c4countdown

Lesley Jeavons wrote: Clare, you're maybe not seeing Countdown in the schedules as you're probably looking at the early hours of the day it's on, when it's in fact listed in the wee small hours of the night before.

I did look at the early schedules, but I see now I was looking at the wrong day. Repeats are on Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon mornings, wee small hours.

As soon as the economic situation perks up in the household, I shall subscribe!

I got the schedule wrong and got up on a Tuesday at 5am to see Alice in the Looking Glass or something- suffice to say, I was not very pleased with myself. That reminds me- it's on at 4.55 tomorrow! I can't decide whether to set my alarm for then or catch it an hour later. I could always get up, watch it then go back to bed...but I'd have to stay awake for the brain-boosting effect to take hold. However, I think that playing it regularly has had an effect on my brain. I played it with my friends at lunchtime on a website and regularly got 6s and 7s! The conundrums and numbers still stump me though. As for the schedule, I think it'd be a good idea to repeat them every weekday so as not to ruin weekends! You could have Friday's episode on Monday, Monday's on Tuesday, Tuesday's on Wednesday etc. until you get to Monday being Friday's episode again. This 2-day gap without Countdown is really off-putting and I prefer to watch it on repeat so it wakes me up for school!

Michael Wallace wrote:

Clare Sudbery wrote:

Jimmy Gough wrote:I've wondered, do they have unofficial seedings for the series - like spread out the potential octochamps to stop them playing each other each other early on, which would suck.

I've wondered the same thing and was told that unofficially, yes they do.

And then I panicked that my audition performance would give me a relatively low seed and therefore make it more likely that my first game would be against some potential-octochamp genius, and I even considered contacting the production team and saying 'look 'ere, I've been practising and I'm actually ever-so-slightly better at it than I was when I auditioned, and please don't make me play a genius in my first game' but then I thought no, that would be really silly. So I didn't.

As far as I'm aware, all they do is try to separate anyone who really shines at the audition, rather than give everyone a seeding (that would be a bit impractical, to say the least). So the best you can do is be so insane at the audition that they make note, otherwise it's just down to the luck of the draw (or lack of it).

Yeah, my audition was rather good and it seems someone made a note of it, because every time I spoke on the phone to someone on the production staff they told me how good I was. Having said that, whether they cleared the way for me is debatable.

They did make an effort to separate Kai and Junaid, although that might have been more to do with Kai's age.

I was actually meant to go and record on April 21st. But remember they mentioned 'Carol's only missed one day of recording in 26 years'? That was that day.

But, I am happy to have gone on when I did, because I think Series 59 was the friendliest series ever. It was amazing.

Rich Priest wrote:

Heather Culpin wrote: I wasn't sure beforehand if they had target of how many they would take from each audition group, but from the 7 or 8 of us in the room when I auditioned I think three of us ended up on the show, including Mr Corby who did quite well ........

When I auditioned (for the 2nd time) Lara told us that they weren't looking to pass a specific number of people from the audition, just as many as reached the standard that they were looking for.

Yeah, but what happens when you have a recording session booked and there's no contestants?

Martin Gardner wrote:Yeah, but what happens when you have a recording session booked and there's no contestants?

I wonder if that ever happens?

When I was 16, I was yanked out of a maths class and given one hour to pack* cos Granada TV were sending a taxi to drive me over the Pennines (from York to Manchester) and record an episode of Connections. I knew I was going on the show, but wasn't expecting such short notice. Basically their booked contestant's transport had fallen through, and they couldn't afford to waste studio time, so got me in instead.

That's why Countdown has standby contestants. I'm guessing they try and stay ahead of the loop and always have plenty of contestants booked up ahead too, but if they ran out... Gawd knows.

*I was told to go to the headmaster's office, and not told why. I thought I was in deep shit, and then he held the phone out to me and told me Granada TV were on the other end... most surreal.

Are you allowed to take your own paper, pens, etc? Or for instance, a ruler? (Believe it or not I find a ruler quite handy)

it was really good, especially beating craig beevers. unfortunatley beevers offered the producers a little cash and the episode didn't get aired.

Clare Sudbery wrote:Are you allowed to take your own paper, pens, etc? Or for instance, a ruler? (Believe it or not I find a ruler quite handy)

I can't see why not.

Martin Gardner wrote:

Clare Sudbery wrote:Are you allowed to take your own paper, pens, etc? Or for instance, a ruler? (Believe it or not I find a ruler quite handy)

I can't see why not.

Just in case you've got all the answers written down already in invisible ink/inside the pen barrel/on the ruler markings.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:

Clare Sudbery wrote:Are you allowed to take your own paper, pens, etc? Or for instance, a ruler? (Believe it or not I find a ruler quite handy)

I can't see why not.

Just in case you've got all the answers written down already in invisible ink/inside the pen barrel/on the ruler markings.

Answers to what? You don't know what the letters will be. And it should be fairly obvious if the ruler has a built-in anagram solver or calculator.
Having said that, I'm curious as to what use a ruler could be...

Neil Zussman wrote:Answers to what? You don't know what the letters will be. And it should be fairly obvious if the ruler has a built-in anagram solver or calculator.
Having said that, I'm curious as to what use a ruler could be...

Well one example would be having a tiny list of, say, sevens which are never the max, or the numbers you can make from the 4 larges, things like that.

And I think it's fairly common for people to find certain things just help them think - I find I'm much more comfortable (and so better) at doing maths when I get to use plain paper and my own pens.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Neil Zussman wrote:Answers to what? You don't know what the letters will be. And it should be fairly obvious if the ruler has a built-in anagram solver or calculator.
Having said that, I'm curious as to what use a ruler could be...

Well one example would be having a tiny list of, say, sevens which are never the max, or the numbers you can make from the 4 larges, things like that.

And I think it's fairly common for people to find certain things just help them think - I find I'm much more comfortable (and so better) at doing maths when I get to use plain paper and my own pens.

Fair point. Though Clare did say she finds a ruler quite handy- implying she does not necessarily need her own one. So one of the producers could provide her with a clean ruler, if needed.

I didn't know you were banned from taking possible cheat items! Of course, it makes sense, it's just I never really thought about how you could cheat on Countdown! Incidentally, Stephen Fry says on his twitter, "Mm. I can see you're getting a picture of sybaritic luxury. If I told you I'd rather sit in front of Countdown with baked beans on toast?" I don't know what sybaritic means (but it's a 9!), but I'm assuming this means he likes Countdown?

Hannah O wrote:I didn't know you were banned from taking possible cheat items!

I think that was a joke.

I was experimenting with the method of tearing paper up so that letters are on individual squares like Scrabble tiles, but I found it prohibitively time-consuming and surprisingly unhelpful. But anyway, it's a hell of a lot easier to do clean straight tears in a hurry if you hold a ruler down against the paper.

But even without the paper-tearing method, it can be handy to divide your paper into columns, boxes, etc... in which case straight lines are better than wobbly.

In either case, any old ruler would do.

As for paper... I have a vague preference for size and style of paper, although I'm not that fussed. I bet there are loads of CD contestants who have fussy ways wrt paper and pens though. Particularly pens. Certainly I favour some pen types over others.

Before I went on CD a friend of mine let me borrow his CD board game and I spent hours practicing with the family.

I worked out a routine of writing down the numbers but not the letters as that suited me best.

If you could get hold of the game it does give you an insight into the randomness and varying degrees of difficulty which come along.

As Clare suggested, playing the bots on apterous also very useful and is a much less intimidating way to improve your all-round game.

In my audition I got 3 8's and 3 sevens out of 6 letters rounds (missed some 9's), one out of 3 conundrums and one numbers game out of 3. This was sufficient to get me on at the first go.

I hope this helps.

Al.

As a result of missing my first recording due to work commitments I came up against a certain Cambridge PhD Computer Science student with more than a passing resemblence to Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

Despite getting a 9'er and all the numbers right I was still well beaten by Charlie (88-115).

It would be nice to have a crack at a mere mortal to have another go at winning that coveted teapot.

As the bus driver from Bury got another go in the last series and Kirk is on again this series, is that an indicator that myself and Joseph might possibly get another go?

Al

Allan Harmer wrote:As the bus driver from Bury got another go in the last series and Kirk is on again this series, is that an indicator that myself and Joseph might possibly get another go?

Al

I dunno about this bus driver, but I think Kirk since showed himself to be a potential all-time great at the game and it would have been a shocking waste not to give him another chance. (I've heard no reason why Kirk was allowed back on but I imagine it was this.)

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Allan Harmer wrote:As the bus driver from Bury got another go in the last series and Kirk is on again this series, is that an indicator that myself and Joseph might possibly get another go?

Al

I dunno about this bus driver, but I think Kirk since showed himself to be a potential all-time great at the game and it would have been a shocking waste not to give him another chance. (I've heard no reason why Kirk was allowed back on but I imagine it was this.)

Yeah, I've asked about this (since I'm another one of these people who went on and encountered a subsequent finalist), and as far as people can tell, getting to go on again is restricted to people who were either very young when they were first on, or had some disaster affect them, had someone cheat against them, or who came up against someone *very* good and still only just lost (like Terry Rattle). I would imagine (like Gavin) Kirk's got on again because he's utterly crazy good now, although I doubt we'd get any official word on that.

Michael Wallace wrote: I would imagine (like Gavin) Kirk's got on again because he's utterly crazy good now, although I doubt we'd get any official word on that.

Well thanks. I went on and lost my first show when I was just 17 (a child) and I lost to a 9 time winning semi finalist. This may have helped?

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Allan Harmer wrote:As the bus driver from Bury got another go in the last series and Kirk is on again this series, is that an indicator that myself and Joseph might possibly get another go?

Al

I dunno about this bus driver, but I think Kirk since showed himself to be a potential all-time great at the game and it would have been a shocking waste not to give him another chance. (I've heard no reason why Kirk was allowed back on but I imagine it was this.)

If anybody should be let back on (well, besides Kirky of course) it's Austin Shin. Just sayin'.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote: I would imagine (like Gavin) Kirk's got on again because he's utterly crazy good now, although I doubt we'd get any official word on that.

Well thanks. I went on and lost my first show when I was just 17 (a child) and I lost to a 9 time winning semi finalist. This may have helped?

Wow, someone compliments you and you react like that?

(and in my book 17 really wouldn't fall into the "deserving to go on again because on their first show they were young" category)

Michael Wallace wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote: I would imagine (like Gavin) Kirk's got on again because he's utterly crazy good now, although I doubt we'd get any official word on that.

Well thanks. I went on and lost my first show when I was just 17 (a child) and I lost to a 9 time winning semi finalist. This may have helped?

Wow, someone compliments you and you react like that?

(and in my book 17 really wouldn't fall into the "deserving to go on again because on their first show they were young" category)

I didn't read anything "funny" in Kirk's reaction. Are you sure it was there?

Gavin Chipper wrote:I didn't read anything "funny" in Kirk's reaction. Are you sure it was there?

The 'well thanks' came across as quite sarcastic/bitter, although apologies if this wasn't the case (the Internet is not great at conveying tone).

Michael Wallace wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:I didn't read anything "funny" in Kirk's reaction. Are you sure it was there?

The 'well thanks' came across as quite sarcastic/bitter, although apologies if this wasn't the case (the Internet is not great at conveying tone).

No way was it sarcastic! I was being genuinely thankful.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:I didn't read anything "funny" in Kirk's reaction. Are you sure it was there?

The 'well thanks' came across as quite sarcastic/bitter, although apologies if this wasn't the case (the Internet is not great at conveying tone).

No way was it sarcastic! I was being genuinely thankful.

It's great that you have got a second go Kirk - I would say that all C4CD forumites are champing at the bit to see how you get on.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:I didn't read anything "funny" in Kirk's reaction. Are you sure it was there?

The 'well thanks' came across as quite sarcastic/bitter, although apologies if this wasn't the case (the Internet is not great at conveying tone).

No way was it sarcastic! I was being genuinely thankful.

Oh right, my bad (sorry!).

Michael Wallace wrote:I would imagine Kirk's got on again because he's utterly crazy good now, although I doubt we'd get any official word on that.

It'd be pretty interesting to know what kicked off Kirk's invite - is it because certain forumites who are also contestants have had a strong word with the production staff?
OR is it a sign that the production staff themselves are keeping track of this forum and Apterous and made their own choice to invite him back?

Also, can't be arsed to quote it but people being let on again as they lost to a cheater - ferreal? has this happened?

Matt Morrison wrote:Also, can't be arsed to quote it but people being let on again as they lost to a cheater - ferreal? has this happened?

This.

I have another qu...

I've just got my bumff through from YTV and am all excited, but it's got me wondering:

1. According to the bumff, "we no longer accept American spellings". Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc?

Clare Sudbery wrote:Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc?

OSTRACIZE and SYLLOGIZE are not American spellings. However it does indeed include American spellings which are in the ODE such as TUNNELED.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Clare Sudbery wrote:Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc?

OSTRACIZE and SYLLOGIZE are not American spellings. However it does indeed include American spellings which are in the ODE such as TUNNELED.

That's interesting, I always thought -IZE was an American thing. For instance, both OSTRACISE and OSTRACIZE are in NODE, and I thought that was because they were including the US spelling. Surely in the US they have a tendency to use -IZE where we would use -ISE?

Charlie Reams wrote:However it does indeed include American spellings which are in the ODE such as TUNNELED.

Sorry, by include, do you mean TUNNELED is included in this rule, i.e. although it's in NODE it's not allowable on Countdown? Blimey, that's awkward, considering I clearly don't know how Americanisms are defined, so I wouldn't be sure whether something just had a weird spelling because it did, or because it was American (out of interest, I didn't know that particular spelling of TUNNELED was a US thing).

Does Apterous follow this rule? Does anyone know if there's an easy-to-follow guide for what's American and what isn't?

Note that American English words are allowed, but not if they're deemed to be merely American spellings of British English words. This gives rise to some inconsistencies, about which there's a subthread here. Basically, there's no rule-of-thumb way of knowing for sure, other than memorising a list of what the ODE does and doesn't deem to be separate words.

Clare Sudbery wrote:That's interesting, I always thought -IZE was an American thing. For instance, both OSTRACISE and OSTRACIZE are in NODE, and I thought that was because they were including the US spelling. Surely in the US they have a tendency to use -IZE where we would use -ISE?

US spelling is -IZE. British spelling is either. The ODE prefers -IZE, so that spelling is listed first. However some words are only -ISE in either spelling system, typically where the word does not mean "to make into..." (e.g. COMPROMISE does not mean "to make into a comprom", so there is no word COMPROMIZE.) The ODE lists these alternatives explicitly. A very small number of words have only an -IZE form but these are generally errors in the dictionary. For example, Susie would not allow AUTOMISE, because for some reason the alternative spelling of AUTOMIZE is not listed.

Sorry, by include, do you mean TUNNELED is included in this rule, i.e. although it's in NODE it's not allowable on Countdown? Blimey, that's awkward, considering I clearly don't know how Americanisms are defined, so I wouldn't be sure whether something just had a weird spelling because it did, or because it was American (out of interest, I didn't know that particular spelling of TUNNELED was a US thing).

The NODE is an older edition of the ODE. The current edition is the ODE2r, but normally when we say ODE we mean the current one.

To answer your question, TUNNELED is in the ODE but is not allowed on Countdown or on apterous. Apterous follows Countdown rules (although judgments on mass noun plurals are highly subjective and Susie may not agree with our decisions.)

Does anyone know if there's an easy-to-follow guide for what's American and what isn't?

The greatest differences are:
British English tends to double the final consonant in inflected forms, e.g TUNNELLED, CRUELLEST. US spelling does not: TUNNELED, CRUELEST. There are lots of exceptions to this rule (eg EDITED.)
British English tends to write -OUR (COLOUR, FAVOUR) where Americans write -OR (COLOR, FAVOR). Again there are exceptions.

Finally, note that American words (PARDNER, HAULER) are allowed, it is only American spellings of universal words that are not allowed.

Clare Sudbery wrote:I have another qu...

I've just got my bumff through from YTV and am all excited, but it's got me wondering:

1. According to the bumff, "we no longer accept American spellings". Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc?

Even if they are in the ODE they are not allowed, but only if they are specified as US spellings. Most -IZE words are OK including OSTRACIZE and SYLLOGIZE .

It allegedly specifies whether it is a US spelling but it occurred to me a while back that (in the NODE at least - not the latest dictionary) that under the British-spelling entry it doesn't tell you if it's deemed to be a variant spelling or variant word* - it will just say, for example, "US analyze". You only get "proof" one way or the other if the US spelling/word has its own entry (which happens if its spelling puts it more than three entries away in the dictionary I think) - under that entry it will say if it's a US term or US spelling.

I think it's safe to assume that if it gives a US variant under the British-spelling entry and it has no entry of its own then its not allowed. Most US terms (as opposed to spellings) won't be listed under the UK entry. I can't be bothered to search the dictionary for a specific US example now, but to prove that there is a vagueness here, under the entry for REEDBUCK it says "S. African also rietbok but if you look up RIETBOK it lists it as another term (not spelling) for REEDBUCK. Obviously being so far apart in the dictionary they've got separate entries, but there might be an example where they would be too close to warrant separate entries and where one is a US variant. But we would never know that the dictionary meant for us to think that it was a US term rather than spelling.

*In case you think this is always obvious, in the NODE, ASSHOLE is a variant spelling of ARSEHOLE (so not allowed - although it might be under the current ODE), whereas ASS is simply a separate word and allowed (even if it didn't have another meaning).

(I realise there have been other posts since I started writing this but I'm going ahead anyway.)

Actually I'm glad you bothered to post that, Gevin, because it illustrates what a horrendous can of worms this whole American spelling thing is. Still as long as Granny "Those Bloody Americans, Coming Over Here, Stealing Our Women, Winning Our Wars" Smith is happy then that's the main thing.

Gavin Chipper wrote:if the US spelling/word has its own entry (which happens if its spelling puts it more than three entries away in the dictionary I think)

This may (finally!) offer an explanation for the discrepancy between the treatment of HAULER/HAULIER and ALUMINUM/ALUMINIUM that I was banging on about in the thread I linked to above.

Blimey, fascinating (and complex) stuff. The reason I specified NODE is because that's what they call it in the bumff - I guess they just haven't got round to updating it.

If Apterous is (as much as it's able) following the same rules, then I'm happy. There's always an element of luck anyway: unless you're prepared (and able) to memorise the whole dictionary, there are going to be times when you're just taking a punt.

I good way to look at the double letters in such as TUNNELLED is to remember that the vowel before a single letter is usually long, whereas before a double vowel it's shortened (viz. CONNED and CONED), so TUNNELLED is pronounced properly, but strictly TUNNELED would sound like "TUNNEELED" following this rule.

I know it's a spurious explanation, but it works to an extent.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:if the US spelling/word has its own entry (which happens if its spelling puts it more than three entries away in the dictionary I think)

This may (finally!) offer an explanation for the discrepancy between the treatment of HAULER/HAULIER and ALUMINUM/ALUMINIUM that I was banging on about in the thread I linked to above.

I dunno - actually I think the bit of mine in brackets you quoted isn't exactly right. If the ODE consider the US version a word it will have its own entry, however close it is to the British version. Only if it's a spelling does it only sometimes have an entry.

But as for your examples, in the NODE (I don't have the latest ODE), HAULER and ALUMINUM both have entries and HAULER is listed as a separate term, whereas ALUMINUM only gets separate spelling status, so I think their treatment here is down to a specific decision by the dictionary people rather than for any oter reason like missing out on having their own entry etc.

But anyway, the American spelling rule suely creates more problems than it solves (if it can be said to solve a problem at all) so I certainly don't like it.

Gavin Chipper wrote:But anyway, the American spelling rule suely creates more problems than it solves (if it can be said to solve a problem at all) so I certainly don't like it.

I was a bit pissed off when the rule was introduced as I had a few favorite (haha, see what I did there?) US spellings that I'd usually spot when watching the show - stuff like CLAMOR, GLAMOR, SAVIOR, FAVORED - and they wouldn't be valid any more. The most galling was CIGARET, though, as it would appear pretty regularly, what with having fairly common letters and all, and like most of the others doesn't have a valid anagram. AGRESTIC was the valid alternative to CIGARETS, but there's nowt for the singular. Fucking CIGARET.

Anyway, I'm over it now.

See, no one ever says "thanks for explaining that same thing you explained a bunch of times before". People only notice when I'm dismissive of the same endless shite about Rachel's dresses or something.

So my point is, I'm right about everything. Thanks!

Charlie Reams wrote:See, no one ever says "thanks for explaining that same thing you explained a bunch of times before". People only notice when I'm dismissive of the same endless shite about Rachel's dresses or something.

So my point is, I'm right about everything. Thanks!

Charlie, we know you are always right, that was never in question, but you don't reap any benefit from it unless most of us are wrong most of the time. Which, luckily, is the case.

My audition in 2000 at Alexandra Palace, London was different. It was basically a written test paper of words, numbers and conundrums with a time limit (I think it was about 30 in 30 minutes, but of course there was no way of checking that one minute was spent on each question). There were about 40-50 of us there, and I was told that about 1 in 6 would get through.

Whether this was because there were a lot of applications from the London area at the time, I don't know (I remember when I got on the show, no other contestants had an audition like mine) - does anyone else remember an audition like this?

Lesley Jeavons wrote:

Clare Sudbery wrote:

Hannah O wrote:I got up at 5am to watch the repeat

C4+1 - what a Godsend!

It's certainly better than Five