williams

R14 Alt (10 + 5 - 6) * 8 * (4 + 3) = 504

No other method should even be considered.

David Williams

Someone's going to have to fill in a few gaps for me. Maybe Mr T? Should Reading Women get paid the same as Reading Men, or considerably more? Because Reading Men are paid a fraction of what the men's teams are paid at the other clubs in the WSL. Do season-ticket holders want an extra two hours of e...

David Williams

Originally seatbelts weren't the loose ones with a locking mechanism we have now. So you either strapped yourself in so tight that they were uncomfortable and you couldn't reach the dashboard, or you had it loose enough that it would probably break all your ribs and garotte you if you had an acciden...

David Williams

Women's football is more interesting to watch than the men's. There I've said it. This might be unfair, as I don't watch much football; but my general impression of elite team sport is that at the very highest level, optimal play can render a contest into a bore-fest of tactical manoeuvring, wherea...

David Williams

Vaseline has a history, if you do a search. It used to be lower case in the print dictionary, all the example sentences on Lexico are lower case, and the word is being used in a generic sense, yet for the main entry they have reverted to upper case. I really don't know what evidence of change of usa...

David Williams

I think the real question here is why does my bloody dad keep turning the oven off at the plug for no reason. But I don't think this thread is going to help me answer that. The real question is why do so many things have clocks at all. How much electricity do they use over the lifetime of the appli...

David Williams

https://tinyurl.com/ycxwwa3n This is the sort of thing I'm thinking of. My point is really that simply doing the decent thing by anyone in a camp in Calais today would surely mean that even more people would turn up in Calais. And personally I don't see the current numbers trying to get into the UK ...

David Williams

I'm simply seeking information, which seems to be in short supply. I'm sure I've seen reports of major problems in countries in Eastern Europe with large numbers of refugees being repelled by barricades. Just because it ceases to be news in the UK doesn't mean it still doesn't happen. (Does it?) And...

David Williams

How many people are applying to stay in countries in mainland Europe? Why should the UK be getting so much more than anywhere else? Brexit? Actually, I'm not sure it's true that the UK is getting more than anywhere else. But that wasn't the question I was concerned with. It's more the possibility t...

David Williams

When the M25 was built it was immediately full to capacity. When it was decided that a new road should be built it was planned on the basis of existing traffic levels. No account was taken of the traffic that would be created by the new road. I think it's pretty clear that it's difficult, dangerous ...

David Williams

Just me who was taken aback by CRONEYISM, then? How does that get into the dictionary? CRONEY doesn't exist as an alternative spelling of CRONY.

David Williams

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 8:45 am You can't judge a conundrum on such a small sample size.

Words one individual is unfamiliar with is a pretty small sample.

David Williams

Fwiw, disbursal isn't that obscure to me. Plenty of usage in finance related fields Yeah, I got it pretty quickly and I'm pretty terrible at conundrums For me, a bad conundrum is one that is either so hard neither player gets it (what was the point?) or so easy both get it instantly (a test of reac...

David Williams

I slide tackled Paul Reaney once. I thought this was a terrible claim to fame but he's a bit more famous than I realised, as he's come up in some recent articles as the first non-white bloke to play football for England. I certainly think of Paul Reaney as famous, and I didn't know that. Over 700 g...

David Williams

There are 10 pints of blood in the human body. It's perfectly possible to drink 10 pints of beer in an hour or two. I don't think your blood becomes that heavily diluted. I thought the small intestine extracted the liquid that it needed and passed the rest to the large intestine, which extracts the ...

David Williams

My layman's knowledge of the digestive system is that it essentially takes what it needs (and some things it doesn't) and rejects the rest. I don't think it expels them into the blood. I thought that liquids found their way to the bladder mainly through the kidneys, and also extracted by the solidif...

David Williams

I think it's pretty insane how Shell have made record profits . Shell's profits were expected to be big. The price of oil and gas, already high at the end of last year, surged higher after the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatened disruption and eventual boycotts of one of the world's biggest supp...

Search found 1263 matches