http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/ ... s-shitface
It's 13 years since I was a Countdown series champion and much about the show has changed – the duration and the structure, the host and his lexical-numerical assistant.
But one thing that has not is the show's squeamishness about allowing Anglo-Saxon oaths to be aired – just as, in 1991, the word "WANKERS" was considered too strong for TV, so it was decided last week that the Oxford student who unscrambled the letters DTCEIASHF and came up with "shitface" was overstepping the mark. For a show that celebrates the near-infinite possibilities of word and number, this swearword-specific prudery seems odd, or at least grounds for a Hollyoaks-style late night "uncensored" version. Maybe you could get bonus points for obscene nine-letter winners.
Sadly, in the course of my 14 shows, I never got to unveil any, but I did come close. When I got the seven-letter winner "panties", a large proportion of the predominantly pensionable-aged audience collapsed into giggles. Weirdly, I also got a laugh when I declared a six-letter winner thusly: "I've got a six-letter word, Richard, but it's not very nice. Unfortunately, it's 'rapist'."
My theory is that the gentle, soporific cheesiness of the show affects the audience's receptivity to humour and lowers their outrage threshold – the Countdown set is similar, in this sense, to Centre Court at Wimbledon, where the presence of a pigeon perching on the net becomes inexplicably hilarious. Starting to allow words like "shitface" would be – well, like letting the men's final crowd bring their own pigeons. It's a recipe for pandemonium, not to mention the occasional coronary in the audience.
(And no, I don't understand why he didn't stick the "D" on the end to make "shitfaced" either. Blooming amateurs.)
