c4countdown

It's back.

Ah ffs

What?

You beat me to it.

Ahh Whiteley in his prime. Loricate is a 7. Sitlgoe ripping the piss out of him. Whiteley having no clue.

Classic.

Una "working class hero" Szewc
Una "teacher-killer" Szewc
Una "no-level" Szewc

Wonder if these contestants are still alive? Adds a certain level of morbidity to proceedings.

Jesus this is awkward.

Really enjoying this.

Every round is 38 seconds because of Whiteley's preamble.
Carol already failed to hide her shock at the consonant/vowel selection.. "ANOTHER consonant??"

Jon O'Neill wrote:You beat me to it.

I wish you had. Would have saved me the bother.

So much shoulder pad action. Everyone's built like a linebacker.

Not taking kindly to Tony. Come on Una!

Jon O'Neill wrote:Wonder if these contestants are still alive? Adds a certain level of morbidity to proceedings.

If there was a surefire way of finding out we could turn it into a game.

I think the guy here probably is. Dunno about Una. I feel quite familiar with the name and I imagine her to be the sort of person whose death would be reported so I'm saying alive.

Also one of the guys yesterday was 46 despite looking like he was pushing 60 so she might only have been 27 here.

HRYVNIA in round 2, if it's in the old dictionary.

Edit: Apparently not according to the wiki.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Wonder if these contestants are still alive? Adds a certain level of morbidity to proceedings.

If there was a surefire way of finding out we could turn it into a game.

I think the guy here probably is. Dunno about Una. I feel quite familiar with the name and I imagine her to be the sort of person whose death would be reported so I'm saying alive.

Also one of the guys yesterday was 46 despite looking like he was pushing 60 so she might only have been 27 here.

If she's still trucking, 82 or 83.

https://www.yorkshirehousing.co.uk/3802 ... -know-them

Massive tactical fuckup from Tony there! Not much sympathy either, love it!

Jack Worsley wrote:HRYVNIA in round 2, if it's in the old dictionary.

Edit: Apparently not according to the wiki.

Since the recap has HRYVNIA out but ANGREZI in, it must've been done using the original NODE. I think some recappers did manually remove words not in the dictionary of the time, but I'm pretty sure James R wasn't one of them. So you can't infer anything about what was or wasn't in the COD8 without referring to it directly.

Clive Brooker wrote:

Jack Worsley wrote:HRYVNIA in round 2, if it's in the old dictionary.

Edit: Apparently not according to the wiki.

Since the recap has HRYVNIA out but ANGREZI in, it must've been done using the original NODE. I think some recappers did manually remove words not in the dictionary of the time, but I'm pretty sure James R wasn't one of them. So you can't infer anything about what was or wasn't in the COD8 without referring to it directly.

I did manually remove them if Mike's recap notes mentioned that they weren't in, but obviously if anyone is in possession of a COD8, then that would be a big help.

I wasn't having a go at James. Far from it.

I do think there's a problem in that someone reading the recaps now can't be sure what standard was used when it was created, as this example shows. There used to be a pdf version of the COD8 on a file-sharing site, now sadly departed. I'm pretty sure some recappers made use of it, so it wasn't apparent from the recap alone why HRYVNIA wasn't listed. As I've hinted many times, I think there's a project out there to enhance and consolidate the excellent work already done on the historical recaps, mostly by James. For all games prior to the introduction of the NODE, off the top of my head I'd suggest the following:

• - Regenerate all OT words using the NODE word-list.
  - Add a note to the recap indicating that this has been done.
  - Mark (not remove) any words generated but believed not to have been available when the game was played.

The third step can obviously be done at leisure by anyone with the relevant dictionaries. They are all easily obtainable from secondhand bookshops and charity shops for very little money, and I do think anyone interested in Countdown history should seek them out.

Another sub-project might be to reverse-engineer the methods used in adjudicating words - comparatives and superlatives etc. It's pretty clear that some rules derived from the COD7 were retained after its retirement despite being contradicted by stuff in the COD8, and some things that could have been brought in with the COD8 were overlooked. I'd've thought there should be enough evidence in the historical record to get pretty close to the actual methods used. Copies of old guidelines, if such things existed, would be pretty handy too.

Clive Brooker wrote:Mark (not remove) any words generated but believed not to have been available when the game was played.

I think this is an important point generally. I think all potentially relevant information should be retained. E.g. here the recapper decided to write out OUTWRITE completely rather than keep some reference to it, although it wasn't so important in this case as it was mentioned in the subsequent discussion.

Also, this and this and this and this have relevant information in the discussion that isn't in the recap post.