c4countdown

I think up to four sneezes is acceptable.

Good job you noticed that.

Genuinely sneezed seventeen times in a row once. Don't get why this something not be trusted since it's a completely involuntary action. I'd rather have not sneezed that much but what was I supposed to do?

People who...

People who fan their face.
People who say "touch wood".

Conor wrote:People who fan their face.

Doubly so when with their hands.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Conor wrote:People who fan their face.

Doubly so when with their hands.

Would it be OK if they had their hands amputated and replaced with fans, though?

JimBentley wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Conor wrote:People who fan their face.

Doubly so when with their hands.

Would it be OK if they had their hands amputated and replaced with fans, though?

Well it still wouldn't be OK (see Conor's post) but as for whether it would count for double, I'll have to check and get back to you. It hasn't happened often enough for me to form an opinion.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

JimBentley wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote: Doubly so when with their hands.

Would it be OK if they had their hands amputated and replaced with fans, though?

Well it still wouldn't be OK (see Conor's post) but as for whether it would count for double, I'll have to check and get back to you. It hasn't happened often enough for me to form an opinion.

While you're checking (and because of your lackadaisical attitude to detail, you'll probably forget) make sure you check the details for both hand fans and electric fans.

JimBentley wrote:While you're checking (and because of your lackadaisical attitude to detail, you'll probably forget) make sure you check the details for both hand fans and electric fans.

Right - this is now sorted. People who have electric fans for hands and go on to fan their face with their hands are basically the same as people who use an electric fan to fan their face.

However, with hand fans it's more complicated. If they fan their face because they think their face actually needs fanning (so they would fan their face with an electric fan if that's all that was available), then it's the same. But if they fan their face because they're just doing that weird thing that people do when they're not even hot, then they are doubly bad. I don't think people would use an electric fan in such a manner.

You understand what I mean though don't you? Some people (and without wanting to sound sexist but it's mainly females) randomly fan their faces with their hands as a weird gesture or something in a variety of situations. It's incredibly bizarre.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

JimBentley wrote:While you're checking (and because of your lackadaisical attitude to detail, you'll probably forget) make sure you check the details for both hand fans and electric fans.

Right - this is now sorted. People who have electric fans for hands and go on to fan their face with their hands are basically the same as people who use an electric fan to fan their face.

However, with hand fans it's more complicated. If they fan their face because they think their face actually needs fanning (so they would fan their face with an electric fan if that's all that was available), then it's the same. But if they fan their face because they're just doing that weird thing that people do when they're not even hot, then they are doubly bad. I don't think people would use an electric fan in such a manner.

You understand what I mean though don't you? Some people (and without wanting to sound sexist but it's mainly females) randomly fan their faces with their hands as a weird gesture or something in a variety of situations. It's incredibly bizarre.

Hmm, I'm not really convinced. I mean, how big can your cohort be? I've only ever heard of one person who has his hands replaced with electric fans, and believe me, I know where to look for them, if you know what I mean. I want a detailed breakdown of the sample sizes.

JimBentley wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:

JimBentley wrote:While you're checking (and because of your lackadaisical attitude to detail, you'll probably forget) make sure you check the details for both hand fans and electric fans.

Right - this is now sorted. People who have electric fans for hands and go on to fan their face with their hands are basically the same as people who use an electric fan to fan their face.

However, with hand fans it's more complicated. If they fan their face because they think their face actually needs fanning (so they would fan their face with an electric fan if that's all that was available), then it's the same. But if they fan their face because they're just doing that weird thing that people do when they're not even hot, then they are doubly bad. I don't think people would use an electric fan in such a manner.

You understand what I mean though don't you? Some people (and without wanting to sound sexist but it's mainly females) randomly fan their faces with their hands as a weird gesture or something in a variety of situations. It's incredibly bizarre.

Hmm, I'm not really convinced. I mean, how big can your cohort be? I've only ever heard of one person who has his hands replaced with electric fans, and believe me, I know where to look for them, if you know what I mean. I want a detailed breakdown of the sample sizes.

It was proved from first principles rather than empirically.

Gavin Chipper wrote:It was proved from first principles rather than empirically.

Doesn't wash. Admit it, you know nothing about the problems faced by people who - through various unfortunate household or industrial accidents - have had to have their hands replaced with electric fans, often comically oversized ones. You probably don't realise how serious a problem it is; but if I was to tell you you're as likely to meet a person walking down the street with hands replaced by electric fans as you are to meet a black transsexual, I think you'd change your mind, cos I can barely get out of the house without meeting at least one of either, although admittedly it is often the same person.

I assume the transsexual thing was due to a fan(ny) accident.

People who have a shower every day regardless of whether they actually need one.

People who don't think they need to shower every day?

Jon O'Neill wrote:People who don't think they need to shower every day?

I think Gevin means that they would, like, have a shower on a Tuesday then hermetically seal themselves in a protective bubble, thereby remaining entirely clean and germ-free until the next day, but then would have a shower anyway because of their obsessive-compulsive disorder (that compels them to seal themselves in protective bubbles and stuff). At least, that seems the most likely explanation, as Gevin himself has only ever - in my admittedly limited experience - emitted an odour so pure that it can perhaps only be likened to such olfactory delights previously only connected with the likes of the fragrant Lady Archer.

Jon O'Neill wrote:People who don't think they need to shower every day?

I don't! You can 96-hour anti-perspirant nowadays.

Apparently it's not that good for you to have a shower every day anyway. It washes off all your protective natural oils or something.

It's just some cultural bullshit anyway. I have a shower most days anyway because I go for a run most days but if I have a day without a run or anything else that makes me particularly sweaty/dirty of course I don't have a fucking shower. And unless you are a particularly sweaty or smelly person no-one would know and you'd soon lose that psychosomatic bullshit feeling of "Ooo I always feel dirty until I've had my daily shower."

Amen to that. I even sometimes (albeit rarely) will go to work the day after having had a run on an evening previous without having had a shower. No smelliness problems, although in such cases, I do feel mucky. And I am very aware when I do actually smell.

Ian Volante wrote:Amen to that. I even sometimes (albeit rarely) will go to work the day after having had a run on an evening previous without having had a shower. No smelliness problems, although in such cases, I do feel mucky. And I am very aware when I do actually smell.

When I go on a run I don't normally have a shower immediately after getting in. And sometimes when it comes to it, I think "Fuck it" and don't bother. But this is invariably in the winter when I haven't really sweated anyway. It has to be pretty cold for this to happen.

People who are on Apterous but don't post on C4C and think this is an acceptable way to be part of the online Countdown community.

People who don't sneeze properly - they do this weird suppression thing.

Gavin Chipper wrote:People who don't sneeze properly - they do this weird suppression thing.

My wife..Tracey Mills does this and she knows I hate it...lol let it rip and clear you nasel congestion....

People who put their penises in the mouths of dead pigs.

JimBentley wrote:People who put their penises in the mouths of dead pigs.

People who defend this alleged behaviour as typical "harmless uni fun"/"boys being boys".

JimBentley wrote:People who put their penises in the mouths of dead pigs.

For some reason I found this post hilarious. Must have been the straight delivery of it. No messing about. Just the facts.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

JimBentley wrote:People who put their penises in the mouths of dead pigs.

For some reason I found this post hilarious. Must have been the straight delivery of it. No messing about. Just the facts.

To be honest, I was a bit amazed that nobody had commented along similar lines, and anyway the story is so funny that it doesn't need to be parodied, a straight delivery is funny enough. Besides, all the good jokes had already been done elsewhere.

People who say horr-nedd viper on Only Connect

JimBentley wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:

JimBentley wrote:People who put their penises in the mouths of dead pigs.

For some reason I found this post hilarious. Must have been the straight delivery of it. No messing about. Just the facts.

To be honest, I was a bit amazed that nobody had commented along similar lines, and anyway the story is so funny that it doesn't need to be parodied, a straight delivery is funny enough. Besides, all the good jokes had already been done elsewhere.

Especially the Animal Farm one, right?

James Laverty wrote:People who say horr-nedd viper on Only Connect

I would have thought that people still do it now out of a kind of tradition. At this stage I'd be upset if people didn't do it and I'd add people who didn't do it to this list because I'd feel like they were simply not doing it out of some kind of desperate need to appear above it all in some way.

Mark James wrote:

James Laverty wrote:People who say horr-nedd viper on Only Connect

I would have thought that people still do it now out of a kind of tradition. At this stage I'd be upset if people didn't do it and I'd add people who didn't do it to this list because I'd feel like they were simply not doing it out of some kind of desperate need to appear above it all in some way.

What about those of us who only sometimes say it?

Mark James wrote:

James Laverty wrote:People who say horr-nedd viper on Only Connect

I would have thought that people still do it now out of a kind of tradition. At this stage I'd be upset if people didn't do it and I'd add people who didn't do it to this list because I'd feel like they were simply not doing it out of some kind of desperate need to appear above it all in some way.

So we basically have everyone who picks this thing on Only Connect.

Ian Volante wrote:

Mark James wrote:

James Laverty wrote:People who say horr-nedd viper on Only Connect

I would have thought that people still do it now out of a kind of tradition. At this stage I'd be upset if people didn't do it and I'd add people who didn't do it to this list because I'd feel like they were simply not doing it out of some kind of desperate need to appear above it all in some way.

What about those of us who only sometimes say it?

People without conviction.

People who use fountain pens
People who use analogue watches

People for whom less than 87% of their forum posts are public.

People who say "world wide web".

Mark Deeks wrote:People who say "world wide web".

Although I know no-one to do this (including myself) I find it quite interesting that not more do, www. isn't an abbreviation verbally, it's 9 syllables compared to the 3 when you say world wide web.

Obviously both of you watched the same thing or read the same article as Heather did this week as she mentioned this too.

Matt Morrison wrote:Obviously both of you watched the same thing or read the same article as Heather did this week as she mentioned this too.

What's the problem with it?

A number of years ago the people who make websites realised that you can do so without the www. (how stupid were they feeling after all those years?) so it's largely redundant. E.g. you can just say and go to c4countdown.co.uk rather than www.c4countdown.co.uk. What's the www. for?

Anyway it's unclear that's what Deeks was referring to. People say World Wide Web primarily when they're talking about the World Wide Web rather than as part of a URL. Mark Deeks obviously hates this. People generally just talk about the internet even though they're not exactly the same thing.

Fair enough. I thought everyone was on the intarwebz these days anyway?

Ian Volante wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Obviously both of you watched the same thing or read the same article as Heather did this week as she mentioned this too.

What's the problem with it?

I believe it's exactly as James described - the fact Heather mentioned was the "acronym that takes longer to say than the words it represents" thing.

Gavin Chipper wrote:A number of years ago the people who make websites realised that you can do so without the www. (how stupid were they feeling after all those years?) so it's largely redundant. E.g. you can just say and go to c4countdown.co.uk rather than http://www.c4countdown.co.uk. What's the www. for?

Not true. It's not universal, though it's way more prominent now than it was even a couple of years ago. Still, there are a couple of sites I occasionally make the mistake of visiting "domain.com" for and find I have to type the "www." back on the front.

Even when it is true there can be other complications, one of which you can see right here (I think it's still a thing) where the scope of the persistent login cookie does not extend to cover the domain both with and without "www." - so if you log in on "www." you can then go to the non-www version and find you won't be logged in. Quirks like that often exist even on sites which support www. and non-www.

Gavin Chipper wrote:Anyway it's unclear that's what Deeks was referring to. People say World Wide Web primarily when they're talking about the World Wide Web rather than as part of a URL. Mark Deeks obviously hates this. People generally just talk about the internet even though they're not exactly the same thing.

Timing suggests to me Mark was just saying the same thing but presenting it in a more vague and unique way.

Is this an appropriate time to admonish you for saying "internet" when you meant "Internet" or has the capital I been officially dropped now too? (I'm posing this as a question as I have no idea and I'm too lazy to check even if it means potentially having the opportunity to call you wrong.)

Timing suggests to me Mark was just saying the same thing but presenting it in a more vague and unique way.

I was going for brevity because ultimately we're all going to die one day and I don't want to waste too much of the valuable time remaining. But this way is good too.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:A number of years ago the people who make websites realised that you can do so without the www. (how stupid were they feeling after all those years?) so it's largely redundant. E.g. you can just say and go to c4countdown.co.uk rather than http://www.c4countdown.co.uk. What's the www. for?

Not true. It's not universal, though it's way more prominent now than it was even a couple of years ago. Still, there are a couple of sites I occasionally make the mistake of visiting "domain.com" for and find I have to type the "www." back on the front.

Even when it is true there can be other complications, one of which you can see right here (I think it's still a thing) where the scope of the persistent login cookie does not extend to cover the domain both with and without "www." - so if you log in on "www." you can then go to the non-www version and find you won't be logged in. Quirks like that often exist even on sites which support www. and non-www.

But isn't the conclusion from all this that it would be better for there not to be these two options and for the www. to have never existed?

Matt Morrison wrote:Is this an appropriate time to admonish you for saying "internet" when you meant "Internet" or has the capital I been officially dropped now too? (I'm posing this as a question as I have no idea and I'm too lazy to check even if it means potentially having the opportunity to call you wrong.)

There's no objective answer to this, and therefore nowhere to check. I did consider using a capital, but then I thought "nah".

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:A number of years ago the people who make websites realised that you can do so without the www. (how stupid were they feeling after all those years?) so it's largely redundant. E.g. you can just say and go to c4countdown.co.uk rather than http://www.c4countdown.co.uk. What's the www. for?

Not true. It's not universal, though it's way more prominent now than it was even a couple of years ago. Still, there are a couple of sites I occasionally make the mistake of visiting "domain.com" for and find I have to type the "www." back on the front.

But isn't the conclusion from all this that it would be better for there not to be these two options and for the www. to have never existed?

There are many different facets to the Internet and although the web is the main point of traffic we think of when discussing the net, there are still multiple other services you can run from a single domain name, e.g.:

• ftp.domain.com (file transfers)
• nntp.domain.com (newsgroups)
• smtp.domain.com / pop.domain.com / mail.domain.com (email)

So it makes sense for "www." to have existed from day one in order to identify world wide web traffic, which would not have been the 'default' when the Internet started.

Matt Morrison wrote: There are many different facets to the Internet and although the web is the main point of traffic we think of when discussing the net, there are still multiple other services you can run from a single domain name, e.g.:

• ftp.domain.com (file transfers)
• nntp.domain.com (newsgroups)
• smtp.domain.com / pop.domain.com / mail.domain.com (email)

So it makes sense for "www." to have existed from day one in order to identify world wide web traffic, which would not have been the 'default' when the Internet started.

Nice explanation, learned something new!

People who think the past tense of the verb text is text.

Giles wrote:People who think the past tense of the verb text is text.

Are you sure they're intending it as a past tense? I know people who are texting so constantly that, for them, "text" needs no past tense.

Giles wrote:People who think the past tense of the verb text is text.

Yep

Men who spell their name "Aaron" but pronounce it "Arron".

Men who spell their name "Aaron" and pronounce it accordingly. We've definitely grown up in different circles Phil.

Despite singing El Scorcho in my head all day, people who think Pinkerton was a better album than the Blue album.

Mark James wrote:Despite singing El Scorcho in my head all day, people who think Pinkerton was a better album than the Blue album.

Not having this. Pinkerton probably has more dud tracks (Getchoo, No Other One compared to just In The Garage on Blue), but the other 8 tracks are flat out brilliant, whereas some of Blue can feel really formulaic.

People who are weirdly precious about books.

They're both amazing albums. If there's a person willing to argue with you about which is better and you don't trust that person then you are the one not to be trusted.

Just to be clear I love both albums. Where my lack of trust comes in is that I suspect there are people (not necessarily yous) who say they think it's better just to be hip or because it was the failed album and that they are the only ones who appreciated it and thus are a better fan. The same thing happens with people who prefer Love's Da Capo to Forever Changes.

P.S. I love In The Garage.

Mark James wrote:Just to be clear I love both albums. Where my lack of trust comes in is that I suspect there are people (not necessarily yous) who say they think it's better just to be hip or because it was the failed album and that they are the only ones who appreciated it and thus are a better fan. The same thing happens with people who prefer Love's Da Capo to Forever Changes.

P.S. I love In The Garage.

Yeah, that's fair enough. It's definitely not me, though - I only ever bought Pinkerton because I was at a record shop while on holiday one year, where there was an album I wanted to buy and it was 2 for £10; the only other album on offer that caught my attention was Pinkerton, because I loved the few Weezer songs I knew (even though none were on that album). Listened to it on my dad's portable CD player later on during the holiday and Tired Of Sex just completely blew me away. (It's probably one of my Desert Island Discs.) Had no idea it was a failed album or anything like that.

I mean, I love Blue too, but listen to Pinkerton far more often.

People who call Cristiano Ronaldo "Ronaldo".

People who use the term "popular music".
People who have baths as adults.
People who ring the doorbell twice.

Gavin Chipper wrote:People who use the term "popular music".
People who have baths as adults.
People who ring the doorbell twice.

My friends' doorbell rings once when you push the button in, and once when you let it go again. I feel disappointed in your broad-brushing statement.